Baltika

This issue, and the solution to it, is addressed in Gepard's terrain tutorials in the KB. There are a number of points. The stock TW terrains are 63% (or thereby) of full-scale. When you import terrain DEM data to TE, the default settings will give you terrain which is 63% scale, or thereby, in the x and y axes. You can alter the heightmap data in TE to give 100%, 150%, or whatever you want, of the heightfield. As Gepard explains, and as he has done with his WW2 BoB terrain, Israel2 and others, if you export the heightmap as a .BMP file, and expand it in photoshop, gimp or whatever, then re-import it to TE, you can have a full-scale terrain. Edward has done this with some of his WW2 and WW1 terrains which are still available here at CA. You also have to play with the following values in the terrain editor.ini, depending on the maximum peak height of your chosen terrain, so you don't get chopped-off mountain peaks:- [bitmapExport] HeightScale=22 [bitmapImport] HeightScale=22 These are my settings for my recently released Kamchatka terrain. So, you can make full-scale, full heightmap terrains for WoX using TE. My preference is to have an x- y- axis map about 100% of RL, and bump the heightfield up to about 120% of full scale in TE. This gives a nice, large, flyable map with some serious looking mountains. What I think we tend to forget is that most of the world is as flat as a pancake , at least when viewed from any sort of altitude. In a game, things should be exaggerated, because it's more fun. To see what I mean, shameless plug here, check out my Kamchatka terrain Having said all of that, my current guilty pleasure is the Wings of Prey PC demo, because it runs like a dream on my 6+ year old machine, the terrain detail and ground clutter is second to none, and the sense of speed at low altitude is amazing. Those guys just raised the bar, and hopefully we will all see the benefits. I am very excited at TK's recent mention of a new terrain engine for SF2:Tomcat. Terrain will be developed in Gmax and Photoshop, with TE providing only final data (all this on TK's boards) so we can only imagine the possibilities. And personally, I find using the F2 cockpit view makes me feel like I'm really shifting, especially at low altitude Cheers all, Baltika

Good detective work there, Eric S! And, yes Kevin, I remember the happy days of Chaosium roleplaying, "Call of Cthulhu," losing 1d20 investigators per round to this guy, and winding up insane in an asylum was a result! Cheers all

Close It was Kevin's suggestion about the Big G that got me thinking about how to get something like that in-game without making a 3-d model. I have been creative with terrain-tile .tga files. You can make them get really, really big

