Baltika

Thanks, Wrench Great work

Hi Stary, Good to hear from you, and thanks for the new fire effect - excellent Although I am surprised you had the time with all the other stuff you have been producing/are involved in just now. (Your Green hell treemod looks great with Brain32's Vietnam tile repaints over the skies of Burma ) Anyway, back in BoBland, to answer your questions:- - Angels 20 pencil raids. I don't think I messed with anything for 0.60 that should effect this setting. The file to look at is MISSIONCONTROL.INI, under the [Altitude] heading. Variables are Normal, Low, Very Low, High and Very High. Units are in metres (or meters if you are an American ) and you can adjust them to settings you prefer. I seem to remember Charles saying in the readme to his WW2 Formations mod that the stock settings were too high for WW2 , so you maybe want to check that some other mod hasn't altered those settings. - Heinkels, yup, they're hard work. I suggest you make the engine / nacelle hitbox additions to the aircraft_data.ini file, and especially the pilot hitbox additions. That, I think, is the fairest way to make it a bit easier to get bomber kills without making it too easy. Works especially well for pilot kills, which some BoB pilots swore was the only way to make sure your bomber went down. - Hmm, yes, I've seen the diving formation behaviour as well, although I hadn't realised it was associated with taking out the leader. I d/k what's up there. However, I prefer to view it as a feature, i.e. sometimes the bomber formations lose their nerve and dive for safety. Better than just ploughing on in a straight line as they get shot to pieces. - Patches & v0.61. I have been promising BoB v0.61 upgrade for a long time now. It is still in the works, but my "active" project list has grown arms and legs recently, as various areas of modding have been opened up which were hitherto a closed book to me. So, yes, BoB will be upgraded again, but there is no timescale as yet. I reckon there won't be anything until the new patches are out, so that I can see how the new campaign parameters affect the BoB build. The ability to direct air offensives to particular target areas would have been a godsend, as you will see my workaround for the "Phased" campaign is somewhat cumbersome, and took a long time to set up. That may all have to be changed in the new build. Also, there is some concern that all the WW2 birds will require a FM upgrade to work at all in the new "patched up" sims, so I am waiting to see how that pans out before spending time on a campaign upgrade which may be obsolete as soon as the new patches are out. Witness what peter01 has gone through with his FM work for FE, poor fellow, with pre-EP, EP and patch+EP versions all being just different enough to invalidate a lot of his work. That must be frustrating. So, at the moment, I'm waiting to see. And, trying to learn how to make terrain tiles seamless. That is frustrating But, yes, I would love to get the WoI/patch AI running in BoB. Meantime, for now, I'm off to drop your new fire effect into BoB v0.60 and take the old girl for a whirl. Cheers for that Tally-ho

Here's a template: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autoc...p;showfile=5533 Includes a couple of spreadsheet files which tell you what all the Thirdwire comm files actually contain. I made the BoB speechpack by renaming files from WW2 Fighters and European Air War. Not everything needed was there, but a little bit of editing of the original soundfiles with Wavepad did the trick. I forget if Janes IAF had what you would call properly accented Israeli comms, but if so it might be a starting point using the above method.

In case you missed this:- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7359514.stm

File Name: Iceland 2015 File Submitter: Baltika File Submitted: 12 May 2008 File Category: Terrains Iceland 2015 v0.1 beta for Wings Over Europe by Baltika with thanks to Gepard for illuminating the path This is a beta preview of my Iceland 2015 terrain which is in the early stages of development. Installation is as simple as dropping the Iceland folder into your WoE/Terrain folder, and selecting "Iceland 2015" from the terrain list. This terrain is usable in SFP1 & WoV, but you will need to edit the CatFile= flag in the Iceland.ini file to point to the correct terrain Catfile for the version of the game you are running. You will also need a Germany_CE replacement tileset. Brain32's is excellent, with treemod by CA_Stary, and you can get it here:- http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autoc...p;showfile=6192 In fact, I recommend installing Brain32's tileset even if you are running WoE. Just drop the tileset into your Iceland folder, and go fly. Please be advised this is an early beta release, for preview and feedback purposes only. Single missions will run, and there are flyable airbases for Red and Blue sides. But, there are a number of glaringly obvious tiling issues, and be very careful about using Alt+N as you are likely to crash into the side of a fjord somewhere. For some reason, Blue side anti-ship missions tend not to work properly. Also, non-airfield target areas are completely unpopulated, so don't go looking for lots of stuff to blow up, as it just ain't there, yet. . . Now, if someone wants to tell me the easy way to create a new tileset from scratch, I'd be delighted ;-) The topography of Iceland is wonderfully varied, from Glaciers to Volcanic Lava flows, from pure blue crystal springs to beaches of black sand, and from barren craggy rocks to verdant pasture. Just now it all looks a bit, well, green and boring. My early efforts at creating terrain tiles are amateurish to say the least. Ho-hum, back to the drawing board. . . As ever, feedback, suggestions and requests are most welcome. You can get me at combatace. Tally-ho! Baltika May 2008 Oh yeah, this mod is released as freeware, you can mod it to your heart's content, and re-release for the benefit of the community. Credit should be given to the original developer, i.e. me ;-) You are NOT permitted to use this in any payware package, OK? Click here to download this file

