silent / loud propulsions for dynamic sensor range

[crusaderv83]

Hello comunity,
this is my first suggestion after several years of playing WZ.
I like the concept of combinig different propulsions in WZ, but sooner or later there is no real need for wheels and half tracks any more. At a certain time, there are often heavy but slow tracked vehicles or very fast hover units. Maybe there is a solution to change this by adding some kind of "noise" to each propulsion. This changes enemy sensor range for each unit.

wheel -> fast and very silent
half-tracked -> medium speed and silent
tracked -> slow and loud
hover -> very fast and very loud
VTOL -> even faster and even louder

If you have a silent droid, it will be harder to detect it and it vanishes faster when leaving detector range. Silence means, enemy sensor range is reduced, while a really heavy tank/VTOL/hover can be detected beyond sensor range. Maybe you can even have a noise factor or each body and weapon. In this case, a wheeled small-body droid can avoid detection even in later game .
There could be some noise reduction upgrades, in order to extend WZ techtree a little

Even future naval units (I still look forward for them) could benefit from this idea. A submarine is nearly noiseless(cloaked) until it shoots or an enemy droid is close.

There has been a similar thread before, but this one was sticking to size of a droid mostly.
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=4010

[Merowingg]

Silent Hill

I like the idea

But I think it would be hard to do with the noise itself. I think not many would hear difference, they will only be affected by the effects. Anyway very interesitng

[RedShocktrooper]

Considering there are some in-game propulsion that are silent, this might be needed. I think the Halftrack propulsion needs sound, right? And IMO that weird grumbling sound that treads use could stand to be replaced with some clattering treads.

[Merowingg]

Indeed Sir, I think you have turn our attention onto something that was taken for granted, or shall I say not even imagined I think to be changed.

Very nice sounds are very important. I love the sounds of Age of Empires 3, and even after years I hear them in my memory.

So while "silencing" some things may be rethough.

At the same taim I hope you know our contributors have many far more inportant things to deal with so far..

But as I said your idea stunned me

[crusaderv83]

Well, I think there is some missunderstanding. I do not care about the sound of a droid that comes out of my speakers/headphones. There could be an additional parameter for each droid, like speed, hp, reload time, ... This parameter is noise and modifies the detection distance between the droid itself and an enemy unit.
Imagine there is a sensor tower and two enemy units next to each other in a distance of 15(blocks, squares, feet, meter... is there some kind of scale in length?) One unit has tracks and can be detected, the other unit with wheels not. Thats it. If they come closer, of course both are visible. According to that, sensor range is not static any longer, but dynamic for each unit.

If you are in the forest, you notice a slow car in ~300m distance. A tank can be recognized more than 3km away and a hovercraft or helicopter/aircraft at even higher distances. This effect, as i think, should be implemented in the game.

But if you like to implement some "ear candy", feel free to do that

[C27]

Huh, this is a very interesting suggestion!
I like the fact that it'd make wheels actually useful, for one thing.
Stealth is an interesting factor that could add a lot to gameplay.

[aubergine]

The problem is that WZ detection systems are based on radars and sensors, not microphones. So it wouldn't matter how silent something is, it will still show up on sensors.

[C27]

Allright, let's rephrase this as radar deflection/absorbtion. I would tend to think that chassis would matter at least as much as propulsion, though - size would too, and borgs would logically have an advantage over vehicles.

[Jorzi]

Interesting game mechanic proposition, as long as we're not talking about realism.
Aubergine pointed out the obvious logic flaw in this kind of reasoning, but that of course does not ultimately prevent it from being implemented, since it is, after all, a game
I assume, of course, that there would be a minimum detection range for totally silent units like bunkers as well as stationary vehicles. A firing unit would also produce a very strong signal.

I guess, however that this feature would be more at home in a submarine game, where sound is the only method of detection.

[Per]

I've been toying with the idea of adding a listening post type sensor building, which can give radar blips for large vehicles in a very long range. Would not be very hard to do, but I'm not sure if that would really improve the game in any noticeable way (the radar detector has a somewhat similar mechanic, and as far as I can tell, not a huge success so far -- but maybe both ideas become more relevant when people start using ECM jammers).

[RedShocktrooper]

I've been toying with the idea of adding a listening post type sensor building, which can give radar blips for large vehicles in a very long range. Would not be very hard to do, but I'm not sure if that would really improve the game in any noticeable way (the radar detector has a somewhat similar mechanic, and as far as I can tell, not a huge success so far -- but maybe both ideas become more relevant when people start using ECM jammers).

Actually, if I remember, an old-ish RTS game by the name of Codename Panzers gave Infantry a detection advantage over Vehicles because Infantry could prematurely detect enemy units on the basis of sound - at which point, an icon would show up showing if they were hearing footsteps, wheels, or treads. It didn't keep the game's infantry units from being useless, but it was an interesting mechanic nonetheless.

[aubergine]

There's two issues with radar detector:

1. By the time it's available, you already have a good idea of where the enemy is. Maybe make it available sooner?
2. It's a "nice to have" not a "must have" -- ECM jammers will push it towards "must have".

