Roads & Bridges

[EagleDNY]

Hey guys,
Just a little wish aimed at the terrain makers / tile makers etc.  If we are going to have roads and bridges, can we have them actually GO places that matter - like between the bases and towns, instead of just meandering through the trees randomly?  Further we might even encourage ground vehicles to have the ground speed and cross country speeds modeled so that there is some BENEFIT to following roads or using tracked vehicles cross country.

 

[oboe]

+1 

[bustr]

They are too much trouble to put in the terrain if they don't have a purpose. As for roads, Hitech has not provided that function as of yet in the terrain editor. You get lucky if the farm tiles you paint down have a road system that you can leverage, and they don't lay down how you want where you want.

[8thJinx]

Roads are in the works.  It's not hard to do, but it has limits.  I'll try to post some shots of what I have so far this weekend.  I need to get on the road to Virginia tomorrow, but when I get back, I'll post some of the stuff I came up with.

I'm also making a rail station with trains you can strafe, blow up, and set on fire.

[Easyscor]

Good, we need an update for this with proper tracks and a road bed.

[8thJinx]

Easily done, my friend.

[oboe]

Roads are in the works.  It's not hard to do, but it has limits.  I'll try to post some shots of what I have so far this weekend.  I need to get on the road to Virginia tomorrow, but when I get back, I'll post some of the stuff I came up with.

I'm also making a rail station with trains you can strafe, blow up, and set on fire.

This is such good news!   Thank you 8thJinx!

[8thJinx]

This is such good news!   Thank you 8thJinx!

We're a ways away from that.  It still needs to get approved.

[bustr]

That road segment object in the terrain editor, do they have limitations to how many can be laid together to produce lines of road and do they have Z-fighting issues or, tanks dropping through the ground at those points if they are laid down onto each other to produce turns and junctions? I never thought to test that object.

And does anyone in the Melee Arena drive on roads when they are paranoid about getting their tank ambushed by being in the open? Unless you have a way to force tankers in the Melee arena to drive only on a road, they cut across country to hide from each other and bombs. Thats why at the strats where the buildings act as barriers, some of the road system gets used only if no easy way through trees can be seen. If you don't use force to coerce them to drive on roads, they won't.

I suspect Waffle thought the roads on the agrarian tiles would be used to put in a small functional road system around towns. I succeeded in doing that with those tiles, after observing my terrains during every rotation, no one will go near a road for fear of getting killed in such an exposed position. As eyecandy, everyone will love it, as function everyone will avoid them like the plague. Tanks drive on the roads in the town because of the buildings creating a coerced micro terrain. Outside of the town they dive under the nearest trees to not be seen and killed.

So now is Hitech thinking to use micro terrain objects as a new generation of terrain enhancement to coerce tanks into urban terrain fights like you see in WT and WoT? The village attached to the super large airfield and the new strats since they were first introduced during the alpha\beta always fit the profile of a long term FPS testing project for a large scale change to the terrain object offerings in the MA. That village attached to the super large airfield by itself without the river would make a good town alternative to mix things up for the GVers. Even 1x1 sections out of any one of the strats. Still the MA is not 64x64 with few playing on it at any given time. How do you test in a 256x256 environment with over 100 players for the impact to their PC's when rendering all the objects in each 40 mile view?

[OldNitro]

Even in Panzerblitz, the movement factor was double on roads!

[8thJinx]

That road segment object in the terrain editor, do they have limitations to how many can be laid together to produce lines of road and do they have Z-fighting issues or, tanks dropping through the ground at those points if they are laid down onto each other to produce turns and junctions? I never thought to test that object.

None so far.  You can make intersections and such.  One thing troubles me, and this may be a bug, but the railroad track spline path doesn't show up as RR tracks.  It shows up as a road.  Also, they don't get counted as objects in the object report, but they are features to be rendered.

And does anyone in the Melee Arena drive on roads when they are paranoid about getting their tank ambushed by being in the open? Unless you have a way to force tankers in the Melee arena to drive only on a road, they cut across country to hide from each other and bombs.

When I think of the roads we're planning between town and spawn, I'm only thinking of roads that cut through the dense forest, with trees on either side that you can dive into for cover, or tree-lined roads through open country.  I envision this:



And this:

I suspect Waffle thought the roads on the agrarian tiles would be used to put in a small functional road system around towns. I succeeded in doing that with those tiles, after observing my terrains during every rotation, no one will go near a road for fear of getting killed in such an exposed position. As eyecandy, everyone will love it, as function everyone will avoid them like the plague. Tanks drive on the roads in the town because of the buildings creating a coerced micro terrain. Outside of the town they dive under the nearest trees to not be seen and killed.

