[Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

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[Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by ccc » 2008-05-09 03:30:27

wierd, the choking point is Quan tri area, at the border of NV and SV. bridges/rivers and road network still prevent fluent ground movement.. though NV units can retreat north and SV units can retreat south..i noted blue units have difficulties going north, yet red armours can move south- under heavy air raid.

in 2d map[edited with TacEdit], the objectives are linked in regard of background 3d terrain/tile. it's the [move cost] to affect the ground units. bridge as an obj, once destroyed, will break the link forever in RV.

in 3d world terrain/tiles [ edited with Terrainview and Pathmaker], terrainview edits ensure the continuity of road network - Does a broken road stop ground unit moving? i dunno.. just got to check the continuity later.

Pathmaker define the road and area that ground units can move and pass.. even a bridge is intact, if it's not right on the road/river cross point, it won't help the traffic.

combined the impression from 2d/3d world, my humble summary is..

bridges must be intact and on right places, then ground units can pass river/choking point.

My test to speed up the traffic is..

- first i use Pathmaker to delete all river data on river tiles.. so ground units can pass them freely. then i delete bridge/river/road data on river-road tiles, then create a simple single road on these tiles, make them as simple road tiles. i jump in 2d campaign at 64x => when bridges destroyed, ground units won't pass river. it appears 2d obj network stop the movement.

- then i got to TacEdit, delete bridge obj and re-link nearby town obj. no, it won't pass the river..

- the last idea is broken road on terrian/3d world..haven't check it yet.

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Post by Snake Man » 2008-05-09 03:47:28

Have you tried in TE to see what kind of movement "paths" the ground units will accept and what do they reject?

I mean testing stuff in campaign might be bit overwhelming as there is so many things that can effect the results. Perhaps you/we should do the bridge crossing tests in TE. Dunno.

Basically what I'm thinking is that first in TE we need to sure that in the terrain and in the objectives (linking) the ground unit can move from A to B through bridges. If we manage to do that, then its up to the campaign engine to move the units and if the bridge is destroyed or not.

Just an idea ;)
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Post by ccc » 2008-05-09 08:57:19

yeah you got me. :lol:
acutally i've tested it in TE yesterday.. just have not made a conclusion yet.

today i put 2-3 armour units around quan tri area, order them move north to Vinh and south to Hue , yes, it works. As i've edited tile definition and delete bridges/re-link obj in that area, i noted they have no difficulities passing that area.

NOTE - since i've modded files, i don't know if ground units can easily pass quan tri area/ NV-SV border in original PMC vnam install.. maybe somebody can do a TE check?

Using the same TE, i also checked the main routes from Hue to Ha Noi(NV capital)..my tweak is limited to border area, so the result should be the same as original vnam install..

- armor units can move from Vinh to north, along coastline.. this route looks ok. as it comes to the delta sound of Mei Kong river, a unit moving straight north, choked at bridge tens mile south from Ha noi. the other unit used to check an inland route to Ha noi, choked as well. haven't recon tile/road continuity yet.

- armour units can move south BUT choked at a turn road miles away from Hue.

It appears.. road continuity( in main combat routes) need a check.. and the way objectives are linked according to map road network.

another thought is.. deleting bridges and re-linking obj, or replacing bridges with a junction type obj(by changing type id) to keep the original linking? need further test.

==========
Back to the historical campaign, yes [AIR power] affects the maneuvor of ground forces..

as Red is offensive and Blue is defensive/HUE from the start, i noted blue units all rapidly retreating south, left few units retrating to blind-end routes and choked. blue army suffered little or none air raid.

In contrast, i noted 1-2 Red armor/mechanized units trying to reach Quan Tri area- BUT hammered by Strong Blue air power- then nailed or retreating back north.

the obsevatron till Day 3 shows.. Blue air very strong, Red army can't move south- and Red infantry units can not launch any major offensive, in spite of their quantity - only hi-mobile mechanized unit can do offensive? Blue army try to launch minor offensive, but no visible maneuvoring noted. the war tempo stalls.

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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by ccc » 2009-05-16 08:16:13

Revive an old thread.. it's about one year old heheh.

As i revisited this subject in recent weeks, i fired up Pathmaker and checked Vnam tiles..

