A Terrain for all Seasons

[Stwa]

Something funny happened to me last week. I was wanting to fly in the Germany CE terrain, and I couldn't find the selection for the fall terrain set. I was sure I had downloaded it, but it was AWOL. But Combat Ace, still has this mod for download, so I downloaded it, and the winter set as well. Both these mods of terrain tiles were, at that time, intended from WoE installations.

 

These mods both originated from the forumite Stary. He is a guy that has a knack for "impact" mods, and in my view, these terrain sets are exactly that. So, my thanks to Stary again for mods that really change the environment in the game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stwa]

Once upon a time, I came to the conclusion I wanted to do terrains. I did a few in the day, but soon after my interest waned. It occurred to me, that as I collected or created more terrains, I used the Third Wire terrains less often. This is somewhat unfortunate because Vietnam SEA and Germany CE are excellent maps. Especially if you can get them for different seasons.

 

So, sometime last year I decided to limit the total number of terrains in my collection. But no matter how hard I tried to drive the number down, I settled on 12, including any seasonal terrains. And with WoX, seasonal terrains are just like any other terrain, and when you select them, that is what you are going to get.

 

I pitched a ton of stuff last year. Israel v 1.4, Iraq, all partially finished versions of Korea, Libya, Hawaii, and many more. Here is the collection as it stands today.

 

 

Edited January 19, 2015 by Stwa

[Stwa]

With WoV and WoE, I was astonished that each system allowed a user to not only add aircraft, but terrains as well, and that the developers would provide a method to create those terrains. I suppose it could just go on forever. Maybe we will get another decade out of this system.

 

To be sure, there are lots of people here a CA that do a lot better job with terrains, which is part of the point that I am making. Someone with ordinary skill, like a user, like moi, can actually add terrains to the game. Credit must go to TK.

 

[Stwa]

So, foisting the new adage, "You didn't build that!", it makes me wonder what building a terrain means. Does it mean, who fetched the DEM data? Does it mean who made the target list?. There is one certainty, TW made the Vietnam and Germany terrains. So, discounting Stary's terrain sets, there are 10 maps that break down as follows.

 

Third Wire - Germany, Vietnam; Gephard - Israel, Persian Gulf, Tonix - Cuba, Baltika - Iceland, Stwa - Falkland Islands, Guadalcanal, Midway, Rangoon. In other words, the really dink terrains!

 

[Lexx_Luthor]

Still having fun at it haha.

 

I just made a most important discovery. Last autumn....in the north here....I lost a hard drive I never expected to lose (WD RE4) and I hadn't backed up my reworked Baikal map. Man I spent so much time on that. It was GONE.

 

But 3 days ago, I was flipping through some old hard drives, and THERE IT WAS.

 

Apparently I indeed made a backup of my new(er) map, fully completed, maybe while I was asleep since I ALWAYS backup and I've never lost anything, ever, something I bragg about, until I lost this map, or so I thought.

 

I couldn't admit to losing this map because I didn't backup, especially with Dave lurking around, until now of course, cos I did back it up. I don't remember doing it. Maybe that's good, as backing up should be like remembering to make your heart beat. It just happens...regularly.

 

Naturally I when I found this, I immediately panicked and made multiple backups on additional hard and flash drives.

 

 

 

[Lexx_Luthor]

Oh, forgot, the point....back up your work.

 

I  use old internal hard drives, many, many of them, plug them in, backup and plug them out and store them safely, and also, just in addition for kicks, to a few flash drives or DVDs, which are the new floppies.

[Stwa]

Lexx!

 

I really hope you have been doing well. Yes, I am still at it. And yes, I worry all the time about the disks as they age. Both of mine are over 8 years old. I just couldn't remember if I had downloaded that fall terrain. I was sure I did, but I couldn't find it anywhere. But then again, I am aging too. My eldest came home from college for the holidays, and for some reason he range the doorbell. So, when I answered the door, I looked at him and said, "And you are?"   

[Lexx_Luthor]

haha sweet story.

 

Old hard drives that are never used except for backups will last forever. My RE4 that failed was rather new, but always running. I still have a 125MB WD from 1993 that I have some old DOS stuff backed up to.

 

Okay, you have two hard drives, both t > 8yr.  ... A couple of cheap thumb drives can offer additional safety at low cost. Best try to get some newer small capacity hard drives to add two your 2 current drives.

 

I also have a few thumb drives I don't trust, but they are there.

 

Safetey in numbers.

[Stwa]

Roger that Lexx!

 

I do want to keep it backed up. I would really dread going to SF2. Its not a money thing, its a time thing. There is no way SF2 can replicate the functionality of this system. From the menu system to the off map airbases, and a lot more.

 

When the day comes that I just cant pair WoE with an operating system, then I will look into SF2. In 2012 I came by Combat Ace, and at the time I was trying to decide if SF2 would be a good move, but never mind all that. I am very happy with what I have and I look forward as I keep expanding this system. I have been "at it" for about a decade.

 

That being said, now that I have 3 suitable WW2 maps, I can see how this might be the extent of the terrains for moi.  How many do you really need. I am sure, many people have a lot more, but me thinks this will be the end of the road for moi.

[Stwa]

Me thinks I will spread the fall and winter terrain sets around. I only have 3 terrains that can benefit from these. That is GermanyCE, IcelandNA, and FalklandIsSA. I tiled Israel, and Persian Gulf with a modified WoV set, where I included some desert coastal tiles so I could ditch the old SF1 desert tile set. It was so much fun doing that, so I will bet Stary had a blast putting these texture sets together.

 

But my bad, the fall tiled terrains where in my menu, but as I said before when I selected Germany, it just showed the summer terrain. Here is what Iceland NA FALL looks like.

