Something for the Pacific Tile Set - 4

[bustr]

Those 3 isolated chunks in the center up against the cliffs, gonna drop a two way GV spawn onto each from external bases on other islands with only one bridge off. Should be interesting when one or two of the bases involved get captured. The big open spaces between 500ft rock outcrops on the center ring of  islands are for GV spawns. Each airfield will have one up the center onto the TT island, then a left and right onto those ring islands. I'll run bridges to connect the ring of islands and at least one going in each direction to get you off or onto the TT island. Big thing will be the clutter I choose to offset that the bridges will be wide open turkey shoots.

If the piers for the bridge objects are wide enough to pass a PT boat, I'll add a spawn to make things freaky.....  

[bustr]

Tested bridges and the width of PT and LVT.

[bustr]

On my multilayered blueprint map the GV spawn layer also has a spawn target of roughly the distance from the town or field I will set the spawn entry point object. The large white ones are 5 miles and those 7 small airfields in each country will have the map room placed in front of the tower on the grass area. GVs will spawn to those feilds and popup 5 miles, maybe more out from the center of the field. I will bias the two points closer to each other to encourage GV's to fight at the spawn.   

[bustr]

Sorry for the hiatus, I'm getting my INR number straightened out with my Dr. along with my blood P and cholesterol. And now my Dr. went out of network so I have to see a new Dr. Monday.

If you like to eat grain fed meat and drink good beer and wine, eat things with sugar in them, whole fat milk products, uric acid will increase your LDL cholesterol and raise your blood P as much as eating bad fats and sugar will. When you eat bread just think sugar because it's no different to your body once it broken down into glucose. High amounts of uric acid from eating lots of grain fed beef will contribute to weight gain. Doing both, meat and all the other stuff just doubles the fun. Exercise will not save you, only delay the outcome. Diet does but, is not as fun as eating the good stuff that kills you slowly. Food will kill you especially after you get into your 40's and it just gets worse as you age. So that thing about drinking 8 8oz glasses of water a day, it clears out uric acid along with other things.

If you research high blood P and high cholesterol and the causes you will see at least for Americans, food is one of the top three killers of Americans over time because we are PR'd to eat processed food that will kill us. So those un-fun diets full of raw veggies, monounsaturated fats, nuts, no sugar, zero fat yogurt and milk, chicken and fish will save your life. My problem because I'm on a vitamin K inhibitor for blood clots, is any green veggie interferes with my inhibitor drug, so once again food could kill me if I don't keep my INR number in a zone. I'm stuck eating pretty much the same things over and over to not impact that number once my Dr. helps me get it adjusted to my new diet.

Also, new research has shown that sitting at your desk for 4 hours or more everyday will elevate your blood P and cholesterol. I've been avoiding my computer for walking and standing while I'm getting things squared away. You ever watch little kids when they stand still they end up doing little rocking motions in place to keep them selves busy? My wife said I was channeling Elvis the other day.......

[bustr]

Back into the fray.

You got to love mountains and how they dictate or restrict base and town placement along with doing the same to GV spawns.

[bustr]

I lay down a town temporarily so I can set the spawn circle radius of 3 miles. This helps me to paint in the agriculture areas that support the town, give the GV's the best possible clutter to spawn into, and I can micro adjust the local terrain for leveling the town and catch problems for the GV's. That single white square to the right will be a small airfield with the map room on the field and two GV spawns into it.

[bustr]

With the new trees GVers have a constant complaint about not seeing between them or being able to get anywhere fast. As with my last terrain I'm still trying to balance protecting the spawn with trees and buildings to cut down on spawns becoming death traps. At the same time without some wide open spaces it's hard to navigate and have long distance sniping. In the pacific tile set there is a farmland tile with a road system that lends itself to painting over the area between roads with a pasture tile. It leaves the road system while adding in random areas of open pasture and farmland so you can see where you are going or take some shots from long range.


Here is an example I stopped to test out. It gives a good balance of cover at the spawn to the town and open spaces in between.

