Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
215,307
edits
Enemy-Detecting Radar: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) m (Looney Toons moved page Enemy Detecting Radar to Enemy-Detecting Radar: Adding proper punctuation to page name) |
No edit summary |
||
| (5 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{Video Game Examples Need Sorting}}
{{quote|''"I also invented your radar, which somehow knows which direction enemy soldiers are looking and even when they yawn."''|'''Mei Ling''', ''ToastyFrog.com Thumbnail Theater: "[[Metal Gear Solid]], Part 1"''}}
A few real life combat vehicles have radar support (and all seafaring vessels are required to have at least one) that can help the pilot navigate the battlefield and avoid enemies, so it's no surprise that this is often part of video games that feature such systems. Sometimes it's justified as your character's equipment or psychic abilities or [[Hand Wave]]d as [[A Wizard Did It]]; other times it's just there with [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|no explanation]] except to [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality|make the player's life easier]]. It may also partially model non-visual cues that humans tend to get like positional sound location (an aspect of the [[wikipedia:Cocktail party effect|cocktail party effect]]) which are difficult to implement in video game sound systems which often lack the ability to create true positional sound. Alternately, the "radar" is used to detect hidden items instead.
In some games, you will encounter enemies who can interfere with your radar in some way or other. Some jam the radar, filling the screen with static, others just don't show up at all or only show up randomly for a split second. This is usually justified with stealth technology and almost never affects visual detection or lock-ons.
In cases where both enemy and friendly units will be shown, they will be [[Color-Coded Armies|color-coded]] [[
A common variation is for the radar to only display enemy units that are attacking. It's also often tied to [[Fog of War]], showing only enemies that you actually see normally.
Line 13 ⟶ 14:
{{examples}}
* There's a literary example to be found in ''[[Dark Future (novel)|Krokodil Teares]]''. Smug Californian Op Bronson Manolo's mobile command centre has a readout showing him exactly how many living people there are in the town of Dead Rat [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|with enemies in red and friendlies in blue]].
* ''[[The 7th Saga]]'' gives you a crystal ball that allows you to detect enemies, among other things. This functionality seems present mostly for the game to taunt you, as it's nearly impossible to avoid running into them.
Line 105:
* [[TimeShift]]: Your radar can detect enemies (Red), allies (Green) and usable vehicles (Yellow). It also helpfully tells you if they are above, below or on the same level as you.
* As mentioned above, this is [[Truth in Television]]: There is also a widely-used military system called a Radar Warning Receiver, which (in many, but not all cases) identifies the type of radar emissions (i.e. SPY-1, "High Lark", Agave) and can determine the likely threat of them. A general hint—a solid-tone indicates that an enemy radar emitter has locked on to you and may be getting ready to fire.
** Want a real life Motion tracker? The closest you'll get in the civilian market is the T-Cube sensor. 500 metre maximum range, with an SOS function, encryption and real time motion detection, the only catch is that you can only see friendlies on your screen. And that it's $500 for two. [https://web.archive.org/web/20121102071307/http://www.redwolfairsoft.com/redwolf/airsoft/Combat_Gear_Electronic_Positioning_Devices_T_Cube_Motion_Tracker_Unit_Dual_Pack.htm Take a look.]
* ''[[Valkyrie Profile 2]]'' has a radar when battling the enemy to show the relative positions of your team and the enemy's, as well as each enemy's range of attack when zoomed in. The field map also shows the location of enemies, and changes their color depending on whether they're active (red), defeated (grey), or frozen in place by Alicia's photons (purple).
* All of the ''Warriors'' series ([[Dynasty Warriors]], [[Samurai Warriors]], [[Warriors Orochi]], the [[Gundam]] spinoff) has an overworld map that [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|colors]] allied units blue, enemies red, and neutrals yellow.
* ''[[Wild
* The Hunter class in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has a feature that allows you to see all of one type of mob within the range of your minimap.
** This was previously limited to only tracking one type of thing at a time, which was fairly useless if the Hunter was also a miner and didn't want to miss out on collecting shiny rocks. Currently, the number of things that can be simultaneously tracked is limited only by the player's ability to sort through all of the dots.
Line 115:
*** And rogues can track treasure chests.
* In ''[[X-COM]]'', radar arrays (or sonar in the case of ''Terror From the Deep'') are used to locate UFOs near a base.
* Usually averted in ''[[City of Heroes]]'', but oddly, when you're almost done with a mission, the very last enemy or two will suddenly appear on the map.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Older Than the NES]]
[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]
| |||