Jump to content

Kharkov Map Sneak Peak


Macisle

Recommended Posts

14 hours ago, Macisle said:

Other good news is it looks like players are still going to get to use lots of heavy artillery, despite the smaller map slices (haven't found a battle that lets you use those 300mm rockets? They're comin', baby!)

Yeah using heavy artillery in most CM battles is usually overpowered and I know from personal experience in the editor that it can quickly lob a battle to being a one sided affair depending on where the rocket/heavy shell lands. A nice denseurban map of this size like this makes it very workable proposition for scenarios. :) Looking forward to it.

(Now we just need saved map states functionality between scenarios within a campaign!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Ithikial_AU said:

Yeah using heavy artillery in most CM battles is usually overpowered and I know from personal experience in the editor that it can quickly lob a battle to being a one sided affair depending on where the rocket/heavy shell lands. A nice denseurban map of this size like this makes it very workable proposition for scenarios. :) Looking forward to it.

(Now we just need saved map states functionality between scenarios within a campaign!)

Man, I would SOOO love to have the saved map state functionality for campaigns. This map is tailor-made for that. As things stand, I'm leaning heavily towards letting players create their own damage each battle, even though that means map slice overlap areas will magically repair themselves. Pre-battle damage would add nice atmosphere, but I think that's outweighed by the undesirable reduction in tactical possibilities that canned damage would cause. That, and it's fun to destroy the map yourself!

At this point, the campaign scenarios will likely tend to have fairly centrally-located victory locations with as much room around them as frame rates will allow. That way, the defender can make use of overwatch locations deeper within his overall defensive zone and have room to maneuver in reinforcements and/or mount local counterattacks. Likewise, that will allow the attacker the ability to maneuver, flank terrain objectives, and perhaps bottle up defenders in ineffective areas. This will also allow for reasonable time limits (maybe 60-90 minutes average), as the distances to objectives will not be great in actual meters, but it will require lots of time and careful play to actually take and hold onto them.

Going back to arty,  I think the Soviet attacker will find himself often walking in the footsteups of his real-world historical counterparts in making extensive use of carefully choreographed pre-planned barrages. Wielded well and with luck, he will have a mighty bludgeon there that may well be the key to "shock and awe" his way to a foothold on the objectives. Once the battle is underway, the lesser speed and accuracy of his artillery will likely make it less effective than his opponent's. On the other hand, the German player should have a good chance to have adequate combat power survive the Soviet opening barrages with careful use of the terrain and smart deployment. Then, his experienced SS units will be able to call faster, more accurate artillery -- and not just the small stuff. Exensive artillery duels may be fairly common. And, the Soviet player may find himself reserving his mortars for AT duty more than he is used to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Macisle said:

Man, I would SOOO love to have the saved map state functionality for campaigns. This map is tailor-made for that. As things stand, I'm leaning heavily towards letting players create their own damage each battle, even though that means map slice overlap areas will magically repair themselves. Pre-battle damage would add nice atmosphere, but I think that's outweighed by the undesirable reduction in tactical possibilities that canned damage would cause. That, and it's fun to destroy the map yourself!

At this point, the campaign scenarios will likely tend to have fairly centrally-located victory locations with as much room around them as frame rates will allow. That way, the defender can make use of overwatch locations deeper within his overall defensive zone and have room to maneuver in reinforcements and/or mount local counterattacks. Likewise, that will allow the attacker the ability to maneuver, flank terrain objectives, and perhaps bottle up defenders in ineffective areas. This will also allow for reasonable time limits (maybe 60-90 minutes average), as the distances to objectives will not be great in actual meters, but it will require lots of time and careful play to actually take and hold onto them.

Going back to arty,  I think the Soviet attacker will find himself often walking in the footsteups of his real-world historical counterparts in making extensive use of carefully choreographed pre-planned barrages. Wielded well and with luck, he will have a mighty bludgeon there that may well be the key to "shock and awe" his way to a foothold on the objectives. Once the battle is underway, the lesser speed and accuracy of his artillery will likely make it less effective than his opponent's. On the other hand, the German player should have a good chance to have adequate combat power survive the Soviet opening barrages with careful use of the terrain and smart deployment. Then, his experienced SS units will be able to call faster, more accurate artillery -- and not just the small stuff. Exensive artillery duels may be fairly common. And, the Soviet player may find himself reserving his mortars for AT duty more than he is used to.

Excellent!!!! I seriously can't wait to get CMRT and the new module and try out your map! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A work-around for the map damage:

- Use pre-made slices, showing the "advance".

