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How close do you have to be to cover for it to count as being "behind cover"? It can't be just the presence of cover at any point between you and your opponent, or else it would be meaningless because you would both have cover at once.

So how close do you have to be to cover for actually count as cover? Or is it that if you're close enough to cover it doesn't count as cover for someone else.

Ridiculous case: 2 machine gunners across the map from each other shooting through a window equidistant from each of them. Who has cover? Let's say the window is 1 pixel closer to the red gunner. Who has cover in that case?

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  • My guess is that the cover mechanics are not binary (that is, not as simple as covered/not covered), but probably use actual ballistics modeling to some degree.
    – Chris Rasys
    Commented Jun 2, 2011 at 19:57
  • @Chris I very much doubt that, based on the deterministic nature of the game. For example: corners do not provide cover. The bullet animations in general only miss because it's supposed to take longer to kill an enemy further away. It doesn't do any collision detection; it simply decides if it hits or not based on the tactical situation.
    – Invader Skoodge
    Commented Jun 2, 2011 at 20:03
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    My guess was based mostly on observing the mechanics of the grenade launcher being shot over cover, which implies that the grenades arc, even though you can't see it, which itself implies some ballistics modeling
    – Chris Rasys
    Commented Jun 2, 2011 at 20:14
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    Grenades technically do have an "arc". If you're shooting a grenade at a close window, and you don't put a lot of force into the grenade shot, it'll bounce off the window. But if you increase the force/distance of the shot, it'll end up going over the window, ie the unit is aiming up for more distance. The further you are from the window, the more force/distance you need to put on the shot to get it over the window, until you hit a point where it's too far away to get over the window.
    – turkeyandcheese
    Commented Jun 3, 2011 at 14:34

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When a unit is behind cover, the amount of time between when an enemy unit spots the covered unit and when the enemy unit starts firing is increased. If, under normal circumstances, the two units would have equal time between spotting and firing, the unit behind cover will have the advantage and will win the engagement.

Whether or not a unit is considered behind cover depends on both units' distance from that cover. If the cover is more than two thirds the distance away from a unit, that unit will take longer to start firing.

Consider the following: a green machine gunner and a red machine gunner have spotted each other at the same time with cover somewhere between them. 

  R----------|--------------------G      Red has cover

  R---------------|---------------G      neither have cover

  R--------------------|----------G      Green has cover

And in the case of two objects of cover or wide cover...

  R--|          ~          |------G      Red has cover

  R----|          ~          |----G      neither have cover

  R------|          ~          |--G      Green has cover

Note that the only distance that matters is that between the unit and the closest edge of cover. I don't believe anything between that closest edge and the unit being fired upon affects the outcome.

I deduced this from testing within the game using the level editor. In cases where neither unit has cover, green (team 1) always wins. I hope this is limited to the level editor.

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  • Would that mean that: R----------|----------|----------G both have cover here?
    – sjmulder
    Commented Aug 18, 2011 at 4:49
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    @sjmulder - both or neither. I'm not sure. But it'll essentially mean they have equal cover.
    – tQuarella
    Commented Aug 18, 2011 at 15:06

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