Want to know your radar range? FINAL SOLUTION!

[Radiant Caligula]

Simple ideas are sometimes the best ones and provide the best practical solutions.

I figured measuring with rulers and whatnot was inaccurate in the heat of battle because they only give you the range
in a straight line. What we really need is a 360 degree fix that show you exactly where your radar is and even the range of any (visible) enemy radar.

What you need:

1. A transparent CD protection cover that come with most burnable CD stacks (any geek, that would be us, have one )

2. Water proof marker

3. A ruler.

4. Something you can draw a perfect circle with the specs you find. My range measured 4.3cm on a 19" screen. (<<<<<-----corrected)









(***prototype...)

Start a Defcon game. Place one radar at the south tip of India (simplicity).
Zoom all the way out and measure the diameter of the range and apply the circle to the disc. VOILA!!! You now have perfect 360 range when zoomed out.
Just place the disc over the center of the radar and you all of a sudden are the commanding radar officer of NORAD.

[shinygerbil]

I've got BILLIONS of those things. Time to make some awesome artwork

[countersmurf]

very nice. will have to make myself one of these.

[Erasmus J Homeowner]

truly i have seen the hand of god!!!

[Weps]

The alternate, ultimate, solution would be to skip the disc, and draw the circle on your screen.

Once done, just pan and scan until wherever you want to place your radar is in the middle of the circle.

(Yeah, not all geeks have a stack of cd roms!)

[Radiant Caligula]

The alternate, ultimate, solution would be to skip the disc, and draw the circle on your screen.

Once done, just pan and scan until wherever you want to place your radar is in the middle of the circle.

(Yeah, not all geeks have a stack of cd roms!)

the problem with that is accuracy. Zooming out is the only way to have a standard. What happens when you wanna see your range down in South Africa, but your circle is in the middle of the screen?

[shinygerbil]

(Yeah, not all geeks have a stack of cd roms!)

I'll e-mail you one

[Radiant Caligula]

truly i have seen the hand of god!!!

well now. Are you ready to see the face and ass too? Which one would you prefer to see first?

[Masaq]

Alternatively, a sheet of transparent acetate (like used on Overhead Projectors) could be used. If you were to usually play at a certain zoom level and do the on-screen circle drawing thingy with it, you could just sellotape the sheet to the top edge of your monitor. The tape would act like a hinge, so when not playing defcon just flick it over the back of the monitor. That way, don't have to hold the CD up to the screen, and don't have to draw permenant circles on your monitor lol.

[Radiant Caligula]

yeah, I didnt really think Weps would dedicate a monitor to the game of Defcon. (though you never know with those crazy Dutch peeps)


I like the disc. It gives me pleasure just holding something round in my hands, especially round objects with holes in them.

[Masaq]

God only knows what Freud would make of that :p

It's a neat idea, and one I've considered since I started playing "properly". However, just found an even easier way to do it.


With a bit of testing, I've found that you can make the standard radar radius the same size as a standard 12cm CD* by:


1) Zooming out to maximum level and then 2) Using the mousewheel to zoom in by exactly 10 clicks of the wheel.


*On a 19" monitor at 1280 x 1024 pixels

The edge of the white radar radius is now a lovely match with the edge of the CD. What's more, to help you line it up dead centre, the brown no-object-adjacent area of the radar station (y'know, the area into which you can't place a neighbouring airbase or silo etc), almost perfectly matches up with the clear area at the centre of the CD, and the station will sit dead-centre within the hole.

Now I'm not sure how many mousewheel clicks it would take at lower resolutions on smaller screens to match, but it's not like a dedicated table needs to be worked out- just zoom out and then gradually zoom in on whatever setup you've got.

The joy of it is, for me, 10 clicks in appears to be exactly the zoom level I'd usually use for unit management and placement, and if you zoom out entirely and then click your way back in, it's pretty easy to start subconciously counting the clicks. Either way it's a rough guide only and 1 click either way isn't that great a margin of error.

Then use the ol' whiteboard to draw on the radar radii with loose dots. Exellent way to spend Defcon 4 during a diplo match, I should think...

[Radiant Caligula]

Yeah, I saw the perfect match with the CD specs when zoomed in. However, Im not certain 10 clicks is a standard you can transpose to every possible mouse on the market. My beloved Logitech mouse has clear clicks, but I know there are dozens of different solutions out there, some use smooth scrolling and others have smaller clicks.

But if every mouse out there were duplicates, I wouldnt want to stop everything I was doing, count ten clicks and place the CD. With the zooming out solution you can do that instantly, measure and be back in action before you have counted to 7.

But if you are comfy with that, be my guest =)

[Masaq]

Yeah, aware that mouse-clicks are variable and such. Seems to work nicely on my setup (yay for Logitech mice), and to be honest I'm pretty nifty with a mousewheel, can zoom out and back in to 10 now pretty comfortably at speed. Just had a practice run with CPUs; if you draw (with the whiteboard) four or five lines tangent to the rim of the CD, your mind pretty much fills in the blanks and gives you a rough idea of the radar coverage anyways. Nature abhors a vacum so they say, and the brain automatically fills the gaps to fill in the shape it knows should be there. Only takes a second or two.

[Ace Rimmer]

I think the ultimate solution would be for IV to allow shapes (in this case circles) with the white board. It would slow me down to much to have to use a CD of some sort. I currently draw the radar range on screen (via white board) until its destroyed. Having the ability to draw a nice perfect circle would be, well perfect.

[Masaq]

I'm guessing they won't add for this precise reason... still, could be worth asking lol. As this thread has shown people are going to work it out and use the information anyways, not like they'd be adding something we currently can't get access to via own methods (one example being remaining fuel in an enemy aircraft, as someone referred to earlier).