I suspect it is because it has always been like this, nothing too special.
Give UEF and Aeon t3 scouts sonar
We need to find Jessica St. Croix and David Tomandl immediately
put the xbox units in the game pls u_u
How much larger?
Because I don't think that a slighter larger Omni radius would help solve the lack of sonar situation.
It would have to be a considerably larger radius. 15 - 20% or larger, I imagine.
~ Stryker
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The issue is actually quite simple - intel ranges are spherical - and you need to account for the altitude of the air unit - and the depth of the naval units. This has always been the case, which is why the attempt was made to implement something like sonar buoys - unfortunately, it littered the game with many more entities, which choked performance, so it was never revisited.
To properly utilize sonar, on the air scouts - the sonar range would need to take the above mentioned values into account - and it would look very wrong, as far as the range rings are concerned. The best implementation I have seen, comes from BrewLAN, which creates an invisible appendage attached to the air unit, but simply hanging well below - and a sonar entity is attached to that.
It would be really cool to see if these buoys could make a return, but it seems unlikely, as @Jip mentioned.
In hindsight, however...
I don't think it'll actually be as useful as having the sonar on the unit itself, as the plane can move much faster and therefore be able to cover a larger area quickly.
That is, unless the Spy plane is dropping a buoy that covers the size of a 10 x 10 km area or even just multiple buoys.
Nevertheless, if this ability is ever brought back to life somehow - obviously with some tweaking and all - I'm sure it'll make a great addition to FAF.
~ Stryker
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If we want it as a community then it is possible. But it requires to determine how it should function.
A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned
It should function as intended -
I imagine it is just like placing down a temporary T1 Sonar, no?
~ Stryker
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@jip said in Give UEF and Aeon t3 scouts sonar:
If we want it as a community then it is possible.
Where can I throw in my vote?!
Count mine in!
@mach said in Give UEF and Aeon t3 scouts sonar:
for temporary part, it could use fuel passively and destroy itself once it runs out, like mercies
Sounds like a really neat idea.
Though, I imagine they should be destroyable by units, too - unless it's a completely passive thing like T1 Walls?
(Where enemies can't auto-attack but can manually target, perhaps?)
~ Stryker
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