On Interpreting Basic Unit Attack, Visual, and Movement Capabilities
Knowing the demands put on a unit to engage an enemy is critical to outmaneuvering and ultimately defeating your opponent. The best way to know these demands is to comprehend the effects of terrain on your units and the subsequent capabilities of your units in terms of conflict initiation. Through review and references, this guide should show the best ways to use the battlefield and your units to your advantage.
The capabilities of a unit are reflected most in three basic ways, each most simply interpreted as “lines”:
- Line of Sight (LOS)
- Line of Attack (LOA)
- Line of Movement (LOM)
don’t feel a need to remember these acronyms verbatim – or at all
Effects of Terrain on Capabilities of Air Units
This guide will start with capabilities of air units. In this case, we’ll be using the scout helicopter (USA OH-6A Cayuse) as our example air unit:
In the center of the screen is the scout helicopter. Circling it is a series of white lines. Normally all of the lines are black, but parts have been colored white for easier viewing.
Meaning
The partial circle around the helicopter shows that the helicopter can see (LOS), and what it can shoot (LOA). If you want to hit a target beyond this circle, you must move accordingly so that the target is within the black lines.
How
Bring up the black circle by holding down ALT. This hotkey cannot be changed.
The black lines brought up by pressing ALT are the best indicator of what your unit can see, attack, and whether your unit consequently needs to move.
What
This image was tinted green to better show the black lines. This also demonstrates how terrain affects the ALT-indicator, which simply shows how the terrain really affects the LOS, LOM, and LOA of your units. Because certain parts of the canyon walls are taller than the helicopter’s altitude, the helicopter cannot see those areas and will not give you a LOS for that area. Infantry in that same position will not be able to see above themselves similarly.
Visual
This image shows the attack-ground capabilities. This display is dedicated only to showing you where your unit can fire.
Meaning
This is fairly vague, since it doesn’t indicate what your unit will hit when it fires, only what it can if there are no factors that prevent it from doing so. Note that it ignores the rock. Like shown in the ALT indication, if you were to fire behind that rock, the projectiles would almost certainly be blocked by said rock.
How
Press F to bring this display up. You can click anywhere within the red circle to have the selected unit or units attack-ground at that target, providing that unit is capable of doing so (most infantry and some vehicles can’t attack-ground).
Using the display brought up by pressing F allows the selected units to fire at user-determined location instead of only enemies. This is useful for clearing forests with artillery or shooting into concealing smoke with tanks or helicopters. Use this after knowing what’s in the way by using the ALT indicator.
And This
This functions almost exactly the same as the LOS indicator. The only difference here is that you double click a unit to bring it up, and that you can’t order units to attack-ground from the display. Double clicking a unit flashes a green circle around the unit that indicates a vague idea of how far the unit can see. It looks like this:
Section II: Redundancy, in Terms of Infantry
Terrain is probably most influential on infantry. Whereas ground vehicles or aircraft can cover distances quickly to improve position or bring the enemy into range, infantry is slower and consequently less adept at changing position quickly.
Visual
This shows a sniper on the center of a hill. The blue shading is the only thing the sniper would be able to see in the distance, providing it had sufficient LOS (it doesn’t).
Meaning
This is a bad position. The reason why this is a bad position is because the sniper is blocked from shooting down from the hill by the flat edges of the elevated position. His effectiveness is obviously decreased because of this. If you were to bring up the ALT indicator, it would show you that unit would be in range of the sniper, in his current position, only if they were on the top of the hill. Why have a sniper engage units at point blank? There’s no reason.
How
The way to solve not being able to shoot down the hill from the indicated location is simple: change position. Let’s see what happens when the sniper moves to the edge of the elevated terrain.
By moving the sniper to the edge of the elevated terrain and hitting the Alt indicator, we can see how the sniper now has a large range. Coupled with a LOS beyond his own, the sniper would be able to engage enemies as far as the black lines indicate. For better viewing, there are white dots alongside the normal black lines.
Move a few feet…
Visual
The sniper changes position.
Meaning
Now the sniper has an even larger range, or line of attack: LOA. Just by a slight position change, the sniper’s range has been increased at least by a quarter. This shows why use of the Alt indicator is important. Without using it, there’s a good change of not realizing the ranged potential or nature inherent within certain positions.
And Finally…
LOA on Map-View:
Because I’m sure so many people were wondering, or even concerned, about whether it can be used from the map view: it can. Select a unit, then press Alt to bring up an indication of what your unit’s range is.
Visual
From top to bottom:
- The position of a sniper in a building is indicated by the white circle.
- The aforementioned sniper is viewed from the air. See if you can tell where he is based on the Alt indicator lines.
- A tinted view, ostensibly for a better view of the black Alt indicator lines.
Final Thoughts
This guide was inspired not only by the muse, but also by ignorant players. You can use the Alt indicator on allied units just like you can on your own. From this, I’ve seen allies, unknowingly, be in terrible positions. Don’t be one of those allies. As for enemies, please do.
