Ho Chi Minh Trail

[snapper 21]

I have a question for the campaign and terrain gurus that hang around here, would it be possible to create the Ho Chi Minh trails in WOV?

 

Have been looking at the VIETNAMSEA_MOVEMENT.INI and comparing it to the names on the VIETNAMSEA_MAP2.BMP, and as far as I can see no truck routes come anywhere near South Vietnam. So I am thinking that frontlines could be a problem?

 

Any thoughts or ideas would be very welcome.

 

Cheers

 

Snapper 21

[ONETINSOLDIER]

I am by no means a modder, but the way I see it, it would be difficult at best to make it realistic, due to the fact that the ho chi minh trail consisted of a myriad of truck routes, river channels, foot and bike trails and even tunnels that changed on a daily basis.

[+Typhoid]

interesting idea.

 

Might not be possible to be completely accurate but should be possible to put some truck routes and fly armed recon (air interdiction) against them.

[snapper 21]

interesting idea.

 

Might not be possible to be completely accurate but should be possible to put some truck routes and fly armed recon (air interdiction) against them.

 

I was thinking the truck routes would be joined by truck parks, this would mean placing a few huts together with maybe a few AA guns on the map.

 

One question how do armed recon missions work? Does the game work out the waypoints to the trucks or the truck route. Would a long truck route mean you had to do a bit of hunting?

Edited August 27, 2008 by snapper 21

[+MigBuster]

I think but not 100% Armed Recon uses the routes in the movement.ini file - you will see they are mostly North of the DMZ the default ones - and they only work in single missions in the current WOV version AFAIK - would have been nice to have them in my campaign - but possibly after the patch.

 

You could certainly place static objects using the targets file in the correct locations if you have the time - and the dynamic engine would give you strike missions to the locations randomly (if you are lucky) - or just do lots of single missions of course.

 

In YAP there are quite a few HCM missions.

[+Wrench]

It can't be that hard. At worst, you have to create an 'enemy' base or target area in SVN. Something that dosen't necesssarly get targeted; ie - no value targets. You just need a target area for the start and end points, both on the same side.

 

Something like this: (coordinates are just numbers tossed out)

 

[TargetAreaxxx]

Name=HCM Trail Rest Area #37

Position=123456, 987654

Radius=1000

ActiveYear=0

Location=2

Alignment=ENEMY

Target[001].Type=oildrum9

Target[001].Offset=0.0,0.0

Target[001].Heading=0

 

To really get clever, you could just put a NVA flag at the 0,0 point. That way you'd know its enemy.

 

And then just build the movements ini statement from that. You'd probably have to create a 'network' of such sites, crossing into Laos and SVN from NVN, but again, it aint' that hard. Bunch near the DMZ, etc.

 

EDIT: if you want to bring a little humor into an otherwise humorless situation, I could whip out a 'rest area' sign, like you see on the highways, with the 'gas, food, lodging, bomb shelter' symbols on it. Be a nice Easter Egg!!

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[+Typhoid]

"EDIT: if you want to bring a little humor into an otherwise humorless situation, I could whip out a 'rest area' sign, like you see on the highways, with the 'gas, food, lodging, bomb shelter' symbols on it. Be a nice Easter Egg!!

 

Wrench

kevin stein "

 

[Czech6]

I have a question for the campaign and terrain gurus that hang around here, would it be possible to create the Ho Chi Minh trails in WOV?

 

Have been looking at the VIETNAMSEA_MOVEMENT.INI and comparing it to the names on the VIETNAMSEA_MAP2.BMP, and as far as I can see no truck routes come anywhere near South Vietnam. So I am thinking that frontlines could be a problem?

 

Any thoughts or ideas would be very welcome.

 

Cheers

 

Snapper 21

 

Look into the Steel Tiger forum thread here.

[snapper 21]

Thanks Czech6 looks like I have some reading to do

 

Cheers

 

Snapper 21

[+comrpnt]

Some of the Vietnam tiles contain vague impressions of trails. For the VMFA-531 mission packs I've done and am working on I try to use these trails if they appear in the vicinity of the target area, as described in the historical mission log.

 

For the recent gunnery range training mission (http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autoc...p;showfile=7189) the island located at grid ref (621,513) has such a trail, so I used it to position my mixed drone target convoy, as shown below:

 

 

For the target area, a simple definition, such as follows, is all that is required to make the site a 'live' enemy area when the mission executes. This gets added to VietnamSEA_targets.ini:

[TargetAreaXXX]
Name=reported Ho Chi Minh trail, with suspected large enemy convoy
Position=621675,513330
Radius=500
ActiveDate=04/01/1965
InactiveDate=04/30/1965
Location=1
Alignment=ENEMY
Target[001].Type=enemyPosition
Target[001].Offset=0,0
Target[001].Heading=0

 

The target type is defined in VietnamSEA_Types.ini as follows:

[TargetTypeXXX]
Name=enemyPosition
FullName=reported enemy position
TargetType=MISC
ActiveYear=0
TargetValue=0
UseGroundObject=FALSE
GroundObjectType=
RepairRate=0.555
StartDetectChance=0
StartIdentifiedChance=0
IncreaseDetectChanceKey=0
MaxVisibleDist=8000.0
DestroyedEffect=VehicleFireEffect
SecondaryEffect=MediumExplosionEffect
SecondaryChance=50

 

I tend to opt for ARMED_RECON for the overall mission type and CAS for the specific mission of each aircraft involved in the mission. For example, for a CAS mission the following extract would be used to engage targets on the 'trail':

[AircraftMission005]
AircraftType=F-4B
...
MissionType=CAS
TargetArea=reported Ho Chi Minh trail, with suspected large enemy convoy
ObjectiveID=9
...

 

Where the value of ObjectiveID denotes GroundMission009 in the mission definition (.msn) file, such as:

[GroundMission009]
GroundObjectType=gtBRDM
Name=BRDM gunnery target
FormationType=Single
Size=1
StartTime=0
ObjectiveID=0
RatingForSuccess=50
Position=621435,514599,0
Heading=134
Speed=0
Alignment=ENEMY
Nation=NVietnam
Texture=WhiteWashed

 

Regards, comrpnt.

[malibu43]

The vietnamSEA_types.ini and _targets.ini from the Steel Tiger campaign is definitely where to start. I use that in my WOV install and my Linebacker III campaign.

 

Are you going to use these in campaigns or just scripted single missions?

 

If you're using them in campaigns, you'll notice that the types added at the bottom of _types.ini are listed as WAREHOUSE. In the campaign_data.ini the primary and secondary target types for each air offensive are listed at the top. If you leave the target type for the newly added targets as WAREHOUSE, you'll get strikes against the camps and artillery sites instead of warehouses. Because there are so many new "warehouse" targets added, they get randomly selected more often than actual warehouses anymore. What I did is change the types for all the new target types to MISC, and then added MISC to the target lists in the campaign_data.ini. The result is that I have better control over when the misc targets get fragged when I'm creating the campaign. Depending on how you want your campaign to play out, you could have the new "interdiction missions" few and far between, or make them the focus of the campaign.

 

I think the Steel Tiger Types.ini and targets.ini is a great place to start, and then adding a few Ho Chi Min target areas with trucks placed in them would be a great addition!

[snapper 21]

Hi comrpnt

 

On your target area you have the following lines

 

ActiveDate=04/01/1965

InactiveDate=04/30/1965

 

Have not seen these before only "ActiveDate=1965". Have you used your format for campaigns? Because I noticed in the target.ini places like Khe Sanh are only target areas. If your way works then places like Khe Sanh could be built on the map and wouldnt get in the way of other campaigns. Just a thought.

 

Cheers

 

Snapper 21

[+comrpnt]

Hi comrpnt

 

On your target area you have the following lines

 

ActiveDate=04/01/1965

InactiveDate=04/30/1965

 

Have not seen these before only "ActiveDate=1965". Have you used your format for campaigns? Because I noticed in the target.ini places like Khe Sanh are only target areas. If your way works then places like Khe Sanh could be built on the map and wouldnt get in the way of other campaigns. Just a thought.

 

Cheers

 

Snapper 21

Hi Snapper 21, from my experiences so far, the ActiveDate and InactiveDate settings only work on Single Missions, not Campaigns - see here: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5522

 

I use these settings a lot in my single missions but for, say, the Falklands campaign the _targets definitions I used got in the way when playing in campaign mode (actually, I hadn't noticed this bug in the game engine until it was pointed out to me, as I never play campaigns). As yet, no fix available I'm afraid. Still, a useful feature if you play a series of single missions, such as the VMFA-531 missions throughout April 1965.

 

Regards, comrpnt.

[snapper 21]

Hi comrpnt

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Had a look at wov targets, there is only an activation year, tried a inactivation year but the airbase I created didn't go away! This was all in single mission, but as I was placing it on the game map, campaign should be in theory the same. WOI does have an InactiveDate field so maybe in the next patch

 

Anyway, have been playing around with the current game, if I didn't have the red square, could i find the trucks?