Siege tanks shoot farther than they can see even in SC2.

@Kapten-N: The siege tank has one unit greater firing range than it's sight range. So the use of scan or a forward scout gives it that extra range.

I haven't played Starcraft 2 yet. Are you saying that tanks can't shoot further than their own line of sight anymore?
What shit is that? That removes the strategic element that is forward observers!

@alex: Toadette in zerg costume

I just assume that a wizard did it and move on.
After all, there are very few satisfactory explanations outside of "It makes the game harder."

This is so unrealistic. Sure. But tanks have longer range than vision in Starcraft II as well.

Fun fact it's still is in 2.

Yeay, zerg comic. This one has pink hair?

@Lucas also, there are things like that - they're called Line of Sight blockers. Though commonly tall grass (for some odd reason), it's also quite frequently gas.

Considering the Zerg have free scouts and neither a nexus nor colossi pose a risk to them, you could try just.. having something floating in the sky... to spot things for you...

I watch so many plat level players blindly rush at things. It's amusing when it's not just sad.

Well,Rod,it's like this. Just cause you know a tree's there doesn't mean you know what's on the other side of it. Which is why the basic layout of the terrain stays,but you don't know what's there cause it's out of visual range. In the end,there's a ton of factors why you can't see over great range.

Hey your fun fact also applies to starcraft 2's tanks you know

I just assume every race has advanced camouflage that makes them literally invisible beyond Fog Of War.
Of course, it's never explained that way, but I know that's how it works in Achron.

RUSH! RUSH! KeKeKeKeKeKeKeKeKe!

it's simple Jo, those are diffferent planets, and the fog of war is, well, like FOG of various gasses on different plantets.

Pikachu127 the reason there's so few photonotes is because there are no breasts for everyone to highlight and claim as theirs.

More bothersome then the fog is that even siege cannons would get outranged by medieval archers.

Ya know.... there actually may be real "fog"...
Examples: volcanic smog... smoke from burning stuff... debris particles... vespene gas?

@ed: Short version: When I played it there were no bots to play against.

Actually, in CivV, the artillery can shoot farther than it can see, too.

why dont you play league of legends ? .-.

Most RTSs aren't quite to scale. How did you train so many marines that fast? Does it really only take a matter of seconds for a zergling to be born?
The fog of war is representative of the fact that you don't always know what's over that next hill, if it were realistically portrayed, I'd be huge.

1. In Starcraft 2 Siegetanks have more range than sight too.

2. Starcraft's graphics have never been accurate depictions of how a war in this universe would look like. - In reality a modern day artillery canon has a range of 40 kilometers. Compare that to an ingame siege tank.

R.U.S.E. did it right.

But what about Starcraft 2? Can Siege Tanks still shoot further than they can see? Someone tell me!

Apparently someone forgot the password for the creep-powered satellite: Black Sheep Wall

It's not so strange that a siege tank could shoot beyond sight. Do you think when a fighter pilot drops a bomb into a chimney at Mach 2 he's eyeballing it the whole time?

it's just a balance mecanic this is implemented in nearly every stratrgy game (of coarse you can turn it of with cheatcodes or in the menu (if it exsists))

Same is true in SC2 for siege tank range vs sight

Maybe everyone in Starcraft is near-sighted

Nvm, i see someone already mentioned TA. Those were the good old days...

Try playing a real RTS like Supreme Commander.
SC* is a really bad model of an imaginary reality's warfare. Im not saying they are not good games, just dont expect them to work real-like.

I remember using flying barracks to spot targets for tanks, because I was at the bottom of canyons and have now "real" flying units.

Fun fact abut Starcraft 2 : Siege Tanks can fire farther than they can see :)

That is, smaller units should appear in the seeable zone, wheras larger units would appear as soon as the fog is pushed past them.

This sort of fog of war could still work, if we assume that Starcraft is only showing us what the units can see, even silhouetted in the fog. So what looks clear to us is eyestrain to the units. But this still doesn't account for all units being visible from all ranges

Counter-fun fact: real-life artillery can also shoot further than it can see.

You my boy have never ever been in a real fog.
We got fog down here where you barely can see your own hand when you reach for something.
You even can't see a fuckin spotlight 10 Meters away.

You my boy have never ever been in a real fog.
We got fog down here where you barely can see your own hand when you reach for something.
You even can't see a fuckin spotlight 10 Meters away.

well, it makes no sense if marines are able to run as much as tanks, battlecruisers and other things (and even faster than most with stim.). they scaled the unit speeds as well as their sizes!

Actually, the siege tank thing makes some sense. Since long range artillery usually needs a spotter.

Siege tank's range still bigger than their sight in sc2, Jo.

@James Spangler That's exactly how it is in my opinion. Even the terrain is not as smooth as it appears on the map because it's just a representation of a terrain and only unpassable cliffs and the height difference between said cliffs and lower ground presented. Like how about a 200 unit cap army?

To me, it makes sense if you simply assume that Starcraft's representations of size are completely screwed; not seeing the colossus then makes sense as a result of planetary curvature.

As for the tanks, don't RL artillery normally have a longer range than their own line of sight?

@Merlynn: That's correct for the terrain, but once you leave an area, the fog returns to block any changes, like that goliath or vulture just arriving...
It would be interesting if fog worked like the 2nd panel, *just* reducing visibility near units, and only fully hiding stuff farther.

