Fog of war?

[RemingtonRyder]

Well, I respectfully disagree. There's a lot more info about the gear than just what colour it is. If I recall correctly, the quality and hitpoints of a ranged weapon have an effect on the accuracy of shots fired with it.

Why is that important, and why should it be hidden?

If you know the quality and repair of a weapon before any of your colonists can actually see it, then you may decide in advance to capture or kill the pawn currently holding it, so that you can use it. Without this information, you only know what type of weapon is equipped.

Without having a massive heads up, when an enemy pops into LOS and you notice that their assault rifle is fully repaired and excellent quality, then your priorities or even your battle plan may have to change, because trading shots with that enemy isn't going to be as painless as a slugfest against an enemy with a much poorer version of the same weapon.

It may seem half-baked. That's what I got when I answered the following question:

What sort of bare-minimum fog of war implementation would add some mystery but at the same time not be bloody annoying?

My reasoning here is that the annoyance with the usual sort of fog of war likely stems from there being an arbitrary sight cut-off. Which means that pawns suddenly appear or disappear, or are rendered in a different way in the fog, etc.

So I wanted to go for something which looks much like Rimworld does currently, which means no disappearing and re-appearing enemies, or even much indication of where fog starts.

Then I thought to myself, what is annoying about Rimworld as it is? That you have such an abundance of stats on your enemies before they're anywhere near your base. If there was a pooping speed stat, you'd know it to two decimal places without needing to measure.

I decided that taking away that wealth of information on enemies and things you can't see gives the game a bit more polish. Where the fun in a colony simulation when you know all the variables?

You may not agree with this, however in deciding how to implement such a system (or whether it is even warranted) the bare minimum version is, in my opinion, a good place to start from. Just like what you need as a bare minimum to drill into someone's head and remove an alien parasite.

[NoImageAvailable]

Sure, the quality of enemy armor slightly affects their stats but it is still irrelevant to player decision making. Any weapon has the potential to do significant damage to a pawn so any battle plan must revolve around finishing it as quickly as possible, no matter if the enemy is armed with masterwork charge rifles or shoddy pistols.

Likewise if the enemy has a gun that I want to capture I tell my pawns to focus fire on him. This is a decision that can be made at first contact, it doesn't rely on foreknowledge.

The whole point of Fog of War is that it affects players' decision making by concealing information. By only concealing information that is not relevant (or only relevant from the moment it is revealed anyway) you've effectively created an irrelevant mechanic, which still took programming time to implement and impacts performance as pawn line of sight must be tracked yet offers no tangible benefit to the gameplay.

To stay with your metaphor, it might be a good start but if you don't actually remove the parasite you just drilled a hole in someone's head for no reason.

[keylocke]

in in early-stage of the game, my colonists are always like..

"ah!! that dude is carrying the stuffs that we NEEED!!"

and often times i bum rush the suckah and pummel him so he can't flee.

ie : some random dude carrying a brand spanking new sniper rifle in excellent condition or that dude wearing hyperweave pants. 

but in the late-stage of the game, i get so much sniper rifle surplus, i consider it as an export product. lel.

[Kegereneku]

How about a compromise on fog of war?

I'm all about compromise, but I fear we still have to discuss the reasons and goal behind each changes.

- If one want guard and patrol, I already suggested Events that make full interest of it without destroying the game. And can suggest more
- If one want discovery, out-colony exploration have much more potential.
- Hiding SPECIFIC information about the Raider is a line of thinking we can follow, but it can impeded our ability to shape the story we want (if done wrong).

To me, as I gave reasons for across the entire thread a "classic" FoW is only relevant for Wargame. And would IMO harms the storytelling & survival aspect of Rimworld, as well as impede Events creation.

But timing is exactly what this is about. By carefully managing the flow of information you create suspension.

If this isn't wrong it's only because of a very loose interpretation of "flow".
As I said, you are only considering "time" relevant. You think that by making uncertain when you'll see any threat you are creating tension. But -opinion- this is a erroneous view. You would only multiply surprise (around each visible raider), and missing the point of Events.

