Adding new maps: Which one would be the most useful?
 

I strikes me that if anyone (myself included) is thinking about doing a map for IL-2 1946 and submitting it to Team Daidalos for inclusion, that it will take a lot of time, effort, and dedication to a single battle area to try and make it work. It's a hell of a lot of research and then time spend doing it not to mention working with fiddly tools.

So I wanted to toss it out there. If I or someone else or a group of us were to try and build something then what map area should it be and what resources would we be able to rely on?

Couple of ground rules:

1) Looking for useful battle areas. Big or key battles with a variety of action. A remote area that saw maybe a half dozen air to air kills isn't something all that useful.

2) Map size and complexity needs to be achievable at either 1:1 scale or perhaps 1:2 scale.

I've been thinking about Leyte Gulf but resources are short in some places and I'm not 100% on a usable battle area. Ideally I'd like to have Japanese and American airbases for both online battles and historical missions from both sides on that one.

Again .... the Channel Map with decent textures.

It's blatantly missing from IL2 1946.

:)

Yep, the Channel was the first that came to my mind....
A relatively small area (could be made in 1:1), particularly well researched and documented, with endless air kills from the very beginnings.

I have three MTO maps in the works. If there is anybody willing to give a hand in placing textures and objects, or even better, producing custom textures and 3d objects, please PM me. :)

I thought that a Channel map was 'forbidden'...or would it be allowed now due to the demise of COD?

Aviar

I would be. I've been reading some tutorials about how its done. I'm not yet started but I'll send you a PM.

I'd be interested in a channel map. That would be very useful potentially.

There are three questions:

1) There's already a channel map made by some modders. Would they be interested in making it official? What roadblocks are there to it being given that status? Does anyone know them?

2) Is an "official" channel map verboten or are we allowed to do it?

3) What size/area would such a map be. Again, aiming for maximal usefulness. How deep would it go into either country?

Just looking at it now we could probably have a number of uses from the "tip and run" raids to the Dunkirk invasion. Perhaps the Channel Dash scenario. Perhaps an additional aircraft variant like the RAF Mustang Mark I (first in action over Dunkirk). Ambitious but an option.

I've also investigated (in addition to Leyte) doing a China map but I don't know the geography versus battle spaces as well and in doing a summary of the information I'm finding that its hard to find a good tactical space to recreate. Bases are massively far apart. It'd also need significant help in terms of creating houses and other doodads and that would also assume that we'll hopefully have a Ki-44 Shoki and Ki-48 Lily in the nearish future.

I'm also curious how receptive some additional small scale dogfight maps would be. Not necessarily historical but thematic (i.e. West Front dogfight, China dogfight, etc.) and designed for online battles.

It's gorgeous!!!! :grin::grin::grin: Unfortunately I can't help you, but fingers crossed!! :grin: I voted for the Channel because IceFire stipulated that "big or key battles" must have happened there. Historically, the Med was only a secondary theatre, but I love it above all. :cool:

(You know, red soil and wine, mare azzurro, olive trees, pesky Italian planes...:-D)

How about somewhere other than Western Europe?

I'm bored with the channel after the hours spent in CloD plodding around on the same old map. It's one of the reasons I stopped playing CloD altogether.

Boring.

IceFire, you know where I want to go next.

China.

It's never been properly done, and it deserves to be.

Malta is a very important area not yet represented. It's a small land-area and consequently will allow for a great variety of textures so that it won't get repetitive. I tend to prefer smaller maps with rich detail than large, generic ones.

I've been having a look at an existing map that Maraz originally made (the first ever map to be created when mods came out, I believe). There's a lot of potential for a brand new map if a team could be created. New objects would be a must though.

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/d...pse377f350.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/d...pse02f8978.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/d...pse719c96a.jpg

The Med has plenty of key battles. The trick would be finding a map area that combines enough of those areas, plus allied and axis airfields, etc. So, yeah that works. I'm trying to avoid having too much thought towards very minor areas of battle in WWII such as central Africa, Iraq, etc. Interesting history but limited in scale and scope (or bang for your buck).

China is super interesting but I'm having trouble finding an area that would work. It's also a lot of extra work because its not somewhere we've been (needs new textures, new buildings, etc.).

Icefire, if it is your first map project, I suggest to start with a smaller map, for example a Pacific Island, to learn the basics.
My suggestion - A northern Kurils map, showing Paramushir, Shumushu and the southern end of Kamchatka. The Japanese had based a large number of planes in the area and the islands were attacked regularly by USAAF bombers flying from Alaska. During the Soviet Invasion in August 1945 both sides used aircraft.

