AH2 Strat Screen Capture Request.

[bustr]

Does anyone have altitude screen shots from AH2 of the mega strat complexes before they were broken up into the current distributed format? I don't remember them, so I'm having trouble visualizing that concept. Just like I use location photos from the East Africa Great Rift Valley for concepts in my current terrain. I would like to look at aerial photos of the AH2 mega complex to help in conceptualizing something for my new terrain. I want to get more activity around the HQ and strats this time around.

Hitech doing work with the new rail\road\river function, my concepts may be blown out the window if Hitech introduces a supply system and a new list of setup requirements to implement the supply AI. Still you expect to dance with the boss when you get down to the finish of a terrain, It's his game after all.

[APDrone]

 I can still run AH2.. were they the complexes in place when it finished?

I should be able to get stuff in offline mode

[Rodent57]

I should have them BUSTR...I'll email you what I have.

[APDrone]

?

[Rodent57]

Bustr,
Have sent what I was able to dig up
-Rodent57

[bustr]

Sent a PM rodent.

Right now with our current numbers, time over target to what kind of effective damage can be accomplished before the 163's rain on the parade is understandably a turn off to bomber pilots. I can do nothing about the damage points to effort balance or over all effect to a country. I can produce a target worth trying to make the incursion. Depending on if the rail\road\river tool is available when I get to this point, I see a good use of roads and spawns if Hitech then allows static roads. The 49ers efforts were not wasted on me nor where the strat runners. I was simply not focused on such granular aspects of the game while I was learning about the game and it's current generation of players. Over two terrains so far, the sky didn't fall anymore when the strats and HQ were eventually attacked like in AH2.

My first two terrains the focus was on testing configurations for promoting activity and concentrations of players due to low numbers. Hitech threw in the BB task groups which livened things up. Activity begets activity and so forth. with Oceania I ran into a need for gen1 of micro terrain design for local tank combat due to bridges, while buzzsaw is still a great real time test lab for GV combat ideas that I added one feature from A2 to test. So the new terrain will be gen2 micro terrain learned from my experiments on Oceania. I've decided to micro terrain as many spawns as possible as long as I can rationalize it into the localized terrain.

Why did I put so many streams on this terrain with terrace able elevations near almost every field, guess I learned something form the previous terrains.....


The path tool is where the magic will happen when Hitech enables rail\road\river paths.

[Dundee]

And at least make it accessible for GV......enough of these maps where the Ground Vehicles are out of the picture

[bustr]

What I'm going to do will not be based on one disgruntled player. Instead of any more complaints at any level, build your own terrain and sell it to Hitech and then build a few more for our community. I don't build for the myopic visions of individuals since a terrain effects everyone playing on it. So far for the last two terrains all I've had presented to me are self serving opinions to satisfy single person desires versus a terrain for a whole community. Otherwise I could forgo all the time I spend listening and reading how the community utilizes years of terrain features in today's MA, and just beg Dundee to tell me how to make the perfect terrain. After all, Hitech coined the term of giving us what we need, not what we want. It's eye opening just how salient that is to terrain building with so many individual competing desires about our game. I leave the wish list to Hitech and my respect for his patience.

[bustr]

I analyzed the mega strat object and an obvious fact about it could be seen. It combined all of the strats into a 8x10 mile area with a fixed orientation for all of the objects. Now it makes sense all the bomber players talking about how they lined up their bomb run sectors out. And why so much vitrol when Hitech got rid of that giant object. It was easy to bomb compared to running all over the place after individual strats sectors apart. There is no strategy here, just convenience for the bomber players to not have to hang around as targets for too long.

On a 20x20 terrain combining the strats into a complex was reasonable due to the transit time and amount of resistance that could be expected for being exposed that long on radar. The moveable strat object was a good solution to make the strat available and attractive. On a 10x10 with 300-400 players, spread out strat was not even a problem because there were enough players flying bombers on strat runs to account for the spread. On a 10x10 with 150-175 players, some way of exposing the strats and even the HQ is needed to attract player efforts to hit them.

