(He's not dead, he's only mapping.)

Some of ya'll might've heard rumors about an upcoming map release. Well, here are a few teaser screenshots.

The basic premise is that it's Jan 1945 and the Russians are getting ready to push towards Berlin through Poland. This means it's a winter map, using the After-Hourz vehicles (including the Jagdpanzer), and the Germans are on the defensive. Tuchola Forest is a large forested area in north Poland which seemed appropriate.

(I have no clue whether there was any actual combat in Tuchola Forest.)

Key points:
- Primarily designed for BAS gameplay
- Will probably support CNQ (but with an S-shaped objective path)
- CTF is also probable
- Map size is very similar to Barbarossa
- Visual conditions will change from round to round
- Beta testing will probably be in May 2006 with a Jun 2006 release
- I'm 4 weeks into the construction and about 40% complete (100-120 hours so far?).

...

Early pictures of the South Forest. This stretch of trees forms the majority of the south flank on the map. Visibility is heavily obstructed but it's still easy to drive vehicles through the trees. Infantry have the clear advantage as they are short enough to be blow the bottom branch level and can also hear vehicles approaching.







Bridge that leads west out of the South Forest and into the german area (a.k.a. the "Southwest Bridge"):



The north bridge out of the south forest (looking west). It connects north to the farm fields in the middle of the map. This bridge is actually called the "South Bridge".



German defensive position that overlooks the German #2 base area. The firing slit allows portable MGs to be setup to help guard the pak40 gunner.



There's a pass along the north side of the russians that looks like it was formed by a glacier. Haven't decided whether to simply label this area the "North Pass" or stick with calling it "Glacier Pass".












One unique feature of the map is going to be the addition of foot trails through otherwise impassable ridge lines. This allows infantry to slip through enemy lines and to help neutralize defenses prior to armor being brought forward. They also serve as escape routes for infantry that are being pursued by vehicles.














Finally, some fresh shots of the middle fields (middle area of the map and the main battleground):



















Note: Some of the screenshots above were taken during a winter storm where visibility drops to about 2/3 of what it normally is. You'll encounter winter storm conditions in about 10% of the rounds right now. There's also a 10% chance that you'll get better then average visibility which lets you see about 25% farther then normal.

I sense a déjà vu... i hope we get some more cool winter skins like that jagdpanzer

I would love to see Panther tanks Panzer V

I love the idea of changing conditions from round to round.

I think it looks great! love winter maps,is there any way to make it snow?

Mmm, probably not but there are some theories as to how to do it. But if you can show me a multi-player map with a working snow effect that doesn't kill frame rates, I'd be willing to take a look at it.

...

Probable fog ranges (max visible ranges), each has an unique ambient sound:
- 10% chance of 4000-6000u visibility (avg ~5000u)
- 80% chance of 7000-9000u visibility (avg ~8000u)
- 10% chance of 9000-10000u visibility (avg ~9500u)

Graphics performance actually gets better as visibility gets worse. This is because it's a culling fog, which means anything past the fog range does not get drawn. I'll be tuning the map for 15000u visibility to ensure good framerates even at the upper end of the fog values.

Examples of UO map fog values (second value is the max visibile distance):

Hurtgen: setCullFog (0, 3200, .32, .36, .40, 0 );
Foy: setCullFog (500, 5500, .5254, .6117, .7215, 0 );
Barbarossa: setCullFog (512, 9000, .32, .36, .40, 2);
Smolensk: setCullFog (1024, 9000, .32, .36, .40, 0);

MAY ,JUNE..................NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO we want it now ,stop teaseing this is driving me mad......goner have to lay down for awhile now .

I bet you wouldn't if you were playing as Americans.... unless it''s the rear view

oh yeah, great job there Bob- I especially ove the atmosphere of winter rural maps.

Awsome job on the map Bob, it looks great!

Scrap, we're damn impressed and proud that you are doing this within the MOB family! You've helped all of us to better understand what makes for a great map and a great battlefield. The idea of including changing weather conditions is something I wish they had built into all the maps. This will absolutely add a terrific new dimension to our gaming.

