Fire and Rubble Preview: The Anatomy of What Goes Into a Stock Campaign Release

[Combatintman]

6 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

How come you're leaving a gap between each building? European WW2 era towns usually have many houses built right next to each other, with no gap. I think many New World designers are not aware of this.

Well that is not true as there are conjoined buildings on the screenshots.  There could be a number of reasons for how the map has been put together which could be:

• Absence of decent imagery or town plans for Tukums in the late war period.
• The limitations imposed by the building picks in the editor.
• How to fit them on the action square grid.
• Working buildings into the required area within the limits of the north, south, east, west, north east, north west, south east and south west options available in the editor.

Urban areas in particular in the map editor require huge compromises - churches for instance can only be north, east, south or west oriented.  Buildings on diagonals are generally larger than you want them to be if you want to replicate every single building on a real world map.  Then of course there is the issue of whether you think including the street furniture (lamp posts, telegraph poles, road signage etc) is important and whether you want those houses that have gardens and fences to have those gardens and fences and testing and adjusting as necessary.

[Glubokii Boy]

When designing a battle damaged map i kind of like to use the high and low walls in conjunction with rubble tiles and ditchlock to add a few severely damaged buildings with only the walls standing...scattered here and there across the map....

To add a bit of variaty...not only using damaged stock buildings...

With the new damaged walls feature this option will only look better ...

You can also add some wall to the stock buildings to simulate additional rooms that have taken a severe beating...

You can also build a fairly large biilding with walls and then add some of the smalest building to that and rubble them as well as their roofs to kind of simulate only small parts of those buildings having parts of the roof remaining...

Combinig the walls and buildings in such a way can bring some more variaty to the damaged maps...and also create some nice tactical possitions...

 

Edited December 6, 2020 by RepsolCBR

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

But walls that can be damaged, that's pretty cool. A damaged building with walls completely intact, doesn't look right.

  I don't believe they are walls that can be damaged.....I believe they come pre-damaged (they're shown in some of the earlier screenshots IIRC). 

@BFCElvis.....Any chance of an extra piccy or two of these (and any other new map goodies) at all? 

Edited December 6, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[BFCElvis]

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

  I don't believe they are walls that can be damaged.....I believe they come pre-damaged (they're shown in some of the earlier screenshots IIRC). 

@BFCElvis.....Any chance of an extra piccy or two of these (and any other new map goodies) at all? 

If I'm understanding your question correctly........

 

The top floor is what you get when you Ctrl-Click once. The middle floor when you Ctrl-Click twice. The bottom floor is when you do nothing. 

 

 

 

[BFCElvis]

I'm sure that I have posted screenshots of these before but this is the new half wall,

 

 

[Wicky]

[BletchleyGeek]

I love Cold War Steve @Wicky keep them coming

[Ithikial_AU]

6 hours ago, Combatintman said:

Well that is not true as there are conjoined buildings on the screenshots.  There could be a number of reasons for how the map has been put together which could be:

• Absence of decent imagery or town plans for Tukums in the late war period.
• The limitations imposed by the building picks in the editor.
• How to fit them on the action square grid.
• Working buildings into the required area within the limits of the north, south, east, west, north east, north west, south east and south west options available in the editor.

Urban areas in particular in the map editor require huge compromises - churches for instance can only be north, east, south or west oriented.  Buildings on diagonals are generally larger than you want them to be if you want to replicate every single building on a real world map.  Then of course there is the issue of whether you think including the street furniture (lamp posts, telegraph poles, road signage etc) is important and whether you want those houses that have gardens and fences to have those gardens and fences and testing and adjusting as necessary.

@Bulletpoint - Combatintman has it pretty much covered. The main 1930's era map in high resolution I'm using does place individual large buildings and based on that source there were alley ways between the buildings. Most of the town was rubble after the war so was rebuilt and changes were probably made by the new Soviet authorities.

I did refer to some 1930's photos and basically drew from that most buildings should be between the two and three story levels in terms of height. The modular buildings give it an urban look but in reality Tukums is still a smaller country town rather than a proper city like Berlin or Riga. I also didn't want to go purely with individual buildings though as that would give it too much of a residential/farming look.

I also had to make some compromises to add in the waterway and train line which would likely impact the flow of the battle more than an extra buildings here or there as it limited vehicle movement. On the map it became a very tight space indeed just south of the buildings at one point.

[Warts 'n' all]

7 hours ago, Wicky said:

Wicky, when people talk about battles on  "The Eastern Front" they don't mean a council estate in Harwich.

[Aragorn2002]

11 hours ago, BFCElvis said:

I'm sure that I have posted screenshots of these before but this is the new half wall,

 

 

Yes, you did. I remember that now. Perhaps in time someone can make a wall mod with bullet and grenade holes/damage, to make it look even better.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Aragorn2002

[Glubokii Boy]

40 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Perhaps in time someone can make a wall mod with bullet and grenade holes/damage, to make it look even better.

