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Steered conical radar

Posted: 06 Nov 2006, 14:59
by MadRat
Is it possible in Spring to have conical radar rather than circular? It would be nice to be able to have a thin scoped long distance radar that could be turned off, steered where one wants to point it, then turned back on.

It might sound stupid to turn it off to turn it. BUT this would avoid alot of CPU load, since it wouldn't need to be dynamic rendered. If its not a resurce hog then perhaps a more sophisticated system could be used for airplanes to simulate nose-mounted search/target radars.

Posted: 06 Nov 2006, 16:36
by KDR_11k
I'm thinking that would be very useful for LOS so heavy vehicles could be set to be unable to see to their sides.

Posted: 06 Nov 2006, 20:17
by Foxomaniac
This idea, if implemented w/ LOS as well could be used to make RoL-like Telescopes!

1+.

Posted: 07 Nov 2006, 01:18
by Felix the Cat
A "simple" way to do this (and I say "simple" in that it doesn't appear to require a new radar system to be implemented) would be to calculate as if for circular radar and then limit the results to a sector of the circle corresponding to the "conic" radar. It doesn't give exactly the same results in all situations, but it's pretty damn close.

Posted: 07 Nov 2006, 05:41
by ILMTitan
So, more of an orange slice solution?

Posted: 08 Nov 2006, 03:16
by Nemo
Yeah. LoS has never been calculated in 3d anyways (an aircraft with a LoS range of ~100 can still see things on the ground even when flying at a height of ~800), so I imagine that would be easiest.

It would be very cool, no doubt. Even more so if we could define it via script~!

Posted: 08 Nov 2006, 08:35
by yuritch
Even better if cone radar's direction was tied to some model piece. Then those spinning things on radar units will actually have a purpose! More than one radar per unit would be good, too - for example one long-range cone radar with a slow-spinning dish (like 10-20 seconds for a full turn) and one short-ranged circular radar.

Posted: 08 Nov 2006, 15:20
by Sheekel
That would be awesome. It would be like those horror movies where the light flashes and the evil/killer/crazy person is closer...it flashes again and he is closer still...it flashes again and BLAM, you've been commbommed.

Only instead of flashing, it would be radar