Looks cool Bob.

However I'll be mighty pissed if I have to battle against you on this map in the future - I'm sure you've got all the pak coordinates to cause havoc with the opposition well memorized.

Wow, that maps looks great! I really look forward to playing with everyone on it.

Yep, MOB and Regs can go on our section and read a lot more about it... awesome man...

Thanks all. I may put more screenshots up this week. I'm in the middle of a heavy push to finish terrain this week and get some terrain decoration in (foliage, ruined vehicles, rocks, walls, fences).

Still a lot of detail work to finish.

Looks superb, I feel frostbite in the toes already!

Has anyone every had a mod to drive King Panzers or something really different... that'd be awesome...

Don't know why I posted these screenies in the private thread... so I'll make a copy of them here:



South Radio Shack - This is a focal point for CNQ and also serves as the south flank for germans to attack the Russian #1 base.



Southeast Bridge pak45 - A nasty surprise for germans as they attempt to move east across the SE Bridge and up the hill towards the South Radio area. The pak45 is not well protected, but it's not easy to tell whether it's manned until the gunner opens fire.



The "farm" area. I might use this as my splash image...



Russian #2 base is on the left. Russian spawn is at the far side of this field, barely visible at the edge of the fog.



Russian #2 bunker. This bunker holds a commanding position and guards the middle of the russian front. The mortar on top can lob shells onto the two approaching roads and infantry can hole up inside the bunker.



Russian spawn area (looking north from the middle road).



Russian ammo room. This is a tunnel that runs from the trench outside into the basement of the Russian's spawn house.



Interior of the Russian #2 Bunker (the one with the mortar on the roof). The tan colored box in the corner is the official "satchel spawn box". Any time that you see that particular box style will indicate satchel spawns.



The view from Russian #1 base, looking SW towards the South Radio area.



The north road. This shot is taken from the Russian #2 Bunker. The North Bridge is barely visible at the left edge of the shot. On the right, you can see the east exit from Glacier Pass as it comes down off the ridge. This area needs some detail work done (stone walls, shrubs, rocks).






Another shot of the Russian #2 Bunker.



The Southeast Bridge, which is currently missing some pine trees that will need to be added back in.



The East Farm Pak45. It will probably get a few sandbags around it for cover.



The Southeast Farm Mortar position. A secluded hiding spot with a good view of the crossroads.



A more finished shot of the West V2 Launch Site.

Bob, if you need a hand with testing let me know!

Mid-Late April for beta testing (about 2-4 weeks away). There are still missing terrain patches, dozens of models that need collmaps created/fixed, and dozens of other things that need to be adjusted or fixed. Wish I could find a set of collmaps for the AHz vehicles rather then having to create my own collision maps.

We do have it up and running as BEL on a private, password protected server. So a few of the MOB members have seen the alpha version.

me and lyonheart tested it out a bit last night, despite falling into the abyss it was amazing. really hard to play with just 2 people though....good thing we had arty so much we used it so we could let eachother know where we are. ITS SO BIG.

(chuckles)

Which is why I switched it to BEL mode, at least the axis players will have something to hunt.

The map size is slightly larger then Barbarossa. Spawn to spawn distance is 23500u (Barbarossa is 21500-22000u). However, the map is wider then Barbarossa (which tops out around 16000u). Even though the map is wide (22000u at the widest point) it narrows down to 15000u in quite a few places and the ends are only around 12000u wide.

It follows the pattern of 3-4-3-4-3. As you move east-to-west across the map, there are 3 major avenues for vehicles leaving the spawn, which branch to 4 avenues before you reach the middle of the map where you have 3 basic avenues. Then you get to pick from 4 approaches before getting to the 3 passages leading out of the spawn. So there are plenty of funnels, bottlenecks and ambush locations.

In Base Assault, the distance from spawn is a closer match to Barbarossa then Smolensk. Here's the distances on Smolensk and Barbarossa (from the spawn area to the bases):

Smolensk

R2 - 6600
R1 - 7800
R3 - 12300

G2 - 5100
G1 - 8600
G3 - 9200

Barbarossa
- Barbarossa numbers are listed in pairs. There are two spawn locations for each side, so the range-to-spawn values are different depending on where you spawn.

