Heaven & Earth: Project discussion thread

[37mm]

50 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Is the rocket arty resupplied between missions?  I can't recall if the briefing mentioned that.  But, is it correct that neither vehicles nor men are replaced?

Yes... the "short, sharp rocket barrages" will be the same in every mission that they are in.

 

As per the campaign briefing...

"Throughout the campaign Ammo supply will be very generous, Infantry reinforcement is generally plentiful but any lost vehicle's may be difficult to replace."

[HowMuchForYou?]

I must say “The Year of the Rat” is probably one of the coolest campaigns I’ve ever played.

[puje]

11 hours ago, HowMuchForYou? said:

I must say “The Year of the Rat” is probably one of the coolest campaigns I’ve ever played.

Thanks a lot! Did you finish it yet? 

[HowMuchForYou?]

4 hours ago, puje said:

Thanks a lot! Did you finish it yet? 

I’m only on the second mission but I love the concept and the environment. Having some trouble on the second cache. The enemies in a great L shaped ambush from my position. I’m probably gonna get my QRF to help out.

[37mm]

This week my hiatus from H&E ended &, fully refreshed, I've begun working on 0.98 (working title 'Blood in the Water').

An old, french @RommL campaign provided to me by @CMFDR has been given a simple, modern makeover.

Work is also progressing on a second 'Imperial Cavalry' campaign & experiments taking place for a third 'Combined Action Platoon' campaign.

I've also sourced some new Vietnamese voice files as I want to update the voice mod.

Rice paddies in H&E have often been represented by modded swamp tiles (although the [paddies] tag activates 'shallow paddies' represented by crop 1 tiles) however I've recently figured out a way to flood fields themselves.

The following 'tidbit' shows the new flooded fields experiment...

... the actual map being used for this experiment is, as per usual, originally by @Combatintman.

 

Finally, anyone interested in joining the H&E team & helping out with content creation is more than welcome to message me.

[Erwin]

6 hours ago, 37mm said:

This week my hiatus from H&E ended &, fully refreshed,

xcellent...   

It is astonishing how you have made this look like a completely different game.  Have very much enjoyed the couple of scenarios I tried.  But, there is so much content available now over all the titles, it's very easy to get distracted.  

Edited July 10, 2021 by Erwin

[danfrodo]

I hadn't paid much attention to this now, but just watched 37mm's video and suddenly I am thinking there's might be some kind of surprise BFC release of combat mission vietnam

[Erwin]

Well... wouldn't be much of a surprise at this point.  But, I think 37mm is doing this project largely on his own initiative.  Am sure he can clarify.

[Thewood1]

Is there any thought or desire to move the base of the game to CMCW.  That way its aligned with actual unit stats and performance.  I would also think some of the OOBs might align better as well.

[Rosseau]

Now, this is a *thread.*

I've got to write something up on CMCW in the next couple of weeks, and I have zzzCMCW installed in my mod folder.

Gosh, forgive me, but what does all of this do so I can explain it to the unwashed? And that includes me!

Again, thanks for your patience.

- Mike

[37mm]

15 hours ago, Erwin said:

 But, there is so much content available now over all the titles, it's very easy to get distracted.  

Tell me about it... there was already probably decades worth of content available for CMSF/CMSF2.

Never mind all the other CM games!

14 hours ago, danfrodo said:

I hadn't paid much attention to this now, but just watched 37mm's video and suddenly I am thinking there's might be some kind of surprise BFC release of combat mission vietnam

BFC are pretty adamant they will never do Vietnam (or the Pacific). 

9 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

Is there any thought or desire to move the base of the game to CMCW.  That way its aligned with actual unit stats and performance.  I would also think some of the OOBs might align better as well.

We have indeed discussed the pro's & cons (and I've performed some early experiments).

One con not mentioned was the shear size of the CMSF player base compared with the CMCW player base PLUS the fact that CMSF players are, inherently, more likely to be interested in counter-insurgencies or "dirty" civil wars (things which CMSF2 is superior at representing than CMCW).

Either way, there's only so much one small team can do... so any potential 'H&E2' will probably just wait for H&E itself to be completed.

4 hours ago, Rosseau said:

Gosh, forgive me, but what does all of this do so I can explain it to the unwashed? And that includes me!

The 'People's Beta' came with a manual which can be downloaded & read seperately.

However the tldr version is "Heaven & Earth is a fantasy sandbox set in SE Asia".

[Sgt.Squarehead]

BHSFB Commandos take advantage of a handy stream to wash their smalls! 

Respect & thanks to @Lucky_Strike for his infinitely superior caption! 

Edited August 22, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Sgt.Squarehead]

On 7/10/2021 at 9:36 PM, Thewood1 said:

Is there any thought or desire to move the base of the game to CMCW.  That way its aligned with actual unit stats and performance.  I would also think some of the OOBs might align better as well.

Probably not TBH.....But that won't stop us robbing it wholesale for goodies. 

On 7/10/2021 at 8:50 AM, 37mm said:

Rice paddies in H&E have often been represented by modded swamp tiles (although the [paddies] tag activates 'shallow paddies' represented by crop 1 tiles) however I've recently figured out a way to flood fields themselves.

Wow.....Those look amazing! 

Looking forward to the next update.....I'll modify a few maps to use those.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Lucky_Strike]

35 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

BHSFB Commandos give first aid to their casualties following an ambush.....New micro scenario 'Summer Wasps' in testing.

Are you sure they're not washing their dirty undies? 

The detail on their uniforms looks great. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

LOL! 

