Slice Line of Sight in Half

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I always wondered how we'd be able to handle the line of sight Unreal world has. After talking about it in staff chat, the idea is growing more on me.

No longer would we have 360 lines of sight. It would be like this, but without shitty MSpaint. The glaring white out here would just be greyed out in an overlay.

Anything not in your line of sight behind you, you wouldn't see. If it was making noises you would see a little blip that indicated there's something in that tile. Running with shoes would always have the blip there, so you would 'see' something, but you would have to turn around to physically see who it is, but you can still hear people with a little chat bubble in the usual space on their tile. If someone is talking out of your line of sight you'd just have to look around to see who's speaking.

The most obvious change is that you would be able to sneak up on people far easier. Noiseless shoes would allow you to run and never give yourself away as long as you're out of someone's line of sight. If they're distracted then you'll be able to get the jump on them.

Nervous characters (or players!) will also give themselves away far more, with their constant spinning around or immediate turning around towards sound. Their character would appear a lot more twitchy. It also has advantages for ambushes; all in all it would drastically shake things as it is.

Things that would make noise that give you away would be numerous; most anything that already causes sound:

Walking, running, reaching into your satchel, speaking, doing actions, etc.

[Taintedglory]

Do me a favor, before you think about fully implementing something like this.

Stand straight up. Face directly forward. Now take one arm, and without moving your body or head, move that arm slowly from the front center of your body to as far as you can behind your body without turning. You will notice your vision of the arm goes away around 15 degrees ((More or less)) or so behind your side. Humans have a pretty good peripheral vision, and it extends farther than directly at 90 degree angles.

I would like the idea above if we consider changing it to have angles of gray behind you.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

yeah you see your hand there but try reading a letter or keeping track of an individual's face entirely in your peripheral vision. You notice vague movements but you can't see anything in detail, which is what this would represent.

But that's semantics. Having a slight angle would be fine too, I just didn't want to spend all that extra time in MSpaint.

[Fire and Glory]

I would note that this could prove significantly pain in the ass unless audible emoting is also made a thing, given that right now if someone can't see you he's not even going to hear you cough unless you do it on the radio.

EDIT:Might I suggest a 'soft' zone for those at the edge of vision? You can't tell who it is, but you can tell that here's a human there, probably make it a silhouette, so you can tell it's a Human/Lizard/Cat there but not who it is or what they're wearing.

If this even goes through, that is.

[Carver]

Unlike Lifeweb this game isn't really balanced around limited vision in the slightest bit, so I can see issues. As amusing as it might be to be looking around yourself constantly, this just doesn't seem like something can be done without major overhauls in a good few systems (Combat in particular, this game's combat with a line of sight system would play like absolute fucking garbage, even if you use the commands to constantly face in one direction).

[Guest]

it'd be a huge pain without additional audio and "visual" indicators attempting to simulate sudden movement. You'd need significant amount of work put into attempting to create an immersive in-game representation of senses aside from just seeing.

There's a lot of stuff on the baseline to consider, at first, given there needs to be applications to every moving mob or object, with its accompanying sound effect, movement indicator, so on. For instance, if someone is running in the darkness, there would need to be checks run in regards to how dark it is, how much your own mob can see in the dark from your point of view, if the subject B is moving in complete darkness or just partial darkness, which then begs the question, "how much of an indication should we give that someone is moving in a dark, unlit maintenance shaft?"

Also, how lifeweb does it, vision entirely varies on the situation. Normally, you see (approximately) 300 degrees, down 1 tile and 2 left/right, for instance, you'd be able to see someone behind you, barely (assuming you're facing north). Behind you down two tiles or within that range, you can't see or react to them unless you're facing that way. Or, even down one, right/left one, can't see anyone behind you. Don't have a right eye? Can hardly see from your right side. Vulnerable from there. Are you wearing a full plate helmet? You can only see (approximately) 60 degrees in front of you.

It's less of anyone being a not-fan of the idea than it is difficult to replicate such a complex system and ensure it works almost perfectly. It would take a long time to pull this off, which is more than half of the reason why it is actually difficult to perform. Overhaul-type suggestion.

In regards to the combat balance, we'd have to further slow down the timing of actions that can be taken (and at its current rate, it is slower than old code already) due to a minimum of a 1/6th of everyone's vision has been cut. And then tuning would have to be done to make first blows much more powerful and favoring the shooter/hitter. While, again, I'm pretty sure nobody is a fan of skirmishes where both parties constantly disarm each other, dodge punches and get absolutely nowhere until reinforcements arrive, I don't think the alternative, where ganking fast and hard becomes the only viable, efficient method in robusting, would receive much acclaim from the community.

