Adding new maps: Which one would be the most useful?

[Lagarto]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

I'm not a great fan of maps that are vastly undersized, as distances are just way off.

I'm not a fan of undersized maps, either. However, if you want to reenact a strategic bombing campaign - and the IL-2 fans have been trying to do that since I remember - the 'tactical size' maps are just too small.
On th MWoI map I linked above you can, for example, fly a campaign for the P-38s of the U.S. 15th Air Force, which were taking off from Algeria and escorting heavy bombers all the way to northern Italy, Yugoslavia or Greece. For some it could be boring (you can always use time compression to speed things up on the way to target), but to experience the mounting tension of such long-range missions is priceless. As fighter pilots used to say: "Hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror"

[SPAD-1949]

Originally Posted by Lagarto

I'm not a fan of undersized maps, either. However, if you want to reenact a strategic bombing campaign - and the IL-2 fans have been trying to do that since I remember - the 'tactical size' maps are just too small.
On th MWoI map I linked above you can, for example, fly a campaign for the P-38s of the U.S. 15th Air Force, which were taking off from Algeria and escorting heavy bombers all the way to northern Italy, Yugoslavia or Greece. For some it could be boring (you can always use time compression to speed things up on the way to target), but to experience the mounting tension of such long-range missions is priceless. As fighter pilots used to say: "Hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror"

I tried to create airfields far outside the maps borders, but this is a hard task if it is not north or east. But it is some Kind of unsatisfiying.
Maps as large as the solomons mostly create a crash at ending the mission, which makes it rather hard or a matter of luck to fly campaigns, since often you just dump the entire successful mission when trying to quit it and confirm your successs.
Funny that the finland map works, whilst Slovakia and the Iasi-Odessa map tend to crash on a lower rate than the solomons map.

Maps as large as the alps in a modded game allways crash at ending the mission with 100% accuracy.

You must not forget to shut down and restart TrackIR, since evry CTD also affects TIR.

Or is it just me at my 5th computer I'm runining with the game?

[Lagarto]

I've been flying DGen campaigns on many large maps, including the Channel, the Philippines and the MWoI, and while I do remember occasional crashes (or rather freeze-ups) at missions' end, certainly they were not persistent. I had a feeling that such mishaps occurred when after hitting the Escape key I rushed to press the 'quit mission' button - giving the game a few more seconds before quitting the mission seemed to help. Anyway, I always thought that my aging PC was at fault.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Lagarto

I'm not a fan of undersized maps, either. However, if you want to reenact a strategic bombing campaign - and the IL-2 fans have been trying to do that since I remember - the 'tactical size' maps are just too small.
On th MWoI map I linked above you can, for example, fly a campaign for the P-38s of the U.S. 15th Air Force, which were taking off from Algeria and escorting heavy bombers all the way to northern Italy, Yugoslavia or Greece. For some it could be boring (you can always use time compression to speed things up on the way to target), but to experience the mounting tension of such long-range missions is priceless. As fighter pilots used to say: "Hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror"

And you could not do this on a full sized map of say Northern Italy (maybe 600*300 or so) that has a least a part of the Med on it - with offboard or included distant airfields (like Normandy has)?
And others like me could use a cutout of that map (150-200*150-200) and play there. And time compression is not an option for coops, and I simply don't have the time to play missions that include the chance of failure and last for hours.

[IceFire]

Confining oneself to a true 1:1 scale map means that some concessions have to be made. For these very large maps, how much care has been taken in objects and placement? I mean... its a huge amount of work required to do all of that. Plus research.

The other thing I want to bring up is the role of the dogfight map. We currently have a few very usable small scale maps that we re-use over and over again on dogfight servers. Some of the new maps work brilliantly for online and others are more challenging or less useful.

Something like Italy Online has been a good addition in my mind. It let us do some fun things online in a short amount of time. How do people feel about these types of maps?

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by IceFire

Something like Italy Online has been a good addition in my mind. It let us do some fun things online in a short amount of time. How do people feel about these types of maps?

These types of maps are great, and I'd like to see more of them, as there are IMHO not enough in that category. There is enough space on these maps so you don't neccesarily meet EVERY enemy flight there, but it still is likely to see some action. Scale in the case of Italy online is fine, though if you would have asked me, I'd recommended a 2:3 scale at least. But better than a 1:3 Sicily you fly over in no time.
The Iasi Map is a great example of scale and playability, lots of airfileds means you usually don't have to fly too far for action, and its size means it doesn't feel crowded with 4 flyghts of each color in the air.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by IceFire

The other thing I want to bring up is the role of the dogfight map. We currently have a few very usable small scale maps that we re-use over and over again on dogfight servers. Some of the new maps work brilliantly for online and others are more challenging or less useful.

What makes a good Dogfight map, then?

My impression is that most of the Dogfight maps are way too small. While they've got interesting tactical setups and, in some cases, interesting terrain, I've notice that a running dogfight will quickly take players far away from the "fun" areas.

Additionally, the fact that the opposing teams' starting airfields are practically (or literally) in sight of each other just invites the sort of realistic behavior that online players hate - strafing and bombing enemy airfields to destroy planes on the ground and attacking planes that are taking off or trying to land.

