Search Lights

[Embis]

Have been experimenting with this after feeling rather dissatisfied that the searchlights in all the SB games were not really behaving like searchlights.

In the standard configuration searchlights are set with just one flag, 'T'  which is 'Detection, Light' and a range of 25 hexes
To operate the searchlight you 'fire' it at the target hex and there is a chance, not  certainty, that you will detect any units within that single targeted hex.

In reality if you point a searchlight at something on the ground 200m away it isn't just that immediate area that is illuminated, it is everything in line from the source of light to the target...and everything beyond that to the maximum range of the light.

A closer approximation can be achieved by adding the Attribute 'beam' (flag B) to the load 'Light' this will then produce much more realistic effect of potentially illuminating anything in the line of sight from source to target hex, and again there isn't a 100% chance an target will be illuminated and there isn't a 100% chance your target hex will be hit, the searchlight has some built in inaccuracy that means the final illuminated hex may not be the exact hex you targeted. This seems to work much better.

I am now wondering about binoculars and night sights and whether they might not also benefit from having the beam attribute set? 

It seems to me that if you look through a pair of binoculars or a night sight towards a distant object, you are likely to  spot some of the less distant objects between yourself and the area of interest. An Infra red sight won't ignore a glaring heat source directly in front of you and 40m away just because you are trying to spot something beyond that 200m away.

[Xerxes77]

In reality if you point a searchlight at something on the ground 200m away it isn't just that immediate area that is illuminated, it is everything in line from the source of light to the target...and everything beyond that to the maximum range of the light.

A closer approximation can be achieved by adding the Attribute 'beam' (flag B) to the load 'Light' this will then produce much more realistic effect of potentially illuminating anything in the line of sight from source to target hex, and again there isn't a 100% chance an target will be illuminated and there isn't a 100% chance your target hex will be hit, the searchlight has some built in inaccuracy that means the final illuminated hex may not be the exact hex you targeted. This seems to work much better.

I wonder if the game is simulating those perimetral searchlights (thinking of a prison-like setup) where the beam comes from an elevated position and floods a small area with light, but not what's in between? Otherwise your suggestion seems reasonable... unless military-grade binoculars are really affected by focus and distance to the target. Infrared looks like it could definitely benefit from the beam trait.

I didn't know that there's a chance of hitting the wrong hex, did you find that via testing? I believe the manual only mentions the probability of revealing a unit in the target hex based on the device's reliability.

[Embis]

I didn't know that there's a chance of hitting the wrong hex, did you find that via testing? I believe the manual only mentions the probability of revealing a unit in the target hex based on the device's reliability.

yes, there seems to be a possible variation of one or two hexes from the target hex.