[engine] Ability to counter the [hides] ability: [reveal]

[WhiteWolf]

Hi,

I've been thinking of a way of creating an ability that could negate the enemy's ambusher units, but as I found, none exists currently.
The point would be to have the possibility to create units that can reveal hidden enemy units within their view-range. (within their vision costs.)

Currently on maps with friendly terrain, ambushers can hide for a very long time, and can only be spotted by attacking them. By having balanced spotters, stealthy scenarios in user-made campaigns could evolve to a newer level, and I think this would open up for more possibilities with game mechanics, while keeping to the KISS principle.

The ability type to enable this could be:

Code: Select all

[abilities]
[reveals]
id=reveals
name = reveals or spots, or eagle eyed, or any fancy name 
affect_enemy= default behaviour
affect_allies= don't know if it this would make any sense..."traitor" ability, maybe, revealing allied troops to the enemy?
# extra keys:
radius = the vision range of the unit by default, but it could be set to any value
alert = translatable string printed on the screen, something like "enemy spotted" by default
[/reveals]
[/abilities]

There is no need to start an arms race & coldwar about then having superhides which 'reveal' does not spot, then having ultra-reveal....
Units with [reveal] spot every enemy. The end.

Opinions?

[beetlenaut]

There is no need to start an arms race

But that's what this is already because units with ambush hide from every enemy. The end. It's also frequently proposed idea #29, and the answer to FPIs is already "no". So yeah, if you want to debate this, go ahead, but keep in mind that it won't happen in mainline.

[zookeeper]

For all intents and purposes you can do it already, even if it's a bit complicated. Instead of giving the revealer unit an ability, you need to change the hides abilities of every unit to filter for the proximity of a revealer unit.

[skeptical_troll]

Would it work to change the status of hidden units to 'revealed=yes' under appropriate conditions? Does it have the desired effect?

[zookeeper]

Would it work to change the status of hidden units to 'revealed=yes' under appropriate conditions? Does it have the desired effect?

Using the enter_hex event... maybe. Depends on how the uncovered status works exactly.

[WhiteWolf]

By having balanced spotters, stealthy scenarios in user-made campaigns...

I thought this would finalize that we're talking about add-ons, not mainline It wouldn't make that much sense in mainline, I think spotter's uses would be very hardly limited in multiplayer skirmishes or regular campaigns.

I thought about tweaking the hides ability with a filter, that if a spotter is around, then it goes inactive. But this would be very complicated and bug-prone.
However, setting the enemy's uncovered status to yes seems like a good idea. I'll experiment around with it.

[Heindal]

I made a counter for hide, by just summoning a unit next to it the units with that ability.
One could kill the unit's after that. But this is more an option for rpgs or campaigns, not mainline.