Barbarossa II - Smolensk Beta 1 Options

[Slyk]

1. FKR are just like you guys, UO/Barb fanatics. We have a pretty good relationship with them though.

2. No offense taken with your comments. Like I said, my biggest problem is that I get a 'starting' concept of a portion of a map. With Barb it was the main village. With Smo it was the start...the farm and stone bridge area. Then I just put it together from there. I describe my mapping as 'mapping by chaos' or more like making a quilt... you have a bunch of nice pieces and you find a way to stitch them together.

I really wish I had put the rail depot and it's village up just east of the church area, then the big trench system after that with the forest at the end. But, I didn't. And to move all of that now would be monumental to say the least. I think it would be a better map for it... the looks would be awesome and the combat would be crazy in a village that size. Technically though, FPS are already choking on the large area in view, and moving sections would double that.

The end of 'Barb' never got much play in CNQ and never in CTF or BAS, so I wanted to bring that portion in here, atleast to be seen some more. Who knows, I may copy/paste the crap out of this map too for another one.... IF I do that. I have two more sizeable maps in some level of development already.

[Cpt.Canuck]

Looks incredible.

I'll give it a go later tonite!

[Silver]

I drive our mapping guy crazy... I have been looking for a horror map... dead bodies in a massicare trunch, blood all, over people hanging from the doors and on trees( suicide style)... blood running down the walls like psycho stuff.. but neways... are their no mortors on this map? (noticing the pumping for info )
Great job I may add

This post has been edited by Silver: 01/26/06 10:42am

[Slyk]

** PLEASE DOWNLOAD AGAIN, AFTER 1:00 PM JANUARY 26TH **
A SCRIPT ERROR WAS FIXED.

[UNDEAD 1]

mortors on this map?



yes ,i shot one last night! there are mortars!

[Bergy68]

Is it up and running on the Server yet????

[Slyk]

You can always visit the "home" of battlefields for our flavor of our own maps....hint hint... hahaha... seriously! Give us a go once and check out the reload times and such. That's all the pimping I will do. I really appreciate MOB for being such diehards. Please feel free to leave feedback in this thread but I would prefer it at AHz in the announement thread to keep everything together. Either way, anxious for feedback as I would like to 'final' this one in 7-10 days.

[Silver]

wanna scrim?

[ScrapyardBob]

I got the "hunkmegs" error when I tried to connect with 19 players. Changing my com_hunkmegs to 256 fixed the issue (or maybe it's simply because there are only 8 players online now).

First impressions (in spectator mode);

- Man this map is huge!

- There are a lot of spots where more bushes / trees would be welcome. Some parts of the map have abundant foliage, other parts are extremely sparse. Best I can do right now is give locs:

a) -11694 -6290 318 - this is a great little passage. The wider passage away from the T intersection could use another bush (and it's a bit open farther that direction). But a good example of providing enough bushes / trees to obscure sight lines and allow for steallthy movement.

b) -20034 -7098 962 - Another beautiful hillside with lots of trees / bushes. It's gonna be a pain to defend against just about any assault.

c) -8711 -14289 441 (near the russian church?) - There's the end of a ridge that falls down to a river with a fence. It feels like there needs to be a bit of cover here so that infantry can bypass the tunnels / sneak along the riverbed.

d) -23762 -9746 657 (sorta W of G #3) - A hill top passsage between the river and the field that could use some cover (and more in the surrounding area). IMO, shallow trenches like that are a deathtrap without some brush cover.

e) -27354 -14630 589 (german tank park) - Probably wouldn't hurt to have a tree or two at corners of buildings, mostly to obscure sight lines of any snipers that want to snipe into that tank park from the surrounding hills.

f) -20778 -19961 779 (G1) - There's almost no ground cover for infantry to hide behind / under if they would need to defend this base. Although I suspect a lot of folks will end up hiding up the hill in the foliage around the pond.

Wouldn't hurt to gussy up a lot of defensive spots with more sandbags / hay bales. Especially at the shallow trenche liness or around stationary guns. There's a lot of spots that look suitable for defensive troops to setup shop at, but it's just a bare hill.

