1st Look: Aegean Sea v0.2b & HAF Su-30MKG Flanker

[PFunk]

I've actually been working it, so I'd like everyone to get a look at what's coming up.  Here's the first images so far of the new Aegean Sea Terrain and the Su-30MKG Flanker for the HAF.  More shots will be incoming as work progesses.

 

What's done so far?

 

• Completely tiled, and coastlines and airbases leveled.
• Rivers implemented.  Elevated altitude lakes leveled.
• All airbases are placed, working, leveled and Off-Map airbases added for TuAF
• All EW and SAM batteries added to map.
• 74 TargetAreas and climbing.  Haven't even gotten to military bases like naval facilities and FOBs or even urban/industrial targets.

There will be no custom tileset, it will use the stock IsraelME tiles.  If someone wants to make a new tileset, awesome.  I don't have that kind of time.

 

This particular map is going to be meant to be Greek vs. Turkish conflicts only and I am leaning toward this not being a NavalMap.  However, expect a companion map to come out that is meant for Cold War scenarios and will incorporate naval combat.  The allowable years for this map will be 1974-present, nothing earlier.  The Cold War Aegean Sea map will go all the way back to 1946.

 

Also, expect an update to the Archipelago map I created a few years ago.

Edited February 25, 2017 by PFunk

[Viggen]

Flankers as F-4 replacements or a total force conversion?

[PFunk]

Flankers as a replacement for the F-4.  Greeks keep their Mirages and Vipers.  Buy some retired Fencers and stuff them full of French, Indian, and Israeli electronics and use them in the strike role.  The Greeks can't afford Strike Eagles, so they get the next best thing.

[Viggen]

Gotcha. Looks like it should be a fun campaign,

[+Menrva]

Wow, it's beautiful, PFunk!  I always desired a smaller version of the Anatolia terrain, and here you made it!

[tiopilotos]

Really good work Pfunk! ...and fast progress also!

 

Some thoughts:

 

- The modern greek F-4s (F-4E AUP) are upgraded aircarft with AIM-120 and modern A/G weapons capability. I suggest that they sould be used instead of Su-30MKG.

 

- The area of Evros is the only constant piece of land between Greece and Turkey and thus is the only area which a ground battle can take place. In my opinion this area must have more target areas and ground objects than others.

 

 

[+acesfakia]

Really good work Pfunk! ...and fast progress also!

 

Some thoughts:

 

- The modern greek F-4s (F-4E AUP) are upgraded aircarft with AIM-120 and modern A/G weapons capability. I suggest that they sould be used instead of Su-30MKG.

 

- The area of Evros is the only constant piece of land between Greece and Turkey and thus is the only area which a ground battle can take place. In my opinion this area must have more target areas and ground objects than others.

 

 

YES in did.

Also the Aegean sea for Navy-batle....around a small island's.... or Dogfight  !!

Any help...just tell.

Ace

[PFunk]

Really good work Pfunk! ...and fast progress also!

 

Some thoughts:

 

- The modern greek F-4s (F-4E AUP) are upgraded aircarft with AIM-120 and modern A/G weapons capability. I suggest that they sould be used instead of Su-30MKG.

 

- The area of Evros is the only constant piece of land between Greece and Turkey and thus is the only area which a ground battle can take place. In my opinion this area must have more target areas and ground objects than others.

 

Reaching back into the olden days from my military history class in uni, we called the Evros region the Thracian Spike because the border thrusts upward into Europe.  And yes, that's where the strategic nodes will all be, along with Forward Operating Bases on either side.  That'll be where most of the ground combat will take place.

[PFunk]

One of the things I will very likely do (depending on who gives me permission to do it) is to prepare some "Realistic" plane sets and campaigns and then some "What If" sets as well.  I plan on using my own weapons pack for aircraft to insure it all works.

 

This terrain is also being tested and used with the SARCASM v1.5 mod, so I can confirm it's completely functional.

