"Line of Sight Blockers" and Flyers

[Lord.Thazalhar]

Hi there, I'm currently having a problem with blocking the line of sight for flying units. Is there a way to accomplish that? It works fine for ground units but flyers apparently ignore it completely. I've tried a lot, but to no avail. Anybody did that before? Or is there no way around? Thanks for your help in advance.

Thazy

 

[Silvenon]

Funny, I thought it works for both..... anyways, I have no idea, I hate those anyways....

 

[Teh_Ephy]

If I remember correctly, line of sight blockers also block the movement of ground units. About not blocking flyers' line of sight, to the extent of my knowledge there isn't anything that can, be it cliffs, trees, or other doodads.

 

[Just_Spectating]

there are pathing blockers for air, but idk about vision. maybe if you added both then itll work

 

[Gilles]

You could use triggers right? Make a region not visible to a certain type of unit?

 

[Teh_Ephy]

there are pathing blockers for air, but idk about vision. maybe if you added both then itll work

I assume that line of sight blockers are just standins for things that block the line of sight. Since there is no natural doodad that blocks a flying unit's line of sight, it makes sense that line of sight blockers wouldn't either. Also, putting a blocker on top of another blocker doesn't combine the two blockers.

You could use triggers right? Make a region not visible to a certain type of unit?

There are triggers for revealing regions, but I doubt that there are triggers to block them. If somebody wants to check, go right ahead.

 

[Lord.Thazalhar]

Well, I feared that would be the case. Thanks for taking a look at the problem though.

I'm not sure how "Pathing Blocker (Air)" works, as Teh_Ephy stated before, there is nothing "normal" in the game that can block a flyer's LoS, and the only thing that seems to be blocking its path is the Pathing Blocker (Air). Now I took a look and am wondering how it actually is blocking the path for flying units? Is it really all in the Pathing Texture?

The only obvious difference (when looking at the Object Editor data entries) between Pathing Blockers and LoS Blockers is the Pathing Texture and the Occlusion Height (0 on the PB's and 230 on the LoSB's). What is Occlusion Height for? And what in the "Line of Sight Blocker" is actually responsible for blocking the LoS?

 

[Need_O2]

may be both cliff and moment block air this would work I guess

 

[Lord.Thazalhar]

I fear neither cliffs nor pathing blockers break the line of sight for flying units.

 

[Just_Spectating]

can you make it a ground unit that looks like an air unit but have no collision?

 

[Lord.Thazalhar]

Now that's something I haven't tried so far, will do as soon as I can and post my results. Thanks.

 

[DesKaladA]

i know hot to do this

set up the L.o.s blokers and doubble click on them there shoud be a box for blocking air site

 

[Lord.Thazalhar]

@DesKaladA: That would have been great, but I can't see such a checkbox in the Doodad Properties window.

@Just_Spectating: The unit in question is a gargoyle. I gave the unit "hover" instead of "fly" and set the collision size to 0.00. Now strangely it did even less than expected. The gargoyle was not able to pass through a group of enemy units, even though the collision size was zero! Of course, even if it would have worked, there still would be the problem of crossing height differences in terrain, which kinda makes out a flying unit. I thought of that before, but a hovering flyer just feels a bit fake.

 

[edge[d1]]

of the top of my head (i don't feel like making a test map since everyone else is guessing) - take line of sight blockers and increase their occlusion height two or three times (make it at least double of unit's flying height and at least double of current value)...

not sure but it can't hurt to try...

 

[Lord.Thazalhar]

Yeah, thought of that already though (as it happens to be 230 on the LoS Blocker and "Movement - Height" of the Gargoyle is 240, so I thought, aha!) - tried 250, tried 500 and even 1000, didn't do anything (or at least I didn't notice it doing anything). That was kinda the reason why I've been asking for Occlusion Height and its function as it looked very promising.

 

[Just_Spectating]

you will have to remove collision with triggers, unit - Turn collision of (your unit) off.

 

[Lord.Thazalhar]

Yay! It seems to be working. They now follow the LoS rules of a ground unit, but indeed can pass over enemies and even steep terrain! (The latter being a bit tricky and I haven't tried Pathing Blockers yet, but ... yay!)

Thanks a million!
Thazy

 

[Teh_Ephy]

A unit with collision removed is treated by other units as if it still has collision. Also, sometimes they act as if they don't have collision on, and you need to give the orders twice. Or sometimes, you have to order them right up to what you want them to go through before you order them to the other side.

 

[Just_Spectating]

but if the collision is also 0, then it will act upon that at well.

 

[Lord.Thazalhar]

UPDATE: So, I finally had a chance to run some tests. As posted before, LoS blocking works fine now, but, of course, the Pathing Blockers don't (as there is no collision check, I would guess - with and without setting Collision Size to 0.00).

Do you guys have another trick up your sleeves to solve that, or will I have to completely give up the idea of having flying gargoyles in my dungeon?

 

[Just_Spectating]

i would use locations, unless your dungeon has alot of loopidy turny spots, that when entered would move it to a certain spot or somthing. but, what is this for?

 

[Lord.Thazalhar]

Thought about that too, but it would take far too many regions.

Well, its a dungeon, it has hallways and rooms and a natural cave part. It would mess it up, if players could sneak peek into rooms through walls or closed doors.

On the other hand, I would like to have them sweep down from higher ground and be able to take a short cut along the lava river to pop up somewhere else.

 

[Teh_Ephy]

Set collision to 1 instead of 0? Granted, they may go through the blockers anyways with collision removed, but it's possible it could help.

 

[Lord.Thazalhar]

Sorry for the delay, had but little time to check on the issue.

It looks like I will have to drop the idea (setting collision to 1 instead o 0 didn't really change anything). As long as collision is turned off, there is nothing (but maybe triggered regions, of which I would need far too many) that can stop the flyers from peeking (or actually flying) into rooms they just aren't supposed to. I'll focus now on all the other things that are still open and leave that issue out for the moment. Should anybody still have an idea, no matter what, I'll give it a shot.

For now, I just wanted to say thank you for your time and help.

Thazy