I also see that tanks foul easily on the shallow trenches (the set with the pillbox in the middle). Sandbags / hay bales / scraps of wood might be needed to keep tanks from attempting to drive over that set of trenches.

Any fences that are longer then 4 tanks lengths should probably be broken up. Either so that infantry can jump them or so tanks / jeeps can go through them. There are a few fences in and and around the town that are exceptionally long and block what looks like it would be normal flow.


This post has been edited by ScrapyardBob: 01/26/06 10:02pm

[ScrapyardBob]

After a bit of play...

- Jeep respawns should definitely be as short as possible. I don't know if the AHz forums are setup to auto-destroy jeeps that are out-of-place like they are on the MOB forums, but on a big map, jeeps are critical for getting around. If/when MOB sets up a Smolensk server, it's something to keep in mind.

(On the server I used to help admin, we'd bump the respawn times for tanks up to a minute or two but we'd always leave jeep respawn at the minimum possible.)

- Darn huge map... did I mention that it's a large map?

- Spawning near Russian #3 is a pain. You're boxed in a bit and there's not much in the way of vehicles. Russian #1 avoids that problem because you can flee into the houses / tunnels. Maybe a trench line / trees / bushes / hay bales at the top of the hill between R3 and G3. Something for the russians to rally to when trying to defend R3.

- German 3 is an interesting spot. Maybe a little thick on the bushes The terrain up there could use more up/down dips (i.e. "tank scrapes"). Hopefully enough little dips and bumps that you can positiion 4 tanks up there in hull-down positions.

- Some discoloration on ground where map walls have moved. One spot is near the swamp the other is between G3 and the german spawn (on the spawn side of a hill by the field).

- Some of the long, straight map walls (i.e. near the swamp and other spots) could stand to be broken up, either with terrain, rocks, or simply some artistic tree placement at varying distances from the walls. Basically to make it not so obvious that it's a straight wall of trees.

- There's a window in one of the german spawn buildings (I think the one with the halftrack) that overlooks the map edge. Bit silly as nobody can ever walk back there behind that part of the building. (Or not... it's an artisitic choice.)

(some of these comments are from memory)

- The pillowbox pak cannon can hit 2 of the 3 german bases. Maybe the G3 base needs to be moved to the lee side of the slope away from the pak. I'm not sure about G2, but it could probably be shifted back a bit towards the field to get out of view of that pak.

- The pillowbox pak is going to be a nasty piece of hardware. Especially once you add some hay bales / logs / ground cover to that trench system. I think the germans are going to spend a lot of blood keeping that gun suppressed.

- Most ridge lines should probably have at least some sort of trees / bushes to obscure the sight lines. Basically infantry should be able to cross the ridge on one side or the other without being silhouetted. It wouldn't have to straddle the entire ridge line, just one end or the other of a particular opening.

- Even better if you can tweak the mesh slightly on ridges to give hull-down positions for tanks in places. (The slope at the north pass by Russian #1 on the Barbarossa map is a good example, as is the german egress by the german middle pak gun on the Barbarossa map. Nothing steep, just enough of a rise/fall that you can peek over and fire downrange.)

- The russian trench system near the russian spawn hill where the KV1 spawns. If you slip the KV1 into one of the other tank positions, there are some positions where you can't get the tank out of. The ground in those positions needs to be raised a few units so it's the same depth as the main tank position. That way if you decide to put a tank in those spots you can get the tank back out.

- The russian pak gun near the swamp, there's an odd texture on the wall (too dark).

- The bullrushes are great. I think that flank is going to be a prime infantry sneaking spot with enough ground cover and trees.

- What happens if all the russians take one step back (spawning in the rail yard) and all the russian bases also take one step back? R3 could end up in the field near the town. R2 could move to the hill where the russians currently spawn. R1 could stay just about where it is.

- Bit difficult at times to find satches / anti-tank weaponry. In one of the tunnel systems (maybe the one at the russian spawn? or maybe at R1?) I got an icon but couldn't see the anti-tank ammo box.

