one question. Is this a CoDUO or CoD2 map?

It's a CoD:UO map.

More picture spam (since it's been a week):

Tuchola Forest Alpha Testing notes thread


A view from the German's tank scrape that overlooks the central farm area. We're debating whether this position is too strong / overpowered. OTOH, infantry can easily sneak up behind it (there's a hidden path to the right of this position) and neutralize the defender. Attacking this head-on is difficult.


The central farm area. I may use this as my splash image.


South Forest Bridge (one of them). I should probably add a few more bushes along the edges of the waterline.


The Southeast Bridge (looking west into the heart of the South Forest area). This in a mostly final state, other then possibly adding some groundcover or doing some alpha blending.


Yet another shot of the V2 Launch area. I'm tempted to use this as a splash image, but I think it will give the wrong impression of the map.


Another possible splash image. But this one (while pretty) doesn't have any major features in the shot. So it's not a good candidate.


A view from the northwest corner of the central farm area. A possible candidate for a splash image, but is a bit too narrow-focused.


Another splash image candidate.


Another splash image candidate.


And another splash image candidate. We spend a lot of time fighting in the central farm area, so it's probably a good place to pull my splash image from.


And one more splash image candidate. This particular shot is taken from the hidden mortar position on the southeast corner of the farm area.


Another possible choice for the splash image.

I think you should have a look at MP_cobra, it has very nice moving water, very clear and perfectf or little streams.

intresting things that fit in a froest theme...


and a flooded base

South Forest Bunker. The southern forest is definitely less dense then it was in earlier screenshots, but I think I'm hitting the balance point now between sparse and too much. (I had to pull trees out of here and other places on the map to improve performance, but I've been slowly adding them back in.)



The Southeast Bridge. A key bridge for the Russians to hold in order to prevent the Germans from advancing up the south flank and getting into an attack position.



The Russian #1 base (north flank). That 45mm gun in the foreground is a ruined (destroyed) 45mm. The real 45mm gun emplacement is up on the hill behind Russian #1. I've since added a few more bushes to this area and moved some trees around.



Russian spawn area (north end).



The North Road on the Russian's side of the map. Other then adding a small spruce tree or two, I'm planning on leaving it in an open configuration.



The middle flank Russian defensive position with a KV1 parked beside it (for BEL/HQ/TDM games). The bunker is somewhat difficult to assault, but not invincible. Infantry can easily sneak up behind the bunker along the treeline to slip in and neutralize defenders. I've also seen jeeps drive up to the dragon's teeth obstacles (using speed to cross the open ground safely) with the infantry using the tank obstacles for cover as they throw grenades into the bunker.

ageed!!!

Here's why the Russians need to hold the Southeast Bridge. If they fail to hold that flank, the Germans can move tanks into positions like this one and shell Russian #1. There's also a mortar position up there that can shell the area around the Russian base (and also hits another of the CNQ focal points).

Infantry can use foliage to sneak up on this position from two different flanking routes.



This is a view up the North Road towards the German #3 hill.



A long-range view of the German pak gun and tank scrape on the G3 hill. I have placed foliage / rocks / trees in such a way that infantry scouts can eyeball the defensive position and provide information to their team. Infantry can also use cover to get in behind these positions and to wipe out the defenders.



Here's the view from the G3 hilltop. While powerful, it's not omnicient. That tank scrape is wide enough to put a pair of tanks into.

The disadvantage of a tank scrape like this is that you're a sitting duck for artillery fire. There is no overhead cover on this hilltop, your only safety is to get out of the area of fire when artillery starts dropping (i.e. run away as fast as possible). That means a well-timed artillery barrage on this position would disrupt the defenders and allow an armor column to move up the north road.



Another view of the G3 hilltop from an alternate scouting path. I've tried to setup at least half a dozen locations where infantry can hole up for a second and get a look-see at the hilltop.

Note the difficult-to-see Panzer III on the right side.



Infantry-view of the North Road as Germans advance towards the North V2 Launch Site (hidden in the trees on the left).

I'd love to put the little german AA gun in... but it would need to be a destroyed model. Otherwise I'd get too many questions about why players can't use it. (Hmm... I seem to recall a ruined AA gun in the Russian missions in CoD:UO, so there probably is a model.)

I'm guessing that those big brown dog-house shaped things that Silver is looking at in the 2nd image are tank obstacles? Ah, no, they're tents! Now there's an interesting idea.

Shells are indeed good decorations, not sure I'll have the model count to spare.

I'll have to look at the water on that map.

hey bob, when you get BA up and running for it (if you do) can you post screenies of how to hit which bases with which pak gun? like you did for barb.

I doubt that any of the paks will hit bases long-range. At least, not if I've designed the map properly. I won't get in the way of parking a tank somewhere and shelling long-range, I just don't want it to happen with the pak guns.

The original plan was to allow the two "forward" position paks to shell bases, but that plan got scrapped when I had to wipe out the pak guns in the farm area. (Too many active vehicles = crashed server.)

Of the remaining 7 paks (out of the original 12), there are two on the Russian side that can be used to attack the base right in front of them. And there's a single one on the German side that can attack the base right in front. That's kosher in my view... if the team isn't defending the area around their bases, the other team should be able to turn their weapons against them.

I've also placed the heavy tanks in a manner that mostly precludes them being able to shell long-range from their starting position. You have to at least move the tank around a bit to find a spot to shell-long range. That makes it more of an effort (similar to shelling R3 from G3 on Barbarossa by parking next to the G3 base).

The german tank scrapes are probably going to be the best spots from which to do long-distance shelling. If so, I'll need to make sure that the Russians can return the favor.

...

I know Silver doesn't want it this way... but I suspect he'll be figuring out locations to long-range shell using his Jagdpanther.

I feel that the long-range shelling with paks on Barbarossa is a mixed blessing. It speeds up the rounds, but makes life hellish for the Germans because the guns aren't properly balanced. Having all three bases breached within the first 4 minutes of the round turns the game into a defensive slug-fest. It also frustrates the newbies.

Smolensk was worse. All (3) german pak guns at the bases were able to shell at least one of the Russian bases. Which meant that three players could wipe out all of the russian bunkers within the first 3 minutes. The russians were really only able to shell G2.

I think that by not allowing long-range pak shelling, the map will play out at a better pace. Newbies will be less frustrated because they will be able to see the threat and know where to go to stop the base shelling. Fire-support will need to be done by tanks that have moved up to at least the middle of the map.

...

So, we'll see how it plays out.

bob that water on cobra would look SSSOOOOOO sweet!

Draft copies of the in-game map. These will show up in v078 and later (replacing the place-holder map that was already therer).

These are clickable images if you want to see the full-size maps.

Default map


Base Assault map


Conquest map (showing the objectives)

Wow Bob,

This looks awesome....maybe Thursday evening we can get a bunch of us on to do some more testing for yea.

I like this map because I am not just a health pack to Silver...LOL

I need to put a dot on the map that says "Look here for Silver". He *loves* setting up in his Jagdpanther at the west end of the farm area in the tank scrape. (Just north of the "Hill 57" label.)

(And hopefully the server is back up and running by Thursday.)

I'm going to talk about possible strategies in a bit now that I have a map to reference.