I've painted 8x10 areas on my current terrain map with the HQ painted near by. One country I split the 8x10 into two 4x5 just to see what that looks like. It's obvious there is no way short of putting the strats on the country boarders or down by the water to solve the problem of accessibility some strat runners have complained about recently. That ends up with an unbalanced arena ala buzzsaw. My experience with two terrains now, reasonable exposure is more in the line of a shorter move into the the the top of the feild concentration area of each country. After all, you don't see any super large airfield place holder squares around the strat and HQ blocks I painted in that will all launch 163. Once again something I have to think about from a game play balance perspective where 163 are concerned.

Normal terrain setup for game play is setting all the strat in a fan following the topography at the top of each country. I did that with Oceania while exposing two low value strats to give bomber players something. Hitech set all three uncapturable feilds as 163 feilds because I didn't use any flak bases around the strats. I don't see a lot of big bomber missions like on CreaterMA with flak bases and a single 163 feild. So that is a message from Hitech, he wants the strats protected one way or another. Guess I should offer to retro fit flak bases so he will reduce the 163 availability to a single field. It's not like I didn't setup the strats on Oceania without bomber missions in mind, I felt one 163 field was enough of a balance without flak bases.

So clustering the strats dictates placing them in the top center of the country to be fair to the country while giving the enemy bomber players a target worth the risk. Fortunately because I was undecided on this when I built my blueprint for this project, I left room for field distances to work with until I decide on something. HQ, strat complex and flack bases supported by three super large airfields. Heffalumps and woozles, Oh my......     

[LTCClark]

HEre are some of the ones that i found

Huge Strat



Refinery


Radar



Ord


Grunt Training



City Map

[bustr]

Money shot to what I needed, and thank you to everyone who responded.

In the second screen shot you can see where I'm looking for this kind of clustering. the 8x10 rectangle and HQ space holder rectangle and square on the right edge of the map is what I'm thinking about for more exposure. I will have to play with the distance requirements for the three uncapturable defense airfields and look at setting up Flak feilds as part of a mega complex. I really only want a single 163 field this time more to protect the HQ. I'm hoping for more updates from Hitech about the rail\road\river path tool, and will it be released with an updated resupply AI before I reach the point of having to lay down fields and spawns. I have some ideas for static roads, rivers, bridges and spawns if he will allow static roads for traversing country side at speed. The super large airfield object created by Waffle points to a future of micro terrain combat areas. I just need the same kind of river and roads. And who knows the fun 8thJinx is cooking up that might get accepted as an MA micro terrain object. FPS related to objects is a concern but, I'm hoping 8thJinx is looking at his objects as an area enhancement type object addon to turn a VW Bug town into an Indy 500 racer kind of upgrade for the GV micro terrain combat.

Did any GVer think I would make this a cake walk.....I'm betting on GVDAR, roads, and bridges to generate choke points and combat...

[LTCClark]

glad i could help

[molybdenum]

Does anyone have altitude screen shots from AH2 of the mega strat complexes before they were broken up into the current distributed format? I don't remember them, so I'm having trouble visualizing that concept. Just like I use location photos from the East Africa Great Rift Valley for concepts in my current terrain. I would like to look at aerial photos of the AH2 mega complex to help in conceptualizing something for my new terrain. I want to get more activity around the HQ and strats this time around.

Hitech doing work with the new rail\road\river function, my concepts may be blown out the window if Hitech introduces a supply system and a new list of setup requirements to implement the supply AI. Still you expect to dance with the boss when you get down to the finish of a terrain, It's his game after all.

I probably do, bustr: I still have AH2 installed on my computer and I made a lot of films over the years. But for some reason I can't get those films to play any more.

Oops, guess I should have read the entire thread before I posted.

[APDrone]

I probably do, bustr: I still have AH2 installed on my computer and I made a lot of films over the years. But for some reason I can't get those films to play any more.

To watch an AH2 film, I believe you need to actually launch AH2, then close it.  Then try the AH2 film viewer.  That's what I had to do last March.

[bustr]

I probably do, bustr: I still have AH2 installed on my computer and I made a lot of films over the years. But for some reason I can't get those films to play any more.

Oops, guess I should have read the entire thread before I posted.

Yes you should have, I now want to expose the strat\HQ to generate activity. That does not mean I am giving it away like AH2 terrains do, you will still have to work at it. I have a better handle on how to bring them into the general game play area. My first terrains were about understanding how players utilize terrain features and how to bring them together. We are a game that relies on that community coming together and generating group activity to attract and generate more activity. Not on individuals sneaking around behind their backs.