 

After everything is done and I'm satisfied with the product to the point I feel like I can release it here, before it gets posted, I'll make a list of all the assets I've used and post them in a thread so that people can give me a "yea" or "nay" on the use of their stuff before I released my work.  Someone's already contacted me about one thing that needed to be removed because they didn't want their stuff used any longer.  I have absolutely no problem with that, by the way.

 

Also, who made "groundplatte2" and "groundplatte3"?  Those are going to be two assets I'm really going to need for industrial targeting.  I haven't used either of them yet, but I know I'm going to desperately need them.

 

Here's a really dumb question:  How many TargetAreas and TargetTypes can the engine handle?

Edited February 27, 2017 by PFunk

[+Wrench]

the "ground platte" came with The Factory Place, circa 2005. The only name I know is "Mitch" as the creator.

[PFunk]

I've seen it in a lot of terrains.  I presume that means its okay to use...(Please, dear Lord...).

[+Wrench]

yup

Mitch is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong gone

[PFunk]

LOL.  Kevin, you have no idea how much you're appreciated around here.  Thanks for all of your help.

[+EMCON360]

Im Still Surprised How Much Data Is Compressed Into TE Heightmaps. Still Fine Tuning My Win 10 64Bit Install.

Heres A Gimp Pass Using Script-Fu Filters And Adaptive Contrast To Enhance The Relief Then Reversion Back

To 256 Color Bitmap. Creates A Greyscale Image But Not Scaled Yet To Correct Distances. I Think TE Has A Lot Of

Bugs But Is Far From Unstable Once Editor.ini Is Corrected.

[PFunk]

That's a neat trick.  How'd you do it?

 

I'm still trying to figure out the 250m resolution trick.  I'd love for this map to have higher resolution terrain.

[+EMCON360]

I Use The Ground Plattes To Creat Modular Sites Myself.

Base Image

Run Script-Fu Color BW from Graphic

Run Filters Colors Adaptive Contrast

Open With MS Paint Save As Other Formats 256 Color Bitmap

[PFunk]

That is flipping outstanding.  My next terrain, I'm trying Stary's 250m resolution procedure.

[+Stary]

impressive but I womder how much of the original data is either lost or exagerrated this way -not big issue given my 250m tests were also relying on heavy creativity work with original DEMs

[+acesfakia]

...HOW about ...new ship's......???

[PFunk]

I am going to highly recommend people download some of the wonderful cargo ships available here because the Aegean is probably one of the busiest, if not the busiest, shipping lanes in the world.  As far as naval action, there probably won't be much because I'm not planning on making this a naval map for carrier aviation.

 

However, I am planning on releasing a second map that WILL permit naval aviation.  This map is restricted to combat solely between the Turks and Greeks and neither of those nations have carrier battle groups.  The Cold War Aegean map will use the exact same assets, but I'm planning on adding airbases in Albania and the former Yugoslavia as well as off-map bases in Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, etc in addition to naval aviation provisions in the Sea of Crete, the Sea of Marmara, and possibly a very small corner of the Black Sea, depending on what the engine will allow me to do.  That map will be released after this one.

[tiopilotos]

Any progress here?

[jeanba]

As an old wargamer, I remember Aegan Strike :

Edited June 12, 2017 by jeanba

[+gerwin]

Here's a really dumb question:  How many TargetAreas and TargetTypes can the engine handle?

 

I had a conversation with Quack74 some time ago; he wrote about having 790 TargetAreas in his Verdun terrain for First Eagles 2. The game worked fine. I compiled special TFDtool version for him then with support for 1024 TargetAreas,

 

impressive but I womder how much of the original data is either lost or exagerrated this way -not big issue given my 250m tests were also relying on heavy creativity work with original DEMs

 

The game's heightmap format is 16-bit, so it can support 65536 height values instead of just 256 (8-bit). Though it is more convenient to work with 8-bit as all imaging programs can work with it. 8-bit gets insufficient when there are very high mountains present in the map. Like with the Mount Everest; When you have just 256 values to represent zero to 8850m, that means that the smallest increase of height is 34,6 meters. Which is jaggy in low lying areas.