If you really want to start with a China map, Taiwan/Formosa with a small part of of the Chinese mainland would probably be the easiest area. Japanese planes based on Formosa bombed the Chinese mainland during the Sino-Japanese war and the island was attacked for the first time by Chinese bombers in 1938. In 1944 and 1945 there were large scale attacks by US carrier aircraft and land-based bombers.
But to be honest, I don't think such a large map can be done by one person alone, it has to be a team effort.

And concerning scale - I think it is important to do the map in 1:1. In my experience scaled down maps are often useless for creating historically accurate missions. For example I've once tried to build missions showing the Royal Navy raids on Petsamo and Kirkenes on the stock Murmansk map, but it was impossible, because the map isn't 1:1 and the fjords were much to narrow for torpedo attacks. In the end I had to use Mixx map of the same area in UP/HSFX.

(You know, red soil and wine, mare azzurro, olive trees, pesky Italian planes...:-D)[/QUOTE]

And don´t forget the girls!

New MTO maps will be just wonderful.
In Western Europe my favourite (besides the channel) would be southern or south-western Germany. Big raids since 1943 until the end of war. Lots of targets for the beautiful new B-24. And in Munich Gallands JG 44 was based, which would be a nice opportunity to fly Jets or FW 190 D.
Very beautiful landscape as well, even if you leave out Heidelberg Castle or Neu-Schwanstein :-P

My suggestions for il2 what must have of maps
Malta, Cyrenaica, Tunisia, Italy for Mediterranean front and Horn of Africa for East African Campaign
France, Belgium, Holland, Norway and the Channel for the Western Front
Minsk area, Rostov area, Kharkov area, Voronezh area, Maikop area, Grozny area, Malgobek area, Korsun–Cherkassy, Belgrade area, Budapest area, Vienna area and Prague area for Eastern front
And of course areas of Germany

IceFire,

May I suggest that you take a look at this thread? It may provide some ideas as to what maps (stock and mod) are available and which areas these maps cover.

http://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=27841.0

A sample below - more within the thread:

http://i912.photobucket.com/albums/a...europe-map.gif

Cheers,

IMO the best choice is a Sicily + Malta map. The historical value of such a map would be huge, a war front from June 1940 to July 1943 with many possible uses. Here you can see the current status of the map and a selection of its airfields. Some are partiallly working already but a lot is still to be done...

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps1ee4058a.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps3641cb1f.jpg

Chinisia S.Giuseppe airfield (Borizzo in allied docs)
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps6c3075a9.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...psb53371bc.jpg

Catania Fontanarossa*
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps3890fc99.jpg

*note the wrong identification, as Gerbini was some kilometers to the west...
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps4beb2165.gif

Castelvetrano
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps923c100c.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps0323da63.jpg

Trapani Milo
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...pse72760cf.jpg

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...psea7fc088.jpg

DISCLAIMER: this is not intended for 4.13

A 1:1 map of Sicily+Malta is a great choice indeed. This area is featured on at least four different mod maps but they're all scaled down (or so it seems to me).
As far as I know, there are two Channel maps out there, and one superb Western Front map. There's a nice map of the Philippines, recently upgraded for HSFX 7, and a map of China is in the works.

Of all possible maps, the one I've been waiting for most is that New Guinea map which had been previewed here some time ago. Any chance we get it?

I'll put in my two cents:

1) PTO - "Someplace in China" (perhaps around Kunming, or maybe Formosa), Southern Luzon Island (Manilla and points north), Northwestern New Guinea, Rabaul/Western Solomons, Western Carolines (Truk and Pohnpei islands), an interesting part of the Honshu Island of Japan (perhaps Kure & Hiroshima, or Osaka and Kyoto, or Tokyo and Yokohama).

2) MTO - Alexandria to Tobruk, Tripoli to Benghazi, Cape Bon (Tunis - Sfax - Lampedusa, Pantelleria), Southern Sicily and Malta, Naples to Rome (taking in Cassino and Anzio).

3) ETO - Calais to London, Breton Peninsula (Brest to St. Nazaire), West Central Netherlands (Rotterdam to the southern Frisian Islands), Rhine/Ruhr Valley (Koeln to Essen), East Prussia (Konigsberg/Kalingrad to Gdansk/Danzig), Ploesti/Bucharest

4) USSR/Eastern Front - City of Moscow, Rostov-on-Don to Krasnodar, Eastern Ukraine (Donesk), "South of Kursk" (Kharkov-Poltava-Cherkasy), Karelia.

Maybe a Lae, Nadzab, Cape Gloucester map would be good too. plenty of furious action around those prts.