As an avid GV'er, imho the roads in the tiles don't lead anywhere, so they don't factor into my sortie at all.  They create visual interest, but they serve no purpose in getting me from the spawn to the town or field.  If there were real roads that cut a path to town, like my first image, from which I could dive into cover to avoid a bombt***, that would factor a great deal into my sortie.  Eye candy is great, but terrain features rule the GV game.  That's why I think the potential is so huge with the new terrsets and land objects.  Huge potential.  An explosion of possibilities, at very little cost to rendering if done properly.

So now is Hitech thinking to use micro terrain objects as a new generation of terrain enhancement to coerce tanks into urban terrain fights like you see in WT and WoT?

I don't know about that.  I can't speak for what they had planned.  I can only speak to what I did, which was ask them if I could make some these micro terrains for them to evaluate for juicing up the GV game.

The village attached to the super large airfield and the new strats since they were first introduced during the alpha\beta always fit the profile of a long term FPS testing project for a large scale change to the terrain object offerings in the MA. That village attached to the super large airfield by itself without the river would make a good town alternative to mix things up for the GVers. Even 1x1 sections out of any one of the strats. Still the MA is not 64x64 with few playing on it at any given time. How do you test in a 256x256 environment with over 100 players for the impact to their PC's when rendering all the objects in each 40 mile view?

You can take any one of the city, strat, or town objects, play around with the terrain mesh to remove rivers (or, add rivers), remove the guns, remove the country ownership, and turn it into a tanking area micro terrain suitable for placement in a terrain.  But the primary constraint is 50,000 objects per map.  Adding a 2x2 object with 1200 buildings is doable, but it adds to the object count, whereas adding a 2x2 land object with nothing but a finer mesh for some berms and strong points, coupled with a smart Alpha map, represents an object count of 1. 

As for vertices, which also matter, the 1x1 town mesh has 9,000 vertices in one square mile, the 2x2 GV base has 11,000 vertices in 4 square miles, the current 2x2 tanktown object on Ndisles has 12,700 vertices, the 4x4 tankland objects that nobody has put in a terrain yet have 17,000 vertices in 16 square miles, and the mega base has 21,400 vertices in 16 square miles.  I think those numbers need to be viewed as upper limits.  Particularly the mega base, which is the Bermuda Triangle when it comes to frame rate. 

I'd propose the following starting point when it comes to limits on vertices:
1x1:  8,000
2x2: 12,000
4x4: 17,000

You can do some really interesting things with that kind of budget.


 

[bustr]

This game is not panzerblitz and I have to watch my terrains to see how they are utilized along with 15 years experience playing the game. Aces High tankers won't drive on roads unless they are forced to by either the terrain clutter being laid down so thick only a road will get them through an area or by an object filled with buildings that only the streets will allow transit across the object. We call those strats and towns. You have to force players in this game to use roads because our arenas are not tiny arenas that will fit inside of the corner of one of our sectors where the only place to drive is across a tiny combat zone with roads and obstructions. With a tiny arena tanks are coerced to use roads because the scale gives you no other option. How many players are flying around with bombs in the other tank games at over 100 feilds like they do in our game obliterating any tank in the open 24x7? Scale is the next giant hurdle and difference between AH and the competitors.

Where I placed bridges on my last terrain, "I forced" GVers to cross those bridges or never be able to get to the airfield to attack it and run troops into the map room siting next to the tower. I purposely coerced them to drive on a tiny road segment called a "bridge" totally exposed to ambushes and bombs. Hitech has set most of the bushes and some of the tiny trees so a tank can drive full speed cross country through them which gives them the same speed as a road along with invisibility cloaking from planes with bombs. If Hitech finishes the road tool and then changes all those bushes and small trees back to tank stoppers, yes players will drive on roads with some probably quitting due to being easy predictable targets to kill. Even if in the competitors games they are the same easy to kill targets by other tanks, they won't be getting a 1000lb love package for spawning out a tank half the time. Wanting roads has consequences which for the MA has to be designed to create balanced game play.

That is why I asked if there is an initiative to introduce 2x2 micro terrain objects to place down next to towns and airfields to enhance the GV game. Otherwise I have to keep coming up with new twists on that theme with every different terrain I create for the Melee arena. The current roads on the farmland tiles are nice window dressing that everyone avoids for self preservation. While roads in the town and and strats make great cross hairs for lining up guns and bomb runs on tanks. There is a reason the AvA hosts a tank only night on custom object tiny terrains.

