Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Max on July 10, 2018, 09:42:59 AM
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NRShida has resurrected the Furball Lake map and plans to host it as "Breakfast Club" ...a dogfighting arena only. Look for it morning-afternoon times US Eastern time.If it's up and running, you'll see it on the list of arena options. :old: :joystick: :salute Please spread the word.
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This is a great idea! Although, I think there are much better and smaller maps to use (steal the sheep map) for example, that would allow for quicker fights and have more of a cooler landscape to look at besides the barron sea.
Remember the old FFA maps from H2H? Those maps worked great.
The second part of this is to leave it up for a while and to have at least 4 people in there to spark interest for others to join.
Keep all the sides the same team with killshooter off. This prevents Gangs.
If you can add airspawns, even better.
I just think this furball lake map is too big and is confusing for new people right when they log in to see another huge map with maybe 2 - 3 people fighting on it if they can find out where too fight.
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Thanks for posting this Max.
So far player density has been insufficient for furballing so we've been doing rolling 1-on-1s. Everyone has been very friendly and classy with some edge-of-the-seat dogfighting already.
The spawn bases are the three by the lake and there seems to be the right amount of space to not get crowded and also find fights in quick succession. Averaged about one fight every ten minutes on the first day with five players which trumps the MA by some considerable margin.
My motivation is to offer a more fun alternative to the almost empty MA in the European daytime which roughly equates to something like 5-a.m. until about midday New York time (EDT / UTC−4). I don't think it's healthy for the game to have only one populated arena. This arena had a reasonable flow of players about that time once.
Anyone welcome to drop in and have a quick dogfight before breakfast.
Trying to host it most weekdays but I can't run it everyday. On the upside think of my electricity bill. :)
TA57x also runs a similar arena at different times and sometimes at weekends.
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Air spawn is the dumbest idea anyone has ever come up with. I will not play a flight sim that has air spawns.
This is a great idea! Although, I think there are much better and smaller maps to use (steal the sheep map) for example, that would allow for quicker fights and have more of a cooler landscape to look at besides the barron sea.
Remember the old FFA maps from H2H? Those maps worked great.
The second part of this is to leave it up for a while and to have at least 4 people in there to spark interest for others to join.
Keep all the sides the same team with killshooter off. This prevents Gangs.
If you can add airspawns, even better.
I just think this furball lake map is too big and is confusing for new people right when they log in to see another huge map with maybe 2 - 3 people fighting on it if they can find out where too fight.
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Furball lake was one of the most fun maps that AH has ever had in its rotation. Throw in the PT boats and it was a blast.
NRShida has resurrected the Furball Lake map and plans to host it as "Breakfast Club" ...a dogfighting arena only. Look for it morning-afternoon times US Eastern time.If it's up and running, you'll see it on the list of arena options. :old: :joystick: :salute Please spread the word.
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Air spawn is the dumbest idea anyone has ever come up with. I will not play a flight sim that has air spawns.
It's merely for fighter practice and quick fights. Not trying to take 10 minutes to meet in the middle for a fight.
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Not only that. Rolling from bases pushes the fight toward one side when the players get shot down. The winning team gets closer to the rollers in the base, they have alt advantage, ect. It causes vulching. It's just not great for furball arenas. Neither is having teams. If all of the players are green, there is no ganging and players can fight themselves if no one on the other side is rolling.
Thirdly, still didn't like the lake very much as per lack of scenery, and it also made a lot of furballers leave when Hitech made the change and the water had no depth perception. That was seriously the downfall of furball Lake. Then they made it so you couldn't roll on a open base, another downfall. Now in match play you can't choose who you want to fight. That's lame. IMO, the furball area should be a different map and arena, than Match play/1v1 arena.
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Maybe you should create a furball ffa map with all the bells & whistles your requesting.
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Maybe you should create a furball ffa map with all the bells & whistles your requesting.
If I had time and could leave my comp on all day, I would.
Furballing and Free for Alls in H2H where the main reason I stayed with this game after the 2 week trial. It's what I like to do the most in this game, especially when I don't have a lot of time. So I just know a lot about it and what makes them successful.
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Just to correct a small misconception: The Breakfast Club is not a Free For All nor an especially furball-based arena. A limitation you'd know if you hosted a private arena is that the total player number is limitted to 16. There is no 'front' at all, no gangs and systematic picking is not allowed. It's just a friendly place to drop in and have a couple of quick dogfights with no results recorded anywhere meaningful.
Regarding the distance to the centre of the lake, I believe it takes me far less than ten minutes to get there in a middle-spectrum plane. Even if it was ten minutes, it trumps the usual hours of flying around in the MA chasing disappearing darbars and usually bailing with no joy.
Proposing & discussing the 'perfect arena' is another discussion beyond the topic of this thread and I would encourage others to get to work themselves rather than criticise working with what we've got right now and going to the trouble of setting it up (which is by no means a simple or intuitive task) and hosting it.
Yesterday I spent 45 minutes going over BFM with a new player who has pledged to buy a twisty stick and an MA subscription also.
Talking is easy. Doing something is another matter.
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'Logs' say nine different people flew in today's Breakfast Club. Two still there at the expected close of day so I'm leaving it open a bit longer.
The new player came back again too.
:banana:
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I'll be home in 45 minutes, I will see if the arena is still up and have some fun with you guys
DutchVII
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Nirshida,
Since 16 players don't need much space, you could engage your forum guests here with a Breakfast Club mini terrain baking opportunity. The smallest size terrain is a 64bit which shows up as a 2.5x2.5 sector play area. Or a 128bit which shows up as a 5x5 sector play area. Their ideas can become reality over a weekend and Easyscor or a member of the AvA\Special Events arena terrain teams can fill them in on the extras needed to pass the HOST upload requirements. Then all of these excellent ACM arena combat ideas can be put on the Breakfast table for your guests to sample. Who knows, you could end up hosting a contest for your fans.
Basic 2.5x2.5 or even 5x5 land masses are not very time consuming to pull up by hand with a 6 mile diameter brush. The rest, a copy of Easyscor and Greebo's guides and an aptitude for finger painting when it comes to the tree and clutter tiles. Someone could always export the heightmap from your Furball Lake and make available a copy of that so they can import it and have a basic functional land mass to start with. It does not take long, I created Mongoose's canyon terrain including his updated tweaks over about 3 hours spread out over a two week period. And I was still creating my latest project. It gave me a sanity break from creating and painting 625,000sq miles of terrain.
Tiny terrains for a few friends are not as time consuming and daunting as the monsters for the MA. I can create a basic heightmap file to import and popup in an instant a 5x5 sector 500ft high landmass and people just download it from my google drive or I can give it to you to disseminate. After that they just cut it into whatever or add and pull up mountains. And if they don't like the results, zero it out by re-importing the basic hightmap. I use a lot of those for testing ideas that eventually go into my MA terrains.
Kind of removes the time question.....and I'd like to see some of these ideas come to life.
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It's merely for fighter practice and quick fights. Not trying to take 10 minutes to meet in the middle for a fight.
This is true!!!
It is not meant to be the full game...... just the FIGHT.
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If I had time and could leave my comp on all day, I would.
Furballing and Free for Alls in H2H where the main reason I stayed with this game after the 2 week trial. It's what I like to do the most in this game, especially when I don't have a lot of time. So I just know a lot about it and what makes them successful.
I used to make small terrains for H2H. I was there for a long time.
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'Logs' say nine different people flew in today's Breakfast Club. Two still there at the expected close of day so I'm leaving it open a bit longer.
The new player came back again too.
:banana:
:aok
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Tiny terrains for a few friends are not as time consuming and daunting as the monsters for the MA.
Good you say that after vaguelly following your progress with Oceanea I decided I'd never touch AH maps!
Even saving the configuration of the arena is a bit of struggle. There's a huge amount of settings and variables clearly named by a programmer. It's not clear where things are saved on your computer and when to upload those to the server. Navigating the interface it is very easy to get lost. Is the dedicated terrain editor a bit more user-friendly?
Kind of removes the time question.....
I have no additional project capacity right now. When I'm free I'm either having a few fights or trying to get my joystick project in service. Perhaps when something pops off the top of the pile.
and I'd like to see some of these ideas come to life.
Just as a quick question, are the terrains restricted to 2½D? Is it possible to make Pacific-like tropical water, and is there any provision for adding lines in the map files like the electric fence in the MPA? Are the pieces of scenerary like bridges off-the-rack building blocks?
Incidentally I measured the time to the centre of the lake. Flying off the base flat and dropping in it takes 2:45 without WEP in my Ki-84. That's an average time obviously, depends where people are flying. If you want to keep the alt A1, A2 & A3 gives you takes a bit longer to accelerate. Not been any especial need for an altitude contest with the fights that are becoming standard. At least when I'm not afk.
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I was recommending your friends with so many ideas do this and you host them from time to time.
All the objects are like a kit out of a box. You just lay them down following a few rules. Easyscor and Greebo have manuals and you can talk to terrain builders in the terrain editor section. I don't know the layout of your Furball Lake terrain but I suspect it's probably the same dimensions for distances as the center island furball area on NDisles.
The sculpting tools in the elevations tab are all projected against the terrain polymesh surface using a brush that can be set from 660ft to 6 miles diameter. It's like using a finger to push clay around. You can create a simple test terrain and finger paint ground and push it around to get an understanding of it. Kind of like set the elevation tool to 5000ft, set the brush to 6 miles. Then place it on the ocean and click. Then you have a 5k high 6 mile diameter cylinder of ground.
There is a raise hill tool and bull dozer tool that both cut and push terrain. The bull dozer tool you can lay your brush down on the ocean on one side of the cylinder and pull across to the other side on the ocean and click. Depending on the diameter you set the brush to, you will now have a water channel through your 5k cylinder. Or place the brush on an edge of the cylinder, pull it out and down to the water and click. Now you have a ramp. Or the raise hill tool, set the brush at 6miles, lay it on the water and click for a bit. Up raises a mountain. Or pull it and you raise a ridge line. Reduce the diameter of the brush, hold down the shift key, then you now have a cutting tool to cut into the mountain and ridge you just made.
I use the bulldozer at it's smallest brush size to create micro terrain around GV spawns. I carved some of the mountain features in my new project in the canyons with it. Hitech does not write a manual for the terrain editor, instead most of the tools if you hover the mouse over it will explain it's use. Even if you use a copy of L3DT, you still have some amount of touch up in the terrain editor before your terrain is ready to upload.
The terrain editor is pretty simple to use, understanding Hitechese in his short tool explanations sometimes is tricky. Still, pointing and clicking and pushing buttons to see what broke didn't take very long. You just create a test terrain where you slop ground around and run the tools against it to see what kind of a mess you can make. Pretty quickly you get the feel for what the tools do. Everything you need to know is right in front of you in the terrain editor GUI in simple Hitech english. It's rather a basic editor.
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I feel like if you took the middle of the Ndisles map and made that it's own map. It would be far better than the Lake set up. It would also work great for FFA or Team death match. It's the perfect size and has a good atmosphere.
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That is why I did it to the center of Oceania and what happens more often.... The numpties capture all the bases and screw everyone out of a fun time. Hitech won't allow those kinds of feilds to be made un-capturable becasue the MA is a capture the flag arena.
The furball island on NDisles is a simple formula. Three small airfields with the map room on the field thirteen miles apart in a triangle. You don't need air spawns becasue getting to the center will have you at furballing alt. Air spawns will encourage climbing to 20k as a solution to not having well developed ACM. And a cloud layer will not discourage that behavior. Hitech let me put a cloud layer over the NDisles furball island. They just hide in it to make up for a lack of skill. In AH2 without clouds the NDisles furball island ended up with numpties at 15-20k becasue they were getting towered quickly at furballing alts in the canyon. Furball lake got around the air spawn problems with 5k mesas and the three feilds closer than 13 miles.
This NDisles concept as a custom arena with a 16 player cap would work due to peer pressure. Even when NDisles is up, some rotations the numpties capture all three furball feilds but, visually becasue there is land between them and the next field out, recapture furballs start up if the shore line large airfield is still in the hands of the original country. Something about flying over water even if it's a short hop is a problem versus a narrow valley. Kind of like a cat won't hop in the bathtub if it's still wet from your shower but will wander around after a rain in the back yard. And why most of the best remembered spawn camps or airfield to airfield furball spots from AH2 were fortuitous mistakes. I've duplicated a number of them in AH3 and they have become Ho-Hum. New things I've put into my terrains have become players favorite spots becasue of the overall terrain layout.
