Destructible Bridges

[Dadtallica]

15 min on bridges, just like the vh and manned guns   
Stay with AH tradition.


+1


 

Could be one minute for all I care I wanna do it so bad lol

[JimmyD3]

Excellent presentation Greebo, the design has merit.

[Dadtallica]

Thank you for that Greebo good to know!

Do all destroyable objects have to be attached to a country or map room? Can there not just be random neutral objects anyone can destroy at anytime?

[Greebo]

For an MA terrain I think it is the case that all destroyable objects must be attached to a base so they change hands when the base does. Bridges and revetments are the only objects that don't have to be attached to a base but because of this they all have to be set to "Barrier", i.e. non-destructible.

BTW I wrote a BBS guide for MA design rules and guidelines five years ago, if anyone's interested you can read it here.

[Dadtallica]

Well not as easy as originally surmised I suppose.

If you could leave town bridges as is and make the out in the world bridges destroyable by anyone that would be cool enough.

So two weeks then?   

[oboe]

Greebo, thanks for the explanations.   Still wondering what a destroyed bridge looks like - I wonder if they were ever created, if bridges needed to be always set to non-destructible...

[Greebo]

Bridges only have to be set to indestructible in an MA terrain, for any other sort of terrain its up to the maker. Having said that I have no idea if the bridge objects do have a destroyed state. I'd have thought so, every other object of that type seems to have one. Only way to find out for sure would be to make a terrain with a bridge and a base, enter it offline, up from the base and destroy the bridge. However I am not curious enough to spend the time getting up to speed with the Terrain Editor again just to find this out.

[Devil 505]

Having a bridge that is linked to a base somehow and that can change hands without the base itself changing hands isn't really possible the way the game is currently written. If the bridge has any sort of map room (and it would really have to be just one map room with 10 troops) it is effectively its own base and would appear on the clipboard map as such. This lets players know who owns it, it flashes when enemies are near and so on.

So I think for a capturable bridge to work without a major recode of AH it would need to be a new type of what HTC call a "square tile object", like a vehicle base or airfield etc. This could have a bridge crossing a quite narrow stretch of water that would widen out to each side of the bridge. The water would need to widen out as there is a limit as to how narrow a coastline river can be made in the game before both shores merge into one. The problem is this makes for quite a wide river, more like the Mississippi than the little supply route rivers AH bridges are designed for. So our bridge base shore lines would be designed to pick up the narrowest possible terrain coast line river and either funnel it down to a narrow enough gap for a reasonable length bridge, or perhaps two bridges with an island in the middle like this:-

(Image removed from quote.)

This bridge base would have no vehicle hangar or any SPs radiating away from it. The idea is the terrain maker would place the bridge base close to two small V bases, one on each side of the river, and the players from each side would drive from these V bases to the bridge and fight. So capturing the bridge base would be pointless unless one of the V bases was taken first and capturing the bridge only gets you access to the other V base. Capturing that V base then gets you access to SPs going to other bases. Hills overlooking the base on each side which would let players fire over the island to the opposite bank (which might give the King Tiger or Jagdpanther more of a role in the game).

The island itself would have just a map room, some revetments, plus some player-controlled AA and AT guns for defence. Having no AI guns lets the bridge base be placed closer to the V bases, this is because its an MA rule that no two bases (or an SP) can be placed within range of enemy AI guns. The bridges could be destroyed by whoever does not own the field in order to prevent an enemy advancing across the river but it would take a lot of ordnance to do and a lot of supplies to restore.

I think the above could be done using existing game objects and without any need to recode the game. It would require the bridge base to be created but I think this could be done by players familiar with doing similar stuff for special event terrains rather than Hitech having to hire an artist or 3D modeller. In general though I have found HTC are very wary of anything "interesting" being done to an MA terrain. I learnt this the hard way when making CraterMA, I had to erase months of work a couple of times due to me being a little too creative with the way I used certain objects in the game. This is because an MA terrain must be absolutely stable 24/7 and never ever crash, far more so than an event terrain. So if any such bridge base were created it would have to be extensively tested before it went live.

I don't think you necessarily need a bridge across such an extremely narrow portion in the river. It could be based on Ludendorff Bridge across the Rhine at Remagen.

[Greebo]

There's a couple of problems I can see with using a long truss or suspension bridge of the sort used to span a wide river in RL:-

First I think it separates the GVs on the opposite sides of the rivers too much and means a long exposed drive for whoever tries to drive across it. Short bridges would work better for gameplay.

Second the short stone arch bridge sections are already in the game and are cleared for MA use, so Hitech wouldn't have to hire someone to make the new bridge object. The only thing that would need to be created from scratch is the base ground and river terrain which I think certain players can do. After that all the relevant existing game objects (bridge sections, roads, map room, guns, revetments, vegetation) would be placed on the tile. Then the bridge base would have to be tested for bugs such as holes GVs can drop through and also for ensuring guns have good fields of fire.

[JimmyD3]

What about the two bridge types used in the MA towns? Surely those are available somewhere, but again do we have the bridge destroyed graphics?

[oboe]

I would also like to be able to drive a PT boat undera bridge.  I got in a PT in the ETOMA and took it down a wide wide river, but my cruise ended when I couldn't pass under the stone arch bridge.

I it possible to make bridges passable underneath?

[JimmyD3]

I would also like to be able to drive a PT boat undera bridge.  I got in a PT in the ETOMA and took it down a wide wide river, but my cruise ended when I couldn't pass under the stone arch bridge.

I it possible to make bridges passable underneath?

Not sure Oboe, all the bridges I have seen (Bustr's Bridges) have the multiple arches.

[Mongoose]

I would also like to be able to drive a PT boat undera bridge.  I got in a PT in the ETOMA and took it down a wide wide river, but my cruise ended when I couldn't pass under the stone arch bridge.

I it possible to make bridges passable underneath?

I want to fly my plane under a bridge.   

I think I remember a thread like this several years ago where Hitech said no to the idea of destroying bridges because it would be too easy to shut down the fight in certain areas.  Don't quote me on this, but I think that's what was said.  The same reason we can't put huge holes in the runway and shut it down like you could with real bombs.

[Dadtallica]

I want to fly my plane under a bridge.   

I think I remember a thread like this several years ago where Hitech said no to the idea of destroying bridges because it would be too easy to shut down the fight in certain areas.  Don't quote me on this, but I think that's what was said.  The same reason we can't put huge holes in the runway and shut it down like you could with real bombs.

A bridge is never the only way in and with limited down times I think it would be ok. So says me anyway.

[Greebo]

With my bridge base setup shutting down the fight wouldn't be straightforward. The side attacking the bridge base could take out the bridge to the opposite bank and prevent defending GVs getting to the island. However this would not shut down the fight as the other side could still sit on the hills and snipe any attacking vehicles trying to cross onto the island. Also the defenders could quickly restore the bridge using field supplies from their nearby V base. So killing the bridge would only really help the attackers if they also took out the defending side's V base VHs as well. The defending side could still resupply from SPs coming into that V base, it would just take longer. If the terrain designer wanted it to be harder to take he could just put a second V base on each side. Also once the attacking side takes the base they'd have to take the enemy's nearby V base as well to shut down the bridge fight completely, they are now the defending side at the bridge base.

This is the fundamental difference between this bridge base and a normal V base, because it has no VHs and the river makes it a choke point then even one side taking the base doesn't shut down the fight. It is just a stepping stone to the next V base and it can be counter attacked from that V base thereby keeping the fight going.

A couple of questions maybe someone can answer. Can troops cross water and what is their speed/duration/radius before expiry? Realistically what's the maximum effective range that a typical AH tanker can kill another tank?