"Visual range bonus" only applies to friendlies?

[temnix]

No matter what I do, I can't get that effect to improve the sight of enemies.

[subtledoctor]

The fog of war is there for the sake of showing the player what can be seen; it is of no use for the AI. 

If the concern is “when is the player visible to enemies,” I think the answer is “when enemies are visible to the player.” At least for some mechanisms. So e.g. if you reduce a PC thief’s vision or blind them, then they can Hide in Shadows right in front of an enemy. Alternatively, if you extend a PC thief’s vision, they will be unable to hide, and can trigger enemies to attack from well beyond what we normally think if as the enemy’s range of vision. 

If the concern is how to determine the distance at which enemies react to this or that, my guess is it will largely come down to how they are scripted (see SCS’ “Better Calls For Help”), but if the scripts involve the See() trigger it will likely depend on the visual range of the PC being seen - not any characteristic of the enemy itself. 

[temnix]

That may all be true, but it's only theoretical. I know that the See() trigger takes the actual visual range into account, the stat. It can be changed for GOODCUTOFF creatures outside the party, helper minions, for example, restricting-expanding the scope of their scripted reactions. But for EVILCUTOFF and maybe for neutrals it seems fixed. I think Bioware likely cut corners here for the sake of performance. Obviously enemies' visibility to friendlies is very different from friendlies' visibility to enemies - ask the guy with a sniper's bullet in his head. Disappointing.

[subtledoctor]

5 hours ago, temnix said:

Obviously enemies' visibility to friendlies is very different from friendlies' visibility to enemies - ask the guy with a sniper's bullet in his head.

Nope - enemies can see you when you can see them. As a fun (?) experiment, make a “Close Your Eyes” mod that applies blindness whenever you use an innate spell. You will be able to ‘close your eyes’ and then sneak right up next enemies. Or, as I said, you can ‘close your eyes’ while in melee and then hide, and your enemy will lose track of you - because you can’t see them.

[mickabouille]

So...

> A towel, [...]is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. [...] wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you)

 

 

[temnix]

27 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Nope - enemies can see you when you can see them. As a fun (?) experiment, make a “Close Your Eyes” mod that applies blindness whenever you use an innate spell.

I did and got my ass punctured by an arrow of ice from an invisible Black Talon elite.

[Ardanis]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Or, as I said, you can ‘close your eyes’ while in melee and then hide, and your enemy will lose track of you - because you can’t see them.

 

1 hour ago, temnix said:

I did and got my ass punctured by an arrow of ice from an invisible Black Talon elite.

The difference between your results may be due to "Enable Offscreen AI" stat set for the Talon. I had to manually set it for all the SoD actors involved in Crusade/Allied activities, because otherwise they would barely act outside of party's vision range.

[kjeron]

Marked Objects (NearestEnemyOf) and Object Specifiers ([ANYONE]) are limited to the lesser of the creature's current visual range and the default visual range.

Static Objects (Player1, "imoen") are only limited to the creature's current visual range.

The creature's EA is irrelevant here.

[temnix]

Yes, it is. My minions are GOODCUTOFF and scripted to react to each other's presence in the form of See([0.KEY]). KEY is their General. The visual range effect works and is very important there, I tweak it to tell them what distance from each other to tolerate before they carry out their actions. They don't have script names and script names wouldn't work, because the minions are from the same file, so See() is the only way there. And everything works. But Black Talons, xvarts (who I also tested with) and the rest are scripted to attack LastSeenBy from See([GOODCUTOFF]), and Visual range bonus does not make them attack from farther away. That is the difference. They weren't off screen either, just a little outside of the hoola hoop of light my character walked around in. The difference with subtledoctor's testing may be that I did not apply Blindness, I simply reduced the visual range, so maybe it's the STATE_BLIND that somehow counts - but not for what I'm talking about in this thread. I don't care about scripts and targeting, those are just for checking. I wanted to know about the effect and why it only works on friendlies. But I guess there is no why, it's just limited to them. Like encumbrance, maybe.

Edited July 6, 2021 by temnix