Not a bad guess, but no, something altogether more. . . gargantuan

View File Kamchatka Peninsula v 1.0 Kamchatka Peninsula Summer Terrain v1.0 by Baltika For Wings Over Europe October 2008 Patch This is my first full-fledged terrain mod. It includes a base tileset by Deuces, together with Stary's forests and farms mod adapted for use on this terrain. I have also created a large number of additional transition tiles based on Deuce's tiles, which may be of interest to terrain builders. The tile naming format is compatible with the stock GermanyCE tileset for ease of expansion, but be aware that the excellent hi-res and seasoned tilesets by Brain32 and Stary in particular will not have all the necessary transition tiles, so use them with caution. Should you wish to use the included transitioned tileset for your own terrain mods, copy all the terrain .bmp files and .tga files into the "Tileset" folder and convert the .tga tiles to .bmp format. See Gepard's excellent terrain tutorials in the KB at CA for more info. All mission types are activated, for both red and blue side flyable. The Americans have their existing bases on the Aleutian Islands. I have handed the northern Kuril Islands to the Japanese for the sake of this scenario. Take it as read that the Soviets were sufficiently distracted by the ground war in central Europe that they lost their hold on the Kurils to Japan. Now, the Soviets are engaged in a fierce battle for control of the strategically important Kamchatka Peninsula. This is a target-rich, fictionalised version of the Russian Far East. There are many installations and industrial zones in the Kamchatka Krai that you will not find in real life. Equally, as much real-life stuff as I could discover went into the mix. Also, this is intended as a showcase of a fully-transitioned tileset, so there is much more agriculture than you would get at these latitudes. Just kick back and enjoy the scenery. Finally, there is a monstrous presence lurking at the heart of the Peninsula who has risen from aeons of deathless sleep to trouble the affairs of men once more. Bragging rights to the first person to take a recon photo of this horror and make it back to base alive, and with their sanity intact ;-) INSTALLATION:- Simply unzip and drop the "KAMCHATKA" folder into your Wings over Europe/Terrain folder. It is highly recommended that you install the files listed below or you will not get the full intended Kamchatka Krai experience. REQUIRED FILES:- Groundobjects:- CVN-75 by Digital Overload http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=9684 TAKR Orjol by Gepard http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=5497 TAKR Admiral Gorshkov by X-RAY http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=5830 UdaloyI by China Insky Team http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=10336 UdaloyII by China Insky Team http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=10330 BRDM_SA-9 by rebelryder http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=7740 SA-11 & SA-17 by 101tfs http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=7627 ScudLauncher & Missile by bigal1 http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=6435 Soviet SAMs by gabilon http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=3057 INCLUDED FILES:- Core tileset by Deuces. Additional transition tiles by Baltika. Forests and Farms mod by Stary, extended to cover additional tiles. Doppler Radar Dome by grumpapotamus I have modded this as a terrain object rather than a separate ground object. The original readme file is included. Thanks grumpapotamus ;-) WW2 Subpens from WW2 Europe Terrain by Edward et al, modded for Soviet use. Thanks to the original creator. Special thanks to Gepard for his TE tutorials, without which this mod would not exist. Thanks also to The Wrench for leading the way in terrain target placement - the hard way! As ever, feedback, comments, bug-reports and general griping are most welcome. Tally-Ho! Baltika February 2010 Submitter Baltika Submitted 02/05/2010 Category Terrains

I am delighted to announce that the Russian Far East "preview" terrain has now been fully completed and uploaded, now available right here at CA. Here's the link:- http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=10530 Meantime, here's a sneak peek of what you get in the package:- Russians at the Ready at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsk Casco Cove CGS, tricky for take-offs Heading North over Paramushir Outbound from the now Japanese-occupied Shelikhovo-1 Mountain peaks somewhere over Kamchatka Krai Trouble brewing over the Sea of Okhotsk Heading for home in the weeds, taken some damage Get that landing right first time around. . . Coming Soon: The Kamchatka Crucible, 2010 Campaign. Tally-Ho! Baltika

Thanks very much for another great bird

I wish I could help, unfortunately FMs are beyond my comprehension. If I may make a suggestion, I think you should team up with gregoryp of the AvHistory group, as he is doing great work with bringing the WoX/SF2 WW2 FMs up to speed, as he has posted about here and on the Thirdwire boards. I know AvHistory are looking for certain 3D models of WW2 planes to take their work further, you may wish to check their boards out, they have a dedicated Strike Fighters section:- http://avhistory.org/communityserver/forums/39.aspx Thanks for all your great models Cheers Baltika

TK's post of Sat Jan 09 2010 at 1.47pm: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2706&start=32 Exciting

Looks good

Great work, thanks very much for this

Thanks Wrench Really looking forward to trying this one out Tally-Ho! Baltika

Thanks very much for continuing to update this pack. As someone who took the plunge to the SF2 series with TK's combo pack, and therefore have no option but to fly at the Dec 2009 patch level, I really appreciate this series of fixes. Cheers to all concerned Baltika

I tried the very same thing when First Eagles came out. First and foremost, FE is based on a build of the game engine later than 2006. So, the FM problems Wrench referred to will appear for most of the WW2 birds available. I also got serious clipping issues with the WW2 cockpits, although that was resolved after some digging. The WW2 weapons will not show up as stock in FE, so you would need to incorporate Wrench's WW2 wep pack and keep all your WW1 weps in place. FE handles the terrain slightly differently than the other WoX titles, for slower planes with a shorter view distance, but higher definition in ground detail, so you may get issues with the WW2 terrains. Read this thread for more info:- http://forum.combatace.com/topic/25752-ww2-planes-for-first-eagles/ I'm sure Wrench will say, "It's just far easier to make a dedicated WW2 install!!" And I would have to agree

Use the game interface to set HUD to "hard" default ALT+D in game will cycle through various levels of on-screen clutter (or info!)

Just like allen says. Here is the link to Wrench's excellent guide on how to create an era-specific install, geared to creating multiple installs for each of the WW2 theatres (ETO, PTO, MTO CBI): http://forum.combatace.com/topic/19630-how-to-create-a-seperate-era-specific-install/ For a couple of WW2 campaign packs, with further instructions on installation and set up, see these:- Battle of Britain (good for creating a base ETO install) http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=5246 Battle of Midway (likewise for PTO) http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=8420 There are a good few others here at CA, check the "what's available" sticky at the top of this subforum. You will want to sign up for membership at the DAT skunkworks, a lot of WW2 plane mods are hosted there. http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/ See the forum rules for the registration process. It may take a few days, hang in there. Wrench's toolbox is invaluable:- http://wrench1smog.com/index.html Geo has some great WW2 groundobject packs, and exclusive planes:- http://geos-aircraft.com/SFmain0.htm That should keep you plenty busy meantime. Any questions, fire away. Tally-ho! Baltika

Yup, it's on the list

+1 I just love doing those crinkly bits all around the edges. My computer chair looks like it was built out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus And here I am, brain the size of a planet, and you want me to hand tile 100,000 km of coastal terrain?

Thanks for this one Cheers Baltika

Finally making some progress getting those darn fjords to tile properly, base tileset courtesy of Major Lee's DBS terrain. Outbound from TOS TROMSO, northern Norway, plus a little sightseeing thereabouts. . . North Cape inbound

Yup, that mission now features heavily on my terrain building install of WoE Glad to hear swambast's work is still progressing - last I heard there had been an HDD crash which caused some data loss. His targeting placement tool will be greatly appreciated

Actively being worked on. I have a "preview" map covering a section of the main map which is at terrain targetisation stage, i.e. tileset completed, citylist completed, airfield flattening completed, movement.ini for frontline, ground attack routes, shipping, truck routes etc etc completed, terrain tiling completed, custom planning maps completed. Targetisation is . . . progressing As for the main map, it is still at compilation of Citylist stage, so cities and airbases are still being plotted. It has a ways to go, and while the Korean peninsula is within "the wall," as I mentioned I think China and Korea will not be the focus of the initial release. TK has recently mentioned that he has been working on a new terrain engine which will not use the current TE or data, which is very exciting, but has given me an incentive to knock most of my advertised terrain WIPs into a workable state for release. Targetisation is the really slow part of the process. So watch this space. Cheers, Baltika

Great to hear you are working on SF2 WW2 update The man to ask would be Charles, who created the original WW2 formations mod. Get it here for reference:- http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=3197 From my own limited knowledge, I think you have answered all of your own questions. I looked at vics of 3 with a "weaver" for BoB campaign, can't remember if it was implemented there or not. I seem to remember that giving orders to wingmen was kind of screwy if your base fighter formation was three rather than four, or two. I think you are correct in saying you would need a different Nation defined for each different formation style for same plane types. The difficulty, eg with your early vs late RAF formations, is how to switch nations in mid-campaign? I simply don't know if that can be done, although I suspect probably not. Sorry can't be of more help, I have a feeling you are pushing the envelope here But, take a look at Midway campaign d/l for how to create sea battles as CAS missions (in campaign mode) with separate USN and IJN formations defined in FORMATIONS.INI for ships instead of tanks for use at sea. Hope that helps. Cheers, Baltika

S!