@Fragorl
Roger that.
There was a thread on this subject many moons ago - you're right on all counts. The kA rating jumps stright to 4 as soon as you're seen and only goes down (slowly) if you are out of sight. The enemy effectively "knows" your whereabouts until the rating goes below 1.5, so once you're spotted the enemy will keep tracking you for quite some time, even if you're hidden from view.
A few interesting points about this rating. First off, it is automatically and instantly shared with all members of the same group, no matter how far apart they are. Second, this info is NOT shared with any other group, no matter how close they are !
I tested this with two groups, with one member from each group standing within 2m of each on either side of a corner. I placed myself around the corner in front of just one of them and had a script return the kA rating for both. Surprise, surprise - the one that could see me went straight to 4, the other stayed at 0 until he himself could see me too ! Yet they were just 2m apart !
Another interesting bit of info -
I tested out a quick mission last night to see if objects can have a kA rating. I placed a West soldier and a building (barracks) and made the BUILDING the player (!). Yes, it does work, but if you play as an object in the game you can't move (natch !) and can't look around. I even added extra buildings to the "group" but I still couldn't go into Leader view - rats !
(BTW - you can't add the building to an East or West group - boo hoo !)
I fired up the test then quickly discovered that an objects kA rating never changes - it's always stuck at zero ! I was a bit surprised at this - it makes sense (does the game really need to know if that tree knows if you're there ?), but the surprise was that it didn't make any difference whether it was a player object or not.
The bottom line is that you can't interrogate the kA rating of an object to get any useful info - you'll have to script it. Ergo - Fragorl is right. :thumbsup:
Cheers
roni