No privacy for mex points

I just found out that you can see if an enemy has taken a mex point through the fog of war (you can see that rocks have disappeared). You can also see where they are building things (flashes of light). What the hell? Can this be disabled? This is a little game-breaking.

https://replay.faforever.com/20681512

You can also see when mexes or factories are upgraded because their strategic icons go dark, as if they died.

Personally I find it more annoying and incredibly frustrating that you have to rescout these buildings for attack orders to stick to them, particularly bombers.

It is managed by engine sadly

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Rocks disappearing from the mex points is interesting, I'd never noticed that. And yeah the flashes of light are really bad. i swear this wasn't always a thing, has a recent change caused this or am i delusional?

frick snoops!

You can also magically spot through fow whether a scouted mex went t2/t3...

"Nerds have a really complicated relationship with change: Change is awesome when WE'RE the ones doing it. As soon as change is coming from outside of us it becomes untrustworthy and it threatens what we think of is the familiar."
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The light showing is a bug, I'll fix it. Thank you for reporting it in

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

They're both fixed, see also:

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

@snaggs said in No privacy for mex points:

You can also see when mexes or factories are upgraded because their strategic icons go dark, as if they died.

Personally I find it more annoying and incredibly frustrating that you have to rescout these buildings for attack orders to stick to them, particularly bombers.

There are Lua solutions to this, but they have (negative) side effects. As an example: when a structure finishes upgrading we could either:

  • (1) Destroy the blip of the old structure (by flushing the intel surrounding the center of the structure)
  • (2) Destroy the blip of the old structure (by destroying the blip(s))
  • (3) Update the blip to the new structure (by providing small intel for those players that were aware of the original blip)

The side effects of (1) and (2) is that it may appear extractors are free while they are not. You'll also lose other intel, such as whether there was a factory somewhere or not. The side effects of (3) is that you get free intel.

The 'correct' approach (make the old blip still work, or 'attach' the old blip to the new unit) is very difficult as that is managed by the engine and changes in there are all in compiled assembly.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

Technically speaking... the game is telling you accurate information - even if it shows you a grey icon.
The icon greys out because that specific building no longer exists.
It was upgraded and hence replaced by a different structure.
I like to think of it kind of like the new structure is giving out a different radar signature.


~ Stryker

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

@snoog said in No privacy for mex points:

You can also see when mexes or factories are upgraded because their strategic icons go dark, as if they died.

this rewards scouting though and is important to know especially in 1v1 so you can try and keep up eco wise, you can always build a fresh factory to upgrade to surprise your opponent

Personally I find it more annoying and incredibly frustrating that you have to rescout these buildings for attack orders to stick to them, particularly bombers.

It is annoying however attack ground works, and is a useful hotkey to have bound anyway. If you get radar coverage you can attack the 'blip' normally

@black_wriggler said in No privacy for mex points:

It is annoying however attack ground works, and is a useful hotkey to have bound anyway. If you get radar coverage you can attack the 'blip' normally

Can you? I've never had any luck, the old 'dead' intel icon seems to take priority over the radar blip.

IIRC ground attack was patched not too long ago to receive priority so it shouldn't be an issue clicking on icons with it now. The only problem is that it requires greater micro bc you have to cancel ground attacks to move onto the next target as opposed to just queuing attacks regularly.

Couldn't you queue up a move command afterward? I feel like when I've done that they will go to the move order after they drop one bomb.

I wasn't aware of that, I'll have to try.

Units have a setting on how many bombs they drop on a attack ground then move on