Libya, Central Mediterranean (1980-2011)

[+Menrva]

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Libya, Central Mediterranean (1980-2011)

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Libya, Central Mediterranean (1980-2011) Terrain
February 13th, 2018 (1st Release)
by Menrva

>For Strike Fighters 2, Recommended Full-5 Merged
This is a complete remake of the Libya terrain made by Dave and further tweaked by Wrench during the years.
The entire terrain has been retargetized and hand-tiled to a great extent using a different, more complete tileset; Sicily, Greece and Tunisia no longer are barren, deserted lands as seen in the original. Major rivers have been added and mimic Real World courses as accurately as possible. Numerous target areas have been added in order to expand playability, targets of opportunity and year range.

This terrain features a fresh new 250m resolution heightmap (instead of the stock 500m resolution), allowing for greater details and precision in elevation changes; overall it provides the whole terrain with a better look.

The terrain spans from June 28, 1980 to October 31, 2011 (the official end of NATO's Operation Unified Protector); it is designed for Operation El Dorado Canyon, the Gulf of Sidra incidents of 1981 and 1989, Operation Odyssey Dawn and the subsequent Operation Unified Protector. Also, a specific Red Side target has been added inside Tunisia (Blue Side) territory, meant for Operation Wooden Leg.
Targets reflect Real World events as accurately as possible; for instance, some airfields won't be available after a certain date and/or will change name according to historic changes. Off Map Airbases have been added and long range AI flights can be generated from them, if you have SF2NA. All main targets have been placed accurately in their Real World locations. Expect to see temples at historic sites!

Ground Objects are not included. It's up to the user to find and obtain anything that can be useful for the proposed terrain's scenarios.

>Credits (in no particular order):
-Dave, who had the idea of recreating such an important scenario in the Strike Fighters world.
-Wrench, who kindly allowed me to improve upon his work by giving me a blank cheque and trusting my capabilities. Thank you, sir!
-swambast, who provided me with invaluable help in tracking and fixing common and uncommon bugs.
-gerwin, whose TFDtool has proved to be essential in today's terrain making. If the terrain is pretty accurate to RL it's also because of him. I included his very nice Airfield 7+8 Addon Pack, too.
-mue, for the improved shaders he made, which I have included and reworked for the terrain, and for the tools he made for SF2 modding.
-luk1978, for the waternormal bitmap he shared at the SF2 screenshots thread. Your mods are very interesting!
-MigBuster, I have included some of his great hi-res textures for runways.
-Gepard, for his great tutorials about terrain making, in the SF1 Knowledge Base at CombatACE. It's a gold mine!
-tiopilotos and Stratos, who supported me during the terrain's development. Thank you, guys!
-krfrge, who has produced a tutorial for recreating SF2-like planning maps, which prompted me to work on templates and my own high quality planning maps. Thank you very much!
-comrpnt, for his Approach and Airfield Lighting Pack mod packages for SF1 series, which I reworked and included.

Because the original terrain was born from Dave and was tweaked numerous times by Wrench, I included the ReadMe files from the original packages, to the end of giving proper credit to everyone involved directly or not.

>Disclaimer:
This is a freeware; yet it can be redistributed ONLY in other CombatACE mods/mod packages.
Any changes to the terrain package's files and/or any copy-and-paste attempts of their contents are NOT authorized if you plan to release them in other mods. But permission might be granted to those who request it to me at CombatACE.
This terrain may NOT in any way, shape or form be used in any payware additions.

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• Submitter
  Menrva
• Submitted
  02/13/2018
• Category
  Full Terrains

 

[+Menrva]

@bubu I couldn't quote what you said because you wrote it in the review section. Anyway, thanks for the question; I intended to leave the USAF off the limited nations list, as this only affects single missions, so you can add USAF planes in campaigns with no problems. I deactivated the USAF because the majority of planes we have is American. I wanted to give priority to other nations this way, or we would see way too many USAF planes spawn in the terrain.

[bubu]

ahhh yes I forgot about the spawning part... thanks!

 

[+Wrench]

what? no native carrier ops (ala NA)??

otherwise, pretty damn good, I'd say!! 

[Peugeot205]

The most important overhaul over this terrain , before this one, was made my me back in 2014 when I retiled the entire terrain with Desert V4 tileset . I remember that Wrench helped me creating some coastal tiles............

[+Menrva]

3 hours ago, Wrench said:

what? no native carrier ops (ala NA)??

otherwise, pretty damn good, I'd say!! 

Thank you, master!

I would have liked to add naval ops by default, but no matter how good the water bitmap is, I had carriers spawning over land. By default I activate naval ops where the bug does not happen (for instance, they work perfectly in my Madagascar terrain remake). Users complained of carriers spawning over land, and I do not want to take credit for TK's laziness over such bug.

3 hours ago, FRPignon said:

I remember that Wrench helped me creating some coastal tiles............

Wrench helped on this one too! He offered me some specific port tiles for Valletta and Tripoli, which I had to rework for the IsraelME tileset. I am rather happy about the results! I just wish we had more different hires tileset repaints around. The beauty of Strike Fighters is that we can make each terrain feel unique, granted that we have different tilesets for each one. We'll see what the future brings.

I am grateful to the CombatACE community and members for what they have provided during the years. My terrain remakes are a humble way of saying "thank you" for such support to our beloved Strike Fighters series.

Edited February 13, 2018 by Menrva

[+Wrench]

I had the same problem when I added NA type stuff to. It's just some really weird stuff. 

Those that complain have probably never read Michael Moorcock's "Elric" series (ie: The Ship That Sails Over Land and Sea) 

[+Menrva]

12 hours ago, Wrench said:

Those that complain have probably never read Michael Moorcock's "Elric" series (ie: The Ship That Sails Over Land and Sea) 

Makes me wondering, do we have available hovercraft/LCACs for SF2?

