Do units recieve bonus of high terrain?

[Bonsaiheld]

Do units recieve a range bonus depending on their z-axis, i mean how high the terrain they are on is?

They should, because otherwise ramps, terrain towers and things like that are pretty pointless.

[NoQ]

Do units recieve a range bonus depending on their z-axis, i mean how high the terrain they are on is?

No, they don't.

They should, because otherwise ramps, terrain towers and things like that are pretty pointless.

No, they aren't.

I'll copy-paste one of my previous posts on that:

In general, you can move faster when you are moving from highground to lowground. This makes it harder to take the base by attack up the ramp (long-range defense will have more time for dealing damage), and also allows the guy on the highground quickly move away from incoming flamers or other short-range weapons (he won't be able to do that when he's at the bottom of the cliff, and flamers are coming from the other side), and also let flamers that stay on highground make more effective surprise attacks, and that sort of stuff.

It's also necessary to mention that visibility is not symmetric between lowground and highground: from highground you see everything but a thin area just near the cliff at the bottom, while from lowground you see only a thin area just near the cliff at the top and nothing else. This doesn't affect direct-fire weapons, but has great effect on indirect-fire weapons.

[Lord Apocalypse]

The version troman did, 1.10c I believe, had this in it. That though was based on the original source release.

Normally taking the high ground should give you some type of advantage (better cover for instance) but considering the range of motion on the down angle for some weapons not many would actually be able to take full advantage of this fact. As far as the game is concerned I think it may be more trouble than its worth unless you really want more realistic firefights.

[Jorzi]

As for the range bonus in reality: It works best for things like bows and arrows, which otherwise have a very limited range. Most modern direct-fire weapons are much more limited by accuracy and air drag, which is not height-related. For artillery shells there's a bit of a difference, but the increase is not relative to the weapon's overall range, which means it's no longer a critical strategic factor. (especially not with warzone's relatively small maximum height difference)

[Lord Apocalypse]

height bonus would work best for borgs and infantry as it should give a defensive bonus since it is harder to hit something above you. Would be useless for artillery and mortars.

[Iluvalar]

Also the player on top can decide if he hide behind the cliff or engage the fight. And I believe his units behind can't receive a missed shot by mistake. That's a lot of small advantage.

[NoQ]

Bump.
Why don't we limit maxElevation of some weapons?

[Iluvalar]

Because they are a counter to something ?

[Lord Apocalypse]

Unless designed to perform AA work I see no reason not to limit max elevation (with the exception of artillery). I think min/max elevation of the old M1 105mm cannon was.. -10/+20?

[Iluvalar]

Let me be more specific. We need for design purpose that every single weapon modifiers could be used in any situations.

For exemple, if we limit the max elevation of the light cannons, we gonna need to plan for another all rounder weapon that could replace it in hilly maps. Otherwise, the strategies that are weak against all rounders would become OP in any situation where there is such cliff/hill/ramp.

[NRA]

Actually it does make sense, because heights are always strategic points both for overview (greatly increased visibility range to control the area) and firepower (reasonably increased fire range to control the enemy population). Say, if Z-value (depth) is a byte (0..255). then capping the maximum fire range, for instance, to +75%, will make it tolerably difficult target adding about 0.3% per hight level for visibility, providing that the adversary could counteract it hiding and sneaking behind. It's war!

Sure, air units would make even more problems, yet considering they are 'gliding' and have rather low defense points, it's quite plausible and viable idea.

On the other hand, it's a pity there's no stealth or clocking part in WZ 2100. Perhaps, it could be mitigated showing not all units in range, but having a 'chance' to reveal them--the closer the greater is the chance.

[NoQ]

we gonna need to plan for another all rounder weapon that could replace it in hilly maps.

No. We gonna need to produce a standard on map hilliness. We gonna discard maps that are too hilly or too flat. And the more standards on maps we have, the more tactical richness and diversity we will be able to achieve through weapon variety.

[Lord Apocalypse]

Having elevation restrictions on weapons just adds to the strategy of warfare. Then again so would an option to enable ammo limits.

Even anti-tank missiles and rockets (with the exception of artillery) still is limited to LOS or having a spotter handy. Even in more futuristic combat how is a missile supposed to see over a hill? Missiles should dominate on flat landscapes but have a lot of limitations in a very hilly situation unless there is a spotter than can pin point units for missiles to attack. Even smart bombs need a spotter.

For the most part land units can only attack what they can see and the use of radar is limited to AA units for the simple reason that current ordinance can take out active radar emplacements. Why do you think AWACS aircraft were invented

Having bonuses for taking the high ground should really be based on the unit and weapon. Borgs getting the greatest bonus as they shouldn't have the same elevation restrictions on their weapons as would other units.

[Iluvalar]

we gonna need to plan for another all rounder weapon that could replace it in hilly maps.

No. We gonna need to produce a standard on map hilliness. We gonna discard maps that are too hilly or too flat. And the more standards on maps we have, the more tactical richness and diversity we will be able to achieve through weapon variety.

Ok fine, but you know how it's done right ? You're a map designer for this... You know we kept the height just as high as possible to make it visible. We split the 256 height typically in 3 or 4 levels. How much "hilly" it must be to start to matter ? If we fix that height under 96, most our maps will have to be "discarded". If we fix that height higher, only THAT cliff in 4c-mountain will be affected anyway.

Lord Apocalypse, it would add a lot of strategies if we had the choice where we want to fight. But it's not really the case in warzone2100. Even in well designed map, there is only a few oil distributions possible. Typically, there is just enough space betwen the oil derrick for each defences not to shoot at each other with low range weapons (8-9 tiles). So you dont get most choices about where to hold the fight.

If there was a larger gab betwen points of interest and chokepoints (40-50 tiles). You could chose were to hold position depending on your weapons and the one of the attacking player. It could be a cool strategic element. But such gap doesn't exist in warzone...

[NoQ]

How much "hilly" it must be to start to matter ? If we fix that height under 96, most our maps will have to be "discarded". If we fix that height higher, only THAT cliff in 4c-mountain will be affected anyway.

Most of our maps will not be "discarded", as this isn't their biggest problem. It's not like we're discarding thousands of maps; we're discarding only some of the handful of maps that are actually good enough to be considered, and it's too easy to make a few new ones or maybe adjust the old ones.

In fact the value should be just around 96, maybe just a little less, to allow four height levels (which is more than enough). We don't need to go down to 255/3 (~85), as we could easily compensate it with a slight gradient from footage of top-level hill to cliff of current-level hill (which, by the way, is also beautiful). And even if we fix it at around 128, we still have three levels of hills, which is still enough.