Split SpyEffect.RevealRadar to two separate flags

[DCoder DCoder]

I can see both scenarios being useful to some modders:

A) "You spied this building - if it is destroyed or captured by someone else, you lose the ability to see the old owner's radar and in the latter case get to see the new owner's instead";
B) "You spied this house - even if the building is lost, you still know how to intercept their communications and so continue to see their radar".

Westwood's old flawed implementation and our current one follows scenario A, btw.

[WoRmINaToR (worminator)]

I think there are a few things you aren't considering in this either-or scenario: If the spy gets in there and establishes a link between the two radar towers, then the spy can transfer the topographical data that is bound to be inside the radar (maps of the terrain) to the allied radar station, thus revealing parts of the map that were previously uncharted.

Remember that radar in RA2 does not work the same way that radar works in real life. Radar doesn't necessarily detect incomming units (though you could argue that being able to see units in revealed terrain is "detecting" units), it stores data on revealed terrain. The only real-time data transfer going on is seeing the units that occupy the revealed terrain. Beyond the terrain you have mapped with your own units, it can't see anything in, say, the shroud/fog of war, and it doesn't reveal any terrain itself (not directly anyways). Perhaps for scenario A you could do this: As long as the building is intact, reveal the radar and see all the units going through it, but if the radar is destroyed/sold, then keep the terrain revealed, however cover it with fog of war. In that way, you transferred the maps, which stay in your info database, but you lose the ability of real-time scanning in that area.

If the player doesn't want fog of war, then select option B.

Also, I think we should hold off on expanding this logic until we can get the basic RevealRadar effect to work in the first place. If you don't recall, that's the one piece of the new spy logic that doesn't work.

[DCoder DCoder (dcoder1337)]

Yeah, it doesn't work at the moment because the AI doesn't scout map in the same way as humans do, so there's no map data to steal. Whether it works against human players is unclear (Nighthawk tested this and it didn't seem to work, but confirmation would be nice).

[WoRmINaToR (worminator)]

well that makes sense... I figured the radar map steal didn't work on AI because of something like that.

Anyways i don't have any human players to test this with, so... yeah.

unless someone wants to test this with me via hamachi or something, that would be fine.

[reaperrr (reaperrr)]

While I don't mind if this gets implemented one day, the fact that nobody has voted for (or against) it indicates that most people (including myself) don't really care that much - or even not at all - about this feature, so I think it would make sense to postpone this in favor of more popular issues.

[Renegade (renegade)]

I'm setting this to invalid as I've converted it into a blueprint, which is the proper procedure for feature requests now. The blueprint is linked in the sidebar.

[AlexB (alexander-b)]

Implemented in alex04 branch as:
[BuildingType]SpyEffect.KeepRadar= (boolean, defaults to no)
If yes, a player infiltrating this building will still have access to the owning player's radar even if the building is destroyed, sold or captured. Otherwise the spy effect is removed. Requires SpyEffect.Custom=yes and SpyEffect.RevealRadar=yes.