New Galicia Terrain - WIP

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

I started a new version of the Galicia terrain several months ago. It's going slowly because I keep stopping to work on new planes. The basic terrain is finished, the foothills of the Carpathians in the south and marshland to the north. I'm still adding roads and rivers (very tedious work.) There are about 100 towns and villages, all of them pretty small. I hate seeing farms at a steep angle and buildings sticking out of hills, so I've been doing a lot of tweaking of the height map. I haven't even started to place the military targets yet.

 

 

[Stratos 3,188]

Excellent news! Thanks for creating this mods!

[+whiteknight06604 934]

looks beautiful.I can't imagine the amount of work involved but I am greatful that you are putting in the effort.

[+Coupi 4,380]

It looks very good!

[Gatling20 753]

Looks great, looking forward to it, thanks mate.

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

Thanks guys. This is the first terrain I've made from scratch, the others were revisions of existing terrains. The more I work on this, the more respect I have for Gterl, Wrench, Gepard, and other modders who have made terrains for FE. It's an incredible amount of work (but still worth the effort.)

Edited January 25, 2015 by Stephen1918

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

I have the terrain pretty much finished and I'm starting to place the targets. I've been experimenting with battle lines.

 

Has anyone figured out how to make them shoot at each other? It would be nice to fly over a battle in progress, but even 300 meters apart, they don't recognize each other as targets. If I put an AAA gun behind the line, they shoot at that until it's destroyed, then stop shooting. but anything placed as a ground target doesn't register as a target.

 

Even if I could get them to fire randomly it would be an improvement. Does anyone have a solution?

Edited April 5, 2015 by Stephen1918

[+Geezer 3,569]

Thanks guys. This is the first terrain I've made from scratch, the others were revisions of existing terrains. The more I work on this, the more respect I have for Gterl, Wrench, Gepard, and other modders who have made terrains for FE. It's an incredible amount of work (but still worth the effort.)

 

Boy, you got that right!

 

The more I look into making maps, the more I realize how difficult and time consuming it is.

[+quack74 329]

I've placed lines of artillery and soldiers all over No-Mans Land directly across from each other in a few maps. They all seem to shoot back and forth. They need to be pretty close to reach each other though. Otherwise the ground hit plumes end up in between the two lines. I'm not sure what makes them shoot at ground targets though. But I can say that it works for me.

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

Quack - that's encouraging, at least I know there's a solution. What target types do you assign them?

[+quack74 329]

I think I just use all the stock Data from your Infantry and Artillery objects. All target types are "Ground". I don't remember ever changing anything. They just worked fine from day one.

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

I'll keep playing with it. They fire when there's an army cooperation mission, but not when I place them using the target.ini. Maybe it's an FE1/FE2 thing.

[+quack74 329]

I know they (the infantry) have to be relatively close and they need to be directly in front of each other to fire back and forth. I have notice if they were a few degrees off they did not fire at all. Again this is just placing them in the Targets.INI. For Army_Coop missions they shoot at everything in their way.

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

Here's a question for those of you who have been using FE a while. I'm trying to get me ground units placed in the target.ini to fire at each other. Reading in the Strike Fighters forums and in the Thirdwire forums, there was an indication that one of the patches in FE1 broke that feature, but nobody seemed to know for sure. TK was surprised that it was ever possible at all since he didn't design that into the game.

 

But Quack obviously has it working in FE2. And earlier threads talk about it happening in FE1. I'm trying to figure out if it's the way I'm writing my types.ini, or if it just isn't possible. So here's my question:

 

Is it possible to get ground units to shoot at each other in FE Gold?

Edited April 8, 2015 by Stephen1918

[+quack74 329]

The one problem with ground units in a fixed position via the Targets.INI firing at each other is, if close enough, they will kill each other before you will get to see them. Unless you have a destroyed .LOD to show up when killed you wont see anything. I use Geo's destroyed infantry .LODs for Stephen1918's infantry objects. So make them far enough apart so they don't really hit each other. How far that is, I don't know. Trial and error.

[FrankTB 14]

I had "good guys and bad guys" artillery firing at each other in SF2 Desert a few years ago.They never seemed to quite ever hit each other but as long as they had ammo they just kept banging away at each other I even added a couple of warships by artillery positions by the coast and ended up with a three-way scrap. The good thing about it was whenever I flew over the border the landscape was very much "alive" and looked pretty spectacular. Have tried this in FE2 but not had any success so far.

[+ojcar 157]

Have you try to play with the field guns Data.ini?

 

Maybe increasing VisualRange, MaxVisibleDistance, GunRange or something like that.

 

I have artillery fire in FE2  (when there is something to fire at). My trick is "giving them datalink with recon planes and/or balloons" this way:  ViewportPosition=0.0,0.0,100.0

[FrankTB 14]

I have never played around with the artillery data in for this certainly would like to give it a whirl when I get a chance. Have only given artillery positions a quick tentative try in FE2 and had them set up with range of each other but no go couldn't help wondering if my problem was with the lay of the land in this case as when viewed at ground level they were both situated too low to one another with high ground between them.

[Heck 496]

When I set up an active battlefield mod ages ago, I found I had to fly over the area, crash, and then use freeview mode to see from the infantry or artillery position to see what they could actually see. I had to create static units, both artillery and infantry, who had terrible accuracy and lots of armor, so they could fire at each other without actually harming each other. If I didn't, their battle would be over before I ever reached their section of the front. Very time consuming to set up, but it does work if you choose the terrain wisely.

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

After several days of trying everyhing I can think of, I've concluded that - in FE Gold anyway - the ground units will not fire on units placed in the target.ini. Thanks for all your suggestions. I will place them on the map and keep the space between them level so maybe they'll work in FE2 when it's done.

 

I have been thinking about the ground units hitting each other too soon - try setting their min and max extents (MinExtentPosition and MaxExtentPosition found in their data.ini) to a lower height. These two numbers define a box (x,y,z values of two points) which is the collision target for the bullets. If you set the last number of the max position to be around 0.5, it will make a short box which the others should usually miss, but you should still be able to hit it from the air. I haven't been able to try this idea, but it seems like it should work.

 

For artillery, try putting an enemy balloon a couple of kilometers down range of the gun. That worked well for me when I did the rail mounted artillery units. You have to place the balloon carefully to make sure it's in front of the gun. My artillery never seemed to hit the balloon, so the guns would fire continuously, and they would elevate up like a real long range gun.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Stephen1918

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

The Galicia terrain is getting close to being finished. I'm doing minor adjustments to the tiles and doing a lot of work on the target.ini. Using Geezer's mechanics and airfield objects, Geo's wagons, the stock objects, and my own objects, I've created several supply depots, army bases, and balloon stations. Most of the airfields are very small. I'm working on some cavalry units and a few other new objects.

 

Does anyone remember who made the ambulances? They've been included in a lot of terrains, but I haven't been able to trace who made them in the first place.

 

 

 

 

[+Geezer 3,569]

Wow!  Looking really good Steve.

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

I'm putting on the finishing touches on the Eastern Front now, it should be done in a few days. Geezer made some howitzers, so I've included some artillery batteries. And I made some cavalry units, both charging and on patrol. I repainted some of the tiles to make more variation in the farms, and to make the battle zones less beat up. And I made a smaller airfield, most of the airfields will be about half the size of those on the Western Front.

[+Geezer 3,569]

I love the cavalry! 

 

Excellent work, Steve.