What you are not getting (IMO) is that you need to SEE a volume of information as well to fully understand the threat.

Now for Rimworld you have to consider that since it follows a set of rules an outcome can be predicted as soon as the relevant pieces are known.

In Chess, knowing where the piece of your adversary are, don't make it more likely to plan out the outcome. (unless you didn't told us you are a Super-computer with a full data-base of every single possible way a match can play out, which is a thing)
In Rimworld, I can safely affirm the number of pieces and parameters are too high for any human to consider at once, thus can be safely displayed to participate to the storytelling aspect which require omniscience (as explained numerous time in the topic).

You are confusing making outcome unpredictable and postponing when it will be, worse, your suggested way would reduce the number of parameters, making it even more predictable.

Even more so as FoW-proponent will inevitably ask for the mean to "counter the FoW" with the explicit goal of fighting battle with the enemy that are at their advantage.
As pointed out numerous time, the FoW is not just to make it threatening to you, many proponent fully expect to threaten the enemy back.
And this logic is pretty much why FoW is meant for Wargame, not for the survival/storytelling aspect of Rimworld.

[Citation needed]

Sorry, I assumed you actually read the topic before formulating an educated opinion. Silly of me...

But since you weren't the one I answered to... here is a summary :
- FoW imply Scout, Patrol, Radar, variable seeing distance, big movement speed variation. and the time to react and mount actual strategy without being bothered by the survival aspect of Rimworld. (confusing Rimworld with a RTS)
- Time is a critical factor used differently in Rimworld and Wargame, having the time/resources to sent scout at moment notice anywhere or patrol for entire day will require to make the rest (equally the management than the threats) much less important, as a trade-off.
- Storytelling, as we are currently discussing, require to see stuff to be meaningful. People do care less about the 0.1% risk of a threatening events than the events threatening them right now. FoW would only delay the time you are given to react.
- Event now, is what make the game. It is the very thing that is meant to challenge you by surprise and have you scramble/plan to counter it, It is also meant to give a more balanced threats than if let to blind luck. You have to see them as well to plan against them. And because FoW reduce reaction-time it would prevent any Events that require such time.

You seem to be under this assumption that Fog of War means no information relayed at all. That is plain false. What it does is delay the information,

Did you actually read my answer to you ? (and other ideally) That's precisely because I KNOW that it ONLY delay POINTLESSLY informations gathering and require NEW MEANS of getting the information ANYWAY that FoW would be pointless complication.

For the Shrine thing, by now, I say enough to answer that.
You are confusing keeping a wide "realm of possibility" with hoping it play more than one result (e.g : starved shrine occupant versus still startving) through blind luck.

YOU have to tell, how would FoW give the choice of saving or not (non-evil) Shrine occupant without it being linked to blind luck, and without it being more easily accomplished through the visible Events system we have now.
(If you want to know, I just put an event suggestion for this here)

I gave you multiple concrete examples of how Fog of War would directly improve the storytelling with regards to existing events and you haven't addressed a single one of them.

Could you please quote me the example you think I haven't addressed ?
Be assured that I have considered your answers in their integrity and not only tiny bit we could risk taking out of context. Answering people line by line is IMO unconstructive.


Edit : Minor change

[Anduin1357]

Since you wanted civil discussion...
Let me approach this civilly.

First point.
Kegereneku believes that the entire thread is all about classic FoW and seems to forget the compromises everyone else makes to try and fit their respective concepts into the game.

To me, as I gave reasons for across the entire thread a "classic" FoW is only relevant for Wargame. And would IMO harms the storytelling & survival aspect of Rimworld, as well as impede Events creation.

Fair use for the sake of criticism.

He thinks that we want to shape the story to a great extent, he is talking to the wrong crowd.
I have seen posts that sets the precedent wish for the story to proceed not as expected, but as unknowns.

(Point)
"...dealing with less nauseous and repetitive invasions and more on the psychological aspect of not having omniscience and most likely having the whole man vs nature way more predominantly than the non-existance of it now.

