Trains & Truck Convoys

[HellsAce]

Just wondering if Trains & Truck Convoys will ever be seen again in AH???

[bustr]

Wonder why am I going through fitting all of this into my new terrain for the last three weeks? It does not get into rotation without it now. Could have submitted this thing three weeks ago.


There are no marshaling yards so I'm setting the starting points for trains close enough that a strat raider might get lucky. The trains all spawn at the same moment......





I think bridges don't look right without roads to give them purpose.





I realized hiding the active road convoy spawns really meant laying in a country wide road network. And roads between locations just seems natural since that is what we see in the real world. That road threaded through that squiggly mountain pass was a PITA becasue of the limitations of the polygon size the terrain is created with. Hitech yes, this is really irritating.








Just spent about 2 hours re-cutting that mountain range to look like that single large pass is supposed to be there just to get that road over it. The auto populate all paths lays down the convoy roads in a straight line east no matter the terrain under it. So I have to adjust every road at every field along with dummy roads to connect active roads between feilds.

The road at the right hand field has to be moved to the west side of that field, then worked down into that tan gully to the West of it. I will have to make spot modifications of the local terrain. Then the active road through the pass and the re-routed road from the right hand field will be connected with a dummy road that runs south to connect to another series of active\dummy roads. A very time consuming process but, it looks good and all trees get removed under the roads. So if GVers want to drive the distance, they can get to a field at full speed using a connector road if I set one in place. For the most part all the roads follow the river valleys with a few cutting across to the next river valley over. Otherwise what is the point to 90 or so 10 mile long roads to nowhere?

[oboe]

Really appreciate your effort Buster, and am anxious to see this map in the rotation...

[bustr]

Me too.....

[scott66]

I was almost shot down by an AA gun mounted on a train on a map about 6 weeks ago..I was taking hits and rolled over to see a train with it's gun shooting at me...I was surprised.. and almost paid the price

[bustr]

Mindnao still has a static train in the mountains that shoots at you when you get too close.

[popeye]

Will be glad to see AI take over STRAT resupply.

[Greebo]

The AH2-AH3 terrain converter removes roads and railways from the map but not their trucks, trains or barges. So these have to be removed manually either in the TE or by editing the object list text file in Notepad. I guess whoever converted those terrains over forgot to do this.

I've also got a new MA terrain almost done which has trains, trucks and barges on it. So if anyone wants to see these in action go online, set up an arena and select "bearpit" as the terrain. All the ports have barges on the nearby rivers, the strats (except the cities) all have trains and the air and V bases have trucks.

[lunatic1]

Bustr all you had to say was YES

[bustr]

lunatic,

Why not get Skuzzynatied instead of drive bying me like a 4chaner. Or build something and stop being jealous of me. You are are little old for this childish stuff.

[oboe]

The AH2-AH3 terrain converter removes roads and railways from the map but not their trucks, trains or barges. So these have to be removed manually either in the TE or by editing the object list text file in Notepad. I guess whoever converted those terrains over forgot to do this.

I've also got a new MA terrain almost done which has trains, trucks and barges on it. So if anyone wants to see these in action go online, set up an arena and select "bearpit" as the terrain. All the ports have barges on the nearby rivers, the strats (except the cities) all have trains and the air and V bases have trucks.

Thanks Greebo - I got a hold of Bearpit and took off from a VBase in a Storch, located a road and followed it out.  Was a few minutes flight time but I ran into a truck column moving toward the base - 8 Opel Blitz's in various configuration - open back with wooden crates, empty, canvas covered backs, etc.  Very cool.   I shut my motor off in flight but the trucks don't appear to have a sound associated with them .  I also made a film of the encountered, but these objects apparently don't show up in AH film.  I'll have to try ReLive.

They look good, though!

[1stpar3]

 

Will be glad to see AI take over STRAT resupply.

I may be misremembering but wasnt the "Down Time/Conoy/Train" resupply the same Minutes as now?Only difference with now,is we dont have the Convoys and trains? As I remember, the only "REAL" effect of convoys and trains on resupply was IF the were killed before they reached the end of their track? That would delay the resupply but never resupplied any faster than now? It would IMO, be great IF having the Trains and convoys unmolested WOULD resupply at a faster rate. It could provide some more action...for me WAY MORE FUN shooting at lower alt players trying to harass trains and convoys, than to climb to 30k trying to find the bombers and have them bale.

[Greebo]

I guess convoys having no associated sound and not appearing in the film viewer could be bugs, I'll make a post in the bugs forum in case they are.

I vaguely recall that in the early days of AH hitting truck convoys was important if you wanted to take a field but that it eventually got watered down to the point that everyone ignored them. I'd like to see them become important again as it would be more fun to have players attacking and defending the convoys than to have defending players not fighting because they are driving M3s into fields. This would probably mean both nerfing player field resupply as well as increasing the effectiveness of the convoys. The problem is what would happen on those maps without convoys.

[bustr]

Dosn't killing the convoy stop all resupply\rebuild of the field for that 10 minute cycle? What exactly does the convoy resupply for rebuilding? If the town resupply were taken over by the convoy, field combat would come down to half the attackers timing the 10 minute window and hiding in the trees like cybro. Still if the convoy was the only thing that could rebuild the town ack, that might be something. I'm guessing at this point becasue I've never known what the convoy\barges\train actually accomplished when they got to the destination.

Is there a chance Hitech has been playing a long game with supply and the paths becoming active again will change the reliance on M3? Trying to stop an AI convoy would make for at least one player controlled target to hunt for instead of chasing red M3 cockroaches through the bushes while you are swamped by pickers and HOers. And it would be a worthwhile localized target of opportunity versus some strat level target that can choke out a whole country for 30 minutes.

Guess I've got to finish the road network in my Country-3 to find out. I'm getting really worried that I'm so tired of laying down roads that I'm getting sloppy in my details. I keep catching with Country-3 where I'm in such a hurry to get a segment laid in that I forgot to set it view only or increment the name designation so I don't have several segments named the same. The data text file holding the path data is not really user friendly to fix things like this any faster than going through the path GUI and opening each path's property page. The only path error being detected is a train track that was auto generated on top of another track which will be fixed as soon as I work on that strat complex.

I will be interesting to run the mask and hopefully the final build when Country-3 is finished and start watching all of these paths for a day.