- Each pre-made slice would have editor-introduced damage. This would replicate pre-battle artillery.

- Keep in-battle, on-call (going on a hyphen tear) artillery to a small enough caliber that not too much destruction would occur.

This would be workable because no troops would be close to heavy artillery barrages. Hence, this would occur before the troops moved up for the attack. The smaller on-call artillery would be more likely to be used by troops in-contact. It's not like a company commander could call down 300mm rockets. That would be pre-planned.

Just a few thoughts.

Of course, being able to import damaged maps from previous battles would be soooo much better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

53 minutes ago, c3k said:

A work-around for the map damage:

- Use pre-made slices, showing the "advance".

- Each pre-made slice would have editor-introduced damage. This would replicate pre-battle artillery.

- Keep in-battle, on-call (going on a hyphen tear) artillery to a small enough caliber that not too much destruction would occur.

This would be workable because no troops would be close to heavy artillery barrages. Hence, this would occur before the troops moved up for the attack. The smaller on-call artillery would be more likely to be used by troops in-contact. It's not like a company commander could call down 300mm rockets. That would be pre-planned.

Just a few thoughts.

Of course, being able to import damaged maps from previous battles would be soooo much better.

Thanks, c3k.

I do plan on decorating non-combat areas of the attacker's setup zone to simulate combat that occurred previously to take the setup areas. However, I don't want to, say, knock out any building walls or rubble any height levels if those might actually be tactically valuable in the upcoming fight. I'd rather magically add those building elements back than destroy ones that weren't destroyed previously by the players.

As for the defender's zone, canned pre-battle damage will depend on the slice and scenario. If it is a part of the map with heavy building complexes, then the attacker will likely get heavy artillery and have control of the prep barrage in full (he'll probably be commanding a battalion+ in those, as well). I actually want the attacker to have the ability to level a small area of the map, if that is what he wants to do. The trick will be to balance things out so that this will not necessarily be a mission-losing situation for the defender.  In fact, depending on his setup, such an opening barrage by the attacker might rather benefit the defender , as it burns up so much of the attacker's arty on a small part of the map slice.

One thing to know about this is that there will be many buildings on the master map (YMMV on the slices) that can eat a full medium/heavy howitzer battery's allotment of ammo (point attack) and have a platoon inside, assuming they are hiding on the first floor and are not low-quality troops,  emerge with moderate --- or even light casualties, and intact fighting spirit. And, parts of the building will still be standing. The upcoming video will detail some of this and show the building construction techniques that achieve it.

I'll be looking to mix things up in the scenarios as best I can with regards to variety in the force mix (current concept is an SS Panzer Div. defending, so Germans get high-quality panzergrens as base infantry. Soviets will get a bit of everything, but will generally get quantity over quality). So, if the map slice has mostly small, standard buildings, the arty will be lighter as well. Force size will be also be considered when deciding on arty. Some scenarios may be company-sized, for example.

Nothing is set in stone yet and I'm open to ideas. Once the master map gets to a fairly complete stage, I'll start posting about my scenario and campaign ideas to get feedback. Then, of course, I'll need testers once concrete decisions are made about maps slices, scenarios and how to run the H2H campaign.

Right now, I need to focus on making progress on the map and the video series. For time's sake, the vids will have to be very basic. No fancy graphics, but I'll try to capture nice camera angles and do a good job with my commentary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎2018‎-‎01‎-‎23 at 2:50 PM, Macisle said:

 

All doors and windows are being lovingly chosen by yours truly

Impressive ! :)

Like some others here have also mentioned...i too have made some urban maps through the years and know what a mamut task it is to edit all those doors, walls and windows...

I have never made one of quite this scale though...this one is a 'biggie' ! Even with the largest one i ever made it took many, many hours to tweak those things.

I used the same technic that you are using though....Ones you have the basic layout of the map clear...work on a small part of it and finish it piece by piece...Like you mentioned. It can be quite gratifying to se the map slowely come together. 

Do to much window/door tweaking an ones and you will get 'tired' <_<

6 hours ago, Macisle said:

 Pre-battle damage would add nice atmosphere, but I think that's outweighed by the undesirable reduction in tactical possibilities that canned damage would cause. That, and it's fun to destroy the map yourself!