Here Da_Don said that can give in good hand his projects

http://www.sas1946.com/main/index.ph...5034#msg435034


" WIP large map of Truk, complete small net map of Makin, huge pre-alpha map of New Guinea (Dutch and Australian together with New Georgia, New Britania, New Hannover, Lae, Hollandia, etc.),"

I did a little research on the Kurile islands and WWII history there. That might be an interesting start! Not a lot of civilization (few roads or villages) and its possible to create a contained battle area. Useful for B-24, B-25, P-38 as well as A5M5, B5N2, Ki-43 and possibly Ki-44. Russian forces would be A-20, P-63, Yak-9 and Yak-3. Also older planes like the SB-2, IL-4 and I-16 from Kamchatka. Interesting.

I might get started here...

A dogfight version with some extra bases and an "Alaska" on the edge somewhere might be appreciated as well.

Not a lot of resources available either so some historical bits might be hard to find.

Agree that island map may make for a good start. There are basic Aleutian and Formosa map mods out there for reference if you want to take a look.

As for other regions: many others have mentioned already but there is still no stock map (and very few mod maps) that enable simulation of an end-to-end long range bomber raid/escort/'Defence of the Reich' type mission.

Cheers,

Great choice indeed. Would love to learn more about this and other MTO map projects (Tunisia, Italy mainland?)

Cheers,

That is the map that I always wanted to play on! Interesting time and theatre, you can play both sides and are not at a major diasadvantage at either side, and it features many very nice planes! Please do go on and complete this map, even if it takes until 4.17!

In the past I have also done some research on the Kuriles in ww2. Send me a PM if you need any information.

Honestly, I'd like some little freelance pocket-sized maps like the Mountains or Online3Summer ones, they're quite fun to make "quick fix" missions with 10 -15 mins flying time on. Something with some varied landscape, a few cities, and roads/railways for people to unleash their imagination on.

Thanks Juri. I will do some preliminary work and if I can get my head around this then I will proceed at full steam and ask you about them. No sense in digging them up if I don't go anywhere than just talking about doing it :)

Had a little time tonight to tinker... I've come up with what I think is the ideal map space. Juri (or others), any thoughts?

http://i1121.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8dcacd22.png

I've got Shumshu, Paramushir, a few other islands plus Kamchatka and Petropavlovsk airfield which I believe was host to most (or all)?) of 128 SAD including the P-63 equipped 888 IAP.

Playing around with the DERM stuff right now trying to get it to spit out a IL-2 resolution file but... having a bit of trouble. Will keep trying.

I think much of the area north of Petropavlovsk can be cut away. Onekotan and Makanrushi didn't play an important role during WW2, but maybe it is better to have them on the map so Paramushir is not too close to the edge.

I will send you a PM with some useful links later.

the map of Sakhalin island will be useful along with Kuriles map for a small campaign

That sounds like a good idea too. Very useful for online.

That would increase the size of the map significantly... And I'm not sure what campaign would happen there. Sounds like it was mostly an infantry war. No airbases. What else happened?

I just figured it'd be good to have a small buffer around the actual combat areas. Especially as these islands can be seen from the combat area. I'll look into chopping a little north of Petropavlosk... Don't want it to end too soon either.

Got the pm. Links massively useful!

+1 for Channel map.

Couldn't these, and some "medium" sized (80-150kmx80-150km) maps made out of already existing maps by "cutting" them out - without too much trouble?

South Sakhalin island was controlled by Japan until 1945, and there was an airfield there, so it represents a valid target.

And, if the Japanese had more fuel, I'm certain that they would have attempted to provide air support for Sakhalin during the Soviet invasion in 1945 from bases on Hokkaido.

Given that there was very little action on the Kamchatka peninsula during the war (mostly U.S. bombers flying parallel to it on "great circle" flights from the Aleutians). I'd change the area covered by the map so take in as much of Hokkaido as you can (ideally including Sapporo and Chitose), plus the three most southern of the Kurile islands and the tip of Sakhalin.

That would be a map larger than anything in IL-2 right now. I'm not sure how well that would work... nevermind being an issue for a rookie designer like myself.

If we're talking about Japan itself... if all goes well then a community effort to build a Tokyo map would be a better option perhaps.

Btw ... about any Help to MapMakers ...

i think need do and show some tutorial for those Guys wand do some simple 3d models ... like buildings and some small stuff ...

Yes, I think that would be helpful. The actual objects tend to be much simpler than aircraft. Some buildings from the original game and even from the newer ones are not much more than some simple shapes and I can't imagine the backend hooks being too much more complicated. Textures are important here.