Then we get stuff like fear of losing control and incapability to accept loss. As we all know, save scumming is a bad habit that instant save-load gaming brought us to feel the need to always be in control. I'm not going to say how people should play their game, but losing a fave pawn because you screwed up or because of chance is not bad design or because FoW doesn't or shouldn't belong in the game, it's a player's inability to cope with loss and letting it go."
(Thesis)
"As for me, i already know what not having FoW brings, and i'm not impressed.  Now I'm just trying to find out how much better FoW is over the limited stories omniscience brings. Unless, again, people provide more positive examples of it."

Fair use for the sake of criticism.
There is even support for FoV enhancing gameplay in Rimworld.

"the fow is there to encourage players to scout and engage the enemy. since they dont know where they(or anything else) is, they have to spread out. it keeps the games economy working. Its vital to that economy in most cases. Its vital to really alot of stuff that rts's are built on tbh

RW though, is about story. the fog has to be built around different goals. That though, is possible. you seem to be thinking that the mechanic will always be the same even in a different game, but it cant be. thats not how system design works. you build the system to achieve the things you want. In Rimworld, the thing you want is mystery and the possibility that anything can be out there. you want the fog to encourage new stories. so it has to be less about being blindsided or covering up the enemies. it would need to be relatively forgiving, and not difficult to "defeat". it needs to be there in the background, a tool to aid the story, not a central theme."

Fair use for the sake of criticism.
All these sources were supportive of the approach that not knowing your surroundings affords more story opportunities.

"'But timing is exactly what this is about. By carefully managing the flow of information you create suspension.' It is called pacing and it is Storytelling 101. The point of the example was that by revealing an outcome too early you take the suspension out and there is no more interest in watching the story unfold. There is no point in watching if you know what will happen anyway and its called spoiling for a reason."

If this isn't wrong it's only because of a very loose interpretation of "flow".
As I said, you are only considering "time" relevant. You think that by making uncertain when you'll see any threat you are creating tension. But -opinion- this is a erroneous view. You would only multiply surprise (around each visible raider), and missing the point of Events.

What you are not getting (IMO) is that you need to SEE a volume of information as well to fully understand the threat.

Fair use for the sake of criticism.

As per underlined, he references to limited information and promptly forgets that this is FoW that he is arguing about.

NoImageAvailable is more consistent with his argument than Kegereneku as I quote:

"The point of the example was that by revealing an outcome too early you take the suspension out and there is no more interest in watching the story unfold. There is no point in watching if you know what will happen anyway and its called spoiling for a reason." (First quote)

Is easier to follow logically than

"You think that by making uncertain when you'll see any threat you are creating tension. But -opinion- this is a erroneous view. You would only multiply surprise (around each visible raider), and missing the point of Events.

What you are not getting (IMO) is that you need to SEE a volume of information as well to fully understand the threat." (Second quote)

Now, here is the question, Isn't surprise an event in FoW in and of itself?
Also, what kind of stories can you get when you know completely everything about the threat?
Lastly, isn't the first quote the direct counter to whatever the second quote says?

For the next point Kegereneku makes, he took the explanation of the first quote and took it completely out of context as, given that it was never the point to start with, places Kegereneku's point completely irrelevant and honestly quite incoherent.

The next sentence becomes his interpretation of the going ons in this thread.
Mind you that coming from him, it cannot be an objective description given his core role in the arguing.
Therefore, his summary of the thread is unreliable and cannot be trusted.

Next quote ended with a comma, rendering it an invalid quote.

His response to the last quote then states his assurances.

Be assured that I have considered your answers in their integrity and not only tiny bit we could risk taking out of context. Answering people line by line is IMO unconstructive.

Fair use for the sake of criticism.

He has taken quotes out of explanations and misrepresents it as a point, is that not evidence of "taking out of context"?
He also does not provide any evidence that "Answering people line by line is IMO unconstructive."
If you are reading this post and enjoying it, you should well already know that the above has not applied to this post and I daresay almost all the civil discussion in this thread taken in this form of "line by line" approach.
In fact, it is to the contrary that such an approach is not constructive due to how detailed and comprehensive the approach is as a format for civil discussion as it goes by "To not leave any stone unturned."