 

Pre-battle damage does not neccesarely have to reduce the tactical possibilities. On the contrary...It could even increase them imo. You don't have to flatten an entire area. A few building might be seriously damaged other might only need damaged roofs and a few blown out walls...this combined with piles of rubble, craters etc might allow for some additional tactical

ingrediences. Having a pre-battle destruction (of the Buildings) and only light artillery when playing the scenario might even sequre a good tactical situation on the map. If the player gets to much Heavy artillery to play with he might destroy some of the 'nice tactical situations' you have created on the map (the ones you are hoping will provide some good fighting locations) simply by using massed artillery.

I'm not saying that you should devote time to rubbeling the map...You have enough to do as is ! ;) but i don't Think that pre-battle destruction neccesarely limits the tactical options.

I'm pretty sure that these things have been mentioned before but some additional things to the editor wishlist that comes to mind when watching the Pictures of this map are the abilities

to use some sort of auto-rubbeling and auto-cratering feature....

Maybe if you could paint parts of the map simularely to how you paint set-up zones or objectives and then set a level of destruction and shelling for that areas ranging between something like light - massive...and then the computer would fix that for you...:P

When it comes to shelling you would specify the intensity and caliber (small, medium, large, huge, mixed)...and with the rubbeling you would simply specify the level of destruction...ranging from light to massive.

Perhaps it would be asking to much to have the computer Place flavored rubble and debri one the map for us but destroying the Buildings at a sutable level ought to be possible to automate...

The designer could the concentrate on some specific areas he feels are more important and do those by hand...or simply tweak the auto generated ones...

Good luck with the Project...It looks...oh,well...OUTSTANDING !! 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In Mosul I took the 'best average' of the damage inflicted by my playtesters and modelled it on the overlapping section of map in the editor, it took quite a time to do it, but my map is just a tiny fraction of yours, I can't even imagine how long it would take to do the same thing with this one!  :o

Edited by Sgt.Squarehead
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, RepsolCBR said:

Impressive ! :)

Like some others here have also mentioned...i too have made some urban maps through the years and know what a mamut task it is to edit all those doors, walls and windows...

I have never made one of quite this scale though...this one is a 'biggie' ! Even with the largest one i ever made it took many, many hours to tweak those things.

I used the same technic that you are using though....Ones you have the basic layout of the map clear...work on a small part of it and finish it piece by piece...Like you mentioned. It can be quite gratifying to se the map slowely come together. 

Do to much window/door tweaking an ones and you will get 'tired' <_<

Pre-battle damage does not neccesarely have to reduce the tactical possibilities. On the contrary...It could even increase them imo. You don't have to flatten an entire area. A few building might be seriously damaged other might only need damaged roofs and a few blown out walls...this combined with piles of rubble, craters etc might allow for some additional tactical

ingrediences. Having a pre-battle destruction (of the Buildings) and only light artillery when playing the scenario might even sequre a good tactical situation on the map. If the player gets to much Heavy artillery to play with he might destroy some of the 'nice tactical situations' you have created on the map (the ones you are hoping will provide some good fighting locations) simply by using massed artillery.

I'm not saying that you should devote time to rubbeling the map...You have enough to do as is ! ;) but i don't Think that pre-battle destruction neccesarely limits the tactical options.

I'm pretty sure that these things have been mentioned before but some additional things to the editor wishlist that comes to mind when watching the Pictures of this map are the abilities

to use some sort of auto-rubbeling and auto-cratering feature....

Maybe if you could paint parts of the map simularely to how you paint set-up zones or objectives and then set a level of destruction and shelling for that areas ranging between something like light - massive...and then the computer would fix that for you...:P

When it comes to shelling you would specify the intensity and caliber (small, medium, large, huge, mixed)...and with the rubbeling you would simply specify the level of destruction...ranging from light to massive.

Perhaps it would be asking to much to have the computer Place flavored rubble and debri one the map for us but destroying the Buildings at a sutable level ought to be possible to automate...

The designer could the concentrate on some specific areas he feels are more important and do those by hand...or simply tweak the auto generated ones...

Good luck with the Project...It looks...oh,well...OUTSTANDING !! 

 

 

 

Thanks for the feedback and compliments. I haven't made a firm decision on any of this and probably won't until the slices and victory locations are set for all the scenarios. One idea for computer-generated destruction would be to allow the designer to plot artillery strikes in the Editor Map Preview as if he were a player in setup mode and then run them inside of Preview. Then, he could keep the damage he liked and repair back what he didn't. Theoretically, that would use existing code, integrated with some new code to facilitate bringing the game-time functionality into Preview mode (which currently must cut out a lot of overhead, as I can view the master map with no problems in Preview, but it chokes out if I actually attempt to play on it.) , creating kind of a limited hybrid mode.