IL-2 Modeling bible:
http://www.smsp.org/il2/3d_modeling_...ceobjects.html

Reference models:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...object_ref.rar

Good one) Thx)

but one more .... need some tutorial about how to create building for Il2 ... when i try to do some i found only one on Sas

I haven't looked at it, but there is a tutorial for making 3d buildings by Kevinp:
http://allaircraftsimulations.com/fo...p?f=82&t=32219

There are numerous other tutorials at AAS that might be useful too:
http://allaircraftsimulations.com/fo...p?f=82&start=0
http://allaircraftsimulations.com/fo...forum.php?f=70

Made a little progress on this project. I was having trouble with the mapping tool running out of memory. I ended up finding a beta version of their 64bit executable which doesn't have the same problem. So I now have the underlying map.

I actually need to go back over it and redo some of the process to trim a bit of the northern section. But there is progress.

Apparently fixing up the coastline is going to be a nightmare... Hrm :)

speaking about possible maps of China, I've made some reasearch on air operations including Sino-Japanese war. This is what I think:


1) AREA OF OPERATIONS. Zones of intense air action could be roughly divided as follows (with additional sub-divisions possible):
- North China/Yellow river area from Xian to Peking;
- Central China/Yangtze River from Chengtu to Hankow (~1000 km E-W), down to the region south of Tungting lake (Hengyang, Ling Ling);
- South China from Kunming to Hong Kong/Canton area (~1200 km E-W);
- Salween front from Kunming to Lashio (~500+ km E-W);

2) MAP SCALE. Considering heavy bomber operations, either for China/US air forces and the JAAF/JNAF, any 1:1 scale map would be as large as the Solomons map to say least, with lots of rivers and populated areas. Even cutting many large portions of terrain, distances would be huge, e.g. Chungking to Hankow is ~800 km, same Kunming to Hainan Island. Thus reduced map scale would be a prerequisite.

3) LEVEL OF DETAIL. The current library of stock textures and buildings does not allow a good representation of the Chinese landscape. So, unless a team is formed for perform such a task, a likely map of China would have to be rather generic and in any case it should be heavily underpopulated as well to maintain playability. The situation regarding the airfields is I think a bit better. So far I have recovered positional info on all the most inportant airfields in the region. Moreover, for some of them I also found aerial photographs and charts. Still, if someone has the possibility to search for material through the NARA archives, that would be a plus!

Reduced scale maps of China (possibly including Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong) might work, but such maps always seem "wrong". While I can understand why they exist, I don't like them myself.

I'd prefer a number of smaller 1:1 scale maps. To realistically map Chinese map textures, this might also be necessary. In the 1930s and 40s, China had five basic terrain textures - hills/mountain, forest/scrub, tea plantation, rice paddy and village/city. As I understand it, IL2 currently only allows 3 different terrain textures.

Some Japanese and Russian objects can be repurposed for a Chinese map, but some would need to be created. In particular, there need to be several versions of Chinese farmhouse/barn, mud-brick walls for walled villages, rice paddy walls (or entire rice paddy enclosures) and new Chinese temples and pagodas. Unique buildings for maps such as Hankow or Hong Kong might also be necessary. Having a Chinese junk as a new ship would also be welcome. New trees unique to China would also be a nice touch.

As for airfields, the USAAF did a good job photographing and mapping China during the war and immediately afterwards, so it shouldn't be too much trouble finding pictures of them, at least for 1943-47.

Hmm, not sure what you mean, but for all I know (I retextured quite a few maps), IL2 maps use at least 28 different terrain textures, namely:

LowLand0, LowLand1, LowLand2, LowLand3
MidLand0, MidLand1, MidLand2, MidLand3
Mount0, Mount1, Mount2, Mount3
Country0, Country1, Country2, Country3
City0, City1, City2, City3
AirField0, AirField1, AirField2, AirField3
Wood0, Wood2
Water2, Water3 (for shallows, river banks and the like)

I was wrong then. I recall discussion on a mod forum where a map-maker was having trouble with maps of China due to the limited number of available ground textures. I think that his problem might have been the very diverse number of LowLand or MidLand textures, or multiple types of wood textures.

The above-listed texture positions are interchangeable - that is to say, you don't have to have four different textures for airfields or cities/towns (esp. if your map has few of them); instead you can use these 'slots' for other textures.
It would be impossible to have landscapes like these, which barely show any repetition pattern, with only 3 terrain textures:
http://imageshack.com/a/img30/395/a5v5.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img203/3733/rz8d.jpg

I presume you don't use any mods, like HSFX. If so, perhaps you should at least download a modded map just to see how it's built internally, esp. the load.ini file.