R3 - 2500 to 3100
R1 - 6200 to 9400
R2 - 8700 to 9700

G2 - 2500 to 6100
G3 - 4100 to 6800
G1 - 7000 to 8300

Tuchola Forest:

R1 - 4900
R2 - 5000
R3 - 5200

G2 - 4600
G1 - 5100
G3 - 6500

I'll post a 2-week old map in a bit.

There's a lot of "junk" around the map edges that won't be there in the final version...

bob it looks great im totally phsyked!

the map looks really big though?

Like I said, it's the length of Barbarossa but a bit wider in the middle (more like Smolensk width). The "bigness" is probably due to the winding and organic nature of the terrain. Once you get in and play around on the map it will start to seem smaller.

In Base Assault, control of the river crossings is probably going to be key. There's only (3) ways across the river for vehicles (N Bridge, middle ford, southern bridges).

Plus, the map is designed so that either side can try to control the middle third of the map. This takes heat off of the spawn defense and bottles up the enemy into their spawn area. For example:

Russian Forward Line:
- North Road Bunker
- Farm buildings or West Farm Bunker
- Southwest Bridge

German Forward Line:
- Glacier Pass
- Russian #2 Bunker
- Area between the SE Bridge 45mm and the South Radio Shack

There's probably a few dozen ways that Russians or Germans could choose to defend their territory.

Looks great, can't wait to play. Great job Mr. Scrapyardbob.

Here's the error that has been crashing my private test server in BEL/TDM mode. Looks like a bug in the 1.51 UO files.



Information on the IWNation forums

Since we don't run TDM/BEL servers here, it's not very interesting. But I'll include the PK3 that I think fixes the issue.


Click to view attachment

can't wait to see the Down load link here.. Looks real good!

Looks like there's a dead router somewhere in Virginia (which is why images aren't showing up).

Internal testing is going well. Granted, we spend most of our time avoiding the holes in the map while playing BEL. But there's been a few nights this week where a few of us were in there running around shooting each other for a few hours at a time and having a blast.

We're about 2-4 weeks away from the first public beta test. There's still a bunch of stuff that I want to fix / add before I do a public beta. The current laundry list:

- Figure out how to add BAS (and test it with a few players)
- Get CNQ working
- Finish the terrain on the German side (it's only about half done)
- Finish the two russian spawn bunkers
- Place the vehicles, spawn points, etc in the German's spawn
- Clean up a lot of stretched textures
- Fix any broken pieces of road mesh
- Finish all the treelines
- Finish any unfinished detail work (fence lines, textures on the dragon's teeth obstacles, etc)
- Add collision maps for useable vehicles (mostly the german's tanks in the After-Hourz pack)
- Add collision maps (too many models that you can hide inside)
- Double-check performance and portals

Beta testing will last 4-8 weeks. Depends on how much stuff I fix in the next two weeks and how game balance seems to be working out. We've been testing new revisions of the map on a daily basis the past week.

More pictures...

A Jagd tank sitting up on a hill, shelling the area around one of the russian bases.



Updated shot of the Russian's middle flank bunker, now surrounded by dragon's teeth tank obstacles. They're not perfect, but it still requires a good bit of finagling to get a tank or other vehicle past them.



More dragon's teeth



The north bridge with a few dragon's teeth on the far side.



Another shot of the middle of the map during a round where visibility was really horrid (very thick fog and light rain).



Pak45 position that overlooks the Russian #1 base.



Russian spawn area, this barn holds a pair of KV1s during Base Assault.



The north flank Russian base, parked in the middle of a field.



Ruined tank against a backdrop of bunkers.



Russian's middle base showing the trench position.



A darned foggy round (it's actually raining, once you pick a side and spawn in). Definitely not sniper weather during this round of play.



Another shot of the russian spawn area.



A russian tank scrape overlooking their southern base.



The southern radio shack (taken from the russian point of view).