 

[Stwa]

So, apart from who built that terrain, is the terrain "True to Life", a term or phrase that gets bandied about at this site, and generally can be applied to a terrain. Take another look at the Iceland fall pic above. Is it true to life? Dunno, check out a few Iceland wallpapers, and get back to us.

 

 

So, what is "true to life". Didn't MS eventually remove the World Trade Center from its Flight Simulator series. Is this what is meant by "true to life"? Dunno, but can this phrase be applied beyond terrains, to aircraft, or just the sim itself? What happens when you get wasted in the sim? Do you re-spawn. Are you flying again within minutes. Is this true to life (or death )? Is that what it means.

 

Here take a look at winter Iceland, and see if you can tell if it is "true to life" by just looking at one screenshot.

 

 

 

[Stwa]

Well, one thing is certain. When you use these seasonal terrain tiles from forumite Stary, they make a remarkable seasonal change to the environment of the game. For WoX users it is fairly easy to set them up. I did so, by treating each season as just another terrain, and in so doing, they would appear in the drop down menu for all terrains where they could be selected.

 

Iceland doesn't need that many tiles from the set, so each version comes in around 10 megabytes.

 

And just considering the impact that the tile set makes, should Stary be the owner originator of the Iceland terrain for a given season? But what if the terrain tiles are deemed not "true to life", does that make any difference at all?

 

 

 

[Stwa]

Here is Falkland Islands fall. Me thinks that is March, April, May for them. It looks a whole lot like Iceland, but doesn't accumulate a lot of snow and ice, hence no winter set. The mountains are a lot smoother and not as high either. 

 

So it turned out to be 5 terrains. Fall and winter Germany and Iceland, and just fall Falkland Islands.

 

 

 

[Stwa]

Hey, what did you guys think of the Falkland Islands fall terrain. Did it seem true to life to you?

 

This terrain uses even fewer tiles than Iceland. So, basically two colors. The land color and the sea color.

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2015 by Stwa

[Stwa]

It looks like the Argies have been training on some surplus Soviet aircraft. It is tough stuff. There is good news and bad news about the MiG-21s. 

 

The good news: They cant kill me. The bad news: I cant kill them.

 

Nevertheless, here is a rare gun kill. Try doing anything at 500 kts in an aircraft that feels like a lawn dart, even in level flight.

 

 

 

 

[Stwa]

UH-HUH! [impersonating Barney the purple dinosaur]

 

 

Does that MiG keel look true to life, or what? I am I flying through the debris at almost 500 knots. BTW, I have collisions set to HARD. I have everything set to HARD, except the Radar Display, HUD Display, and Visual Targeting. Those settings are all set to NORMAL. I just cant do without the little red box.

 

So, here is a pic of Pebble Island. In game, the bad guys have EWR set on Pebble Island.

 

 

 

 

[Stwa]

But, if you want to check out Stary's handiwork, you are going to need a first class ride. A Starfighter is great for precision bombing of small targets. You get in and out in a jiffy, and hopefully the enemy doesn't even notice.

 

You can see the seasonal terrain in all its glory. A bright, crisp Autumn day, makes it all the better.

 

 

 

 

 

[Stwa]

If you are expecting to do any good in Germany, you must get the Crusader involved.

 

 

 

 

[Stwa]

This little project was a lot of fun. I had used the Germany fall terrain before. I like it because the tiles were all 256x256. But this time I also fetched the winter set. I was able to resize the bmp files using MS Office picture manager, where it converted all of them in a batch. But, I had to use DXTbmp (remember) to resize the winter set tga files one at a time.

 

So for Falkland Islands and Iceland, which both had a few custom tiles, I made the fall and winter equivalents that let me use these tiles with those terrains. This game rocks.

 

Usually, I fly UK stuff at Falkland, and US stuff at Iceland. If I want to fly around in circles, I can use the Harriers with either terrain. But, there is a reason why there are so many Phantom models in the game.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 25, 2015 by Stwa

[Stwa]

Hey again, all.

 

So, I spent time today making some not so hard decisions. The basic idea was to pare down the number of terrains. I know most you may have a lot more than I do. But I have this serious "yacht" condition, where after I am done with it, I usually throw it overboard. The antithesis of collecting.

 

Checking out Stary's stuff gave me serious deja vue. It just seems I have been there before, I just don't quite remember it. So here is how it went down.

 

1. I took all the WW2 aircraft, decals, and the WW2 terrains (Guadalcanal, Midway, and Rangoon), and put all that stuff in a zip. I had a lot of fun with it, but I guess I don't like anything cutting in to my Phantom time. I didn't pitch it, but I could at any moment, since now it is all in one zip file.

 

2. I checked out all of the seasonal terrains, and I have to say, Stary is one talented person. But me thinks I did this before a long time ago, and I guess I want a green season, and a not so green season. So I retained his fall terrain for Falkland, Iceland, and Germany.

 

3. I am never gonna pitch Israel and Persian Gulf, because those are the terrains where I made a desert tile set from WOV tiles. Imagine that.

 

So here is what is left. 10 terrains including the seasonal ones. Makes me happy, until the next time I want to reduce and simplify. The fall terrains just have a F appended to their names. When I had more than one season I would spell it out, like "Fall". But this works OK.

 

[Lexx_Luthor]

Keep all your old stuph. No need to zip it. Old hard drives, even 10 years old, are so giga big.

 

Just another idea. Baltika has a http://combatace.com/files/file/10530-kamchatka-peninsula-v-10/'>Kamchatka map.

 

Think about a campaign North Kamchatka vs South Kamchatka. Kamchatka War. Maybe 1960.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Lexx_Luthor