Ideally, I think that any dogfight map should be about 20 miles/33 km square, with plenty of "interesting" terrain, such as mountains or islands, in between, and with airfields placed so that no team is at a disadvantage.

Boundaries for "protected zones" around airfields - where activities such as strafing, bombing, "vulching" heavily disadvantaged enemies, and "camping" are prohibited - should be clearly marked.

Practically, each team's airfield could automatically be protected by intensive curtains of light and heavy flak, since that was the real and effective way to protect airfields. Also, the risk of getting shot down by ground fire is a lot more obvious and self-enforcing to players who are inclined to break the conventions of online etiquette than being kicked off the server.

Strong flak curtains surrounding each team's airfield would also encourage lots of ground attack missions prior to "capturing" that team's base by landing aircraft or dropping paratroopers on it.

Based on those ideas, I'd like to see versions of the "Net Mountains" map that are much bigger and where the same map is set in different climates, both to provide different air temperatures and as "eye candy" to help immersiveness if the mission is restricted to a certain plane set. For example, the same map textured as jungle, desert, temperate or Arctic terrain.

I'd also like to see variants of the "Net Islands" map (the one with 8 islands around a central island) textured in the same way, but with the perimeter islands set about 10 miles/15 Km from the central island, and about 5 miles/8 km from any other island. The central island could also be turned into a mountain rather than being flat, making the map more interesting.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

What makes a good Dogfight map, then?

My impression is that most of the Dogfight maps are way too small. While they've got interesting tactical setups and, in some cases, interesting terrain, I've notice that a running dogfight will quickly take players far away from the "fun" areas.

Additionally, the fact that the opposing teams' starting airfields are practically (or literally) in sight of each other just invites the sort of realistic behavior that online players hate - strafing and bombing enemy airfields to destroy planes on the ground and attacking planes that are taking off or trying to land.

Ideally, I think that any dogfight map should be about 20 miles/33 km square, with plenty of "interesting" terrain, such as mountains or islands, in between, and with airfields placed so that no team is at a disadvantage.

Boundaries for "protected zones" around airfields - where activities such as strafing, bombing, "vulching" heavily disadvantaged enemies, and "camping" are prohibited - should be clearly marked.

Practically, each team's airfield could automatically be protected by intensive curtains of light and heavy flak, since that was the real and effective way to protect airfields. Also, the risk of getting shot down by ground fire is a lot more obvious and self-enforcing to players who are inclined to break the conventions of online etiquette than being kicked off the server.

Strong flak curtains surrounding each team's airfield would also encourage lots of ground attack missions prior to "capturing" that team's base by landing aircraft or dropping paratroopers on it.

Based on those ideas, I'd like to see versions of the "Net Mountains" map that are much bigger and where the same map is set in different climates, both to provide different air temperatures and as "eye candy" to help immersiveness if the mission is restricted to a certain plane set. For example, the same map textured as jungle, desert, temperate or Arctic terrain.

I'd also like to see variants of the "Net Islands" map (the one with 8 islands around a central island) textured in the same way, but with the perimeter islands set about 10 miles/15 Km from the central island, and about 5 miles/8 km from any other island. The central island could also be turned into a mountain rather than being flat, making the map more interesting.

Different ideas of what a dogfight map are then I guess. My thinking is along the lines of Dogfight1 or 2 where the zone is a small scale version of other maps. I think those are 90x90km but I'd rather see something a little larger at 120x120km with sets for perhaps generic "Asia dogfight" or "Europe dogfight" or maybe even a "Channel dogfight" type setups.

Some servers will setup the scenarios so there is no more than 10km between bases. Others will go for a larger setup. BF1 missions I design are setup so that time to target is roughly 5 minutes and time between opposing bases is about 10 minutes. Everything is setup roughly in a diamond shape... you typically find the fighters clashing between bases in the center of the diamond and bombers from either time attacking targets on the outside. Conscious decisions have to be made to escort or defend targets that way.

So any map I'd want to see added as a dogfight generic would need to have enough scale to be useful in that way but also have some bases close enough to accommodate the folks who want very quick action.

There's also the Italy online map which is fairly large and detailed but immensely useful.

I'm not sure of the answer here exactly but I am thinking hard about the variables. The problem being that even small maps take a lot of time to create.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by IceFire

Different ideas of what a dogfight map are then I guess. My thinking is along the lines of Dogfight1 or 2 where the zone is a small scale version of other maps. I think those are 90x90km but I'd rather see something a little larger at 120x120km with sets for perhaps generic "Asia dogfight" or "Europe dogfight" or maybe even a "Channel dogfight" type setups.

So, basically maps that have some portion of the world scaled down by 5:1 or 10:1, with minimal roads and towns?

It seems like there is demand for three different sorts of maps, 1:1 very detailed maps for authenticity nuts, 1:2 to 1:5 scale "theater" maps to simulate "long range" missions, but with fewer roads and towns, and 1:10 or higher scale "dogfight theater" maps that compress an entire theater into a small area, with even fewer roads and towns.

[IceFire]

Yep. It could save some time if those folks finished their maps for official release.