The NDisles layout makes it's furball island a jewel of activity becasue it provides an alternative to the "same old-same old", not the island. It just happens to be on an island in the center of that map. Oceania has the same layout and all the numpties do is capture the feilds and take away being able to use it. Oceania is a fun terrain to capture flags on and get into fights in the process. So the furball island is not missed like it is on NDisles when the numpties capture the "whole" island.
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If NDisles is up I don't have to run the Breakfast Club, same kind of fights there.
No attendants today. Will host it again tomorrow.
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Great fights going on right now in TA57x's version of the DA.
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I am am still At work!!! Will you still be there at 6?
DutchVII
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Could be, could be!
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Spitz just outside of Schiphol I expect! :rofl
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Spitz just outside of Schiphol I expect! :rofl
No a flat tire on my bike... I had to walk... :uhoh
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Unlucky bud. Next time :cool:
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Great fights this am. Best 2 hours in this game in 6 months. I died every time but the best time. No chasing no one no ack to have to fly through. Everyone honoring fights while they are going on. Sorry I didn’t make back. Got busy at work. Hope to do it again soon and hope to see more in there.
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Fighting Shida is always fun, no matter the outcome. He has taught me so much. I was in today, Sensei, and Rollya massacreed me over and over. YEEEHAW!!!! :joystick: :airplane: :bhead
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Thanks for hosting this shida, had some fantastic scraps this morning with flippz, Techwrek, and Whytfang.
Heckuva way to knock the rust off..
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Best 2 hours in this game in 6 months.
:noid :noid :noid
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Thanks for hosting this shida, had some fantastic scraps this morning with flippz, Techwrek, and Whytfang.
Heckuva way to knock the rust off..
They were absolutely great fights this am. And again THAT WAS THE BEST FLYING IN AN A5 I HAVE EVER SEEN. The fight were low slow and intense. When you leave an arena and you are panting and your flight arm is worn out you know it was some good fights. :salute to the guys in there this am.
There is one lil problem with this arena. I go into the ma hyped and get sorely depressed.
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They were absolutely great fights this am. And again THAT WAS THE BEST FLYING IN AN A5 I HAVE EVER SEEN. The fight were low slow and intense. When you leave an arena and you are panting and your flight arm is worn out you know it was some good fights. :salute to the guys in there this am.
There is one lil problem with this arena. I go into the ma hyped and get sorely depressed.
Reading things like this occasionally makes me think of retirement, so that I could participate in the mornings. But. Those in my field don't retire, they get dragged out of their offices on Monday mornings, rigor mortis making things easy.
Keep it up, you guys, this is a great idea which should be continually publicized.
- oldman
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Should start a new threat to try and promote...
Indeed two weeks now and only positive experiences all around. I think I've taken a quarter of the shots I've had, just so refreshing to have these kind of fights again, you don't want to end it :rofl
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Today as an experiment I ran (/ am running) the Steal The Sheep map with Killshooter (shoot the greens also) as suggested by Violator. Also field ack dialed right down (just in case Zakbell wanted to join us :D). Not so popular so far but I've never hosted on the weekend before. Rollya and I had three sick fights in 10 minutes.
There's considerable discussion about a dedicated map - although none of us has especially enough free time to learn the dark art. There is some talk of renting a tazor and finding out where Bustr lives.
I made the observation in the other thread that this experiment is especially making one very thing clear:- quick and equitable fun IS possible in AH! :banana:
:cheers:
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To those who pop in when I'm afk apologies I am often busy in another room.
The answers to the questions I missed today, yes indeed anyone who agrees with the arena message is welcome to join in / fly there / flight test there. The available planes are everything that can be reasonably fought in. This includes turn fighters, energy fighters and BnZ aircraft, including the WWI aircraft, the Stukas and the RV8. With the later you'll just have to make screenshots really hard.
This morning I was late starting to host because TA57x's arena was up when I checked & I can't host as regularly as I'd like.
:cheers: