New Multiplayer Maps

[Shrike_UK]

appologies if Guernsey and Jersey are not on the large map and that section of France. I opened my mouth before i spoke..., If that is the case, then maybe we could have the Cherbourge-Octeville bit, with maybe a 5 minute flight to the Isle of Wight/Bournemouth Area. Seems to be 2-3 bases in that area on the brit side at least.

[Kwiatek]

When flying avarage speed 400 km/h and you have only 100 km road - you will pass 100 km side in 15 minutes. If we will get 2 planes coming 400 km/h from opposite side of map they will meet in 7 minutes of flight.

It would be rather small maps to play and quite claustrophobic but still better then joky island or jurasic maps.

Dont think such was expected by most old IL2 users.


BTW surly not in theme but i wonder also about performacne (speed, climb, turn) of BOB planes in COD. Looking in data and charts in COD manual i see very wrong and inaccurate data for these planes. I thought 1C will make better research and give more effort in these case.

[sod16]

Luthier, thank you for not turning a blind eye, and thank you for making it up for the KGB style release

[ElAurens]

A "Dunkirk" map would be very interesting.

British rear guard actions as the main forces head for the beach.

RAF units fleeing for bases in England under attack by the Luftwaffe.

Attacking the evacuation fleet, or defending it.

Of course it would be nice to have some Armee de l'Air units, say a Curtiss Hawk 75...

(I can dream can't I?)

[sod16]

I personally think a map with HEAVY defence, i mean LOTS and LOTS of AA and LOTS of fighters backing it up and then the other team has to BOMB the crap out of the cities defences. This but in small scale, so the action is constant.

Constant action = interest for bigginers. Its kind of boring having to fly around for 3 hours to then get into a dog fight and then RUN out of fuel mid way.

[Shrike_UK]

I still dream of 64 vs. 64 Dogfight LW Vs. GB on the large map. If its possible. Full real settings, sometimes finding enemy, sometimes returning to base (navigating by the dodgy compass and local knowledge) low on fuel after a fruitless search. Thats as real as it gets IMHO. And whats its all about.

[IceFire]

Thanks for this Luthier!

When I saw what maps we were getting I was both very happy to see them but a little disappointed at not having something else to work with.

There are two or three possible maps that I'd like to see where I can forsee using them to make something meaningful on the UK-Dedicated series of servers. Just to be clear the maps we run are historically based and we'll use the actual maps when possible but the idea is to still cater to fast action dogfight fans so we try and keep the flight times down to about 5-6 minutes to action at the most and often much shorter.

So I'd love to see ...

1) A half scale or quarter scale Dunkirk map. This provides lots of options for dogfights over the channel, attacks on convoys, covering the beachhead in France, etc. Hopefully flexible enough so that we could have the RAF fly from France and fight with the Germans also in France or go cross channel.

2) A France map that you also mentioned with much less water and more land to land operations.

3) My other suggestion would be something that encompasses the later section of the Battle of Britain during the late summer of 1940. Something where we have a English city or larger town area plus airfields as possible targets and perhaps some sort of clever way for the Germans to either air start or have a nearby island to land at. The idea here obviously is to have the skies over England during that period where the Germans have an obvious city (mini London or something ) or couple of larger areas to bomb.

That'd be my 0.02 cents for something that we would practically be using on servers hopefully sometime soon after Cliffs comes out.

[JG53Frankyboy]

if it will work, im also will prefer flying on the big map

anyway, two possible examples of 'historical' maps:

Dover-Calais


Isle of Wight - Cherbourg


the maps are small (the shown mapgrids are 50kmx50km !). But attack on channel ships, costal Airfields and Radarstations are possible with these maps.


In total, the given planeset (beside the Spitfire ) would well fit in a Greece Spring 1941 map. But i guess, that is too much work !

[dflion]

Luthier, appreciate this opportunity to give you some thoughts on a new map area.

I put together a 'Battle Map' when I was creating the 'Big Show'. A lot of historical air fighting took part in this area after BOB. The 'Battle Map' shows Pierre Clostermann's first mission over France with the actual route, German fighter threats and Allied diversions.

Apologies for my 'hand drawing'. I hope this map gives you some good ideas.

DFLion (one more day to go in OZ)

[Strike]

Great to see you post this and ask our special community!

I really like what ideas you have so far. To save time I think the best solution is to "crop" pieces of the full-scale map so we can fly on smaller pieces of it. (Not like the old "Online" maps where you only removed all objects outside the online-grid, but actually have smaller cut-outs that have no surroundings (like inf-flat terrain).)

A lot of beginners will appreciate the ability to takeoff and be in the action as soon as their wheels are up. These maps would also attract people with lower-end systems because they would require less resources.

In fact, perhaps a "sandbox" map consisting of two airfields and 2 small towns or something would make an ideal testbed for trying out new aircraft, features, missionbuilder things without excessive loading and required resources. I really appreciate the ability to have an "Empty" map for testing purposes!

So far the best idea of a smallsize 1:1 or 1:2 multiplayer map I can think of is just a small "channel" map. Have a little english coast, and a little french coast and you have the "Miniature battle of britain" map with water separating the teams. This allows a variety of missions ranging from anti-shipping to air patrols and raiding homebases/adjacent cities and or factories.

For the online campaign style maps, the full-size historical one would be sweet with 64v64 players

Just my two cents