[Slyk]

I am gonna be here ALL day, Bob.... Thanks for stopping by AHz. We had just finished up testing Dreck's new map when we started rolling back in. I'll address your points one at a time because I think they are all valid comments, which I appreciate.

I got the "hunkmegs" error when I tried to connect with 19 players. Changing my com_hunkmegs to 256 fixed the issue (or maybe it's simply because there are only 8 players online now). I note this in the 'readme'. Big maps/files need the fix.

First impressions (in spectator mode);

- Man this map is huge! Believe it or not, same area as 'Barb'. I'll post comparisons later today.

- There are a lot of spots where more bushes / trees would be welcome. Some parts of the map have abundant foliage, other parts are extremely sparse. Best I can do right now is give locs: General answer. "Yes". You are correct. Couple reasons: Max_index error. Too many mesh. I pulled out a TON of the cattails. I had them all over the stream banks on the whole map. As I added other details, plugged tree line holes, etc, I had to delete them by the dozens to get a clean compile. Lex is working on a model for me of them so hopefully I can repopulate the crap out of them.

a) -11694 -6290 318 - this is a great little passage. The wider passage away from the T intersection could use another bush (and it's a bit open farther that direction). But a good example of providing enough bushes / trees to obscure sight lines and allow for steallthy movement. Point noted.

-20034 -7098 962 - Another beautiful hillside with lots of trees / bushes. It's gonna be a pain to defend against just about any assault. Love that hill. I want to add some more terrain smoothing and texture diversity. Lots of nice trees. More in the area opposite would be nice, but watching FPS now and waiting to add my cattails in the steam bed area first.

c) -8711 -14289 441 (near the russian church?) - There's the end of a ridge that falls down to a river with a fence. It feels like there needs to be a bit of cover here so that infantry can bypass the tunnels / sneak along the riverbed. See 'cattails' story ^ This entire stream from the swamp to beyond the bridge was full.

d) -23762 -9746 657 (sorta W of G #3) - A hill top passsage between the river and the field that could use some cover (and more in the surrounding area). IMO, shallow trenches like that are a deathtrap without some brush cover. Love that trench. Lots of work in that one. Any cover to me would seem out of place, unless the entire crest was full of it, basically a thicket type thing. This trench is best for Russian snipers plinking into the German spawn...a favorite tactic of mine in alpha test. Also good for laying in wait for approaching armor from either team.

e) -27354 -14630 589 (german tank park) - Probably wouldn't hurt to have a tree or two at corners of buildings, mostly to obscure sight lines of any snipers that want to snipe into that tank park from the surrounding hills. Good point. Artistic impression. I have a source photo: www.after-hourz.com/misc/slyk/smolensk/germancamp.jpg that you might recognize....

f) -20778 -19961 779 (G1) - There's almost no ground cover for infantry to hide behind / under if they would need to defend this base. Although I suspect a lot of folks will end up hiding up the hill in the foliage around the pond. Valid point. Again with the steam side, see 'cattails' and 'was full'. Up the hill I may add an odd bush or two, this base was originally at the crest of the hill, just north of the dirt track. That position was too favorable to the Russians and virtually un-defensible for the Germans. The new position is much more neutral and gives the opposing pak some viability. I'll drop some cover around though...maybe on the south fence line???

Wouldn't hurt to gussy up a lot of defensive spots with more sandbags / hay bales. Especially at the shallow trenche liness or around stationary guns. There's a lot of spots that look suitable for defensive troops to setup shop at, but it's just a bare hill. True. One thing I have avoided was adding too many models. Hence the stark house interiors etc. Each new model is 15k+ of gamestate. I've already ditched the cool smoke/fire efx from the house, which is a BIG ambient killer without them, in favor of gamestate and FPS. I completely forgot to cover the pak by G2 though. My bad. I'll probably use lots of hay bales around and one sandbag model.