However, this type of chaotic, totally unforeseeable in consequence sort of change would not be unwarranted, as it has its own myriad of benefits in regards to immersion, a ramp-up in difficulty and a greater challenge being created as a result of the overhaul. People would be less comfortable and more cautious during shift periods of escalated alert or suspicion of antagonists operating on the station, fear would actually be a fairly existent variable as the players themselves is experience forms of dread or paranoia about what's going on, and thus that would affect their characters actions in-game.

Difficulty for the sake of difficulty has been called out as a giant meme time and time again, but if it lends more value to roleplay scenarios, then it's worth the effort to pitch in code work to try and realize.

So yes, +1, but don't 50/50 it, as that would be silly.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Glory your suggestion is good, it's what I had in mind. I didn't really articulate it that well. Emotes you would be able to see, which I think would be fair, and we'd just have to accept that since it's probably impossible to let the game know what /me's you're intended the person that can't 'see' you to 'see'. And yes there is supposed to be a LOT of visual indicators. Instead of seeing a character mob behind you, you see the little notification that indicates you hear a sound there, and you have to turn around to see what's making the sound. The only thing someone can do to be silent is run around barefoot or wear silent shoes, which would instantly become very popular for stealth antags imo. Also sneaking up on someone looking the other way would be great.

[Nanako]

I've seen this in action in lifeweb, and I didn't honestly like it.

The idea seems good for a certain type of game, it would definitely make stealth more interesting/enjoyable/possible, but it runs into a severe technical limitation with your facing being locked to cardinal directions.

Farthermore, i think it really detracts from RP. You don't interact with people you can't see, and my experience of the net effect of that is that the whole game experience is less social, and more confusing and isolating.

I have an alternate idea that might work more, a shifted view. Imagine if, instead of having your character in the centre of the screen, the camera was offset a few tiles in the direction you're facing, so you can see more of what's infront of you, and less of what's behind you.

No idea how that'd work in practise. But i've seen how this idea works, and it's not something i'd support.

[Conservatron]

i'd rather we start with directional lighting for flashlights first tbh.

[Nanako]

i'd rather we start with directional lighting for flashlights first tbh.

 

Now this i like. I've thought about it, but not sure how to make it happen, ill need to dedicate some research to it

[Conservatron]

i'd rather we start with directional lighting for flashlights first tbh.

 

Now this i like. I've thought about it, but not sure how to make it happen, ill need to dedicate some research to it

I have heard that some code have it.

I just want something like a flashlight will illuminate 1 tile behind you and the sides, then 3 or 4 out.

Mining lanterns will do what they always do.

idk how it'd work when a flashlight is on the ground though, as we have no way to point them in different directions unless they're given rotation

[icy_dew]

Farthermore, i think it really detracts from RP. You don't interact with people you can't see, and my experience of the net effect of that is that the whole game experience is less social, and more confusing and isolating.

while it is true that it'd make interacting confusing, it certainly won't detract from RP. because i think RP is better if it is realistic. seeing like you're in the fourth dimension or something is not really fitting for HIGH RP.

i think we can find a good midway, with certain things you do sense behind you, like when IRL you sense someone behind you.

i have been thinking about this topic for a while too. same with the flashlights. add directional lighting pl0x.

[DatBerry]

We could make some *emotes show up behind you, like *cough *faint *sneeze *bark *hiss

I like this idea, sneaking up on people doesn't always mean gank, you can hold someone up, add a mechanic like the shoot on movement to stop them from turning, and remaining anonymous as you take off their shoes and run off screen.

Ctrl+ arrow keys are your friends if this gets implanted

[hivefleetchicken]

Meh. As someone who puts up with this on lifeweb, it's really fucking lame and mechanized towards combat more than anything else. Constantly having to manage where you're looking doesn't really feel right for me in a heavy roleplay setting where most of the time you're just supposed to talk and RP menial tasks.

Maybe if it toggled based on your intent? I don't know. I just really don't want to have to spin in circles everywhere I go to make sure I'm not missing out on some dank ERP.

[rrrrrr]

I support this idea.

[hivefleetchicken]

I support this idea.

 

how could you turn on me

[rrrrrr]

#freehivesdog

[Dreamix]

If you really, really want to do it, at least do it correctly Lifeweb-style. And not some weird line slicing the screen in the middle.