One of the bridges down in the southern forest.



A more recent shot of the south forest area (and the bunker in the middle of the forest).



Another bridge in the south forest (there are 3 bridges on the south flank). The terrain needs to be dressed up with another bush or a few rocks.



A view of the farm area during a poor visibility round (complete with a light drizzle).



Another shot of the middle russian bunker and the dragon's teeth.



Another shot of the forest trails. Battles in the forest trails tend to be very CQB, especially of both teams are running instead of moving slow and listening.





Last 5 for today.

A closup of the pair of KV1s parked in the Russian's spawn barn.



Here's an example of what the map looks like on a clear day (10% chance). Visibility is probably around 9500u (upper limit of the random fog settings in my GSC file). On the right side of this picture is the exit of the north pass as it dumps out on the Russian's north flank.



Closer shot of the middle farm area. You can see a lot more detail now that it's stopped raining.



A screenshot from a similar position as one of the earlier pictures. On a clear day, you can see all the way west to the far side of the farm fields. Most rounds (60%), you'll just be able to make out the German defensive bunker on the far side.



A clearer shot of the north bridge.

I hope that you'll add tons of more rocks. ... Maybe some lumber stacks...?covered by a bit of snow...

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.

So, looking at the map and thinking about strategies. Most of what I talked about a month ago with regards to the map still applies.

Primary Objective - Control the river

If your team can keep the enemy on their side of the river, you probably won't lose the round. The best way to do this is by controlling the middle of the map (all four bridges plus the river ford). Control of the river and the middle of the map allows you to bring armor forward without it getting chewed up in the rear areas.

a. North Bridge - Neither team has a stranglehold on this bridge. Both sides will need to stay agile in order to keep this bridge closed to enemy traffic.

b. River Ford - The Germans have the advantage at the river ford crossing (due to the West Farm Bunker and the West Farm Tank Scrape). Russians will need to counter these positions by using the flanks and sweeping in on the West Farm area from Hill 75 and Hill 57.

c. South Bridge - While not a primary east-west avenue for vehicles, it is a major avenue for infantry infiltrators as they move between Hill 57 and Hill 17.

d. South Forest - Germans will want to control the Southeast Bridge, but will have difficulties due to the Pak45 that guards it. Russians will want to control the Southwest bridge, but will have difficulties due to the pak40 that guards that one.

Advanced Objective - Bottle the enemy into their spawn

Once you've got the enemy bottled into their side of the map, the next step is to shove them into their spawn and keep them there. That is easier said then done for the most part.

a. Germans - Germans should push forward and seize Hill 44 and the Glacier Pass. A second team will have to control the mortar bunker just west of Russian #2. The third team should setup shop at the "E" exit of the Hill 17 Trail. The fourth team will want to setup shop at the mortar position on Hill 13.

Alternately, Germans could push in even closer to the Russian spawn and get between the Russian spawn and the bases. The germans would need to control the northern spawn locations to force the Russians to spawn inside their HQ house, away from any armor.

b. Russians - Russians will want to push west of the river and seize key locations such as Hill 83, the Farm, the West Farm Bunker, Hill 57 and Hill 31.

Russians should attempt to take and hold the two southeastern spawn bunkers in the German spawn area. This will force the germans to spawn down in the ammo dump area. It simply requires that russians get within 1000u of the german spawn points inside those two bunkers. Once that happens, the Germans will be have to fight back uphill to retake their two bunkers and regain use of their heavy tanks. (But I may move one of the heavy tanks down near the Ammo Dump.)

I think that a pair of Russians could probably spawn-rape the Germans for quite a while if they can keep them spawning down in the Ammo Dump buildings. It won't be like shooting sitting ducks on Barbarossa, but there's a good chance that you could get away with it for a while.

oh hell no....

tell me were the company is and ill hold the guys family hostage till your server is up....

^ that was me

(chuckles)

In the meantime, it's giving me two solid nights of working on the map and fixing up little glitches here and there. Tonight's goal is to get all of the models blocking players and bullets and to get the last few holes patched.

That's the best thing I've read. PERIOD.