I also see that tanks foul easily on the shallow trenches (the set with the pillbox in the middle). Sandbags / hay bales / scraps of wood might be needed to keep tanks from attempting to drive over that set of trenches. I debated what to do. Difficult to vehicle clip them well... could do stakes with vehicle clips around them... but for beta1 decided to do nothing and let players learn they should stay out of that trench system. I don't like clipping it to be driven over, so the stakes/clip option is maybe best. I'll consider that.

Any fences that are longer then 4 tanks lengths should probably be broken up. Either so that infantry can jump them or so tanks / jeeps can go through them. There are a few fences in and and around the town that are exceptionally long and block what looks like it would be normal flow. Flow, schmow. hahaha. I broke up a lot of fences. The longer solid ones south of the main village really are more to cover infantry. Most fences in the middle of play are either broken or can be jumped over at sprint. I'll double-check to make some rails down to allow more crossing.

[Slyk]

After a bit of play...

- Jeep respawns should definitely be as short as possible. I don't know if the AHz forums are setup to auto-destroy jeeps that are out-of-place like they are on the MOB forums, but on a big map, jeeps are critical for getting around. If/when MOB sets up a Smolensk server, it's something to keep in mind. AHz is stock, they blow and respawn per stock settings as far as I remember...but they do self-explode. I usually destroy any of my teams as I pass, when practical. Tanks respawn around :45 and you can't be 'in' their spawn position or they don't.... still educating some guys on that.

(On the server I used to help admin, we'd bump the respawn times for tanks up to a minute or two but we'd always leave jeep respawn at the minimum possible.)

- Darn huge map... did I mention that it's a large map? hahha Yes you did and not really.

- Spawning near Russian #3 is a pain. You're boxed in a bit and there's not much in the way of vehicles. Russian #1 avoids that problem because you can flee into the houses / tunnels. Maybe a trench line / trees / bushes / hay bales at the top of the hill between R3 and G3. Something for the russians to rally to when trying to defend R3. Had an idea for a destroyed house at the crest of the hill west of there. Thinking it is a good idea again.

- German 3 is an interesting spot. Maybe a little thick on the bushes The terrain up there could use more up/down dips (i.e. "tank scrapes"). Hopefully enough little dips and bumps that you can positiion 4 tanks up there in hull-down positions. Maybe. At this point I don't think I can add more complex terrain. Removing a chuck to replace with a scuplted one at this point will most likely error in compile. As soon as I can get a working cattail model, I will get hundreds of 'points' back.

- Some discoloration on ground where map walls have moved. One spot is near the swamp the other is between G3 and the german spawn (on the spawn side of a hill by the field). Not sure what that is. Terrain is fine. Time to delete and remake it. I've spent a lot of time trying to adjust that.

- Some of the long, straight map walls (i.e. near the swamp and other spots) could stand to be broken up, either with terrain, rocks, or simply some artistic tree placement at varying distances from the walls. Basically to make it not so obvious that it's a straight wall of trees. Yep. Noticed that in the swamp. Sometimes you just forget on a big map where all those spots are.

- There's a window in one of the german spawn buildings (I think the one with the halftrack) that overlooks the map edge. Bit silly as nobody can ever walk back there behind that part of the building. (Or not... it's an artisitic choice.) Artistic choice. Why not have some ambient areas. I would like to do a lot more 'off map' stuff like a few spots in 'Barb', but resources....

(some of these comments are from memory)

- The pillowbox pak cannon can hit 2 of the 3 german bases. Maybe the G3 base needs to be moved to the lee side of the slope away from the pak. I'm not sure about G2, but it could probably be shifted back a bit towards the field to get out of view of that pak. Not sure what to do with this position for BAS. We debated removing it for BAS mode and decided to leave it for beta1 and watch commentary. It is a strong position, but the Germans should be able to minimize it's impact with a good sniper. More cover in the 'final' should help counter that position. Also, I could reduce the traverse of the gun about 5 degrees and that should clear G3 from it's view. I mainly want it to cover the stone bridge anyway.

- The pillowbox pak is going to be a nasty piece of hardware. Especially once you add some hay bales / logs / ground cover to that trench system. I think the germans are going to spend a lot of blood keeping that gun suppressed. Thought of doing head-logs here. No final decision. Original plan was an open/wooded ridge to the west over which the Germans would have to push through that trench works.... but not to be with the map layout... sad. That would be some cool combat. Next map.

