Baltika

Campaign building, with special interest in, but not exclusively, WW2 and Red-side flyable. Very occasional forays into skins and voicepacks. Have recently branched out into terrain building and, bad move, creating custom tilesets. The last in particular has slowed progress to a crawl, but, you know, it will all be great when it's finished

Thanks for the airbase suggestions, I'll add them to the list I tried your suggestion for converting the Germany_CE targetlist, but sadly as this terrain is stretched to full-scale, it's not an easy job. The focus for this terrain will be the northern frontier (Scandinavia) and the Baltic sea, at least initially, then Eastern Europe and Russia. Germany is a relatively low priority (to begin) just because it has been covered in great detail in the stock game. I hope to post a beta preview (two weeks ) with at least a few cities and airbases for each country featured (still a lot of work) so that everyone can fly from their home patch. The detail of each country can be built up from there.

Progress Update: All featured airfields have been placed, flattened, tiled and test-flown. Still a fair few to go, but we're getting there. Cheers all, Baltika

Progress update: OK, I don't think my idea of a projection including Iceland is going to work. So I will press on with this build for now. The above map will give some idea of the coverage of the proposed terrain. Alignments are up for grabs and in any event can be made campaign-specific from the campaign data file for different eras (WW2, Cold War, Modern). Most of the airbases suggested to me can go in. Anybody fancy building a model of the Kremlin

Thanks for these Monty

The new map has been scaled by pulling and stretching the heightmap .bmp in gimp to give as close as possible to "real" distances in-game. Bear in mind the projection limitations discussed a couple of posts above. The UK looks even more stretched than in the older build, but as you will see, it should not only be stretched like that but also rotated about 20-30 degress clockwise. I am not saying you can fly by instruments from Lossiemouth to Moscow, but the overall distances are about right. I am wondering if I can create a huge map to cover all of the above plus Iceland, then stretch and squeeze the whole thing in gimp to get an approximation of a correct projection. Just a thought for now.

Hi pureblue, My new build of this terrain looks like this:- When you compare it to the Google Earth projection, you see the problem I am having. It is a known artefact of TE that it compresses the north/south distances, especially the closer you get to the poles. It's not the fault of TE, I suspect it has to do with the trajectory of the satellite that scans the DEM data. I can cure north/south compression by exporting the heightmap and editing the scale of the image in gimp. And, sure, I can cut and paste my Iceland map into the northwest corner of this map. But the basic problem is that distances across the whole map are messed up because of the projection issue with the DEM data. That's why Iceland doesn't appear in my new terrain build at all. I know google earth has a "terrain" setting which means the altitudes of any given point are available. What I am hoping to do is convert the google earth image into a DEM data file that TE can read, or, find a DEM file which reflects the projection I can get of the region in google earth. Just a thought

Anybody know how I can get DEM data for an accurate projection of northern europe, like so: The downloadable DEM data I am using has the northern latitudes "stretched" in such a way that I cannot get Iceland to appear on this map, no matter how hard I try. The good news is, that Baltic Sea map is benefitting from work done on NZ map, so it is all coming together. All suggestions gratefully accepted. Slainthe, Baltika

Excellent work, Thanks very much

The sheep are not forgotten. . . Should be easy enough to replace the cow .tga with a sheep .tga, although I may need to add a lot more sheep to the terrain Having driven (and flown) round NZ, I know what you mean. There are a lot of sheep. . .

Let me add my thanks to Brain32 & Stary for their custom tileset work. I, for one, would certainly appreciate a tile creation tutorial. As you know I am working up a tileset for Iceland terrain, but it is slow, slow work. Thanks guys, Baltika

Progress update: Airfield placement is going well, albeit slowly. About 1/3 done, that's 16 airbases placed, tiled, flattened, test-driven to make sure the AI can land between the mountain peaks. Picton and Wanaka were a lot of fun. Another 30-odd to go. Plus a stack of little Aerodromes if I can find the time. . . Having fun flying this terrain:- @brndl, no problem, already dialled in: Tuuta Airfield egress: Picton outbound: On the plate at Wanaka: @Nightshift82, this is being developed in WoE Oct 08, but I see no reason why it shouldn't work in SF2 series. Will keep you posted. Cheers all, Baltika

Ostfront is not dead But, anyone got a good source for Red Air OOB? My research has turned up a good unit-level breakdown, but without specifics of which unit flew what, from where. My Luftwaffe OOB is extremely detailed, no probs there. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Baltika

I got three :yes: All Force FX, all "TOS" 1x Luke Skywalker, 2x Darth Vader. I also have a couple of spare tubes for when those "sabre parties" get out of hand and they get shattered. But this was where it was really at, I think. The shipping costs to the UK made it prohibitive:- http://www.ultrasabers.com/ These guys do the lights, the sounds, and you can whack them off your mate's head whilst three sheets to the wind, without damage - well, at least to the sabre. Anyone round here try out an Ultrasaber?

Oh yeah, On a more general note: If anyone has a particular WW2 campaign they would like to see implemented, but think they can't help because they can't "mod," they can do a lot to make it happen by taking a leaf out of MKSheppard's book, and doing a little bit of research. I can't say how much that helps, and how much time it can save from the campaign file creation process. Unit names, equipment, any upgrades, base locations, and even any info about notable aces, is all extremely useful, and not necessarily easy to find in one place, or at least not without trawling through a lot of more general material. Thanks agin, MK.

Excellent. You have just saved me a ton of work. Researching OOBs can often be tricky, unless you come across a good textbook where some kind historian has done all the research. Or, you can spend a while digging around on the internet. Comprehensive, unit-level lists are not always easy to find. With that list, I can move straight to compiling the campaign data.ini file. Thanks again Baltika

@Wrench, thanks for the updates. @MKSheppard, great research materials, thanks very much. Exactly the sort of thing that makes campaign building easier. Cheers for now

Hi there, You are not alone in having some performance issues, and, yes, TW sims are pretty CPU intensive. Help is at hand: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=43231 Current hot topic on this issue. Cheers, Baltika

Sounds great, although I know what you mean about having too many projects on the go I certainly wasn't expecting an upgrade of your upgrade for Okinawa If it helps prioritise, my Operation Watchtower campaign file is more or less completed, along with Mareth Line, while Olympic/Ketsugo is still in the research/planning stages. Have a good vacation :yes:

Lookin' Goood

Well, I have been looking thru some of these old WW2 threads and this has caught my eye. Sorry to say my proposed Japan map has not advanced much since the basic terrain build pictured above, and will probably have to go back into the shop for the same reasons as Malaysia. That's not going to happen anytime soon. But, I have been doing some reading on the subject, and the proposed Operation Downfall invasion of Japan was split into two parts, the initial invasion of Kyushu in Nov 45, to be followed by the invasion of Honshu in '46. The Japanese defence plan, Operation Ketsugo, committed the bulk of the available Imperial forces to an all-out defence of Kyushu, with little left in reserve. So... It seems that Edward's Okinawa map would cover the initial phase no problem - as it was probably designed to. And it would be a shame not to take advantage of Wrench's Okinawa upgrade :yes: The end result - Operation Olympic IS GO (Watch this space for progress reports)

Cricket grounds, no problem Meanwhile, Saruman has been busy. . . More to come. Cheers, Baltika

533rd Uruk-Hai Fighter Squadron on the prowl. . . The armies of Barad-dur are rising. . .

Great work Wrench - really looking forward to this one Stringbag Did I hear you say Stringbag Oh, yes please :yes: