Starting a new terrain...TriTone

[Easyscor]

IMO you already have that part right.

Too often the complaint is that one side captured all the V-bases at TT and ended the fight. Those airfields provide a way to recapture the V-base. The a/f itself can be retaken by a TG, or make those airfields uncapturable as part of the MA balance system (htc might overrule this) and all your GVs will have a perpetual TT.

Greebo's post (I was typing) is another option.

[Swatch]

I think tank town is likely to get griefed by bombers flying from the central airbases. Those airbases are too far apart to make a good fighter town, so why not just get rid of them or replace each of them with a vehicle base? Perhaps you could also squeeze two spawn points into tank town from each V base to make spawn camping less effective.

I thought of that, and it occurred to me that VH bases will be griefed by bombers from the coastal bases and the griefing would be more effective against VBases than Airfields.  Easyscor is looking at it the way I looked at it.  Airbases are there to recapture Vbases and to provide some fighter action to defend the bases from bombers.   I do like the idea of multiple spawns... I'll probably do that.

Making the airfields uncapturable is also an option, but I don't want to eliminate any sort of goal for TT, instead I think TT's goal should be to try and capture those VBases and airbases.  Thus my decision to try and make it difficult to capture the airbases, but not impossible.

[Swatch]

Did some more work... can't do much more (unless somebody else has input about changes, etc) until the new terrain stuff is added and I get a shot at the new editor.



I did want you all to look at the HeightMap and see if it has any problems...

swatch.homeip.net/AHMap/tritone2_heightmap.bmp

[Denholm]

Wow, you went to town on the blurring there. I don't see any problems, although I think a lot of MA pilots prefer some canyons, hills, or even mountains. The elevation map you showed has gradual shifts from the lowest elevation to the highest giving it more of a, "hill" effect.

[Swatch]

yea, I don't have a real good judge of what that will translate into yet, so I decided instead to just go with a more gradual heightmap until I actually see what I have, then go in and add some detail.  I wanted to make sure I got the rough location of bases right first before going in and adding such things as that.  Would anyone have a suggestion as to the best type of brush to use in PaintShopPro for this?  Its been somewhat annoyingly misbehaved so far.

[Swatch]

Also, what do most people use for their max height on these things?  And as a result, what do most people use as the increment for each shade of gray?  (aka, 10,000 ft max height = 40 ft per shade)

[USRanger]

Just remember to keep your airfields to a maximum of 5k, otherwise, loaded Lancs can't take off.

[StokesAk]

Swatch that looks like a really fun map to fly in. Thank you

[Denholm]

Can't help you with the brushes, Swatch. I use Photoshop 7 myself.

[Swatch]

Well, what do you use in PhotoShop 7?  PaintShopPro has many similar features to Photoshop, and perhaps I can find the corresponding brush.

[Denholm]

When I was making my own grayscales (not satellite images) I drew out some of the terrain in, "steps" using the brush tool. First I would use a darker gray gradually working my way to white. Afterward I would use the blur tool to try to, "mix" the colors so they transitioned more easily. However, in the end the steps were somewhat visible in the terrain. If I were to do it again, I might try using the smudge tool instead of blurring the grayscale.

[Swatch]

Hey guys... now that the new terrains and strats have been released, I'm starting to pick this back up again.  I'm greatly looking forward to the new strat system.

[Ratpack1]

Also, here's my preliminary layout...
(Image removed from quote.)

Any comments or suggestions would be welcome.

I like it swatch. Looks just like the one I was working on before the original "eye candy" update came out. Got about half way done before I realized It was better to wait til the new editors were fixed and out. Long story short, I have a 3year old boy and a 4 month old girl, thus I have little time to play let alone finish a map lol.

anyway here is what it looked like. None of the bases are in any kind of final position. Since there is also a strat update now, I would have to re-position lots anyway. But you get the point!

Good luck to you!

[Swatch]

wow... definate similarities!  Great minds...   

I'm looking at shifting mine around a little bit, might draw a bit from what you had if you don't mind.

[Ratpack1]

as long as I get a mention in the credits!  

For the large sections of land I was planning on very high cliffs for the outline. The islands were also going to be quite high on one half. Think Iwo Jima. If I ever get back to doing it it might look cool with the new city up there. The big island in the middle was to be rolling hills covered in forests to make for some fun ground battles.