Construction Ahead... planning stages

[The Fugitive]

While I love what your doing here I worry about one thing I can see. With the airfield being in the middle of everything, I worry that it will automatically bring people to drop the hangers right away. With separation bases can be taken with out dropping the FH. A few guys capping the field can keep them occupied while other work the town. With everything in tight....well 4 miles isn't really tight, it might make players go for the hangers first.

I do like that some of the areas are not covered by guns which should bring in more GVs even if it's just to milk a few buildings for the score card.

Keep up the great work guys! <S>

[Easyscor]

It's hard to say from the jpg alone so I may be in left field.

Now, if GVs can cross through them, then never mind, but I think there should be breaks in the red hedge rows to allow GVs more opportunity to flank each other. I worry about a wall of hedges being more then an eighth to a quarter mile long.

The second thing is a new type of military building instead of town buildings. Or maybe making some of the existing shapes fill the roll. I hate destroying town buildings for captures and wish a military designation was available instead. Command posts, and hotels for troops along with the current barracks all set as "Army" type or "Military" type objects for the base capture.

I'm looking forward to the beta! Hint! Hint!

 

[Arlo]

Brothels!

Feb. 26 - Chatte Flambee

The Jolly Rogers kept at it for a few more days: escorts, strafing missions, and the like. Becoming bored, they dusted off an earlier idea of Blackburn's. Back in November, they had rigged up some crude bomb racks for the Corsairs. With the help of professionals from Fighter Command, they rigged up better racks. In great secret, Blackburn organized a fighter-bomber raid on a target on the outskirts of Rabaul. The target was a particular frame building; their objective was to drop their bombs around the building, not on it. Only after they returned did Blackburn share the target's identity with them; it was the Rabaul officers' brothel.

[bustr]

This layout looks like it will be a cluster luge to capture unless you show up with a full force strategic bomber mission. Even worse than the current large airfield.

Waffle how much is the game about to be changed?

The structure of this presentation shows a change in our game process will come in hand with the new terrain engine. Are you asking simple questions specifically towards what players think of this new evolution of the "Large Arifeild"? Or are you seeing how players overall will respond to this much change? Just like Greebo wasn't expecting his new map to turn into "Zombie Tank Wars" as an unintended consequence after he put his years of experience into making it into a premier air combat map.

May we see the rough drafts of the other field object and mechanics changes so we can have more context to our informed opinions? In the past, base and object changes were simply dropped on us and we adapted to them whining and screeching the whole way. Why the sudden concern? The history of this game shows pretty much change for the sake of change will make us happy until the next change makes us happy again.

[68Raptor]

Looking great!! 

Quick question was it common or is it common to put troop barracks a few feet from Ammo dumps? Thought just occurred to me about being able to deploy a portable radar trailer.. perked if needed from a massive airfield complex such as this.
 
Not sure if the "hedgerows" as barriers to multi ton tanks should be a barrier to anything other then eyesight. Since things are still in the development can the hedge row shapes be changed to some sort of steel barrier to stop tanks?

Layout wise it looks like a tough job to take down with bombers but I'm sure guys will get it figured out in no time.

[ozrocker]

I would still like to see a manable gun or two in town as well

Guns near depots?



                                                                                                                                Oz

[Dragon Tamer]

Some variation will be a nice change, the layout also makes it look like it will take more coordination to capture a base. This might not be a good thing since as far as I can tell, the only country with any kind of coordination for base taking is the bish.

[Tinkles]

With the new terrain in development, we're also kicking around ideas for airfeild layouts, ect....

I've attached a rough layout of a 4 mile by 4 mile "base" area. This one contains a large airfeild, vehicle complex, surrounding town, and possible supply depot.

Legend:
Dark green is forest / woods
Red lines are hedge / property lines
brown lines - dirt roads
Blue/White circles - town buildings
Yellow dots - supply depot?

Everything else is pretty much labelled.

The basic premise of going this way is to create a detailed centralized game area where most of the fighting takes place, which is normally within one to two miles of a base /town. We anticipate having a higher resolution elevations in these areas which will lend to more gentle hills /slopes and be very conducive for vehicle fights. Also it will allow us to alleviate some of the issues with taking off in heavy bombers, in which there will be longer runways, and clear paths for climb out.

Also, We would have different layouts for each type of base. So there would be more variance in towns/facility layouts, as well as strategies for base capture. Also, we just think that it looks more natural that a square mile airfield, with a square mile town next to it.

