Re: Major bug and what to do about it (long)

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald@phy.cmich.edu>]

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Hans Ronne wrote:

> >> >Why? Surely if you were firing at an individual unit, then the
> >> >chance of another just happening to be in its place coupled with
> >> >the chance of hitting the substitute unit should be smaller than
> >> >the hit chance of directly aiming at the substitute unit.
> >>
> >>not a
> >> fire-at action against the unseen unit (which would be impossible by
> >> definition). So the hit chance should really be the same regardless of
> >> where the unit is located in the cell.
> >
> >Only if the other units are seen and we are treating 'fire-into'
> >as chosing a random target from among the unit views. In the case
> >where the other units are not seen, then this makes no sense.
> >Unseen units should be very difficult to hit (unless they have a
> >very large target cross-section relative to the size of the cell).
> 
>But this small chance would still be the same regardless of where
> the unseen unit is in the cell. 

Well, no kidding. I am not sure how the position of an unseen unit 
in a cell found its way into the this discussion. The only time 
the "position" of an unseen unit in a cell matters is if we roll 
the dice and the unseen unit is determined to be in the position 
where the ghost unit was at, in the event of a 'fire-at' at the 
ghost unit. In the case of a 'fire-into' (here meaning a random 
barrage into a cell), the position of the unseen unit is totally 
irrelevant.

>You seemed to argue above that we would be
> "directly aiming at the subsitute unit", but this is not possible if it is
> invisible.

Maybe the choice of wording made the meaning unclear. What I was 
saying that, if you see unit X and aim directly at it, then the 
chance of hitting it is determined by 'hit-chance' or 
'fire-hit-chance'. If you think you see unit Y, aim directly at 
it, but unit Y turns out to be a ghost and unit X happens to be 
in the same cell, then the chance of unit X being considered to be 
in the position of unit Y is really quite small in most cases, and 
thus unit X should not be hit with the same chance from the 
barrage intended for unit Y. Clearer or muddier?

Eric