LOS Range and Artillery Range

[Hancock the Superb]

For those of you that play the Garnier mod.

With the advent of good LOS in Patch 1.3 allows us to move onto the next step, increasing artillery range. This is simiply done by increasing the visibility range on the map to 2000 yards. This does not interfer with your ability to hide troops, but allows artillery to bombard from a long ways away. This will make the use of your cannon more important, since short range napoleons will not be able to combat three inch rifles 1700 yards away.

The file has been attached. Garnier, I would suggest that you include this in your Logistics folder for hosters if you approve of the idea. I have included it in mine.

Thanks!

[Garnier]

This changes the maximum sight range for all units from 1000 to 2000 yards. On the surface it's obviously realistic, because on a clear day you can see farther than that. Artillery won't be doing much damage at that range anyway.

It would mean that to be hidden in the 1000-2000 yard radius of enemy, you'll have to use terrain. So it will be more difficult to sneak. But with officer scouting it's impossible to really hide anyway.

My guess is it would have almost no effect on gameplay. May as well do it if people prefer it.

Any thoughts?

[Hancock the Superb]

I was able to score 10 point with a battery 1990 yards away over 30 minutes...I guess that makes it worth it to me, but ya, everyone else needs to decide.

[Neal]

I feel artillery should be effective at longer ranges. I've been gone for a good while, and the game I played yesterday, artillery appeared to be an afterthought. With increased rifle ranges (a very good thing, I might add) artillery seems almost useless, so anything that gives it some effect is good in my book.

Artillery has never really worked as desired, in my experience, although Willard knows how to use it (I clearly don't). I like the idea of setting up guns and seeing them hit the enemy at long range as they did in reality. The early use of them in our games (a year ago) as shotguns and little more was appalling to me.

I say take the next step.

[Hancock the Superb]

Perhaps 2000 yards is a little too much. We had a battle that lagged badly, and the guess was that each unit calculating the range for every unit within 2000 yards was too hard on the machines. Perhaps 1500 or so is better...and Garnier can decrease the range of the napoleons so that can't be used that far out. Maybe their limit can be 1200 yards, so three inchers get a chance to do some damage.

[SouthernSteel]

I will toss this in as mentioned by Garnier last night: the main issue of increasing the sight range to double its current limit is that by doing so, basically one's computer will have to process and draw/render absolutely everything across basically the entire map (within sight range). That will bog down performance across the board.

And while the artillery in GCM isn't the same as in vanilla, it still does plenty of damage. Even a 4 gun battery, properly placed, can inflict 100+ casualties over the course of a battle. I've had 2 6-gun batteries inflict 400+ easily (total, over the course of 90 minutes). You can't decimate the enemy outright, but you can sure rough them up.

[Jack ONeill]

All,

I believe SS has a good point about the draw rates affecting the computers ability to function. Even my rig has trouble at certain times with mostly normal fighting settings. Definitely one to ponder.

On a side note, perhaps someone could do some research into what gunners of the time said about opening fire - such as when, at what distance and what they found to be effective ranges.

Jack

[Armistead]

Jack (the Professor) is the resident expert on historic data. I would love to have his input on this.

[Jack ONeill]

Brother,

I will do my best to come up with the information we seek. Time is not my friend right now, but I will see what I can do.

Jack

[Jack ONeill]

And of course, the duh factor sets in immediately. Are you talking to me OR our other Jack, aka WHS Baylor? Either way is fine. He does better work than I do.

Jack