For those interested in the potential riverine combat aspect of 'Heaven & Earth',  (@General Jack Ripper) we have crossed what I believe is the last significant hurdle before making it happen:

That's a scout platoon disembarking from their gunboat (BMP-2), onto a bridge that gets them ashore.....There's still absolutely no way for that gunboat to crawl out of the water onto any part of this map.

Probably sounds trivial, but it took a lot of experimentation to get it to work. 

PS - Now I have to make all those islands climbable, they're kind of steep.....I have a cunning plan, but no idea if it will work.....Yet! 

Edited August 22, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Erwin]

Very impressive. Have enjoyed playing some of the H&E scenarios.  And it seems like it will soon look even better.  

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Remember we're making this **** up as we go along.....We're still figuring out how to do most of these things. 

The map in that image is going to take as long or longer than 'The Delta' to make.....But at least I know it will work as intended now, so all the effort I've put into it thus far was worth it.

This is roughly what I'm aiming for:

Remember the current release is still very much a Beta.....It's coherent and it works, but quite a few of the maps etc. need tweaking as mods are updated, so I guarantee when we release the final version it will look an awful lot better (& TBH I don't think it looks too bad now). 

[MOS:96B2P]

15 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

LOL! 

For those interested in the potential riverine combat aspect of 'Heaven & Earth',  (@General Jack Ripper) we have crossed what I believe is the last significant hurdle before making it happen:

That's a scout platoon disembarking from their gunboat (BMP-2), onto a bridge that gets them ashore.....There's still absolutely no way for that gunboat to crawl out of the water onto any part of this map.

Probably sounds trivial, but it took a lot of experimentation to get it to work. 

PS - Now I have to make all those islands climbable, they're kind of steep.....I have a cunning plan, but no idea if it will work.....Yet! 

+1.  Cool stuff. 

[Lucky_Strike]

18 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Probably sounds trivial, but it took a lot of experimentation to get it to work. 

This is amazing work, there's nothing trivial about this level of modding!

8 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

This is roughly what I'm aiming for:

Nice, very James Bond, Phang Nga Bay. I wonder if the sea colour can be modded, probably would upset colour of rivers though, forget it, bad idea.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

19 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I wonder if the sea colour can be modded, probably would upset colour of rivers though, forget it, bad idea.

Don't rule it out, @37mm is most tricksy with his tagging.....It might well be doable for dedicated coastal maps like this one.

The real place is called Haiphong Bay.....The scenery is insane! 

It's kind of difficult to figure out how to make the island shapes in the editor & even more so to then make it possible for pixeltruppen to get up there.....Still working on that.

19 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

This is amazing work, there's nothing trivial about this level of modding!

No modding on my part.....Just lots of messing around with various combinations of tiles until I found a way to both keep the 'boats' in the water and enable their passengers to get ashore.

I'd tried loads of combinations in the past and either the boat partly emerged from the water or the passengers wouldn't emerge from the boat.....Today it occured to me to try a very small bridge, used as a pontoon/pier, adjacent to a shallow ford tile.. 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Lucky_Strike]

7 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Don't rule it out, @37mm is most tricksy with his tagging.....It might well be doable for dedicated coastal maps like this one.

The real place is called Haiphong Bay.....The scenery is insane! 

Tagging would be a good idea for sure.

9 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

It's kind of difficult to figure out how to make the island shapes in the editor & even more so to then make it possible for pixeltruppen to get up there.....Still working on that. 

Nice little jetty on a beach for them to enjoy a cocktail or two ...? I can see a good looking beach at the middle left of your pic. Can we get usable stairs outside?

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I haven't found a way of getting troops to deploy directly onto the beaches (which are all Heavy Rocks, for 'boat' trapping purposes) yet.

I don't actually recall what happens with a shallow ford adjacent to one.....I believe the 'boat' starts to emerge from the water in a very immersion (forgive the pun) breaking way.

I've got it on my desktop now so I'll check again.....BrB.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Sgt.Squarehead]

It's as I remembered, if you place either type of ford tile directly adjacent to the beaches it messes with the Heavy Rocks tiles, making this possible:

And that just won't do at all! 

The fact that the mechanics seems to limit the points that the player can put his troops ashore to just piers/pontoons suits me quite well TBH as it will help me to set deadly traps for him predict what the player might do and then set deadly traps for him making my scripting easier. 

Edited August 22, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Lucky_Strike]

5 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

And that just won't do at all! 

Fo'sure. I doubt there's anything you haven't tried. ? can heavy forest be used in some way, stops vehicles in their tracks. Trouble is even if you can put it underwater, you'll end up with brush in the water as well. I don't think we can mod out the brush other than by making it invisible which is not ideal for the rest of the map. Tall bocage? but that would be an issue for your pixeltroops.

13 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Limiting the points that the player can put his troops ashore to piers/pontoons suits me quite well TBH as it will help me to set deadly traps for him predict what the player might do and then set deadly traps for him making my scripting easier.

LOL, precisely, always a silver lining.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

can heavy forest be used in some way, stops vehicles in their tracks.

Yes, but I'm not sure if I can use it directly on the beaches, IIRC it seems to get a soft edge that the 'boats' can partly emerge on

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Trouble is even if you can put it underwater, you'll end up with brush in the water as well.

I've actually used it at the end of the piers/pontoons and I think it looks OK.....Call it sea-weed!   

I suspect I could use Heavy Rocks instead TBH.....I think the key to the disembarking issue is the single ford tile at the end of a bridge (at the same elevation as the water itself).

.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead