BowlMA tank arena.

[bustr]

There was something to the old CraterMA tank arena that many GV players really liked. Or they wouldn't have spent so much time shooting at each other at that one spot every time the terrain rolled around. The terrain bowlma I'm creating now has a central caldera that duplicates many of the aspects that attracted GVers to it.

The high areas have about a 5000yd separation across the bowl 500ft below. The screen shot through the panther optics shows a small house 5000yds away I was testing long range sniping against with the offline target sitting on the house. The bowl 500ft below is made of four villages with undulating hills 25ft up to 75ft. In the center is a 175ft tree covered mound to command firing lanes to the villages or challenge the snipers on the highlands. I've tiled almost all of the inside of the caldera with villages, and will set spawns on the highlands to be within 1mile of each other to create fights. There are three of the tiny GV bases that will be UN-capturable set equidistance against the caldera rim. One spawn will be down in the bowl to the center of a village, and one additional spawn will come from the nearest friendly field across the water.

Yes some enterprising bored out of his noggin bomber driver will try to shut down all six GV hangers that spawn inside of the center caldera. That is why I've been testing cloud fronts over the caldera to slow the bored bomber griefers down a bit. I still want air action over the caldera and those highest caldera wall remnants in the water are 3k while the inside walls are 2-2.5k. A cloud cover at about 5k will bring bombers down to wirbel and osti range. The tiny GV bases only have auto ack. And that screen capture of my 262 next to that wall with snow on it, that is the super caldera wall mountain range which is 25,000ft unbroken for AFK management.

Super caldera 25k rim.




3k clouds even this sparse were causing FPS hits.




Central caldera island. Kind of looks like King Kong will be waiting for you.




Closer look at the wall and inside of the crater.

[bustr]

Using a panther to do range testing across the caldera bowl. Roughly a 5000yd gap from 500ft highland to 500ft highland.


Ground view across the bowl.




Optics view, the tiny house is 5000yds.




First country is fully populated with fields and GV spawns. ONLY two more to go........

[Tracerfi]

I am liking it keep up the good work bustr hope this gets added looks really different 

[ghostdancer]

If I remember right in the Aleutians FSO I think we had the clouds up around 10K or 11K solid.

So since players can set their ground clutter detail from 0.5 miles to 3 miles before it appears to them in planes my guess would be that is what is causing the frame rate hit. The video card trying to render ground clutter AND clouds. In FSO and scenarios I don't think they ever ran the clouds that low, 3K.

0.5 mile = 2640 ft
1 mile = 5280 ft
1.5 miles = 7920 ft
2 miles = 10560
2.5 miles = 13200 ft
3 miles = 15840 ft

I guess the easiest way to test this is to set your cloud alt and then adjust your ground clutter setting. See if you set it at 0.5 miles and then fly into the clouds at 3K and see what happens. If the frame rate is more stable or less or takes an unacceptable hit. I would guess that most players will have their settings between 0.5 (2640 ft) and 1.5 miles (7920 ft) so possibly setting it at maybe 8.5K to 9K if it is ground clutter and clouds causing an issue.

[bustr]

I'll run tests starting at 5k and up to 9k.

With three bases 3\4 of a sector from the central tank arena caldera, I'm hoping it becomes a air combat nexus attraction due to constant traffic to and from the center. That is the reason for the medium field with no GV spawns to it and the two back of it at those closest points. I clustered the internal three airfields to the central pond on each island 3\4 sector apart with no GV spawns to them and all at SL for the fighter guys to be close to each other and bombers trying to hit the tank arena. I suppose the bomber guys will use them as a circuit to punish fighter guys by hitting all of those bases they can to ground and blind the fighter guys. Air combat activity is air combat activity how ever you generate it....

Brook's AHBeta terrain awa file will save me time for the rest. I can move cloud fronts around over a CBM bitmap rendered with the base icons. I still have two more countries to populate with bases, spawns, TSG\port, shore batteries. Which means the custom tile painting for each base and GV entry point now that I've worked out the unforeseen play issues with Country1.

I'm going to give my squad an offline only copy at this point to test my GV spawn distances in Country1 and their attention spans for driving to the fight. Country2 and 3 are mirrored images of Country1 for base placement and spawns with CountryX cross channel GV spawns to get that first foot hold capture in the other country. GVer's could possibly capture two bands of bases around the terrain from each side of their country if they had the time and were with all.

Thank you for your insight.