I just wanted to post this to you guys and get some feedback about it. It's still in very early planning stages, so the sky's not falling yet.

Ohhh boy. Can't wait to see all this take place..

I really want my new computer now.   

Thanks for the update 

[Fish42]

The basic premise of going this way is to create a detailed centralized game area where most of the fighting takes place, which is normally within one to two miles of a base /town. We anticipate having a higher resolution elevations in these areas which will lend to more gentle hills /slopes and be very conducive for vehicle fights. Also it will allow us to alleviate some of the issues with taking off in heavy bombers, in which there will be longer runways, and clear paths for climb out.

Could a few of these higher resolution areas be made into a 8x8 mile tank town? Just 4 zones that would contain rolling hills, cliffs, ditches and gullies with a few Buildings?



Also For some of the small airfields, can it be a grass runway that runs down one side of the area, a few/minimal defense and a town clustered to the other side of the zone. This will look like an airfield quickly set up near a small town.

[caldera]

Hate to say it but all else being equal, it looks like bigger hordes will be needed to take that base. 

Once last time, I will make a futile and useless plea to take the fight away from the base.  I think the towns should be far away from the fields (halfway to the dar circle) and undefended, with GV spawns from multiple fields near each town.  Meanwhile, increase ack guns and their lethality on airfields to curtail vulching.  Having the towns ack-free and away from the base would encourage more attacks and especially smaller ones would have a chance.  Likewise, being able to get airborne without vulchers would give even a small defense a chance. 

The attackers claim the defenders are hiding in the ack and the defenders claim the attackers don't let them leave the ack.  With the fights in a more neutral location, there will be no need for either.  As cool as the new layout looks, I foresee more steamrolling than ever.  If that's actually possible. 


Whatever is done, I request for more than one radar tower.  It is ridiculously easy to take out and virtually impossible to defend against a determined, suicide porker.  A four mile field should have four towers.

[TOMCAT21]

well done..

[Lazerr]

Just my opinion, but is spreading the town out like that a good idea?  Would you change the percentage of town being down in order for capture?  Will having guys with lower end PC's not being able to crank up ground detail and detail range hinder them seeing all of these small details on a field? Frustrate them?

I rarely take bases, but I want to keep the food chain around the game so I have something to shoot at.

Again, looking at all possible aspects of the game.  I'm sure there will be much more feedback to come in this thread.

Would a MOTD in the MA directing the entire player base to come check this out for more opinions be worth it?  A lot of the land grabbing types I see in the game i rarely or never see on these boards.

The population of the game seems fragile right now, and I would hate to see something that doesn't appeal to the majority of the game, which at this point is land grabbing and GV'ing.  Being a furballing type I could care less as long as you keep the game populated. 

Randoms thoughts, not enough time to type the rest out.  <S>

[Lazerr]

Hate to say it but all else being equal, it looks like bigger hordes will be needed to take that base. 

Once last time, I will make a futile and useless plea to take the fight away from the base.  I think the towns should be far away from the fields (halfway to the dar circle) and undefended, with GV spawns from multiple fields near each town.  Meanwhile, increase ack guns and their lethality on airfields to curtail vulching.  Having the towns ack-free and away from the base would encourage more attacks and especially smaller ones would have a chance.  Likewise, being able to get airborne without vulchers would give even a small defense a chance. 

The attackers claim the defenders are hiding in the ack and the defenders claim the attackers don't let them leave the ack.  With the fights in a more neutral location, there will be no need for either.  As cool as the new layout looks, I foresee more steamrolling than ever.  If that's actually possible. 


Whatever is done, I request for more than one radar tower.  It is ridiculously easy to take out and virtually impossible to defend against a determined, suicide porker.  A four mile field should have four towers.

I think your thoughts on this are what i am fearing, see above.

[Easyscor]

When I build a terrain, I'm particularly mindful of drive distance from the spawn to the maproom and over what kind of environment I'll need to travel.

Even if those Spawn points are shown for illustration only, and lordy I hope they are, they demonstrate a sever handicap for any spawn beyond the northern border of Grafton Underwood airfield as compared to the center south spawn. (hehe, you must have known someone would recognize it, right?)

I would be inclined to stay with the separate maproom tile and install non-destructable villages and towns around the airfield. Every time I try to think of another way to balance it, I end up with multiple towns and maprooms with a capture requiring two or three of five maprooms. I can already feel the guys in the other room rolling their eyes right now. 

[Windycty]

I think it looks pretty good so far.  How about some water features like rivers with bridges?  Any ideas for the Port layouts?