[bustr]

A single mountain is tedious but, doesn't take too long. A mountain range following some rational based on erosion, you end up touching it repeatedly to put it in place, then update it as you fill in other areas. Or come up with some blending technique for the tiles or catch some large elevation booboo.


My day with a mountain range. I can see with the last screen shot I need to run the tree tile down the length of the runoff canyons. You add something like the runoff canyons to finish the mountain ranges down to the water and you have to repaint your assumptions.



 

[bustr]

I can do about 2 islands worth of mountains before I can't stand mountains. So what do you do to kill time while you work up the enthusiasm for mountains again? Well I dropped in tiny islands all over the terrain for awhile to add flavor to the visual experience. That was a downer because I caught something I did with the ends of some mountain ranges that drop into the water I have to go touch up.

Then there is something that has to be worked on tied together. I needed to clean up the center island, test my GV spawns and bridges. See how PTs work out and test an LVT4 off a spawn into the water. If I start counting feilds on the blueprint map from this small airfield as Country1-A1, I can leave all of this work in place and just add a map room onto the airfield for capture purposes.

I also needed to work with GV's traveling on the terrain with respect to opening enough space for the GVer to see where he is going up to 3 miles, while dotting the landscape with just enough cover to hide or evade in. Those rock outcrops between the airfield and the spawns are 500ft high while the airfield is at 600ft. If a player wants to spawn at the airfield and drive to the outcrop, he will first be able to look down the valley all the way to the spawns and the center of tank town. An enemy player can setup off the back of the outcrop which is about 4000yds and try to shell the airfield or pick off an unwary tank. But he will still have the GV spawns to his back to remember.

And then there is the landscape around the bridges with a bit more trees to hide in. They are great high spots to snipe from but, leave you a sitting duck to everything once you are out in the center of the bridge. I've setup the landscape so everyone can hide and snipe each other at the canals. Or they can simply spawn into tank town and surprise bridge campers waiting to pick off tanks.


Country1 on the center island where I'm testing the spawns and bridges including a PT spawn.





 

[bustr]

Now I have to drive, boat and fly over this to see if it works.


Bridge off a spawn.




It's possible to have a shooting match from the bridges.




Or you can snipe both bridges.




Tank town side laid up in a sniping position.




One of the reasons for a spawn in tank town past the bridges.

[bustr]

And I tested a PT, an LVT4 and a look from the air from the airfield down the valley to tank town. In the last screen shot are the white place holder squares for the two other airfields each 13 miles away to generate quick furballs and other mayhem.

[Devil 505]

I hate GV's and PT boats more than anything, but this work you're doing is truly inspired. Keep it up. 

[bustr]

IL2 and War Thunder both have had visually better terrains than we have over the years. Our core game and the magic of numbers made up for that. Building terrains for a two country war is probably easier for our competitors. They probably cut down development time with an application like Artik's that pulls in a topo map of a region and burps out a heightmap ready to import into their 3D editor. It has looked like on some of their maps they then used aerial photos to lay down the landscape painting. On close inspection of the landscape it looks like they use SpeedTree like we do now.

So after 15 years of looking at the same old, same old, now with AH3 and it's updated terrain editor, I'm trying to create terrains that look as good as they play for three country's. Three country's is a bite. I'm also recognizing GV players are just as important to the future of this game as pilots. The important thing to remember for fighters, creating as many triangles as possible out of your airfield placement. And you don't want any arms of those triangles being over 1 sector, 3\4 with today's numbers is better. Then with GV's, you have to get down on the ground and slave over the area you expect tanks to drive on. Then you see how the micro terrain at each GV spawn to the target drives and gives cover. And you evaluate how the surrounding macro terrain looks from that perspective. How something looks creates unconscious impressions which you only get one chance to get it right.   

[bustr]

When you do a 10x10 terrain, the players eventually will fly off the edge of the CBM map. Consider finishing that part of the terrain even if very few will ever see it.

[Easyscor]

Ya know, we could use another terrain builder in the AvA when you're ready.