Yeah, doors and windows... I've been putting off finishing those in my most recent sections and have a pretty big backlog now. I'm going to finish laying out the current city block and then not allow myself to do any more layout work until I'm caught up on the doors and windows.

6 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

In Mosul I took the 'best average' of the damage inflicted by my playtesters and modelled it on the overlapping section of map in the editor, it took quite a time to do it, but my map is just a tiny fraction of yours, I can't even imagine how long it would take to do the same thing with this one!  :o

Yeah, that's a good idea -- using real battle damage as a visual aid for creating Editor-based damage. I would love for designers to get some new damage textures for modular buildings to allow for more states of damage. At least one more in the form of a bullet-hole stage, like independent buildings have now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Totally agree with the wish for more ruined buildings, also a ruined state for walls that matches what a bit of artillery soon produces would be great.....Placing a million flavour objects is not the ideal solution for linear ruins TBH.  :unsure:

 

 

Oh, yeah--a semi-ruined state for walls. I'm glad you mentioned that one. That's something that I've thought about from time to time, but never remember to bring up. Would love to have that and be able to use it for wall sections just like "painting" a regular wall line in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Macisle said:

Oh, yeah--a semi-ruined state for walls. I'm glad you mentioned that one. That's something that I've thought about from time to time, but never remember to bring up. Would love to have that and be able to use it for wall sections just like "painting" a regular wall line in.

Totaly agree with this ! I also get reminded of this every time i try to do a 'damaged' map. It would be a good addition indeed...

Another one would without a doubt be the option to toggle-on...blown out windows ! 

This one seems to be a real nightmare to implement though unfortunatelly. I belive Kohlenklau messed with this a while back to try and mod the windows out. I can't recall right now if he ever did get it to work. Having the option to do this though would be super nice ! It would really improve the look of battle damaged maps...seeing those windows all intact looks a bit wierd..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Maybe we should open a map making suggestions thread like the one for AI?

 

Yepp...i guess it is better to not derail this thread to a wishlist-thread B)

I'm not so sure there will be any great future in a map making thread though...Wishlist and suggestion-threads seems to spark very little intrest around here right now...I guess that most of the things have already been mentioned and dicussed numorous times before...Most such threads seems to get something like 3 to 5 post and then die away...:(

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Macisle...

Your last post may not have anything to do with this...

4 hours ago, RepsolCBR said:

 

I'm not so sure there will be any great future in a map making thread though...Wishlist and suggestion-threads seems to spark very little intrest around here right now...I guess that most of the things have already been mentioned and dicussed numorous times before...Most such threads seems to get something like 3 to 5 post and then die away...:(

 

 

But i just want to make it clear...i might have been a bit unprecise with my previous comment...

It is in no way directed at this thread...What i mean is that a specified "map making, suggestion and wishlist" - thread in the general discussion forum might not spark all that much intrest and that threads like that has a tendancy to become very short lived lately...

I hope you continue posting pics and even videos of the progress regarding your Kharkov map...This thread will have no lack of intrest i'm sure :)

/RepsolCBR

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, RepsolCBR said:

Macisle...

Your last post may not have anything to do with this...

But i just want to make it clear...i might have been a bit unprecise with my previous comment...

It is in no way directed at this thread...What i mean is that a specified "map making, suggestion and wishlist" - thread in the general discussion forum might not spark all that much intrest and that threads like that has a tendancy to become very short lived lately...

I hope you continue posting pics and even videos of the progress regarding your Kharkov map...This thread will have no lack of intrest i'm sure :)

/RepsolCBR

No worries. I understood you. I just meant that I wouldn't have time to participate in such threads (:() without taking away from my projects because my time is so limited these days. That's all.

I'll keep posting on this project as I have stuff to show and/or if it's been awhile and someone asks (like with the current posting spree). It may be a few weeks before I can get the first installment of the video done. I can only really work on that on my day off, as it requires an extended chunk of time to get anything done. With the actual map, I can jump in and and knock out a building here or a clump of trees there in a small amount of time -- like morning coffee :D.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎25‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 6:43 PM, RepsolCBR said:

I'm not so sure there will be any great future in a map making thread though...Wishlist and suggestion-threads seems to spark very little intrest around here right now...I guess that most of the things have already been mentioned and dicussed numorous times before...Most such threads seems to get something like 3 to 5 post and then die away...:(

In part I suspect that's because they get scattered amongst the various different game sections, I know @LongLeftFlank and some of the other CM:SF guys have suggestions and it surely can't hurt to give it a try.....You don't ask, you don't get.  ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...