Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Terrain Editor => Topic started by: Swatch on April 21, 2009, 10:56:41 AM
-
Hey guys, I'm beginning my first attempt at terrain building. There are a few things I'd like to know if people have to assist my planning.
1) Bitmap overviews (maps) of the current terrains so that I can get a feel for size and distance base to base.
2) Sizes of current terrains (in miles)
3) Tips for a first timer...
-
MA terrain? It matters.
See the stickies at the top of this forum.
-
Sorry. Yes, MA Terrain... but I think I actually figured out what I needed.
Only other question is can a strat target's AA guns be turned off? (don't worry, this is not for all strat targets, just for a couple special ones if its possible)
-
That would be a custom object, which isn't allowed in MA terrains.
-
ok, is it possible to put a city object down without having it be a strat target?
In otherwords, can those objects be used as clutter?
EDIT:
Once again, I found my own answer, I'll just use TankTown...
-
Also, here's my preliminary layout...
(http://swatch.homeip.net/basemap3.PNG)
Any comments or suggestions would be welcome.
-
New Question... The HQ acts as a zone master. Does it need its own set of strats?
-
All zones need a complete set of strat.
Try to make sure you a/f are ~25 miles (about one per sector) from each other, then sprinkle you v-bases and factories as you see fit. See the stickies at the top of this forum.
-
yea, that was how I built it up Airfields first, VH 2nd, then strats..
I corrected for the HQ zone in the new photo.
Are there any fields that look noticeably too close together?
-
Sectors 8,8 and 9,8 have no a/f, probably more.
-
ahhh I took that rule to just mean don't leave >25mi between any two.... not that you had to have an airfield every sector
-
Is this a 256 x 256 or 512 x 512?
-
256 x256
-
Layout looks good swatch. The carrier groups have a longer, less direct route to reach the rear area strat in the top right country than the other two, otherwise it seems well balanced.
You don't need airfields in every sector, but there should be some sort of capture path between fields, nothing too isolated.
Apart from the AA guns, the other problem with using strat items (HQ etc.) for a more interesting tanktown is that they always show up on the players' map as strat. So you would get people bombing your tanktown strat groups for no effect on the war. As you say, for now use the tanktown group. I hope the next version will give us some more MA-allowable GV clutter to play with.
-
Thank you Greebo, and that little jog in the NE waterway was an accident that I decided to run with because of looks. I'm looking at other ways to balance it back out, but I don't think it will affect it all that much since I'm trying to keep the bases around those waterways relatively similar distances from the waterways. Another option is to reduce that side's width and make that jetty an island, thus placing the main waterway back where it should go.
Right now, I'm practicing height mapping. Does anyone have some rules of thumb for height mapping? (max height, things to watch for, etc) Also, is there an easy way to place grass tiles on any square that is over 0 ft? It would make it much easier to back through and have a starting place.
-
Alright, more eye candy...
Redid the basemap using PaintShopPro instead of trusty old Paint.
(http://swatch.homeip.net/tritone.png)
Interested in any comments as to the new layout.
PS. Interesting Note... if you have a dual core Athelon and you run the terrain editor without setting the CPU affinity, time speeds up.
-
Yeah, that bug has been around a while. Use MachNix's tile setter for setting tiles above elevation 0 to a predetermined tile type. I think MrMidi still has it on his website.
-
Wow, that is an excellent tool, will make this much easier!
I just checked out its help file and thought of a question regarding its usage and the TE in general...
If I have objects placed, etc. can I then go back through and apply a different height map without re-placing those objects? If so, then that's great because that means I need to focus a little less on the prep work, if not however, I'll put a lot more into the prepwork.
-
Looking good, Swatch.
I have a few more tools for ya, check the CHawks Forums later.
:salute
-
No, as far as I'm aware you can't change the elevation through a height-map and expect the objects to come along with it (What was on flat land now resides on a hill....).
-
Yea that looks nice to provide with some furballs. :aok
-
Yep, Tile Setter is a must!
-
Sent the basic layout off to HTC, Roy suggested I wait until the new terrain/editor is finished, so I'm going to continue refining the map conceptually and throwing pics up here, but won't be doing any development work within the editor until we see our new tools.
Once again, if anyone has any suggestions for the map or any opinions about its balance, go ahead and throw them out there.
-
I do have a suggestion. Once the new editor arrives, play with the river tiles. Currently they're not that great, would be nice to know what they're like after the update.
-
That would be nice to have. I kinda am setting it up to have rivers at the country borders...
-
Don't try to make it work right now, as the tiles themselves are buggy. Wait for the update, then give it a shot.
-
I took the advice of the wiki...
I was running into spacing and balance problems, so I chose to redo the terrain layout and I think I'm mostly happier with what has come out of it.
(http://swatch.homeip.net/tritone2.jpg)
Once again, please reply with suggestions, concerns or money... :aok
Also, if somebody could glance and see if I missed any spawns, that'd be great... more eyes = fewer mistakes slip through.
EDIT: my legend is as follows...
Airbases with White around them are zone bases
Airbases with a red dot in the center are large bases
Airbases with an orange dot in center are medium bases (all others small)
Grey lines are zone division lines.
Some basic design goals:
- Make a 'fun' tank town that isn't easily wiped out.
- Build in border clashes.
- Spawn to strats for resupply (encourage strat utilization)
- Limit 'steamrolling' by limited 2-way spawns.
- Make HQ raids enticing, but difficult (see large amount of puffy ack sources)
-
Perhaps, if you want a nice tank-town, you will want some large mountains around it. However, making the vehicle bases appealing to the GVs might entice some GV wars. For example, the Vehicle Bases near tank town all have spawn points to a somewhat important airbase belonging to the country that originally owns those vehicle bases. Therefore, if the Vehicle Base is captured, the captors now have a spawn point direct to an important enemy base. This would make a great setup for co-op. Bombers fly in, wipe out the airbase, vehicles suddenly spawn from nowhere sacking the town, troops roll in, base is captured.
Not only would it make the war, "interesting," it would force defenders to emerge to defend that important airfield. This would create some good fights in or around Tank Town. The only problem, enemy bombers... Thus the mountains. ;)
-
Hmmm interesting idea with the V-Base spawn, but I'm going to forgo the mountains...
I figure that much water is something of a deterrant. Add to that the fact that the strats for the TT bases won't be down for longer than the minimum most of the time(they're tied to the HQ strats) and the medium sized airfields and I think TT should stay fairly vibrant. I will have to think about that V-Base spawn a bit though... it would make for an interesting gameplay element. Anyone else have an opinion on it?
-
I think tank town is likely to get griefed by bombers flying from the central airbases. Those airbases are too far apart to make a good fighter town, so why not just get rid of them or replace each of them with a vehicle base? Perhaps you could also squeeze two spawn points into tank town from each V base to make spawn camping less effective.
-
IMO you already have that part right.
Too often the complaint is that one side captured all the V-bases at TT and ended the fight. Those airfields provide a way to recapture the V-base. The a/f itself can be retaken by a TG, or make those airfields uncapturable as part of the MA balance system (htc might overrule this) and all your GVs will have a perpetual TT.
Greebo's post (I was typing) is another option.
-
I think tank town is likely to get griefed by bombers flying from the central airbases. Those airbases are too far apart to make a good fighter town, so why not just get rid of them or replace each of them with a vehicle base? Perhaps you could also squeeze two spawn points into tank town from each V base to make spawn camping less effective.
I thought of that, and it occurred to me that VH bases will be griefed by bombers from the coastal bases and the griefing would be more effective against VBases than Airfields. Easyscor is looking at it the way I looked at it. Airbases are there to recapture Vbases and to provide some fighter action to defend the bases from bombers. I do like the idea of multiple spawns... I'll probably do that.
Making the airfields uncapturable is also an option, but I don't want to eliminate any sort of goal for TT, instead I think TT's goal should be to try and capture those VBases and airbases. Thus my decision to try and make it difficult to capture the airbases, but not impossible.
-
Did some more work... can't do much more (unless somebody else has input about changes, etc) until the new terrain stuff is added and I get a shot at the new editor.
(http://swatch.homeip.net/AHMap/tritone2.png)
I did want you all to look at the HeightMap and see if it has any problems...
swatch.homeip.net/AHMap/tritone2_heightmap.bmp (http://swatch.homeip.net/AHMap/tritone2_heightmap.bmp)
-
Wow, you went to town on the blurring there. I don't see any problems, although I think a lot of MA pilots prefer some canyons, hills, or even mountains. The elevation map you showed has gradual shifts from the lowest elevation to the highest giving it more of a, "hill" effect.
-
yea, I don't have a real good judge of what that will translate into yet, so I decided instead to just go with a more gradual heightmap until I actually see what I have, then go in and add some detail. I wanted to make sure I got the rough location of bases right first before going in and adding such things as that. Would anyone have a suggestion as to the best type of brush to use in PaintShopPro for this? Its been somewhat annoyingly misbehaved so far.
-
Also, what do most people use for their max height on these things? And as a result, what do most people use as the increment for each shade of gray? (aka, 10,000 ft max height = 40 ft per shade)
-
Just remember to keep your airfields to a maximum of 5k, otherwise, loaded Lancs can't take off.
-
Swatch that looks like a really fun map to fly in. Thank you :salute
-
Can't help you with the brushes, Swatch. I use Photoshop 7 myself.
-
Well, what do you use in PhotoShop 7? PaintShopPro has many similar features to Photoshop, and perhaps I can find the corresponding brush.
-
When I was making my own grayscales (not satellite images) I drew out some of the terrain in, "steps" using the brush tool. First I would use a darker gray gradually working my way to white. Afterward I would use the blur tool to try to, "mix" the colors so they transitioned more easily. However, in the end the steps were somewhat visible in the terrain. If I were to do it again, I might try using the smudge tool instead of blurring the grayscale.
-
Hey guys... now that the new terrains and strats have been released, I'm starting to pick this back up again. I'm greatly looking forward to the new strat system.
-
Also, here's my preliminary layout...
(http://swatch.homeip.net/basemap3.PNG)
Any comments or suggestions would be welcome.
I like it swatch. Looks just like the one I was working on before the original "eye candy" update came out. Got about half way done before I realized It was better to wait til the new editors were fixed and out. Long story short, I have a 3year old boy and a 4 month old girl, thus I have little time to play let alone finish a map lol.
anyway here is what it looked like. None of the bases are in any kind of final position. Since there is also a strat update now, I would have to re-position lots anyway. But you get the point!
Good luck to you!
(http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee46/presto731/PalmHarbor.jpg)
-
wow... definate similarities! Great minds... :aok
I'm looking at shifting mine around a little bit, might draw a bit from what you had if you don't mind.
-
as long as I get a mention in the credits! :D
For the large sections of land I was planning on very high cliffs for the outline. The islands were also going to be quite high on one half. Think Iwo Jima. If I ever get back to doing it it might look cool with the new city up there. The big island in the middle was to be rolling hills covered in forests to make for some fun ground battles.
-
I do not care as long as I try this terrain soon. :airplane:
-
Wow... if by soon you mean hopefully sometime next Xmas, then I'd say you're on the right track.