That makes things easier. As I said, I was remembering wrong. I recall that agracier had problems making his Hankow map look right and was generally running into problems making realistic-looking Chinese maps. In part that was due to a shortage of Chinese objects, but also because parts of central China have very different terrain types very close together - very steep rocky "buttes" - some wooded, some bare, wooded hills, intensively terraced rice and tea plantations on hills, networks of rice paddies in bottomlands, and so forth.

I'm also not sure how IL2 would handle terrain like this:

http://www.chinaexpeditiontours.com/...E6%98%A5-1.jpg

That's not just a Chinese map problem. It would also bite anyone trying to do a realistic map of Bali, or parts of India, Vietnam or Korea.

Just running 4.12m at the moment due to a computer failure. In the past, I've run very heavily modded versions of the game based off of HSFX or DBW, but since I'm an off-liner and I mostly love the new AI in 4.12, I don't want to go back to mod-packs based on 4.11.

IMHO the biggest challenge would be textures themselves - DT won't accept a map with textures made from copyrighted satellite images, which most mod maps use.
Also, any water-logged type of terrain, like marshes or rice paddies, is hard to reproduce. I mean something like this:
http://www.nicolastrudgian.com/uploa...ections/40.jpg
Such textures won't reflect water, hence they will never look 'right'.

By the way, the latest HSFX 7.0 is based on 4.12.

Hrmmm, yes those type of textures would be hard to make work. IanBoy's Burma map has something kind of like that (especially in the north west corner nearer Imphal) and it sort of works. Worth having a close look at that one.

Mod makers can go for whatever they want with textures but seeing as TD has to play by retail rules... yes the textures can't be based on copyrighted satellite imagery. So there has to be more artwork type efforts involved.

I haven't made any progress on Kuriles yet. I've got to go back over some of the process again now that I have a bit more of a clue on what I'm doing. Then the real fun will begin.

Not an easy thing this map building.

True, but rice cultivation does not require it to be submerged all the year, just some months. Thus modelling the rice paddy as a dry surface would not be incorrect.

Also, some of the year there's actually rice growing in the paddies, so you get an aerial view that looks like this:

http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__...Rice_Paddy.jpg

As for wet Spring rice paddies, I wonder if it would be possible to model them as very shallow lakes and model the network of retaining walls as either objects or elevated land areas, like causeways.

The main problem I see with modeling intensely cultivated hilly territory, like in Central China and elsewhere in Asia is getting the terraced hills to look right. Again, this might require "hills" that are actually objects, like the Mt. Suribachi object on the Iwo Jima map.

Were terraced hills to be modeled as objects, you'd need 3-4 different variations so that they wouldn't look too repetitive.

I for one would like to see a few more maps that would allow range to come into play. Just to add the challenge of fuel management and navigation. And besides not everything was 5 minutes apart. Personally would like a Philippines map, a map of entire New Guinea, including northern end of Australia, and anything in the Mediterranean and Western Europe. I realize that map making is hard work and would like to thank all of you guys with the patience and technological know how that can make them.

Could someone post a link to somewhere that explains how to install mods and new maps? I'd be very grateful.

Difficult to say the least. I'm not sure what the limit is but the Solomons Map currently in the game I believe is the largest possible size and that benefits from being a chain of islands with mostly open ocean.

I investigated a Philippines map but in order to make that work I'd have to pick a smaller battle space. Part of Luzon or Leyte plus Leyte gulf but that has limited use outside of the first few days of the battle and then you have a map with a large US base on it and nothing else.

A map containing the whole of the Philippines battle area just isn't possible. Unfortunately.

The Philippines is one of my favourite maps. It's been recently upgraded for HSFX 7.0:
http://imageshack.com/a/img812/3203/yzvq.jpg

By the way, you can have a map covering as much terrain as this one (called Mediterranean Airwar over Italy, by So.V-Volperossa/RedFox59):
http://imageshack.com/a/img208/5444/cyee.jpg

I don't know what scale the two maps are, but both are huge. The Strait of Messina seen from 30,000 feet:
http://imageshack.com/a/img543/3629/e5fm.jpg

Looks like 1:2.
That looks like 1:3.

I'm not a grat fan of maps that are vastly undersized, as distances are just way off. I'd rather have a few selected, important to the theatre, full-sized maps.
Full-size maps of areas larger than 400*400km, who's gonna play on them? Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't imagine all but a few players will ever enjoy flying for hours to the objective and then possibly getting shot down. There is a limit to where the simulation should end and the game begin IMHO.