And thus as I have concluded my detailed analysis of the post below me, I hope this would give reason for Kegereneku to reflect on his approach to this thread and how he could be derailing it.

[For Reference]

On my personal views, I find myself in agreement with Johnny Masters and co. as their arguments are for the most part, valid and easy to follow logically. I do believe that new genre subtypes have their own uses for adaptations of features used in other genres. Being in a broad sense, genre research and analysis.

I encourage the implementation of FoW as it is a valid addition to the game among other things that do makeover the entire feel of the game to where the developer is perceived to have a notion towards. I have touched on atmosphere on my previous post which unfortunately, being derided for being "un-civil discussion" material, lost it's original purpose to the emotional interpretations of everyone involved. I have no regrets for that post for good reason.

I shall continue to be objective and will not involve myself directly in the discussion, I will be standing by to stabilise this thread and prevent it's locking to some emotional heat and logical rend.

Have a nice day.

[Kegereneku]

First point.
Kegereneku believes that the entire thread is all about classic FoW and seems to forget the compromises everyone else makes to try and fit their respective concepts into the game.

As a first point it would have been appreciated to not be a blatant lie. This is not a 'civil approach' to misrepresent other views in an attempt to discredit them to your liking.

There is so much wrong with the rest of your post that I will simply not bother. One thing is sure : you are not "mediating" anything, no matter what you seem to believe.

[Fuhman]

First point.
Kegereneku believes that the entire thread is all about classic FoW and seems to forget the compromises everyone else makes to try and fit their respective concepts into the game.

As a first point it would have been appreciated to not be a blatant lie. This is not a 'civil approach' to misrepresent other views in an attempt to discredit them to your liking.

There is so much wrong with the rest of your post that I will simply not bother. One thing is sure : you are not "mediating" anything, no matter what you seem to believe.

That's literally what he's doing. I don't understand how it could be anything else. Simmer down, you're getting all uppetty when there's no real need for it. The fella is calming the situation nicely.
Blimey this thread is intense; I've broken a sweat just reading it.

[NoImageAvailable]

If this isn't wrong it's only because of a very loose interpretation of "flow".
As I said, you are only considering "time" relevant. You think that by making uncertain when you'll see any threat you are creating tension. But -opinion- this is a erroneous view. You would only multiply surprise (around each visible raider), and missing the point of Events.

What you are not getting (IMO) is that you need to SEE a volume of information as well to fully understand the threat.

Again you go completely missing the point. It is not about making uncertain when you'll see a threat, it is about concealing information and making it harder for the player to achieve an optimal solution, thereby making the outcome of the encounter uncertain. This is what allows tension and suspense to exist in the first place and it is Storytelling 101 so I don't see why you are even debating this.

And I fully understand that you need to see all the information to understand a threat. The problem is that as soon as you have that understanding the tension is gone.

In Chess, knowing where the piece of your adversary are, don't make it more likely to plan out the outcome. (unless you didn't told us you are a Super-computer with a full data-base of every single possible way a match can play out, which is a thing)

Ehm, yes it does. If you don't know where the opponents pieces are you not only have to predict every possible outcome from the move he made but also every move he could have made.

In Rimworld, I can safely affirm the number of pieces and parameters are too high for any human to consider at once, thus can be safely displayed to participate to the storytelling aspect which require omniscience (as explained numerous time in the topic).

I'm sorry, but anyone with even basic levels of intelligence can predict things like "these guys don't have food and no way out, they're going to starve to death". You also go on this tangent again, like you are supposed to be playing the storyteller. You are not, that's the game's job, otherwise you would be the one spawning raids and solar flares not the RNG. The player in Rimworld is a co-author at best, reacting to events to the best of his ability but never creating or shaping them.

You need to understand that "storytelling game" doesn't mean you're God with the world as your plaything. It means the game throws events at you that are beyond your control and forces you interact with them in some way in order to achieve a desired outcome. The story is then created from these events and your reaction as well as whether or not you succeeded in achieving your desired outcome or not. You don't just decide that you want a raid to not wipe out your colony. The game tries to do it and you are forced to come up to prevent it. This creates challenge and meaningful player interaction and is the essence of gameplay.