Brain, that is excellent advice, I have been taking textures from 30K It is getting late now for me to continue with this, but I will be in touch. Thanks for the offer of help Cheers Baltika

Excellent, great work Just the thing for the Eastern Front

Aw, shucks Coming from you that is praise indeed, CA, cheers mate Agreed, with Brain's tiles and your Trees and Farms mod the whole thing comes to life, although some of my runways are a bit close to tiles with tree LODs for it to work perfectly. That's why it's beta v0.1, I suppose I have spent a lot of time since I posted this trying to create (I mean, grab from Google Earth) some Icelandic terrain tiles, but trying to make them all fit together is giving me a migraine. I think I'll concentrate on finishing runway/target placement meantime, and take it from there. The northern coastline is a bit underpopulated, and my handy Phillips Universal Atlas of the World shows at least another seven major airfields to place. Then there's some river tiling to do. And maybe a road or two. And carrier stations. And lakes. And tidy up the sea climbing on land. And. . . My hat is off to all those who build terrain. There's just always something else to do Oh yeah, sorry everyone, I've been flying Armed Recon and getting trucks in the sea, basic error, sorry. I'll try to post a hotfix _Movement .ini when I get it sorted. Toodle-pip for now, Baltika

Great to hear it, although they looked just fine to me Thanks for your terrain tutorials, BTW - excellent guide, cheers

Great suggestions, cheers. I'm still feeling my way with this stuff though, I'm just a jumped-up .ini monkey

Lava rock tiles are from google earth images. The Glacier is just the stock WoE snow tile, but with snow/lava transition tiles added to give a "flowing" sort of feel. Doesn't look too good close up, though

Hi there pureblue, thanks for the encouragement. Peaks.txt and sectorheight.txt are generated by TE when you hit the "Save All" button. I d/k specifically how they are used, or what editing them would do. I did my height adjustment the manual way, using "Export height Map as Bitmap" then editing the .bmp in Gimp and then "Import Height Map from BitMap" in TE. Terrain tiling is hard work, and I'm not too happy with the result so far, but, hmm, well OK, take a look:- Glacier advancing over lava rock formations:- External view Long shots External views from altitude These are pre- pre release alpha, just to give a flavour. Getting rid of those tile intresection lines would try the patience of a saint. And, the more tile types you introduce, the more transition tiles you need. Gets to be a lot of work very quickly, and my lava rock/sea transition tiles won't work, for some reason. Good luck with your Anatolian terrain

Hi Gunrunner, Fast moving there Thanks for the feedback. I have deliberately not used the smooth terrain function as I want to get all the airfields placed and levelled first, as there seems to be no "undo" function on TE But I agree, the relief needs some work in places. On that subject, I'd really like to see the coastline much more rugged and rocky, particularly along the eastern and northwestern seaboard. That would seem to require a bit of "cheating" by hiking the heights of the various coastlines, in much the same way I have done with Heimaey, and of course will require some rock/sea transition tiles And I admit there is a ton of work to be done on adding more towns, ports, targets, bases, etc etc. That will come in time, as I keep picking away it it. On the issue of eyecandy, as I said in the read me, the Icelandic terrain is wonderfully varied and gorgeous, and surprisingly colourful. I have been messing with lifting imagery from google earth and trying to build Icelandic terrain tiles, but there's a looong way to go with that, if ever. Good suggestion about seasonal changes, but that's a while down the line, I suspect. Well, hope you're having fun with it meantime. Updates as and when I get the time. Cheers, Baltika

Good suggestion, Gunrunner. I certainly have carrier ops in mind for when I get a campaign built for this terrain, but I must confess, as if it wasn't obvious, that my inspiration for building this was DID's last flawed masterpiece, rather than Tom Clancy, or indeed any awareness of the strategic significance of Iceland as sitting on the supply lanes from USA to UK. As to resizing the terrain, well, I had to jump through a few hoops to get the HFD data coming out right, as at these latitudes the DRM data tends to come out very scrunched up in the north-south plane. Also, whilst this is not quite a full-size terrain, it is much larger than the standard WoE/WoV/SFP1 67% size terrain, and that took a bit of effort to get right (or something close). So I don't really think I will be resizing my basic build. There will be carrier stations in later builds, but placed with a view to the tactical goal of launching and supporting an invasion of the Icelandic mainland, rather than maintaining a strategic overwatch on a blockade frontier. And, of course, opposing such an invasion. The "big picture" of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe will happen offstage, as in the campaign from Eurofighter Typhoon. Anyway, build v0.1 beta is now available for d/l, so time to stop talking and get flying

