Forgotten Hope Public Forum

Announcements => Developer Blogs => Topic started by: gavrant on 20-10-2014, 23:10:48

Title: Hot spots
Post by: gavrant on 20-10-2014, 23:10:48
Artillerymen, rejoice!

Here are some screenshots of one long-requested feature, just a day after it passed testing on our internal dev server:
(http://i59.tinypic.com/11hf0g7.jpg)
(http://i59.tinypic.com/2mn2nm9.jpg)
(http://i59.tinypic.com/b8lrug.jpg)

Excuse me for the lack of accompanying wall of text, since, I guess, the screenshots are self-explanatory enough to anyone who ever tried to rain death on the enemy in FH2 without exposing his precious self to return fire :P
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Mudzin on 20-10-2014, 23:10:48
Oh, that's cool. Now, not only you will know whose spot it is, but also what type of fire is requested - great! Nice work!  :)
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: jan_kurator on 21-10-2014, 01:10:35
why there is a smoke icon on the minimap on the second screenshot when you requested HE fire?
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Roughbeak on 21-10-2014, 01:10:56
Looks nice gavrant. :)
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Kubador on 21-10-2014, 01:10:08
why there is a smoke icon on the minimap on the second screenshot when you requested HE fire?

Because the second spot shows a different place than that one on mini_map.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: 0utlaw on 21-10-2014, 04:10:48
nice!  :)
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: LuckyOne on 21-10-2014, 08:10:38
Excellent, I would just suggest to change the text of "Current spot by" to something like "Fire mission request by". More immersive IMO. But if you did it this way not to confuse the newbies (and lessen the amount of text on screen) I understand ...
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: TASSER on 21-10-2014, 23:10:29
Awesome, awesome addition to the mod. Great work Gavrant and all those who worked on this!

Man! Arty has been getting some love recently! It's excellent!

Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: RAnDOOm on 22-10-2014, 00:10:30
Fantastic evolution with the Arty these past updates.

Lets keep this up fellas! Awesome job.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Ivancic1941 on 22-10-2014, 10:10:49
Finaly!  ;)
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Oberst on 22-10-2014, 12:10:33
These small things are what really improves this mod!
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: gavrant on 22-10-2014, 15:10:58
why there is a smoke icon on the minimap on the second screenshot when you requested HE fire?

Because the second spot shows a different place than that one on mini_map.
That minimap is actually a copy from the first screenshot for some weird reason, a solar flare or something :P


Excellent, I would just suggest to change the text of "Current spot by" to something like "Fire mission request by". More immersive IMO. But if you did it this way not to confuse the newbies (and lessen the amount of text on screen) I understand ...
The text appears in the "kill chat", together with kill messages, and it may disappear very quickly after, for example, a lucky grenade throw (but you can make it reappear by clicking Next/Previous Spot, even if you have a single spot ATM), so I think, it's better to keep it as brief as possible. Perhaps, even "Current spot by" is somewhat long.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Surfbird on 22-10-2014, 18:10:58
Very cool, thanks!
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: 0utlaw on 22-10-2014, 19:10:00
one problem i still have at times with artillery is that i receive a spot, miss fire, begin to adjust... then more spots are given in different areas immediately changing the previous spot i am viewing, forcing me to cycle back. Sometimes the previous spot is gone or the target is no longer there. Is there a way to have the new spots not automatically change the artillery users view until wanting to check these? thanks.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: gavrant on 22-10-2014, 19:10:26
Hmm, the code says that you should be switched to a new spot automatically only if your current spot expires or there was no spot before that. Can somebody else confirm the problem reported by Outlaw?
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: 0utlaw on 22-10-2014, 20:10:12
My most recent experience with this was last friday during the F|H battle using the mortar. Not sure if that may be the problem or not since i do not know if any changes have been made by the tournament mod. I rarely have a chance to pub, so I mostly participate in the tournaments of WaW and F|H. Ill try to video record it if this happens again, but thanks for looking into the issue.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: RAnDOOm on 22-10-2014, 20:10:21
Hmm, the code says that you should be switched to a new spot automatically only if your current spot expires or there was no spot before that. Can somebody else confirm the problem reported by Outlaw?

Yes. I have the same problem also.

Its quite annoying when that happens.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: 0utlaw on 22-10-2014, 20:10:06
Hmm, the code says that you should be switched to a new spot automatically only if your current spot expires or there was no spot before that. Can somebody else confirm the problem reported by Outlaw?