You are confusing making outcome unpredictable and postponing when it will be, worse, your suggested way would reduce the number of parameters, making it even more predictable.

This is just plain wrong. Not knowing parameters doesn't remove them nor does it merely postpone an outcome. The outcome is shaped by whichever strategy the player adapts to achieve it and by limiting his knowledge you either force him to act on incomplete information and adopting a suboptimal solution or postpone acting until more information is available (which can have its own kind of consequences).

Even more so as FoW-proponent will inevitably ask for the mean to "counter the FoW" with the explicit goal of fighting battle with the enemy that are at their advantage.
As pointed out numerous time, the FoW is not just to make it threatening to you, many proponent fully expect to threaten the enemy back.
And this logic is pretty much why FoW is meant for Wargame, not for the survival/storytelling aspect of Rimworld.

And that is a bad thing somehow? Of course players try to fight battles that are to their advantage. The thing about fog is that this allows for more complex, more interesting ways to go about this.

Also, what's with your constant references to Wargame? It is a great RTS series (with a pretty good Fog of War system too, BTW) but I don't see what it has to do with Rimworld. Unless you mean it as some kind of reference to RTS games in general while trying to contrast them to Rimworld. In which case I'm afraid I have to disappoint you, because Rimworld already has real-time combat with indirect unit control as a core gameplay mechanic.

Sorry, I assumed you actually read the topic before formulating an educated opinion. Silly of me...

I followed this thread as it developed but I don't remember every single argument made. Your posts are especially difficult as they are incoherent and often seem to rely on what I can only call moon logic. If you have something that is relevant to the current conversation, either recap or quote it.

But since you weren't the one I answered to... here is a summary :
- FoW imply Scout, Patrol, Radar, variable seeing distance, big movement speed variation. and the time to react and mount actual strategy without being bothered by the survival aspect of Rimworld. (confusing Rimworld with a RTS)

I think it is you who is confusing Rimworld for something it is not, see above.

- Time is a critical factor used differently in Rimworld and Wargame, having the time/resources to sent scout at moment notice anywhere or patrol for entire day will require to make the rest (equally the management than the threats) much less important, as a trade-off.

What? No it won't. On the contrary, it makes the survival aspects more punishing because a scout isn't contributing anything to the production of the colony. You'd have to weight the risk of being blindsided versus the cost of feeding an unproductive colonist which makes for interesting gameplay decisions. The game already does this with nobles and assassins who are really helpful in combat but otherwise don't contribute to the colony.

- Storytelling, as we are currently discussing, require to see stuff to be meaningful. People do care less about the 0.1% risk of a threatening events than the events threatening them right now. FoW would only delay the time you are given to react.

Of course people care more about an imminent than a future threat but that doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand. It is about how you deal with a threat that is influenced by a lack of information. If you know there is an imminent threat but don't know its exact nature you need to consider not only the direction it is coming from (as it is unknown) but also every other direction they might come from and how to best account for every possibility. Additionally you'd have to weight the risks and benefits of acting now in a suboptimal manner versus spending time and resources on gathering more information about the threat thus being able to take a better approach. This adds strategic depth and makes for more interesting interactions with the game world.

- Event now, is what make the game. It is the very thing that is meant to challenge you by surprise and have you scramble/plan to counter it, It is also meant to give a more balanced threats than if let to blind luck. You have to see them as well to plan against them. And because FoW reduce reaction-time it would prevent any Events that require such time.

There are more balanced ways of giving reaction time than omniscience, like the aforementioned raider scout who lets you know a raiding party is somewhere on the map. I also find it amusing that you somehow praise events giving limited reaction time, yet criticize FoW for doing the same thing in the very next sentence.

You seem to be under this assumption that Fog of War means no information relayed at all. That is plain false. What it does is delay the information,

Did you actually read my answer to you ? (and other ideally) That's precisely because I KNOW that it ONLY delay POINTLESSLY informations gathering and require NEW MEANS of getting the information ANYWAY that FoW would be pointless complication.

