Author Topic: AH Rules for Terrain Building for MA  (Read 219 times)

Offline Mano

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AH Rules for Terrain Building for MA
« on: January 28, 2016, 03:11:02 PM »
There a post in the Terrain forum that explains how the terrain should be set up.

I cut and pasted it from NHawks post from July 8, 2007.

Are there changes to AH3 that we need to know about? Just curious.   :)
What about clouds? Can we create fog for gv battles that pass through for several minutes?
Will the players frame rates take a severe hit?



NHawks Post

I read a thread in the General Discussion forum asking what the requirements are for Main Arena Terrains so I'm going to try to help out with as much of that information as my old brain can remember.

In general here are the "rules" for the LW & MW arenas:

1) Balance
Balance refers to the number and type of bases, and the amount of terrain for each team.

Each team must have equal numbers of small, medium, and large airfields as well as equal numbers of GV bases, ports and CVs.

Terrain balance can be the hardest to attain. When there is a slight imbalance in terrain it can be overcome by modifying the distance between airfields and/or the distance from a base to it's town. Where there is a huge imbalance...start over.

2) Field Locations
There should be no more than one airfield per sector. No more than 25 miles apart. No closer than 3/4 of a sector.

A GV base or port, and an airfield may occupy the same sector.

3) Strat
A complete working strat system must be in place.

This means all factories, roads, trains, and barges must be in place and working.

4) No VOIDs
There should be no "void" object types on the terrain.

5) CVs
Every CV must have a map room associated with it.

Every CV must have a default route assigned to it.

6) No Custom Objects
No matter how much you like that hangar or airfield you made it can't be used in an MA terrain.

7) Airfield Altitudes
No airfield should be over 6k. I use 5k as max airfield altitude.

The simple reason for this is fully loaded Lancasters can't get off the ground above that altitude. They have trouble at 5 and 6k, so anything more just doesn't work.

8) Check Your Work
Use the tools built into the TE to check your terrain. Skuzzy won't fix a hundred errors for you.

Also, fly out of every base. Be sure bombers can take off in at least one direction.

9) Playability
While realistic terrains of Europe look pretty they most likely aren't playable. Take gameplay into consideration when making a terrain.

10) Group Master
Simply put, everything you place on your terrain is a Group Master. The only exceptions to this are Shore Batteries, Spawn Points, CVs, and the map rooms for CVs.

This may be over simplified, but for MA use it's probably the easiest way to put it.



Post by Skuzzy


1) editing terrain textures
Yes

2) rearranging the object layout of the default terrain clutter tiles
Yes

3) replacing terrain objects (like trees or forrests) with custom objects on the clutter tiles
No

4) editing default object textures
Depends.  One of the goals of a MA terrain is to keep the size reasonably small.  Changing a lot of textures have the greatest imapct on terrain file size.

5) rearranging the object layout of the bases or strats
No

6) replacing base or strat objects with custom objects
No

7) adding new objects (like bridges)
No


 :salute



« Last Edit: January 28, 2016, 05:40:12 PM by Mano »
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Offline Mano

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Re: AH Rules for Terrain Building for MA
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2016, 10:05:06 PM »
Greebo posted this as well. If you are intersted in deigning a new terrain take notes.


As HT said you can't build your own airfields in an MA terrain, however there is a new super-large airfield with a built-in town in AH3 that you can add. I haven't counted how many hangars its got though.

If you are designing an MA terrain there are various HTC guidelines regarding that in the sticky post in the TE forum. I have a few of my own suggestions about it.

The terrain should be fair to all three sides, players shouldn't be saying "Oh no, we got the north side again". I realise this does not always apply to existing MA terrains but if you design an asymmetrical layout you should be prepared to justify it to HTC. Personally I think the layout should also be fair to each type of player. So GVers should have a reasonable selection of spawn routes to choose from and there should be a good chance of CV action somewhere.

An MA field can have up to 255 fields and be either 256 or 512 miles square. Something to bear in mind is that to win the war a country has to capture 20% of each opponent's fields. So for a 120 field map that means 8 fields from each side (0.2 x 120/3). To add one more field per side to the win requirement you need to add 15 fields in total, so 120, 135, 150 and so on up to 255 which requires 17 fields per side. It also means that the fields towards the rear of your map are less likely to be fought over so you should put the most thought into your forward fields' layout.

The biggest difference between the various MA maps is in how many front line fields are available to be fought over at any one time. The more choices of nearby airfields or available SPs a player has, the more spread out the action becomes, especially at off-peak times. Personally I don't like maps that have more than four choices of field per front line per side.

Airfields should be between 18 and 25 miles apart and not higher than 5K, bombers struggle to get airborne with a full load if fields are higher than that. No other type of field should be closer than three miles from another. There should be a reasonable capture path for each field; either a nearby airfield, a spawn point into it, or access for a task group.

I'd suggest putting each HQ and city reasonably far back from the front line. The three fields nearest the HQ are always uncapturable and one of these is the Me 163 field.

Once you have your layout worked out send a drawing and a description of it to HTC and maybe post it in the TE forum. You should point out anything on it that is unusual, i.e. that you have not seen done on an existing MA terrain. Generally if it hasn't been done there's a reason why. You should do this before you start serious work on it in the TE as having to redo work later is very off-putting.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2016, 08:26:31 AM by hitech »
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.
- Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

Offline Greebo

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Re: AH Rules for Terrain Building for MA
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2016, 06:53:42 AM »
Once AH3 is out or at least feature complete I will write an expanded post about making MA terrains. Right now there is too much that is still unclear to me about it, like the bridges and rivers that are yet to come and how the battleship will be employed in the game.