I agree that 1:1 scale map of maximum 400x400 sounds a reasonable compromise but in some cases I still think that a reduced scale is the way to go. In the picture below you can see for example the main airfields in southern China. The yellow line is 200 km long. the minimum distance between major US and Japanese airfields is around 300 km and in a 400x400 km map area there would be just few of them.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps42785ce6.jpg

I'm not a fan of undersized maps, either. However, if you want to reenact a strategic bombing campaign - and the IL-2 fans have been trying to do that since I remember - the 'tactical size' maps are just too small.
On th MWoI map I linked above you can, for example, fly a campaign for the P-38s of the U.S. 15th Air Force, which were taking off from Algeria and escorting heavy bombers all the way to northern Italy, Yugoslavia or Greece. For some it could be boring (you can always use time compression to speed things up on the way to target), but to experience the mounting tension of such long-range missions is priceless. As fighter pilots used to say: "Hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror" :)

I tried to create airfields far outside the maps borders, but this is a hard task if it is not north or east. But it is some Kind of unsatisfiying.
Maps as large as the solomons mostly create a crash at ending the mission, which makes it rather hard or a matter of luck to fly campaigns, since often you just dump the entire successful mission when trying to quit it and confirm your successs.
Funny that the finland map works, whilst Slovakia and the Iasi-Odessa map tend to crash on a lower rate than the solomons map.

Maps as large as the alps in a modded game allways crash at ending the mission with 100% accuracy.

You must not forget to shut down and restart TrackIR, since evry CTD also affects TIR.

Or is it just me at my 5th computer I'm runining with the game?

I've been flying DGen campaigns on many large maps, including the Channel, the Philippines and the MWoI, and while I do remember occasional crashes (or rather freeze-ups) at missions' end, certainly they were not persistent. I had a feeling that such mishaps occurred when after hitting the Escape key I rushed to press the 'quit mission' button - giving the game a few more seconds before quitting the mission seemed to help. Anyway, I always thought that my aging PC was at fault.

And you could not do this on a full sized map of say Northern Italy (maybe 600*300 or so) that has a least a part of the Med on it - with offboard or included distant airfields (like Normandy has)?
And others like me could use a cutout of that map (150-200*150-200) and play there. And time compression is not an option for coops, and I simply don't have the time to play missions that include the chance of failure and last for hours.

Confining oneself to a true 1:1 scale map means that some concessions have to be made. For these very large maps, how much care has been taken in objects and placement? I mean... its a huge amount of work required to do all of that. Plus research.

The other thing I want to bring up is the role of the dogfight map. We currently have a few very usable small scale maps that we re-use over and over again on dogfight servers. Some of the new maps work brilliantly for online and others are more challenging or less useful.

Something like Italy Online has been a good addition in my mind. It let us do some fun things online in a short amount of time. How do people feel about these types of maps?

These types of maps are great, and I'd like to see more of them, as there are IMHO not enough in that category. There is enough space on these maps so you don't neccesarily meet EVERY enemy flight there, but it still is likely to see some action. Scale in the case of Italy online is fine, though if you would have asked me, I'd recommended a 2:3 scale at least. But better than a 1:3 Sicily you fly over in no time.
The Iasi Map is a great example of scale and playability, lots of airfileds means you usually don't have to fly too far for action, and its size means it doesn't feel crowded with 4 flyghts of each color in the air.

What makes a good Dogfight map, then?

My impression is that most of the Dogfight maps are way too small. While they've got interesting tactical setups and, in some cases, interesting terrain, I've notice that a running dogfight will quickly take players far away from the "fun" areas.

Additionally, the fact that the opposing teams' starting airfields are practically (or literally) in sight of each other just invites the sort of realistic behavior that online players hate - strafing and bombing enemy airfields to destroy planes on the ground and attacking planes that are taking off or trying to land.

Ideally, I think that any dogfight map should be about 20 miles/33 km square, with plenty of "interesting" terrain, such as mountains or islands, in between, and with airfields placed so that no team is at a disadvantage.

Boundaries for "protected zones" around airfields - where activities such as strafing, bombing, "vulching" heavily disadvantaged enemies, and "camping" are prohibited - should be clearly marked.

Practically, each team's airfield could automatically be protected by intensive curtains of light and heavy flak, since that was the real and effective way to protect airfields. Also, the risk of getting shot down by ground fire is a lot more obvious and self-enforcing to players who are inclined to break the conventions of online etiquette than being kicked off the server.

Strong flak curtains surrounding each team's airfield would also encourage lots of ground attack missions prior to "capturing" that team's base by landing aircraft or dropping paratroopers on it.

Based on those ideas, I'd like to see versions of the "Net Mountains" map that are much bigger and where the same map is set in different climates, both to provide different air temperatures and as "eye candy" to help immersiveness if the mission is restricted to a certain plane set. For example, the same map textured as jungle, desert, temperate or Arctic terrain.