How about not cutting my arguments mid-sentence and addressing the entire argument? Especially since it actually addresses your exact point? Because information gathering depends on player interaction it allows for more intricate decision making, both with regards to when and how to gather information but also what to do when gathering it is not a viable option.

For the Shrine thing, by now, I say enough to answer that.
You are confusing keeping a wide "realm of possibility" with hoping it play more than one result (e.g : starved shrine occupant versus still startving) through blind luck.

YOU have to tell, how would FoW give the choice of saving or not (non-evil) Shrine occupant without it being linked to blind luck, and without it being more easily accomplished through the visible Events system we have now.
(If you want to know, I just put an event suggestion for this here)

*Sigh* Again, you completely miss the point. It is not about choosing whether or not to save the shrine people because that is a no-brainer. Not saving them would deprive me of valuable colonists and is thus an objectively inferior choice, so its not a decision at all. What this is about is not knowing what is inside the shrine and therefore not knowing what the right decision is, thereby creating suspense in anticipation of the outcome of the decision.

Could you please quote me the example you think I haven't addressed ?
Be assured that I have considered your answers in their integrity and not only tiny bit we could risk taking out of context. Answering people line by line is IMO unconstructive.

I have given numerous examples how FoW could make events, both combat related and not, more interesting. You haven't addressed a single one of them, instead insisting that it doesn't contribute to storytelling. Just the latest:

Without fog, you see the raiders arrive at the edge of the map. You muster your colonists in a defensive position. Then you see the animal insanity event pop up. You jump to location, see that the path intersects with the raiders'. That's it, the story is over, the colonists are undrafted and you go back to managing the colony. You might go back to watch the spectacle here and there but that's it.

With fog, you see a raider scout your defenses. You know there is a raiding party somewhere out there. You put up sentries to spot their approach and muster your defenders in a central location from which they can react quickly. After a while the raiders fail to appear and you get suspicious. They didn't blow a whole in a wall somewhere, did they? A quick perimeter check reveals nothing. You send a scout to see where they are and find a battlefield littered with the corpses of raiders and animals, maybe even catch a glimpse of it still ongoing. Now you know you can let your colonists stand down.

Explain to me, how is that not a direct and substantial improvement to storytelling?

[Anduin1357]

First point.
Kegereneku believes that the entire thread is all about classic FoW and seems to forget the compromises everyone else makes to try and fit their respective concepts into the game.

As a first point it would have been appreciated to not be a blatant lie. This is not a 'civil approach' to misrepresent other views in an attempt to discredit them to your liking.

There is so much wrong with the rest of your post that I will simply not bother. One thing is sure : you are not "mediating" anything, no matter what you seem to believe.

You could have posted any sort of evidence that it was a lie.
You did not state what was misrepresented
You think that my post is not worth your time.

Your point for that post?

[RemingtonRyder]

I think that it is unreasonable punitive to require the player to draft colonists to go clear fog. It's what they would have to do if fog was currently in the game, since there are no recon towers or even just a simple roof panel and ladder to allow them to take a peek outside.

Anyway. I suggested some new guidelines for the Suggestions forum. Tynan said to go ahead and post them. Bear in mind these are guidelines only, I've also quoted the forum rules for ease of reference.

The reason I mention it now is that well, I'm not picking on anyone in particular, but it happens that there's a bit of discussion of the discussion going on, rather than fresh discussion of the original suggestion. If it's not possible to agree on something, or if it seems that someone does not clearly understand a point, it's not necessary to have a whole side conversation on the topic.

I'd rather that you summarised the various disagreements at the end of the topic, which is where most people are going to look to figure out whether anything came from the discussion. Saves digging through the whole topic, right?

^ Rhetorical question.

[Anduin1357]

Posting a question for the discussion of the discussion is quite hypocritical of MarvinKosh. Nonetheless, a question is a question and I am obligated to answer.

The whole problem with Kegereneku's summary is that it's biased just based on his role alone. It would have been more trustworthy if it came from a more objective source.