Thanks for the info Gunrunner. Now you've really piqued my interest - looks like I'm going to have to work on a WW2 campaign for this terrain as well as one for Eurofighter

Sorry chaps, haven't seen either movie, so can't promise a mountain that will lead to the centre of the earth. Embarrassingly enough though, I have built up the volcano Eldfell on the island of Heimaey into a suitably impressive peak, only to discover that it is an ash-cone volcano with a rather lower ceiling than one might expect. Isn't google earth great Anyway, let's just assume that by 2015 it's been blowing its top enough to grow considerably in stature. Now awaiting clearance in the Terrain d/l section (never thought I'd get to say that, cheers Gepard for your tutorials ) There are issues, oh yes, but all feedback is welcome. Wrench, thanks for the offer of an Icelandic flag, that would be great. Not sure what the political set-up is there, independence seems likely these days, but who knows? I hear what you say on harbour/sea level transitions, no problem. Funnily enough, I've been trying to work out how to get cliff faces to rear up out of the sea vertically, and been having a laugh trying to draw rock face/sea transition tiles. Sadly, I'm no artist, but I'll keep plugging away. Enjoy

Hi Bandy, Let's just say that thanks to Gepard's TE tutorials, literally a whole world of possibilities has been opened up :yes: Right now I'm like a kid a candy store, to deploy an apposite American aphorism, as the Doctor might say Trouble with the TE is that it's easy to pick your longitude and latitude, d/l the DRM data, specify your autotexture parameters, and batter out something you can fly over that looks like where you want to be. The difficult part is city, airfield and target placement, especially as all the places I'm interested in won't autotexture a city tile for love nor money. So they've all got to be hand tiled. With the exception, of course, of the Eastern Front, where the problem is that everything is so flat, and there's no sea, you have to measure distances out by hand. Holding a ruler up to my aging CRT monitor has certainly been a new experience for me. . . Like Gepard said early on in his KB articles, you can wait a long time for somebody to make what you want - eventually you just have to try to do it yourself. The great thing about this place is, sooner or later someone will give you a leg up on how to get going. Tally-ho PS, and completely OT, the TE project I have most advanced is an entirely new terrain, non-WW2, where NATO taskforce ICEFOR, consisting of EF2000, Gripen, Viggen, Tornado, Harrier and Sea Harrier elements, confront and resist an invasion by massively superior Soviet forces. And the accompanying campaign WILL NOT feature a real-time pilot management interface. . .

Check out this thread for your bomber troubles:- http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showt...9928&st=180 Page 10, post #181 will give guidance for how to enable pilot hitboxes for He-111 and others. Then, as has already been suggested, manoeuvre to attack head-on and aim for the cockpit. Takes a bit of practice, but you will get results. Happy hunting, Baltika

Hi Bandy, Good to hear from you. Development on BoB v0.61 continues, at an almost glacial pace. In the works are squadron upgrades to include Wrench's BoB squadron skins as flyables, as well as a little project I'm fiddling with to enable individual squadron codes for all RAF squadrons. I had also been messing with a patched-up FE as a basis for my WW2 installs, to take advantage of the WoI-level FM for prop planes. Problem is, most of the existing WW2 birds will need an FM revamp to take advantage of the new features, and that sort of work is beyond my capability. As to a Blitz/nightfighter campaign, I have in development a Channel Front style campaign which should feature most of the available later war types. On the other thread, a few problems seem to arise with day fighters turning up at night, flown by AI. Haven't got to the bottom of that yet, but I'll keep picking away as and when time permits. On the campaign release front, I'm waiting to see how well things work with the next round of patches. It may be some further revision will be required, so I'm not busting a gut to make any releases which may have to be revised in a few weeks or months down the line. So things are kind of quiet just now, but waiting in the wings are North Africa, Burma Air War and an upgrade to my old Burning Sands '44 campaign. I've been spending time with FE + EP + Patch. Oh, and the TE of course, thanks to Gepard's excellent tutorials. Kursk Salient, 1943. Any takers?

