Terrain in TacOps

[Dimstick]

Is there any way built into the program right now to setup restricted movement terrain to create choke points? I have only seen the two diffent terrain elevations, so things like mountain passes and marshes and other areas ideal for infantry movement but poor for anything else really cannot be simulated right now. It seems unrealistic to allow vehicles movment through all terrain (yes, I have seen the post on forests and cities!) especially hilly, mountain, or wide/deep rivers.

Such terrain offers inherent advantages to the defender who only has to defend limited choke points. Such key terrain has resulted in many important battles throughout history over passes, fords, and roads.

[phil-]

Cover the top of the choke point in trees. It will make them.....undesirable to travel through.

[ February 26, 2003, 12:00 AM: Message edited by: phil- ]

[Redwolf]

You can create terrain inpassable to wheeled vehicles and terrain inpassable to all vehicles.

In terrain view mode (F8) you see it labeld with "3" and "4", respectivly.

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

The feature below is present in Tacops and TacOpsCav as of v403EJ. The current version number is 404AB.

020608 Mac & Win. Enhancement. Added game engine support for three levels of impassable terrain (if previously encoded into a Type2 map through use of the TacOps Map Tool v104). Unless a road is present, Level 1 can not be entered by wheeled vehicles. Level 2 can not be entered by tracked vehicles or wheeled vehicles. Level 3 can not be entered by dismounted infantry, tracked vehicles, or wheeled vehicles. The presence of a road negates any level of impassable terrain.

020608 Mac & Win. Enhancement. Revised the TacOps Map Tool to allow the encoding of three levels of impassable terrain in a Type2 map. Incremented the version number of the TacOps map Tool from v103 to v104. Use the Terrain Editing window in the TacOps Map Tool to encode a Type 2 map with impassable terrain.

[Jeff Gilbert]

Just another quick question that marries up with another post of mine.

Do you plan to add another elevation or two to the mapping in v5? Personally, I am not a big fan of the unlimited elevations ... too hard to make a map, but adding one or two extra levels to the current system would add tremendously to the game. [Obviously, this is all my opinion]

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

That has a high priority.

Its almost at the top of the wish list.

[pichocki]

I think that Jeff is right: Unless it is "the same" amount of work to code "arbitrary elevation", it might very well be sufficient to have "some" more (say 4 or five in total) elevation levels in the game. Except for very rare cases this will be enough.

Elevation is "relativ" in most cases anyway: In my current map, the terrain is more or less flat, having elevations between 10 and 50 meters at most. How did O try to "solve" this? I didn't pla ythe scenario so far, but first tests showed that this might work: Wherever there is a slope or a hill, I code the terrain as a change from low to high TacOps terrain, say 10m up to 20m. It is very likely on my map to have a wood or town or other LOS before the next "step" is encountered. So I let "drop" the terrain back to E0 somewhere where it does not have any impact on the game - deep in a wood mostly. By this, I am back to Eo when I come to model the next elevation, say a step from 20m to 40m or so... Of course, this procedure does not work in an open terrain with long LOSs and more than one elevation step visible at once. But having four or five possible steps may very well be enough for most of the cases

[Jeff Gilbert]

Major H,

What I have learned:

1. There is a strong possibility [probablity] of adding another terrain level in the next release.

2. It takes me MONTHS and MONTHS to make a new map graphic. [i'm not that slow, just have to budget my time].

Assuming that it takes me the rest of this year to complete the map, can I add one new elevation layer or can I add two?

[Jeff Gilbert]

Major H,

Follow up on my prior post.

I have begun a 30x20 km map and I am going to make 2 versions of it. One with the current 2 ground elevations and one version with 4 ground elevations.

I know you're quite busy of late so I do not expect a reply for a while. Heck, at my current pace, it's going to take me 'till September or so to get the base maps done.

[pichocki]

Hi, Jeff!

Here's a workaround that *might* work as long as there are no more elevation levels available.

I tried it on my map (admittedly not very broken terrain), and it *seems* to work so far:

I tried to code "elevation changes", i.e. a slope from 10m to 20m is modelled as a E0-E1-change. Then on another part of the map there may be a slop going up from 30m to 50m, which is modelled as a E0/E1 step, too. Now for the "trick": *Somewhere* between those two points you have to find a part of the map where it "does not matter", if you step down from E1 to E0 (for me, I found those in woods or towns quite often). Voilà.

Question for the Major: Do you see any problems arising from this right away? I hope you don't...

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

No problem. I do the same thing in the maps that I make.