[rexx1888]

i love how the start of this thread requests everyone to try and avoid creating "sides" to this conflict, and immediately that falls by the wayside(and i wont lie, i am biased to one "side", but id like to think i give the current iteration of RW a pretty solid pass just by spending words on saying its rad but can be better. many many words). Im even more amazed by how much longer the thread got O.o an all the mud slinging is kind of amusing as. I mean, its not making us smarter than monkeys, but its amusing

still, there is a lot of mud slinging, especially at keg. Lets leave keg alone, on other topics his opinions are objectively correct, an hes pretty nice. It took me a few weeks of forum hopping to see, but its true.

I still think that FoW brings more to RW than it takes away. Theres nothing i can say though to prove it. An thats actually what i wanted to talk about for a moment. Its the resource cost of A FoW system. First, we need to identify two different parts of the system. Theres Fog Of War(FOW), which is the thing obscuring stuff in some way(this btw is also similar to walls and other obstacles), AND THEN there is Line Of Sight(LOS) which is the pawns actually seeing things. They are two different systems but they work together. An to make matters more complicated, you can have an LOS system without FOW but you cannot have FOW without LOS. At the moment, the pawns do not have a LOS, but FOW does exist in game, an its weird. For instance, the FOW exists over closed rooms. The minute that room is opened, its unveiled and we can see everything. The LOS system is literally our ability to see the world. Its not particularly resource intensive, but it feels a little odd. Just my opinion though.

My point though, is when we discuss implementing FOW we are talking about two systems that will need fleshing out. thats two whole systems that will need implementing and tying into the game. I mean, LOS will have to actively be tied to eye objects, and to sight sensors an anything else that provides "sight". The thing is, it will probably also have to be tied to things like scent and hearing as well. This is because LOS systems are complicated, and they are best done not by Wargames, but by stealth games. Shocking, i know, but thats the truth. Stealth games have LOS systems locked. Both from a player perspective and the npcs. They just do it better, an if RW was to implement FOW it would need to draw from stealth games LOS. that, by itself would make it a very different beast to your average wargame. Its also a lot of work. huge amounts of work. And talking from experience, its alot of work just designing the damn system. Before you can even implement it, it needs to be designed and looked at from all sorts of complicated angles. Its a long drawn out process. An the thing is, you cant half arse it without breaking verisimilitude. If you can see and you have ears, players ask why they cant hear. If you can see an hear but you have a nose, players ask why they cant smell. In RW though, these systems actually add a lot for all the work though. Imagine colonists that hate the smell of something and get neg mood mods from it, or some lonely colonists get neg mood mods from hearing couples shag in the next room. that would certainly make them feel like people. Also takes time to implement. Which might be the single biggest negative. Not the loss of stories(because there isnt one), not the sudden extra work(its a management game anyway) and not the lessening of the survival aspects(because thats blatant hyperbole). its the dev cost. Its a monster of a cost. Its iterative as, an it takes monumental amounts of time to balance. An it needs more work on other systems to make it work.

I still think its worth it, but i can understand why some people wouldnt want to do that kind of work. Its long, involved, and just blatantly difficult. It requires some serious design chops to boot, an a solid programmer. It takes ridiculous amounts of effort is basically what im saying.

thems my additional p's and q's.

Edit: typos

[Anduin1357]

That is what this suggestion thread is for! Working out for poor Tynan just how we think this should be implemented and why, not to debate all over yes or no.

The development time can be shortened if the persons suggesting it does not leave it to the dev to implement but also to expand on what the suggestion comprises of and formulate a workable mechanic that would be ready to implement without too much balancing issue.

The biggest problem would then only be writing code for the mechanic.

Keg messing this discussion is the problem, he may be nice elsewhere but it does not show here which is what matters.

Showing support for the suggestion would go a long way to helping Tynan get motivated to implement this.

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still, there is a lot of mud slinging, especially at keg. Lets leave keg alone, on other topics his opinions are objectively correct, an hes pretty nice. It took me a few weeks of forum hopping to see, but its true.

Just wanting to point out, regardless of what his stances on other topics may or may not be, it has no bearing on his posts in this particular topic and they should be judged on their merits alone, not their poster's reputation or your personal opinion of him. That is all I'm going to say on that particular topic.

I still think its worth it, but i can understand why some people wouldnt want to do that kind of work. Its long, involved, and just blatantly difficult. It requires some serious design chops to boot, an a solid programmer. It takes ridiculous amounts of effort is basically what im saying.

I think you are vastly overestimating the cost of such a system. It could be as simple as giving each pawn a vision and a visibility stat.

Vision could be: base vision range stat * modifiers from Seeing efficiency (already tracked by the game) * modifiers from weather and lighting (already tracked by the game and applied to shooting accuracy) * potential modifiers from equipment (binoculars)

Visibility could be: body size * cover modifier * pawn stance (all three already tracked by the game) * potential modifiers from equipment (camouflage)

Whenever an object is within vision range of a pawn a check is made if it is within vision * visibility tiles and if so it is displayed. From a technical perspective all one would have to do is implement a new pawn stat and potentially two new equipment modifiers, as well as some calculations using already existing values in order to create a fairly in-depth Fog of War system. Beyond that most of the work would be the graphical representation as well as performance. I don't think it would take Tynan much more than a week or two to implement such a system however.

Some remaining questions would be how to handle static objects. For cover objects such as chunks and sandbags there is already a fillage stat which could be used in place of body size. Trees and walls could always be visible from maximum range. For goods a global constant could be set as I don't think we need to model different visibility of strawberries vs granite chunks.

The vision system in stealth games isn't much more complicated than that either BTW, all they do in addition is calculate cones of vision for enemies as well as cover obstruction which I don't think is necessary for Rimworld.

[Regret]

still, there is a lot of mud slinging, especially at keg. Lets leave keg alone, on other topics his opinions are objectively correct, an hes pretty nice. It took me a few weeks of forum hopping to see, but its true.

Just wanting to point out, regardless of what his stances on other topics may or may not be, it has no bearing on his posts in this particular topic and they should be judged on their merits alone, not their poster's reputation or your personal opinion of him. That is all I'm going to say on that particular topic.

I still think its worth it, but i can understand why some people wouldnt want to do that kind of work. Its long, involved, and just blatantly difficult. It requires some serious design chops to boot, an a solid programmer. It takes ridiculous amounts of effort is basically what im saying.

I think you are vastly overestimating the cost of such a system. It could be as simple as giving each pawn a vision and a visibility stat.

Vision could be: base vision range stat * modifiers from Seeing efficiency (already tracked by the game) * modifiers from weather and lighting (already tracked by the game and applied to shooting accuracy) * potential modifiers from equipment (binoculars)

Visibility could be: body size * cover modifier * pawn stance (all three already tracked by the game) * potential modifiers from equipment (camouflage)

Whenever an object is within vision range of a pawn a check is made if it is within vision * visibility tiles and if so it is displayed. From a technical perspective all one would have to do is implement a new pawn stat and potentially two new equipment modifiers, as well as some calculations using already existing values in order to create a fairly in-depth Fog of War system. Beyond that most of the work would be the graphical representation as well as performance. I don't think it would take Tynan much more than a week or two to implement such a system however.

Some remaining questions would be how to handle static objects. For cover objects such as chunks and sandbags there is already a fillage stat which could be used in place of body size. Trees and walls could always be visible from maximum range. For goods a global constant could be set as I don't think we need to model different visibility of strawberries vs granite chunks.

The vision system in stealth games isn't much more complicated than that either BTW, all they do in addition is calculate cones of vision for enemies as well as cover obstruction which I don't think is necessary for Rimworld.

That's just the vision part.

Have you considered the problems with path finding algorithms?
Hauling would have to be completely reworked for one thing.
Scouting behaviour would have to be implemented.

I think the performance would take a massive hit from the constant visibility checks, especially since every tick changes a variable that is used for almost every behaviour and therefore for the prioritization calculation.

I'm sure there are other factors I haven't considered.

IMHO FoW could be interesting but it is in no way easy to implement properly.