S3 Series

Hey Muskie, how's the fishing?

47 I think is Kokoda. I had played with the idea of a small strip there but decided not to. Looks like it didn't delete. The dumps should definitely not be in a runway so some weird went on in the process.
47 and 48 are a salute to the Battle of Kokoda, and potential early frame, difficult to hit, targets.

I put trucks in instead of a plane for variety, same points. The airfields weren't as built up in this theater so I loaded them with smaller point getters.

Airfields are clustered because I placed them as historically as possible. I tried to keep object count down in those areas. Rabaul will have the same issues as Port Moresby.

Clouds are a special feature I put in to aid IJ )

<S> Zinhawk
You get bonus cookiers if you just report the name of the egg

Exactly what we need Muskyz. One thing to remember is you cant test hardness offline, its a server setting but generally things blow up way easier offline. If its not blowing up it may be because its too hard to hit. Clouds are turned off using the .weather 1 command. Time is set as .offtime 12 00 00 that gives you the highest daylight and shows up the terrain at its default colours. We dont use puffy clouds in the S3s because they are just FE artifacts and not synched between players.

One question for a striker is the benefit of ground clutter. Previously we have turned it off because it sometimes flickers when its on mountainsides. We added it back into the crimea for this series after fine-tuning it a bit. We can try it for NG as well if you think it helps down low and isnt a distraction. Its not good for any MA action as its like clouds only on the FE and not synched between players. Guys driving tanks really cant use it for cover as they may think they are behind a tree but the other guy doesnt see that tree and has a clear shot. Not an issue with S3s since we dont drive tanks.

If ground clutter is trees, YES I would definitely want it. Trees give a great reference of how high I am flying. I try to fly through the tops of tress when NOE to know I am low enough.

How would you feel about a couple real trees in the approaches to locations? Something a NOE guy can run into. I know Bollock used a fair bit of trees in the North Sea terrain. Got a fair bit of flak over the trees near the fields in Solomons so its just something I have just considered. Part of the alpha beta process is suggesting things as regards to layout observations etc. The guys setting up the terrain have a lot of control over where they place objects, historical and other considerations are important but so is player input.

On EVERY mission in the Solomons, we had our pilots expend all remaining ammo prior to landing on the trees that any self-respecting combat engineer would have wrapped with det cord and simply removed from the proximity of the airfield. There should be NO TREES in the proximity to an airfield that an aircraft could impact on a "normal" takeoff or landing. IF you gotta put them in, please make them killable so we can waste time taking them out, and then got NO POINTS for the endeavor.

10-07-2014

Full Terrain Object and Graphic Check

Exquisite terrain and field layouts, what follows is more nitpicking and excluding FPS, not necessarily germane to play-ability

This is based on Jabo's second update with runways loaded.

General notes:
-All arty posts/tank battalions- be mindful of partially buried tanks, may present bombing/strafing challenges, will test under s3 conditions as best as able.

-All shore facilities with docks- most docks do not fully extend into terrain (ground slope vs amount of serviceable dockside in water likely the case here)

-Individually no fields present FPS issues, but when 3 (especially high object volume) or more are in view, FPS usually drops to 50, 40-45 in dense areas.


Specific Field Notes

30- super easy to close with a tight grouping, only 1 mg

13- road clipped near coast

22 (Rabaul)-FPS stays around 55 when in motion in area, road clipped on airfield side

36- when viewing Rabaul from field, FPS drops to 45

108-Darem, but no other structures on base


Will test most spawn points by end of week.

Thanks Zin.

I will be updating the terrain after this weekend and should submit to IEN on Tuesday. Feedback like this is great and posting here allows me to check mark stuff. If time is limited concentrate on New Guinea proper as that is the area the S3 will take place in. Trying to get the fields renumbered in a more logical order so the planning map for the S3s wont have field numbers until I get time to do that.

One FPS issue may be fields with lots of attached ships or aircraft. They are basically the same models as you see players or AI using and have a much higher poly count than the basic objects.

Found no issues with spawn points, no sticky areas or leaps onto/off bounding boxes that cause concern for damaged gear.

I would recommend adjusting SP1 and SP2 closer to the runway at F44. It is quite a bit of a jog to get to the runway, unlike other fields where it is one turn and go.

Other than FPS issues already posted I'd say this baby is good to go for S3 play.

If you are considering rotating this in the MA, I would revise the GV spawn points to be multiple and off the field a bit. The adjusted MA terrains use about a 2mi perimeter for GV spawn that the rest of the terrains will be adjusted to at some point.

I just went online on the S3 to look at the map and found some issues with F81.

When you toggle between map and field vied, the field view is not F81. I was having a ton of issues initially so I did the update and that cleared up most of the issues but F81 still has issues.

Will check it out.