I'd also like to see variants of the "Net Islands" map (the one with 8 islands around a central island) textured in the same way, but with the perimeter islands set about 10 miles/15 Km from the central island, and about 5 miles/8 km from any other island. The central island could also be turned into a mountain rather than being flat, making the map more interesting.

Different ideas of what a dogfight map are then I guess. My thinking is along the lines of Dogfight1 or 2 where the zone is a small scale version of other maps. I think those are 90x90km but I'd rather see something a little larger at 120x120km with sets for perhaps generic "Asia dogfight" or "Europe dogfight" or maybe even a "Channel dogfight" type setups.

Some servers will setup the scenarios so there is no more than 10km between bases. Others will go for a larger setup. BF1 missions I design are setup so that time to target is roughly 5 minutes and time between opposing bases is about 10 minutes. Everything is setup roughly in a diamond shape... you typically find the fighters clashing between bases in the center of the diamond and bombers from either time attacking targets on the outside. Conscious decisions have to be made to escort or defend targets that way.

So any map I'd want to see added as a dogfight generic would need to have enough scale to be useful in that way but also have some bases close enough to accommodate the folks who want very quick action.

There's also the Italy online map which is fairly large and detailed but immensely useful.

I'm not sure of the answer here exactly but I am thinking hard about the variables. The problem being that even small maps take a lot of time to create.

So, basically maps that have some portion of the world scaled down by 5:1 or 10:1, with minimal roads and towns?

It seems like there is demand for three different sorts of maps, 1:1 very detailed maps for authenticity nuts, 1:2 to 1:5 scale "theater" maps to simulate "long range" missions, but with fewer roads and towns, and 1:10 or higher scale "dogfight theater" maps that compress an entire theater into a small area, with even fewer roads and towns.

Yep. It could save some time if those folks finished their maps for official release.

I don't know, is there really a need for a dogfight theater map in 1:10 or such?

Proposal for a dogfight map:
Iasi Map, area north and east of and including Iasi.

I have no idea. Someone should make one and see how popular it is. I'd find it a bit weird myself but different strokes for different folks.

Iasi is a dogfight server version of the Bessarabia map. The only difference is that there is a smaller area with cities, towns, and other objects inside of it (as marked by the box).

And yes the area around Iasi works quite well. I built a scenario for that a few years ago when the map became available to us. It really is quite useful.

As for a 1:10 type setup... I'm not sure. I think I'd rather pick a small piece of 1:1 area and use that more generically as the original team had done.

I've used Bessarabia as a China stand in, it's a good map and a lot better than many of the early generic DF maps.

An English Channel map will be superb for dog fighting with Spits and 109 adding some British Shores or Dover like places will be good.

If that IS already the dogfight map, then we need more dogfight maps -I always thought of 10-80x10-80 maps as dogfight maps.
And yes the Iasi map is nice. Enough airfields distributed nearly even about the map, lots of connecting roads, fine looking textures.

As for dogfight maps - it may be worth looking at maps already in the game and adding fictional airfields in positions to make them dogfight-usable.

One suggestion was to do much the same thing with the Gulf of Finland map. Draw a couple of boxes (like on Iasi or Odessa) on the map with objects and then clear off everything else. Suddenly this could be a useful map online.

Karelia Isthmus has a high density of airbases and a lot of battles were fought there and also areas south east of Leningrad would be ideal for some of the other battles fought. Multi-year usefulness. Leningrad would not be in either zone... too many objects.

Rise of Flight has an option for mission builders to remove all objects outside the mission area. If such an option could be added by Team Daidalos to FMB, every map could be easily turned into a dogfight map and it could improve the fps on larger maps for people with older PCs.

If excluding map objects is technically possible, it could also make "modifying" maps much easier.

For example: I have an airport with "blast walls"(object 397,398, etc..) but I want hangars instead.
Currently all you can do is take a bigger object and using it to hide a smaller one, both for flexibility and performance this isn't ideal.

If you had an exclusion marker/brush to remove buildings that come with the map, it would open a lot of possibilities.

So much this. The Online3Summer dogfight map is great, but there's way too many airfields clustered into such a small space. If a few of them could be removed at the mission maker's decision, it'd be great.

I've fooled with modeling Lorient and Bogue-class escort carriers. I like the whole submarine, gunned-up B-24s and Ju-88s dueling, limited fighter intervention (more with escort carriers), and just plain huge targets and weapons used against them, so Bay of Biscay is my personal favorite, and probably boring to the point of pain for fighter jocks.

Poland,China,North Africa and maybe a Spain map?