It is not the fog of war which is the problem, it's the size of the units.The relations of the buildings to the units are all wrong, if it were "realistic" the units would be a lot smaller. And do not get me started of artillery ranges of..what? 500 meters?

@Sum1
it is FPS for the player (zergling looks at us), not for the zergling

The bottom panel was actually third person...

REAL vision is cone shaped, not circle.

Well,fog of war isn't just about distance. It's also about not knowing the terrain,any kind of actual fog/darkness/sight obscuring thing like sand storms,snow storms,and regular storms,and,of course,your basic moonless night.

In RTS games, sight and range are always vastly reduced. Remember Company of Heroes?

Yep, Siege Tanks still have greater range than sight. In a ton of pro-level TvT games, it can come down to which player has air control, because that's the only way they can get sight and deal with the other guy's tank line, since they can't use scan forever.

@ random anon: Does that mean that the Zerg Kerri is really Kerri's shadow, her 'true' self?

fun fact:

In Starcraft 2 siege tanks still have range longer than their sight.

They really allow for silhouettes to be visible when viewed from awkward angles? This is a flaw I wouldn't expect in a multi-million blockbuster product nowadays...

@AckAckAck: It's more of "the campaign map looks like a flat, Japanese-painting-style map until you get close enough, then it renders the actual terrain". And I wasn't talking about the battlefield itself, I can't even run those stages since I play on a laptop (have to autoresolve all battles).

Before the advent of smokeless powder, the "fog of war" was a very real thing on the battlefield. All the muskets and cannon fire created huge, white billowing clouds of smoke that stayed low and was slow to dissipate. In a battle consisting of thousands, one sometimes couldn't see 5 feet.

Solution: Fog of War = TV World in Persona 4. Units don't wear magic glasses!

I like to pretend that units are not to scale (a Nexus building is actually shorter than a stalker unit) and that a map is actually hundreds of miles wide (look at how far a siege tank can shoot) so the curvature of the planer messes it up or binoculars are needed.

@hagnat: Which was why it was so important to have front troops/scouts/cannon fodder. That game had no concept of range and it was amusing.

@Uxion: two words: Big Bertha...
that shiet could hit a unit miles away, but couldnt see a damn thing on its own... i loved when i used to set it to fire at will and see the enemies blow away as i engaged them far away from my homebase

Uhh Jo SC2 siege tanks have a firing range greater then their vision as well

@???: It isn't. Its just wondering why the units aren't able to see a skyscraper sized thing in the distance when in real life you would be able to see to the tip of the horizon.

Its just an acceptable break of reality.

@AckAckAck: If the units are lightly armored or have a special trait it can 'hide' in woods or tall grass. Only when it is moving or attacking is it seen by the enemy forces.

I remember how in Total Annihilation the terrain was a big contributing factor to scouting and attacking. A unit won't be able to see over a hill and can't shoot over it, but when it goes on top both its sight and its weapon range increases which is very useful for your artillery units.

Can someone explain the context to this? In particular, why is Starcraft in first person?

Pikachu127, there aren't many photonotes because the comic just went up. Come back in 12 hours.

By the way, you're retarded.

@Kimura: Shogun 2 implement fog of war? kinda unrealistic when we can actually see enemies in previous series.

And visions, make sure every unit able to see clearly, unless there's real fog around. And certain units can carry image enhancing equipments (binoculars etc) to add extra range. And terrains give real advantage or disadvantage to our vision.

And to make things more interesting our units can turn their lights on or off, so we can move in "fog of war" unnoticed. But we also implement noise, so we have to consider sending silent units (stealth foot soldiers or drone) to avoid detection.

Actually this is a pretty interesting question, let say we implement a concept in top down strategy game where certain buildings can be seen by others from far away. The only way to hide it is to build it in low terrains to reduce visibility. So strategy aspect will be much more interesting.

Wow, not many photo notes. XD

I can't count how many times I've gotten my butt kicked at Shogun 2 because the enemy clan had a crapload of reinforcements just inside the Fog (and my army accidentally left their Ninja of +5% View Distance behind).

Siege units having more range than sight is popular on many strategy games.

@Dusk: Fog of War makes sense when you pick same-sized units. But when you throw Zerglings against Colossus it just get a bit silly.

The main thing, however, is how Fog of War "looks" to a unit. How can they NOT see that huge army/base right ahead.

The unit are not properly scaled into sized so that 5 meter from eagly view could actually be half a kilometer or w/e.

And siege tank in SC2 has longer range then it's sight range.

The SC 2's Seige Tank's range is also larger than it's line of sight.

also 2,5 meters high marine (in armor) can be seen on the same distance a 4,5 kilometers long Battlecruiser.

Y HALO THAR PROTOSS.

Fog of war is supposed to represent that you cannot magically know where everything on the battlefield is without devoting energy to scouting.

The flaw is that height is not taking into account with fog of war calculations...

When you think about it it doesn't make sense

You know why we have lighthouses?

So boats coming in can see through the fog and darkness

SOME UNITS ARE BRIGHTER THAN LIGHTHOUSES >_>

@Wallur: I was not sure about SC2 one. Someone also pointed Yamato Cannons outrange Battlecruiser sight vision too.

Fun fact 2, in StarCraft II Siege tanks still have longer range than sight.

Zergling, now with pigtails .- .

But I've been through some REALLY thick fog that even building with its light on can't be seen until I get closer.

One solution to fog of war: Spawn more overlords