8thJinx,

The RR system is not enabled, about the only path that works right is the river which I've been testing for riftval with all the streams I set in place during the heightmap import. I should have tested it with Oceania but I wasn't creating a large water system like with riftval. I tested the road object and it Z-fights with other segments if they lay over each other and no way to make other than 90 degree turns. And the path tool road is raised and not like the narrower roads painted into the the object base tile. Even if I could pull a road system the right width and level with the ground, I would have to force players to use it or only use it for the cosmetic look of running a road to each end of a bridge. 1000lb bombs P.O. most hardcore tank players in our game. So a family of 2x2 micro terrain objects to place next to the town or airfield that can be clutter painted would be a start unless they will have the same restriction of objects needing a minimum one mile separation. Better would be the ability to pull up a 2x2 in a fine polygon mesh and create it on the fly and drop it in next to the town. Pull a road system on it and paint it from the terrset. That way it would blend better rather than create an illusion around a static object from the menu. I can see an interesting month ahead of me pulling rivers, I still need to pull one, run a build and drive up to it on the ground and see how well the shore line gets finished by the app process. Some of the bridge objects looks like they were designed for the narrowest width the river app starts out at when you lay down a river. I got in a hurry with Oceania and I could have done better with my streams.   

[Oldman731]

Even in Panzerblitz, the movement factor was double on roads!

Spotted:  Another geezer.

At least you don't have to drive your halftracks up next to them in order to fire at them from other places.

- oldman

[8thJinx]

So a family of 2x2 micro terrain objects to place next to the town or airfield that can be clutter painted would be a start unless they will have the same restriction of objects needing a minimum one mile separation.

I tested this this past weekend.  You can stack 2x2 or 1x1 or 4x4 objects next to each other, as long as they are the same size and their perimeter verts are at the same locations.

Better would be the ability to pull up a 2x2 in a fine polygon mesh and create it on the fly and drop it in next to the town. Pull a road system on it and paint it from the terrset.

But if you had that, you'd be limited to just playing with the mesh, and limited to the atlas textures.  You couldn't do anything with diffuse maps, normal maps, and alpha maps like you can with the current method.

[OldNitro]

Spotted:  Another geezer.

At least you don't have to drive your halftracks up next to them in order to fire at them from other places.

- oldman

Yeah, I'm an old school wargamer.. Have some still on the bookshelf..

Rules of Combat/Establishing LOS (line of sight), if the enemy unit is behind a green hexside (trees), you needed to be in the adjacent hex to establish LOS.. But then you could unleash your artillery.. My favorite attack method was the combined, Overrun/Close Assault, with T34's carrying SMG infantry.. Double attack factor for both = devastating!

AH is amazing in the fact that they merged some elements of those classic old games, + model boxtop art, and brought it to life.. Over decades I have seen the evolution first hand.. Even now, there is still some wow factor in it for me.. Some of the most basic elements are missing tho.. Like the ground effect on vehicle movement..

In Panzerblitz/Leader, to move FAST, you got on the roads, where you didn't have the cloying effect of the ground absorbing some of the vehicles power, and slowing you down.. This corresponds to RL, where you can't go as fast cross country, on virgin ground, as you can on the elevated hard packed Tank Roads that parallel the paved roads at major tank bases.. Even tho they have rubber track shoes, tracked vehicles tear up the asphalt, and the paved roads wear out the track shoes prematurely.. So tankers have their own special roads..

bustr is right, that people will take the "easy way", it's just natural.. So if you don't force them onto the roads artificially, by blocking any other route, they just won't bother with roads at all.. I think that method would suck, just because it is SO artificial..

The solution would take a game evolution, to add the effects of the ground to the vehicle movement.. Slowing them from their theoretical top speed while moving cross country.. You could express it in percentages, like 30% loss of speed on virgin ground, vs 100% on the Hardball road.. Vehicle tonnage and G-Press could be accurately modeled as well! Heavier vehicles would naturally be affected more by moving off the roads..

Then weather effects could be modeled as well, LOL, oh boy, I can hear the howls of protest over that!

That would do the trick, just like it does in Panzerblitz, without artificially penning them in with trees or terrain features.. Then the Roads networks and bridges, would matter greatly, like they did while rolling across Europe, in 1940, and 44/5..

Edit: Did they get ambushed on the roads, heck yes.. Barkmann's Corner was the prime example! But they did it anyway, rather than crawl cross country.. So you send out Recon down the road, like Armored cars, while the tanks follow.. If ya make contact, the tanks split out to the flanks.. Immediately execute a fast moving double envelopment pincer attack.. If that fails, back off and pound them with Artillery, then hit em again!