Not at all! Admittedly, if you're looking for single-engined Allied fighter action, you're mostly out of luck, but otherwise there was plenty of combat in that area. Fans of twin-engined or strike fighters will find lots to love.

For the UK, there were plenty of Beaufighter and Mosquito sweeps. For the U.S. there were some early heavy bomber raids against the U-boat pens in the area which were occasionally supported by Spitfires or P-38s. And, for the Germans, there were defensive missions against those Allied intrusions - usually Bf-109, but also Bf-110 and Ju-88.

Bay of Biscay would be sweet. Only problem, we need a Ju-88C6, and earlier Bf-110 versions, like the F. And since german twin engined aircrafts are sadly very unpopular, I highly doubt we will get them :(

Yes, the Bay of Biscay is great. Lots of fun with it.

http://i1351.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7d0085df.jpg

All of those are giant :)

Icefire, is there any progress on the Kuriles map?

None, I've been busy with some home reno stuff and putting in some overtime at work.

I need to backtrack a bit and make the map a tiny bit smaller. Trim some of the north before I really get started.

Ehm,I was being generic.:-P

Philippines would be a nice idea for a map.

Considering that the Americans liberated the place with amphibious invasion, surely it could make for an interesting map and scenario?

Looked into it... not easy. Too large an area. I looked into doing Leyte Gulf but in some ways it'd be very limited to a short couple of battles and much of the Japanese air power would be located off map.

Combining Okinawa and southern Japan maps would be great, allow land based aircraft to be used. Some of the community made modded maps are exceptional and well deserving of being added.

Not just that, but during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, there was some brief but intense air combat featuring some obscure American aircraft (which, not surprisingly, were no match for the Japanese) and a lot more Japanese aerial action.

There are several modded maps of the Philippines which are quite useful. But, as Icefire said, the Philippines are just too big to reasonably include in one map. Instead, it has to be at least 5 maps, each focused on areas that saw air combat from 1941-45.

The obvious choice for "just one map" wold be the island of Luzon, since that would cover both the Japanese invasion route in 1941-42 and also a fair bit of action in 1944-45.

another suggestion for map.

Japanese naval base in Truk atoll. There was some heavy air action in that location. Mostly carrier raids, but I don't think you could claim it to be too big map in this case!

I don't know... :D :cool: :-P

Truk would be one to do for sure. I think someone even did it in MOD land but I have no idea how far along that went.

The mod map is indeed out there, and part of the current HSFX.

Not bad looking either.

I feel slightly obligated to post that I experimented with the map stuff and even worked with another map builder for a time but I've found myself severely limited and restricted in my available time and the tools are not for the faint of heart either. There's a lot of stuff you have to fight with to even consider getting a map started.

I worked on it a bit but with basically nothing to show for. Maybe I'll give it another go sometime but we'll see. I knew this going in but I like to try things and it gives me a better understanding of just how complex this stuff is.

Be extremely thankful to the folks who do have the time to get this stuff put together. These are large and complex projects. They are afforded as much appreciation as we can give them!

The Battle of Leyte 16 Msn Campaign
 

How are you Icefire. I just noticed your post above. I have completed a 16 Mission semi-historical campaign 'The Battle of Leyte' flying the Ki-84-1a Hayate.
To solve the map problem (no Philippines map) I have used the Solomon's Dec 42 map, substituting Bougainville for Luzon, Choisell Is. for Leyte Is. and New Georgia for Panay/Cebu/Negros Islands. I added an airfield on the north of Choisell (Leyte).

I am in the middle of testing the campaign and all seems to be working well. The Ki-84-1a is one of the best Japanese WWII fighters and is very good to fly in the game.

I will most likely wait for V4.13 to add some new aircraft before posting.

DFLion

One thing about the maps which hopefully would not require a huge work but will add a lot for online gaming would be the provision of "invisible" airstrips on most of the maps which are already in-game.

What I mean by invisible? Just a patently FLAT patch of terrain, with no alteration in the ground texture, where no trees or bushes grow for sure, and maybe where plane "birthplaces" are pre-set, and airbase marker is pre set as well.

Leave the actual runway "drawing" to the map designers - now they have tools for that.
Put no barrels, no nets, etc.

For dogfighters - space them at 20 km. Add them in groups of 4, 2-3 such groups for Italy, Moscow, Khalkin-Gol, Manchuria, and so on.

In the best of the worlds the airstrip and parking areas will be pre-set there, and the map designer would be able to make them appear by a single click. But since this require much more work - maybe it's better not to go this way.

Icefire
 

Hello Icefire,
Are you out there? Please give me a reply to my last post! I know I haven't been on the forum for a long time, the family comes first.
DFLion