Honestly you're operating on weird assumptions you made up and based on your own confirmation bias. That's what it looks like to me. An empty Decoy Camo Marker (i.e. a Spetsnaz) interacts exactly the same way as the real Trooper until revealed. There is zero difference in how they impact movement no matter what a Camo Marker is hiding. There's no possible angle for a "force field" distinction here.
I think that silhouette attribute all of camo markers is enough proof that they exist somewhere and occupy that somewhere...
What bias? Instead of trying to say the fault lies with me, ask something specific. Think about it this way, a camo marker has a silhouette that you are only allowed to interact with in 2 ways that are dependent upon LoF and carrying a DTW. For the intents and purposes of engagement, regular BS Attacks, Speculative, Hacking, Pheroware, deployable weapons you can't. All that is 100% fine, no problems. The question is, why though. Is the logic that there is nothing there or the logic something else. You cant shoot, engage, hack or set off a mine for a target that is invisible. So if you can't engage it what prevents you from walking through the same space. The logical understanding as to why you cant do any of those things is because you're not aware anything is there. If your guy is running down a hallway and then all the sudden is stopped, they would wonder what's there. So it's more logical that your guy could pass right through where a camo marker is so they would be completely unaware of anything.
All of this is trying to shoehorn logical arguments into abstract game rules and then trying to use those arguments to tear down other abstract game rules. It's all really very simple: a camo marker has a silhouette value. That value determines the physical volume that maker takes up on the game table. You are explicitly not allowed to enter silhouette contact with enemy camo markers. No justification needs to be given other than "these are the rules", but if you really feel like you want one, you are going to have to find one that adheres to ALL of the game rules surrounding it.
If it helps, maybe try to bear in mind that every model and marker on the table is actually a cylinder in game terms, with a diameter equal to the base width and a height based on the Silhouette size. You could literally play Infinity accurately with a series of short dowels of appropriate size with the unit ID and front arc written on with a Sharpie. Markers are flat tokens mainly as a matter of convenience for making and storing them. In game terms they tell you the location of a cylinder of a given size. It would be a lot more accurate for players to use appropriately sized plastic cylinders instead of flat cardstock discs for Camo and Impersonation markers. Models are the same: In a very real sense, the base is the important part and the figurine glued to the top is a pretty decoration. All of these things are abstractions to make the game work uniformly. You can’t enter silhouette contact with an enemy camo marker’s cylindrical silhouette for the same reason you can’t shoot your own troops: the game designers decided the game plays better that way and put it in the rules. Full stop, period, the end.
I get what you guys are saying abstraction, game designers, none of that is beyond anyone's understanding, even to the very brand new players. I'm going to use this last couple of examples to illustrate my point as to how something is not there. By everyone's words, you all consider the silhouette to essentially be impassable terrain, well, you can still shoot down a hallway of which movement through is blocked by a canopy marker, so how solid is it really... P.S. This isnt part of the original post of occupying space but at least for a a silhouette of the same size, one could vault over it.
Smoke blocks LoF but not movement. Markers block movement but not LoF. One of those is more intuitively sensible, but both are internally consistent game mechanics. It seems like you really want the rules to be more of a simulation than they are. IIRC N2 was much more of a simulationist ruleset, but suffered on the playability end. My assumption about what markers represent is that they’re a sensor blip and your troopers only have an idea of the approximate size and location. If you shoot past the sensor blip and it’s a mine, you shot through empty air over it. If you shoot past the blip and it’s a trooper under there, they’ve presumably crouched or whatever to avoid your gun’s sightline. What gear they use to produce this result will vary by faction. Hidden deployment is the same but dialed up to 11, so there’s not even a sensor blip. The trooper can just choose to step out of the way invisibly if you move through the spot they’re standing…or they can reveal and gun you down like the Kiuutan decloaking in that one illustration. As to why you can’t move through normal camo markers…if you had a sensor blip you knew represented a threat and your commander told you to ignore it and run through that spot you might be a bit hesitant. Your sensors are screaming that it’s probably a mine, and if it isn’t then it’s some guy with mimetic camo tech and probably a gun. There’s not a great way to just charge in under the circumstances.
I've often perceived camo markers and the game as a whole as an overhead drone scan that's roughly the height from the the ground as the eye is to the table in scale and so I definitely like your analogy. The word intuitive is more favorable but I can accept stimulative in a way for how much I wish the whole game played. I think the only reason the game isnt completely intuitive is because at the time of creation, some rules they couldnt figure out and now it's just really too late to change cause it would change such a big chunk of the game they dont want to risk it. As for the crouching idea, I appreciate the effort but then it begs the question, why isnt crouch also a thing instead of just prone. Most shooter games have all 3 positions and yeah this isnt a video game but I always felt like D&D was more fun because it wasnt limited to video games programming. Alot of what makes Infinity feel great is the multitude of things to do. Back in N2 the game was so crazy that everyone involved, the players and bystanders would be rofling with some in game event. I mean, infinity has had some crazy moments that are as hilarious as Red Dead Redemption glitch videos, a part of that is as you say the stimulative aspect of it. I mean leaping off a 3 story building making the shot and then falling to ones death is an oldie but Goldie!!
For me, I find the camouflage markers to be an excellent mechanical conceit to prevent the complication of needing to accommodate truly double-blind gameplay with a GM. Even though you as the player, an objective God-like entity, can see the markers there on the table the game essentially forces you to pretend that you can't for the sake of the troopers themselves, who don't know any better. That's the reason why you can't, for example, deploy a mine with a trigger area that would target a camouflaged figure (unless there's someone else you could reasonably be expected to be placing the mine on account of). I consider them even more abstractly than a sensor blip even. For me they're more of a "fog of war", representing intuition, movement in your peripheral vision, battlefield confusion, etc. I think situations where camo markers are intentionally denying movement through a corridor in a non-trivial way are so rare as to be almost inconceivable (maybe someone can prove me wrong), but the ability to pass through markers would likely bring up another oddity of "how is it possible for a person's camouflage to be so good that I can literally walk right by them on a narrow ledge and not see them?" and then people would be arguing that we should be able to reveal markers via making silhouette contact with them, and it would just snowball from there. A path towards simulating every literal things has no endgame, as the more you try to simulate, paradoxically, the more a game is prone to weird/unbelievable interactions.The ability to create complexity and emergent gameplay through abstraction is actually incredibly challenging, and I really appreciate how the rules design of Infinity has mostly successfully walked that knife-edge between the feeling of simulation and the fuzzy logic of abstraction. I actually think it's pretty genius mechanically that you can't walk through a marker - you as the player have the meta-knowledge that it is there, so it's impossible to actually know that you would have wanted to go through the path that the marker is blocking because it is there or in spite of it being there. It's a paradox and I love it.
Good assessment and now time for all the pop culture references that have come to mind.. Showing up to the gaming store with some new shades For best gaming experience leave Fog of War turned on The OG wargamer!!
Zeus playing with un-painted terrain and armies, likely because he's always chasing the meta... what an asshole .
You're right, hes always looking up what sword, shield, deployment Pegasus and peripheral Bubo is best for each match up!!