[+NIELS]

Nice work Menrva........................Bravo!

[PFunk]

I experienced the carrier group being spawned on dry land.  So, I removed the CarrierStation entries in the Targets.ini file.

Now I get native naval carrier ops in single player mode without problems.

[+Menrva]

30 minutes ago, PFunk said:

I experienced the carrier group being spawned on dry land.  So, I removed the CarrierStation entries in the Targets.ini file.

Now I get native naval carrier ops in single player mode without problems.

Really? Now that is interesting! Although, if someone wants to make a campaign using static carrier stations, he won't be able to do it. I'll keep that in mind.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Menrva

[PFunk]

Just now, Menrva said:

Really? Now that is interesting! Although, if someone wants to make a campaign using static carrier stations, he won't be able to do it.

True.  You'd have to have SF2NA in order to do it the way I did it, so those who are using other installs would have to add carriers the old way.  What's the advantage to having static carrier stations if you don't mind me asking?

[+Menrva]

6 minutes ago, PFunk said:

True.  You'd have to have SF2NA in order to do it the way I did it, so those who are using other installs would have to add carriers the old way.  What's the advantage to having static carrier stations if you don't mind me asking?

Static carrier stations would be better for campaigns like SF2: Vietnam, where main objectives would be to strike land targets. By using SF2: NA naval fleets, campaigns have by design another behaviour, where you would see enemy forces try to sink all of your ships. I don't think the Lybian forces would have been that crazy to risk all of their aircraft against the US Navy.

Still, I'll keep your discovery in mind when reworking terrains.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Menrva

[PFunk]

OK, hadn't thought of that.  I see the point.  I'm going to have to think on that for a minute.

I wonder if making the USN the primary FRIENDLY nation causes that behavior and if simply made someone else the primary FRIENDLY nation if the enemy AI would not throw all its resources into sinking carrier groups.

[+Menrva]

10 minutes ago, PFunk said:

I wonder if making the USN the primary FRIENDLY nation causes that behavior and if simply made someone else the primary FRIENDLY nation if the enemy AI would not throw all its resources into sinking carrier groups.

No, as far as I know, there is no such thing like primary or secondary nation. They are just numbers, nothing more. If carriers are there, the enemy will try to sink them. I think that the only way to prevent this is to limit the allowed mission types, something that I did in Madagascar for a number of reasons.

[snapper 21]

Hi Menrva

I think the problem with carrier ops is the water bmp. I am not an expert in photoshop but on the water bmps that work for me if I delete the red and black as a check I get a white background. If I do the same on the one in your folder I get a green background.

TKs Iceland has a white background. I have attached the water bmp I had in the previous Libya terrain and have not seen ships on land so far.

Cheers

Snapper21

LibyaCM_WATER.7z

 

 

[+Menrva]

27 minutes ago, snapper 21 said:

Hi Menrva

I think the problem with carrier ops is the water bmp. I am not an expert in photoshop but on the water bmps that work for me if I delete the red and black as a check I get a white background. If I do the same on the one in your folder I get a green background.

TKs Iceland has a white background. I have attached the water bmp I had in the previous Libya terrain and have not seen ships on land so far.

Hi, snapper21! That is interesting as well! I was not able to reproduce what you described, though, so if you can open a thread about it and explain further with pictures, I'd be glad. I have other painting software, so when I cut certain areas I see a transparent background.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Menrva

[snapper 21]

Hi Menrva

I was not cutting, but using the erase tool. I am seeing this in photoshop and gimp but not paint.

So on the left below is the file I uploaded, on the right is your file. I am only guessing but as there seems to be a layer of green behind the whole image I thought the program thinks the carriers can go everywhere?

Cheers

Snapper21

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2018 by snapper 21

[+Menrva]

@snapper 21 Thank you very much! You just discovered something very important! I will fix all my terrains' water maps in my next releases!

[+Menrva]

Terrain package updated to Version 1.01; nothing big, just minor changes. Check the Changelog for full details.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Menrva

[jjlehto]

please pardon my ignorance, I get there are no ground objects included. 

I have anyway a large number of ground objects installed but a "Slava" class cruiser is everything I get in all missions (of the single type).

Do I have a problem with my config or is there some step I should do that idk of?

thanks and cheers for another great map.

[+Menrva]

On 19/3/2018 at 9:52 AM, jjlehto said:

please pardon my ignorance, I get there are no ground objects included. 

I have anyway a large number of ground objects installed but a "Slava" class cruiser is everything I get in all missions (of the single type).

Do I have a problem with my config or is there some step I should do that idk of?

thanks and cheers for another great map.

Ground objects affect variety of the friendly and enemy units that can spawn. Terrain's enemy nations are limited to just Libya, hence why you might have the same objects spawning. Unfortunately, many ground objects lack a _userlist.ini file listing all the “real life” user nations for said ship or tank or whatever. I suggest that you download eburger68's ground object packages (SF2 SAM Pack, SF2 AAA Pack, SF2 Tanks Pack, etc.) as they include various fixes. Apart from that, I think nothing's wrong with your configuration. I usually get the same objects spawning because of the reason above.

Edited March 23, 2018 by Menrva

[jjlehto]

On 3/19/2018 at 12:35 PM, Menrva said:

I suggest that you dowload eburger68's ground object packages (SF2 SAM Pack, SF2 AAA Pack, SF2 Tanks Pack, etc.) as they include various fixes. 

Did it.

Yesterday I downloaded and installed the SAM pack only, and it opened up a wide range of scenarios, especially strike missions. 

Today I'm downloading the other two packs and installing them. 

Thank you for your assistance.

[+Menrva]

Terrain package updated to Version 1.03.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Menrva