Please decommsion the big maps.

[Brooke]

AH terrain sectors are 25x25, so what is the smallest MA map we have in rotation at the moment? What is the smallest number of sectors allowed as an MA terrain? I've played on some excellent AvA small terrains but, the AvA is a more open environment.

Can anyone give me the sector count for MA terrains?

We can certainly have either 20 sectors by 20 sectors or 10 sectors by 10 sectors.

You could make an effective playing area smaller than 10 by 10 by design of the terrain.  For example, a 5x5 continent surrounded by water is similar to a 5x5 terrain, or just by arrangement of bases.

[bustr]

I looked it up:

1. - 256x256 = 10 sect x 10sect
2. - 512x512 = 20 sect x 20 sect

So I will imbed a jpeg or bitmap 512x512 pixel with a 10x10 grid and blue base color. Then all of you guys can download it and use paint to create a white board kind of discussion about small maps.

[bustr]

OK, just download this image, open it, and paint. It is 10 (25mile x 25mile) sectors which is the small terrain 256x256. Show us what you are talking about in terms of a better terrain for our current numbers in the MA. Some of this audience should be able to talk about base placement theory for funneling of fights as the fronts change. Or to change the fronts.

[bustr]

I guess it's true then. Many of you gents want "anyone else" to do the work while you pass judgment on it and it's creator if it doesn't send a thrill up your leg.

The AH3 terrain editor is very easy to use and Easycor, Greebo and others from the AvA and SEA arenas will advise you with the nuances if you are polite to them. Whether it's the bitmap I posted with a 10x10 sector grid, or you use engineering 1"x1" graph paper and a pencil. You will have to sit down and rough out a proof of concept diagram to guide you in the terrain editor.

Everyone who has something to do with creating terrains in AH2 who is a player is tied up converting terrains to AH3 and testing them. Waffle can make terrains because we needed them for testing back in the alpha. But he is busy baby sitting AH3 to give you thrills up your legs. Right now is a window of opportunity to turn all of your grievances into your utopian version of an MA terrain. It just takes a PC\Laptop, a copy of the terrain editor, and a mouse. 

[Shuffler]

I guess it's true then. Many of you gents want "anyone else" to do the work while you pass judgment on it and it's creator if it doesn't send a thrill up your leg.

The AH3 terrain editor is very easy to use and Easycor, Greebo and others from the AvA and SEA arenas will advise you with the nuances if you are polite to them. Whether it's the bitmap I posted with a 10x10 sector grid, or you use engineering 1"x1" graph paper and a pencil. You will have to sit down and rough out a proof of concept diagram to guide you in the terrain editor.

Everyone who has something to do with creating terrains in AH2 who is a player is tied up converting terrains to AH3 and testing them. Waffle can make terrains because we needed them for testing back in the alpha. But he is busy baby sitting AH3 to give you thrills up your legs. Right now is a window of opportunity to turn all of your grievances into your utopian version of an MA terrain. It just takes a PC\Laptop, a copy of the terrain editor, and a mouse.

You hit the nail on the head. This game allows you to actually have input into the game.

If you want to talk the talk, then walk the walk. Show your ideas. I think many will find it is not as simple as put fields on a map. It has to work when the map ebbs and flows too.

If you feel you have a great setup, and you may, make a terrain and get a few folks to test on it. You may get a map with your name on it.

[Chris79]

I guess it's true then. Many of you gents want "anyone else" to do the work while you pass judgment on it and it's creator if it doesn't send a thrill up your leg.

The AH3 terrain editor is very easy to use and Easycor, Greebo and others from the AvA and SEA arenas will advise you with the nuances if you are polite to them. Whether it's the bitmap I posted with a 10x10 sector grid, or you use engineering 1"x1" graph paper and a pencil. You will have to sit down and rough out a proof of concept diagram to guide you in the terrain editor.