Hi Canadair, thanks for the complements I must confess I read through this whole thread recently and was very impressed by the contributions, so thanks to all who have posted. I learned a few things myself And yes, you are quite correct, my new avatar is none other than Skaro's finest, the deadly black Dalek, now terrorizing a universe near yours, with his many destructive minions :yes: And while I agree that Billie Piper is easy on the eye, I would have to say that the golden age for companions was the early seventies, when Tom Baker flew the Tardis round the nine galaxies:- The Doctor always had a soft spot for blondes, witness Romana Mk II:- Although he also had a fine eye for brunettes, and Leela knew how to handle the business end of a knife and a staser pistol, no problem:- But I've got to save the best for last, the delectable Mary Tamm as the haughty Time Lady Romana, in her first incarnation, before she regenerated into the above mentioned blonde model:- And whilst I think the current incumbent, David Tennant, is one of the best Doctors ever, and a Scotsman into the bargain, good man, the new companion Catherine Tate just doesn't hold a candle to any of the above. Now that I've got that off my chest, does anybody want to talk about the Battle of Britain

Part of CA_Stary's WW2 effects pack v0.91, included as part of BoB campaign d/l, also available separately right here:- http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autoc...p;showfile=5072 Flame effects are gloriously OTT, but I've gotta say his tracer/gunfire effects are just marvellous, couldn't go back to stock for my WW2 installs. @Nicky, Yup, got to munch a few carrots myself, can only see the bombers when they blot out the stars, by then it's too late, as demonstrated above I'm thinking that the way forward with WW2 Nightfighters is to script a single mission or two so that only the right type of planes show up, i.e. no daylight-only-capable fighter escorts. Would still have to cope with the uncannily accurate defensive fire, though. Maybe TK could implement a similar type of masking for night missions as we see with cloud cover at the moment. At night, every plane is visually "invisible" to every other plane, no external (or internal) padlocks, just what you can see out the window. Tricky to implement, I suspect - AI can only "see" you attacking when you are firing your guns, etc - but it would add a lot to the whole night-time experience. Just a thought.

Great suggestion Heck, and logically it should work. Tried it out, and yes, I get night-fighting Hurri Mk 1s. Sadly, I was up against bomber flights of Ju-87b and Bf109E-4b, with an escort of Bf109E-3, all of which are defined as DAY_ONLY. That was in a single mission, but even so, d/k what's going on there I have also learned that:- 1. The night sky in TK's sims is unutterably beautiful, I could look at the stars for hours. 2. Night flying is dramatic and atmospheric, turn out the lights and you are there. 3. Luftwaffe tailgunners can see in the dark, to wit - Time to call the boss, I think

Hi there, hope you're enjoying BoB campaign I agree, nightfighter missions and searchlight guided flak would be great. On the former, you may want to take a look at this thread:- http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=25381 On the subject of in-game searchlights, I seem to remember a thread over on Thirdwire forums which dealt with the possibility, and maybe some work had been done on it, but I can't remember if it came to anything. Maybe take a look over there to see where it's at. Toodle-pip for now (off to Cambrai, where a Camel is waiting )

I'm not sure I'm understanding your question right, but I'll do my best to answer. Nodes are defined in your [campaign]_data.ini as follows:- [strategicNode012] Area=Rangoon ConnectTo[001].Target=Pegu ConnectTo[001].BasePoint=231324,439209 ConnectTo[002].Target=Prome ConnectTo[002].BasePoint=165000,467000 "Area=" is the name of the particular Node. The entry must match precisely the name of a Target Area as defined in the [terrain]_targets.ini. "ConnectTo[xxx].Target=" defines which other nodes that node is connected to. The entry must match the name of another Strategic Node in your [campaign]_data.ini. You can have multiple entries (up to four or five, I think) but you should at least define two so that the ground unit may both advance and retreat from that node. "ConnectTo[xxx].BasePoint=" These are the absolute map co-ordinates (use KMD, TE or sfmap to get them) at which the battle will take place in respect of the Target Node defined in the previous line. In the above example, say you have an IJA infantry unit occupying Rangoon. From Rangoon, it can either retreat to Pegu, or advance to Prome. If it attacks Prome, then the defending British unit will stand at the co-ordinates 165000, 467000 (which is just south of Prome) and the IJA unit will advance in-game on that position, heading towards Prome from further south (in fact, from the direction of Rangoon, its point of origin). So, if your BasePoint co-ordinates match exactly the co-ordinates of the target area as defined in the terrain file, the battle will take place at the centre of the city. The BasePoint co-ordinates do not relate to a different target area completely, which I think is what you are asking. Changing the values for BasePoints means you can advance on target areas (i.e. Strategic Nodes) from different directions, depending on where the attacking unit is based. Take a look at the Nodes in my Operation Mountain Twilight campaign to see an example of nodes and Base Point co-ords worked up from scratch. I have found that there is a "comfort zone" of distance for nodes. If they are too close together, ground units tend to disappear when advancing. Likewise, if consecutive nodes are very far away from each other, or at an extreme angle relative to the general line of advance, units tend to disappear when retreating. It's all a bit fiddly, and defining nodes properly so units advance and retreat in good order throughout your network is far and away the most time-consuming part of campaign development, IMHO. On a lighter node , apparantly the latest patch does away with the need to define BasePoint co-ordinates entirely, so it may be you don't have to worry about that part any more. Hope that helps. Cheers, Baltika