After thinking more about the issue, could this be a possibility?

Spot1 initially provides the area or target i want, another player places spot2 in a different area on the map, but does not actually change the view immediately. Next, before spot1 expires, the same player from spot1 places another spot on the exact same target as spot1 (which now may be counted as spot3?) forcing the view to change to spot2 since spot1 is no longer available. This may give the perception of the code not working as intended, when it actually is working properly.  Players sometimes redeploy the same spot constantly prior to expiration. Sorry if this reads as confusing.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: gavrant on 22-10-2014, 20:10:24
Yeah, a spotter respotting roughly the same location can be the reason, if autoswitching happens only on some of the "Requesting artillery strike" messages you see.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: 0utlaw on 22-10-2014, 21:10:42
So the actual issue is over spotting. I wonder if there is some solution to this besides the players not doing so.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Oberst on 22-10-2014, 22:10:29
For me it seems to be the same. Often you have to cycle back. But I think most of those cases (if not all) happen, when the spotter "respots" his target and slightly adjust his target. Boom old spot gone, new spot at (nearly) the same location.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Roughbeak on 22-10-2014, 22:10:38
one problem i still have at times with artillery is that i receive a spot, miss fire, begin to adjust... then more spots are given in different areas immediately changing the previous spot i am viewing, forcing me to cycle back. Sometimes the previous spot is gone or the target is no longer there. Is there a way to have the new spots not automatically change the artillery users view until wanting to check these? thanks.

Hmm, the code says that you should be switched to a new spot automatically only if your current spot expires or there was no spot before that. Can somebody else confirm the problem reported by Outlaw?

The few times I am on artillery I can agree on this; when I get a new spot, the previous one changes just like Outlaw's (as well as others).

As to the spot disappearing, I think this is when the spotter is either killed or perhaps there is too many spots at a time?

Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: jan_kurator on 23-10-2014, 00:10:49
I never had this problem, except the situations in which person whose spot I was using atm changed/adjusted it and resended coordinations or died (what makes the previous one disappear), obviously.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Kubador on 26-10-2014, 21:10:37
Welp. I receive assists even after I die and respawn so I gather that the spot still "sticks" for a while. I can confirm the same issue outlaw mentioned and it is somehow annoying. Sometimes I adjust my coordinates just to see them suddenly change to the other side of the map.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: gavrant on 09-11-2014, 22:11:24
Fresh news: to remedy the issue with "respotters", I just made some changes in the artillery code. In the next version of FH2, if a player puts another spot, every gunner who has the previous spot of that player as active, will be switched to the new spot, without intermediate switching to the first spot in the queue and other annoyances. Still, it won't save the gunners from readjusting their guns if the new spot is, say, hundreds meters away from the previous one.

As for when spots disappear: normally spots live for 2 minutes, but if their spotters die or pick up a kit, spots disappear in about 30-60 secs.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Kubador on 09-11-2014, 23:11:19
Awesome news man!
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Mudzin on 10-11-2014, 01:11:55
That's really cool! But I wonder why don't you already release those small cool things which you have done? Especially when we have the launcher... What are you waiting for? I think even such small updates would keep the players to the mod - they would see that developement is still going and the mod is NOT dead... Don't you think so?
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: 0utlaw on 10-11-2014, 01:11:08
nice fix, ill be sure to test this out :)
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: gavrant on 10-11-2014, 16:11:15
That's really cool! But I wonder why don't you already release those small cool things which you have done? Especially when we have the launcher... What are you waiting for? I think even such small updates would keep the players to the mod - they would see that developement is still going and the mod is NOT dead... Don't you think so?
Because besides the artillery code, there are other work-in-progress things (not Eastern Front related), and because a release disrupts all development for few weeks.
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Michael Z Freeman on 30-12-2015, 13:12:32
Can the bots use this or is that still an engine limitation ?
Title: Re: Hot spots
Post by: Zoologic on 09-01-2016, 07:01:12
Yes, it changes spot position in the order of spots made by all of the spotters in the entire Axis/Allies side. Thanks a lot gavrant for the update, now we can really concetrate on one particular spotter.

I was aware of the spot expiry time. But a time counter for the spotter itself will be great.

Players respots several times because they want to kill the targets, not denying the area. The target of course, moves and sometimes gets obscured by the covers and terrains, so the spotter adjusts the coordinate several times.