- Most ridge lines should probably have at least some sort of trees / bushes to obscure the sight lines. Basically infantry should be able to cross the ridge on one side or the other without being silhouetted. It wouldn't have to straddle the entire ridge line, just one end or the other of a particular opening. Point noted.

- Even better if you can tweak the mesh slightly on ridges to give hull-down positions for tanks in places. (The slope at the north pass by Russian #1 on the Barbarossa map is a good example, as is the german egress by the german middle pak gun on the Barbarossa map. Nothing steep, just enough of a rise/fall that you can peek over and fire downrange.) Victim of how it fell together. I didn't set out this time making those positions as in Barb. I will revisit some spots and see what can be done.

- The russian trench system near the russian spawn hill where the KV1 spawns. If you slip the KV1 into one of the other tank positions, there are some positions where you can't get the tank out of. The ground in those positions needs to be raised a few units so it's the same depth as the main tank position. That way if you decide to put a tank in those spots you can get the tank back out. Noted. I'll clip the sides.

- The russian pak gun near the swamp, there's an odd texture on the wall (too dark). Funky terrain mesh. They don't like to be vertical. I intended to cover that will logs, forgot...

- The bullrushes are great. I think that flank is going to be a prime infantry sneaking spot with enough ground cover and trees. See my cattails references. I would like that area to be 2x as thick. FPS are solid in there so it should improve. I would like to see nasty combat down there and think it will come along as people learn the map. I personally prefer to attack that way regardless of what team I am on and whatever gametype.

- What happens if all the russians take one step back (spawning in the rail yard) and all the russian bases also take one step back? R3 could end up in the field near the town. R2 could move to the hill where the russians currently spawn. R1 could stay just about where it is. Hmmm. Thought about. Really. The issue is time. How long from point A to B for both teams. I tried to space out per Barb. I basically ran on foot from spawn to team base then from spawn to enemy base. Then did it again via jeep. Also measured out in Barb the distances in straight lines and transferred those locations. I like your suggestions but the map would be 20% bigger in BAS and I don't know if that is a good thing. The best battles now are over the #2s.

- Bit difficult at times to find satches / anti-tank weaponry. In one of the tunnel systems (maybe the one at the russian spawn? or maybe at R1?) I got an icon but couldn't see the anti-tank ammo box.

I will double-check, but there are a lot around. A couple satchels are problematic though and I dont' know why. I will see about adding more.

[Slyk]

Ok. Fine. I'm wrong. Very wrong. Delusional. Below are three scary images. The first, the 'Barbarossa' sky box with dimensions. The second, 'Smolensk'. The third an overlay of 'Barbarrosa' terrain into Smolensk. All images are roughly the same dimensions. The 'Barb' terrain I think should cover a bit more but it is more than evident that 'Smo' is far wider and contains much more ground...but yet I don't think it plays that big...maybe that is just me.







Ridicule at will.

[Silver]

Ridicule at will.

please dont think that...

actually I like the larger area for barb2, on barb people know the map so well and so many people are on that it just seems like it should be largeer so their is more angles of attack...

I like the four paths of barb, but barb 2 gives more flanking options... wasted space is also flanking space

This post has been edited by Silver: 01/27/06 2:40pm

[T/A6Pak]

WOW, What a great map.

Was on last night playing with Scrappy....had to take the 6 so I could find my way around. Lots of little sneaky spots to snipe and hide while waiting to get into the bases. There was only about 15 people on, I was so tired after running all those miles.

Is there a possibility of adding more jeeps near the starting spawn? Since only 3 can fit in one, alot of guys have to run towards the next area. (What a work out, almost spilled my beer)..LOL

A poppy field would be nice for the chicks...(just kidding).

Spent a large time looking for sachels...guess I just have to find the hiding spots.

Today I went on for awhile, just to get used to the buildings and area....yea some surveillance...I love the tunnels, great and quick access.

Thanks for making a great map!!!!:)