I like the idea of a listening tower, but first I'd prefer to see the VTOL Strike and VTOL CB sensors kicked in to shape. They are not very compelling at the moment.

The Strike sensor has some benefit in it's range being better than that of a normal sensor. But why go to the hassle of building one and assigning VTOLs to it when I can just tell VTOLs to circle and get the same effect for less time & power investment?

IMHO the VTOL Strike sensor should be renamed to something like "Multiband Sensor" and be treated purely as a stepping stone between normal sensors and WS sensor -- used purely for it's increased range. And make it available prior to getting VTOL propulsion as well... then it could be a useful indicator that an enemy is about to get VTOLs if you see them making MB sensors.

As for VTOL CB sensor, the VTOLs need to stay on their rearm pads until needed. Currently they tend to sit on the floor near the sensor, which is not a great idea when considering what the sensor is there to detect Also, the VTOL CB sensor should, IMHO, focus on mobile arty and not base defences -- otherwise it might as well be called "VTOL Suicide Manager".

Back to the listening post, once ECM becomes available it would certainly make sense to have listening posts if they had similar (or slightly better) range than a WS sensor and could allow your defences to lock on to ECM clocked enemy droids or base defences. This would open up several new areas of gameplay:

1. It would make small units and particularly cyborgs much more useful in late stages of the game - when cloaked themselves, they'd be able to get closer to enemy base.

2. Being longer range than a WS sensor, and obviously able to hear loud bangs from arty base defences, the audio sensor would make a compelling alternative to WS sensor droids.

Imagine if you could put 2 sensors on to a Dragon body - an ECM jammer and an audio scanner - would be perfect for sneaking up to enemy bases and having your long range weapons shoot at anything that makes a noise... unless the enemy has equipped their bases with the same...

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

There's two issues with radar detector:

1. By the time it's available, you already have a good idea of where the enemy is. Maybe make it available sooner?
2. It's a "nice to have" not a "must have" -- ECM jammers will push it towards "must have".

I always thought that Radar Detectors worked similarly to Counter-Battery Radar, only that they detected which enemy sensors' fields of view overlapped with the Radar Detector's field of view, thus allowing them to spot enemy sensors before they themselves are spotted. If this isn't true about them, then I believe that it should be like that.

I like the idea of a listening tower, but first I'd prefer to see the VTOL Strike and VTOL CB sensors kicked in to shape. They are not very compelling at the moment.

I personally wouldn't mind seeing VTOL Sensors and VTOL CB removed from multiplayer altogether, and their effects merged with that of the regular Sensor Turret and CB Turret respectively.

Back to the listening post, once ECM becomes available it would certainly make sense to have listening posts if they had similar (or slightly better) range than a WS sensor and could allow your defences to lock on to ECM clocked enemy droids or base defences. This would open up several new areas of gameplay:

1. It would make small units and particularly cyborgs much more useful in late stages of the game - when cloaked themselves, they'd be able to get closer to enemy base.

2. Being longer range than a WS sensor, and obviously able to hear loud bangs from arty base defences, the audio sensor would make a compelling alternative to WS sensor droids.

Imagine if you could put 2 sensors on to a Dragon body - an ECM jammer and an audio scanner - would be perfect for sneaking up to enemy bases and having your long range weapons shoot at anything that makes a noise... unless the enemy has equipped their bases with the same...

Sounds like it would work similarly to the Terran Sensor Tower from StarCraft 2, or a radar/sonar/omni sensor from Supreme Commander, allowing players to detect and target enemy forces beyond visual range without actually revealing what those units truly are.

[Jorzi]

I personally wouldn't mind seeing VTOL Sensors and VTOL CB removed from multiplayer altogether, and their effects merged with that of the regular Sensor Turret and CB Turret respectively.

+1

[aubergine]

Hrm, I wouldn't want to see them completely removed...

Merge functionality in to regular sensor / cb turrets as per Shadow's comment.

VTOL strike -> Multi-Band sensor ...intermediary step between normal and WS sensor, it's extra range comes in handy on many occasions.

VTOL CB -> VTOL Escort. Basically assign vtols to a VTOL-E and then will escort the unit it's on, following it's direction and speed and attacking any enemies (if set to "fire at will") they encounter. Then you could put the VTOL CB on transports and be able to assign a VTOL escort to a transport, etc. And a VTOL-E tower could be used to create traps near choke points - rather than the VTOLs circling around it, they'd hover in formation... enemy unit comes round the corner and BOOM, the VTOLs pounce on it. VTOL-E is basically a modified strike turret.

WS sensor then gives all the active sensor abilities: MB, CB, VTOL-E functionality.

Then maybe something similar for the passive sensors: Have a listening post that includes radar detector, sonic designator, Optical designator, etc. The passive sensor path would be: radar detector -> optical designator -> sonic designator -> listening post.

It could give rise to two sensor research paths. Players wanting to go stealth head towards listening post and use small light bodies, players wanting to use active head towards WS and use bigger heavier bodies. ECM would be of use to both paths but for different reasons.