Or even better...perhaps the graphic artist at BFC could find the time to add such a touch to these walls while we are waiting for the release.

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, RepsolCBR said:

Or even better...perhaps the graphic artist at BFC could find the time to add such a touch to these walls while we are waiting for the release.

As long as that doesn't result in new delay...

[Warts 'n' all]

11 hours ago, Wicky said:

"I don't care if Churchill had a Union Card back in the 20's. If you can't lay 'em straight you ain't joining. Now eff off!" 

Edited December 7, 2020 by Warts 'n' all

[BFCElvis]

On 12/7/2020 at 3:47 AM, RepsolCBR said:

Or even better...perhaps the graphic artist at BFC could find the time to add such a touch to these walls while we are waiting for the release.

Here is a better screenshot of the rubble walls with a little sunlight on them. I think adding bullet holes to them might not look "natural". If so, not many of them. It is the equivalent of waist to knee level. How pockmarked with bullet holes should we expect a wall to be at that level of a knocked down wall? Maybe more cracks or somefink though.

 

[Glubokii Boy]

Thank for the new pic...

It does not neccesarely have to be...bulletholes.

Hits from shrapnell and and the odd crack will do nicely ...

It might look somewhat out of place if the building walls shows such damage and the stand alone walls...do not.

Some type of damage added to the surface of these would be nice imo...

Thanks 

Edited December 8, 2020 by RepsolCBR

[Glubokii Boy]

It does not have to massive damage...but some would be nice...

I guess that the trick will be to find a nice ballace/way to still avoid very noticable repetition if you place several wall tiles next to each other...

[rocketman]

I tend to think that the walls should have more rough surfaces and look more broken down. Maybe it's hard to achieve, but it's a bit too smooth looking for me.

Like this:

[DesertFox]

43 minutes ago, BFCElvis said:

Here is a better screenshot of the rubble walls with a little sunlight on them. I think adding bullet holes to them might not look "natural". If so, not many of them. It is the equivalent of waist to knee level. How pockmarked with bullet holes should we expect a wall to be at that level of a knocked down wall? Maybe more cracks or somefink though.

 

Given the limitations of the now 13 years old gfx engine, that is perfectly fine for me. The game is full of abstractions. Not that this is a bad thing.

Please bring up those nice little screenies. That makes it easier for those who wait.

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, BFCElvis said:

Here is a better screenshot of the rubble walls with a little sunlight on them. I think adding bullet holes to them might not look "natural". If so, not many of them. It is the equivalent of waist to knee level. How pockmarked with bullet holes should we expect a wall to be at that level of a knocked down wall? Maybe more cracks or somefink though.

 

I like these walls. But maybe you could add a bit of a rubble pile around the base? All the material blown off usually piles up. It would also ease the transition between wall and terrain.

[Commanderski]

1 hour ago, BFCElvis said:

Here is a better screenshot of the rubble walls with a little sunlight on them. I think adding bullet holes to them might not look "natural". If so, not many of them. It is the equivalent of waist to knee level. How pockmarked with bullet holes should we expect a wall to be at that level of a knocked down wall? Maybe more cracks or somefink though.

It needs some rubble around it. Otherwise it looks like it was built that way even with bullet holes and cracks.

[Erwin]

3 hours ago, Commanderski said:

needs some rubble around it.

Hopefully same with the bases around all buildings so they don't look like they just got placed like on a train set.

[BletchleyGeek]

4 hours ago, Commanderski said:

Otherwise it looks like it was built that way even with bullet holes and cracks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jealous_Wall

[Sgt.Squarehead]

As opposed to the 'no broken walls whatsoever' that we had prior to this, I think it's pretty bloody good TBH. 

Please, please @Battlefront.com port these to the other titles ASAP, Mosul could really use them! 

19 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I like these walls. But maybe you could add a bit of a rubble pile around the base? All the material blown off usually piles up. It would also ease the transition between wall and terrain.

Doddle to do....Place a single rubble flavour object (there are loads to choose from) near the wall, then Alt+Shift+Click to clone more, placing them along the line of the wall, rotating  and mixing with other types to get the desired effect.

Edited December 9, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[DerKommissar]

That Rubble's on Fire! 

[Bulletpoint]

11 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Doddle to do....Place a single rubble flavour object (there are loads to choose from) near the wall, then Alt+Shift+Click to clone more, placing them along the line of the wall, rotating  and mixing with other types to get the desired effect.

Placing so many flavour objects is not good for performance. It would be better if this detail were included in the wall object itself. I don't think you'd ever find a wall broken like that without some debris at the base.

It's called "Fire and Rubble". We're not getting any fire - at least give us a little rubble.