World Terrain

[Badfrank]

Why not a Terrain of a Mini Version from the World.
The complete World in the Maximum possible Terrain Size.
Not realistic but could be funny.

What do you think?

[+daddyairplanes]

well,  make a runway that circles it, then fly the Thud.  Let teh Republic jokes flow from there

[+Gepard]

Do you enjoy long, long, long, boring missions? As bigger the terrain as thinner the target areas are placed. Between them a lot of empty space.

 

Then the problem of terrain warp. This makes the relations of the distances very uncorrect. While areas near the equator are relativly correct the areas near the pol becomes a massive warp. The world is a sphere, but in TE it is a flat thing.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Gepard

[Wrench]

 

While areas near the equator are relativly correct the areas near the poles becomes a massively warped.

 

don't remind me! If it weren't for Gerwin fixing that, the Northern Europe (Norway ww2) would have been a disaster.

 

In theory, creating a terrain that's 10000 x 10000 km map is doable. You'd need  ALL the DEMs for the region(s) in question, and then combine them in the TE.

 

But Gepard's targeting point is the most valid ... there are places on this planet that are pretty empty (read: Pacific ocean), and then game scaling issues come into play.

 

case in point, would be Lexx_Luthor's "6 million meter map". It would be impossible to target that, as you need points of reference to place the various cities, rivers, airfields, etc. A nightmare of Lovecraftian proportions.

 

And then there's the tiling issues ... NONE of the existing sets actually represent the world "as it is". Even if you used those, you'd be making HUNDREDS of new tiles for all the transitions between the various ecologies.

 

I can't think of anyone crazy enough to attempt that -- not even me, and I'm know for my insanity!!

[Foxbat1966]

Why not a wormhole effect command to allow a Vulcan to tack off in  map a of England (BOB) ,fly to a given point on the map and JUMP to given point on the South Atlantic map (Falklands 82) for the target and then reverce for the return trip . I don't know how or if it is possable but it sounds good . Given maps could then be linked together without derangment to the maps. IE  Germany to Israel to Pershan gulf  and on and on till the hole of the world was covered . Just a thought !

[+Gepard]

The game engine does not allowed such wormhole thing.

[Wrench]

yah, this ain't FS or CFS or even XWA, where the entire world(s) actually does exist in the terrain engine

[Muesli]

Secret passages for Lasercatz and Eels???

[Badfrank]

don't remind me! If it weren't for Gerwin fixing that, the Northern Europe (Norway ww2) would have been a disaster.

 

In theory, creating a terrain that's 10000 x 10000 km map is doable. You'd need  ALL the DEMs for the region(s) in question, and then combine them in the TE.

 

But Gepard's targeting point is the most valid ... there are places on this planet that are pretty empty (read: Pacific ocean), and then game scaling issues come into play.

 

case in point, would be Lexx_Luthor's "6 million meter map". It would be impossible to target that, as you need points of reference to place the various cities, rivers, airfields, etc. A nightmare of Lovecraftian proportions.

 

And then there's the tiling issues ... NONE of the existing sets actually represent the world "as it is". Even if you used those, you'd be making HUNDREDS of new tiles for all the transitions between the various ecologies.

 

I can't think of anyone crazy enough to attempt that -- not even me, and I'm know for my insanity!!

 

Wrench, You think too complicated.

Which are the size of the stock terrains?

Rivers? No

And as tiles Ice, Woodland/Jungle, Farmland, Desert...

Think about the Risk Game

[+Gepard]

If i remember correctly a stock terrain has the size of 1000x1000km.

To skin the terrain you must merge the tilesets of Desert, GermanyCE, IsraelME and VietnamSEA. Its an immensive job.

But more terrible will be the tiling. You will not be able to use the autotile function of FE for the entire terrain. Autotile is working by the height level of the terrain. You say to the TE: "all terrain from 0m - 100m get tiles of kind A, from 101 - 500 get tiles kind B, from 501 - 3000 tiles of kind C and 3001- 9000 tiles of kind D" The problem is, that the tiles of kind A in Europe looks different from the tiles of the same height level needed in SEA or desert areas. So you are forced to place all not fitting tiles by hand. And this will be surely some 10.000 or 100.000.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Gepard

[Wrench]

yes, the stock 4 terrains (NOT IcelandNA) are 1000x km.  Which is why the whiners complaining about lack of air refueling are suffering terminal HUA. Don't need it on that sized map.

 

INA, iirc, is 500x km

 

 

Wrench, You think too complicated.

 

Not complicated, just realistic. As in "Real World". The work speaks for itself.

 

 

You will not be able to use the autotile function

 

True

 

One would have to hand tile in the 100s of thousands. Now, is a somewhat quicker way, but it's also risky as the TE just loves to crash when using it... the flood or bucket tool. You'd "seal off" an area with the type of tile you want to use, say 50x50 tiles, then flood the inside area at "random headings".  And repeat, and repeat and repeat. Still takes nearly forever, and the TE will still crash randomly

Went through that nightmare when doing the Midwest USA map.

Terraforming is not for the faint of heart or those lacking the dedication to the level of detail now required.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Wrench

[Fubar512]

To clarify Wrench's statement, let me add that TK built the "SF World" on a scale that uses 1 KM per minute of Latitude. In real life, it should be 1 Nautical Mile per minute of Latitude, so the scale is really 0.5399568 of what it should be.  That effectively almost doubles the range of any aircraft in game, rendering the need for A2A refueling in this series to being about as useful as tits on a bull