Everyone who has something to do with creating terrains in AH2 who is a player is tied up converting terrains to AH3 and testing them. Waffle can make terrains because we needed them for testing back in the alpha. But he is busy baby sitting AH3 to give you thrills up your legs. Right now is a window of opportunity to turn all of your grievances into your utopian version of an MA terrain. It just takes a PC\Laptop, a copy of the terrain editor, and a mouse.

I make maps for a living, not the ones that most people are used to, but maps none the less. The brief amount of time that I have spent tooling around with the terrain editor had brought me to the conclusion that it is "clunky". Now, I like what I do for a living, but I do not necessarily want to eat away at my free attempting to create a terrain.

[Shuffler]

I make maps for a living, not the ones that most people are used to, but maps none the less. The brief amount of time that I have spent tooling around with the terrain editor had brought me to the conclusion that it is "clunky". Now, I like what I do for a living, but I do not necessarily want to eat away at my free attempting to create a terrain.

That is fine. It also means you have no time to complain. Just have fun and enjoy your free time.

[The Fugitive]

I guess it's true then. Many of you gents want "anyone else" to do the work while you pass judgment on it and it's creator if it doesn't send a thrill up your leg.

The AH3 terrain editor is very easy to use and Easycor, Greebo and others from the AvA and SEA arenas will advise you with the nuances if you are polite to them. Whether it's the bitmap I posted with a 10x10 sector grid, or you use engineering 1"x1" graph paper and a pencil. You will have to sit down and rough out a proof of concept diagram to guide you in the terrain editor.

Everyone who has something to do with creating terrains in AH2 who is a player is tied up converting terrains to AH3 and testing them. Waffle can make terrains because we needed them for testing back in the alpha. But he is busy baby sitting AH3 to give you thrills up your legs. Right now is a window of opportunity to turn all of your grievances into your utopian version of an MA terrain. It just takes a PC\Laptop, a copy of the terrain editor, and a mouse.

Im sure there are many people looking to give it a go....... once AH3 is released. What is the point of putting time and energy into something that cant be used yet?  There are still bugs to work out. Greebo, one of the top map makers is the only one with an MA map up in AH3 and they are STILL finding issues in it.

People here are commenting on things that can be done NOW for AH2 with little work on HTC part. It is just a request to remove the large maps until the numbers climb again..... be that naturally or when they switch to AH3. For the most part, people are not complaining about "HTC's map", they are complaining about the lack of players to fill out and create the momentum needed to get the action going on the large maps.

We live in a "I want it now!" type of society and as we can not have AH3 NOW, maybe we can have the large maps removed NOW and keep/get the fun rolling in AH2

I make maps for a living, not the ones that most people are used to, but maps none the less. The brief amount of time that I have spent tooling around with the terrain editor had brought me to the conclusion that it is "clunky". Now, I like what I do for a living, but I do not necessarily want to eat away at my free attempting to create a terrain.

Have you looked recently? Easy and Greebo have been building a manual for terrain building with the new tools HTC has added for AH3. 

[bustr]

I make maps for a living, not the ones that most people are used to, but maps none the less. The brief amount of time that I have spent tooling around with the terrain editor had brought me to the conclusion that it is "clunky". Now, I like what I do for a living, but I do not necessarily want to eat away at my free attempting to create a terrain.

There are tools in the AH3 terrain editor to create automated elevation features in a single button press. I suppose I should learn them but, I had too much fun making the land ala "mud pie, la sand castle fresco". The biggest thing is the repetition and time involved. After all the time I spent carving water cut geo features, it's now pretty second nature how land and it's features should flow.

You can see it in any landscape photo on the internet so no one has to reinvent the wheel. And the elevation tool works better for me if I just chunk down single elevation blocks of land and rapidly remove everything that shouldn't be there. Like stacking blocks of ice on each other and carving Mt. Reiner out of it with a chainsaw. It's really the picayune of field placement and creating the resupply system that consumes time because you have to visit every field you place on the map to make sure all the spawns and towns work. And a check list of conditions to meet acceptance to the MA from Skuzzy.

There is a tool that will automate the terrain tile painting based on elevation. Personally I found tile painting to be like using the elevation tool in the ability to paint trees, clutter and rock if you get a handle on how trees, clutter and rock with show up from landscape photos. I am told you can import properly formatted geo maps to auto create real world locations. I'll leave that to the AvA and SEA guys who are really fantastic at creating terrains. I think Easycor could quickly bring you up to speed on it. And Artik has created a program to help accomplish it.

Fugitive:

I have a gunnery training terrain for offline I will release to newbies when AH3 goes live. I use it for offline bug testing in the beta. You can create AH3 terrains now and simply run a build against them with every beta patch Hitech releases. Then test that for any bugs like I have done since I created it back at alpha 87, and then run it when the AH3 download is forced on all of us. It's not very complicated......and Easycor and Greebo have written a great how to manual.

Just don't be a south bound rodent's hole like me and I'm sure they will help you get your creation into the game. Both are very good at creating terrains.

[caldera]

When they finally roll out AH3 for the masses, I will transfer my long dormant project map to the new standard.  No point in re-starting it until the requirements are set.  Hopefully, it is much less tedious pointy-clicky stuff.  Setting random elevations with a mouse, on a map that is all canyons takes forever.

[bustr]

Still is.

If you think about it the actual ground combat radius is about a 4sq mile area. So from your vehical spawn down to your base, sculpt and paint that by hand. The rest, learn to use the mass elevation and terrain painting tool first. Then tweak those 4sq mile areas by hand at every field and strat. I hand sculpted and painted every square inch of a 9x16 mile island to understand how to use the terrain editor hand tools. It no longer takes very long to hand tweak and paint a 4x4mile area. I have about 50miles of cliffs and water cuts that drop from 2000ft to sea level with a 10mile water cut canyon and all of its feeder runoff cuts from 2000ft down to 500ft. There is a 4500ft mount next to the field to spawn wirbles so you can be 500yds below the drones to practice gunnery.

I created all of it by hand starting with a 2000ft block of sand, then removed what wasn't supposed to be there very quickly by hand. My goal was to test how real world the new terrain editor would allow you to sculpt land features. Just follow the water. Here is a view from about 25k.

[Vraciu]

Two sides rarely work in a MA setting because most players will gravitate to the side with the most numbers.

Not true.

[LCADolby]

Not true.

There are always exceptions to the rule, but I believe HiTech has toyed with 2 sides 3 sides and 4 sided wars, coming down on that 3 sided was the best.

[DmonSlyr]

3 sides isss better with a lot of players. It keeps the sides even. And when they are not even, there is usually a team getting its but kicked. Which is generally the best side to be on to find all the fights! See how that works?

With a 2 sided map, people just want to be on the winning team and 8/10 times everyone hoards one side for an easy win.

[muzik]

And lusche is having so much fun in the game that he cancelled his subscription.

Willy said it right when he said that today's gamers want instant action. That why wot and those games draw crowds. Due to those games being crap is why they have big turn overs in players.

Match a good game like this one with more instant action  and the numbers will climb and maintain.  Then some of those players may try other things like high altitude attacks and defenses.

Ahh the debate continues, shocking!

Fugis interpretations havent improved any over the years. Notice the comparison of Lusche leaving to instant action gamers flocking to WOT?

Lusche wasn't an instant action gamer.

AH isn't dying because instant action games are taking over and never has been. It thrived before. AH death is due to other failures.

The large maps would work if there was enough to keep me busy without having to think about what to do, I want to just do it I don't want to have to think about it.

And this guy was almost on to something, but then he kept talking...

How many people have you tried to get to play this game and the almost all say its boring, why would I want to "fly" for 15 minutes to fight for two minutes.  and you explain the strategy and the planning and they still say it looks boring. 

It's been said many times before, AH has a large learning curve... and ZERO structure in place to keep new players interested while they learn and old players interested as their tastes change from furballer to strategist, to bomber pilot, to scenario enthusiast.

If you build a "sandbox" don't be surprised when the kids grow out of it.