- compared with default Korea tiles, PMC vnam tiles are not compete, only about 200+ tiles( much less than Korea tiles). no background tiles for airbases.
- PMC Vnam tiles are based on default korea tiles, so the road/river/bridge/water definition on tiles is the same. Tile artist(s) just change the texture/colors.

my .02c - unless we can find artist(s) to complete all tiles, using default korea tiles is a better/easier solution for further terrain developement.

btw- pasting gfx of rice paddies on korea tiles randomly should do quick vnam tiles.. easier, and much more practical.

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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by ccc » 2009-05-17 13:09:35

Image

this pic is taken from TE test.
an armour unit can move from Vinh down to Quang Tri.
BUT, the other armour unit can only move from Hue to a bridge near Quang Tri, then halted there.

Image

the second pic shows the choking sites. armour unit can not pass yellow or black route.

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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by Snake Man » 2009-05-17 13:50:44

Those images are very very good reference for me to try to fix the links and roads etc.
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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by toonces » 2009-05-17 14:05:39

ccc,
Maybe I'm missing something here. Did you try placing a couple of bridges over those choke points to facilitate movement? We know, at this point, that a "road" going over area water is going to halt ground movement without a bridge.

2. Can we/how hard is it to, alter the files to erase the "area water" setting of rivers and make them purely cosmetic?

I realize that bridges have high tactical and strategic value as a means to slow advances, but none of the versions of Falcon has working engineer units that will rebuild bridges. Requiring them for movement just creates headaches. If we could place bridges, route links over the bridges, and then erase the water definition, the units would still "use" the bridges for movement, but as an obj link, not a means to cross water.

We could just "simulate" that the represents the organic engineering abilities of both sides to repair bridges, or their ability to use smaller bridges not mapped, their inherent ability to ford narrow points of streams, whatever.

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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by Snake Man » 2009-05-17 15:30:40

Erasing water/river data from the texture.bin is very easy with PathMaker. OK OK perhaps you need to know few basics first, but I mean its quite usual windows dialog program, ie self explanatory. Ie delete/remove buttons etc.

I added the existing word .doc found in the TheaterMaker dir into PMC Editing Wiki: PathMaker manual part.
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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by Sherlock » 2009-05-17 17:27:52

toonces wrote: I realize that bridges have high tactical and strategic value as a means to slow advances, but none of the versions of Falcon has working engineer units that will rebuild bridges. Requiring them for movement just creates headaches. If we could place bridges, route links over the bridges, and then erase the water definition, the units would still "use" the bridges for movement, but as an obj link, not a means to cross water.
toonces,
Just to update you. Allied Force engineer units DO repair bridges. I did research on this and posted my results here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21152&p=174038#p174038
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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by ccc » 2009-05-18 03:13:00

Did you try placing a couple of bridges over those choke points to facilitate movement? We know, at this point, that a "road" going over area water is going to halt ground movement without a bridge.
no, i don't want to add more bridges.

my recent tweaks all aim at..
1. erase river/bridge definition on tiles( Pathmaker), so, in 3d world, river/bridge area on tiles is just eye-candies.
2. remove bridge objectives (TacEdit), so, the choking points/bridge objective won't stop ground unit movment in the obj-link network. BEAR in mind - strategically, or in obj-linking network, Bridge obj is the only obj that can force ground units detour. once it broken/destroyed, ground units detour in FF/OF, no choice.
only AF engineering unit can fix it - restore a functional obj-obj link.. say, the AF feature do weigh a lot in 2d world than 3d worl( just cosmetics).
3. to further ensure the road is open and freely movable, i replace river-bridge-road tile with PURE road tile at few choking sites.

ALL work just for kicking ground units pass choking sites.
2. Can we/how hard is it to, alter the files to erase the "area water" setting of rivers and make them purely cosmetic?
use Pathmaker to remove those water/river defintion.

---------
BTW, Whle fooling around with TerrainView/TacEdit, i realize the importance of <Theater>.THR file.

IIRC the THR is a relief map used in TacEdit.(?) the map shows road and river and terrain type in colors, used as a guile for doing obj-linking.

the THR files is generated based on [ latest] theater.L2 and texture.bin file. so, if you change theater.l2( terrainView re-tiling), or texture.bin ( tile tweak with pathmaker), you may have to generated a new THR for Tacedit editing. say, when i hand-tiling a new road or change tiles, the updated THR/relief map will show my NEW road in brown pixel line.. when re-link obj along it, the move cost is lower.

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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by toonces » 2009-05-18 13:49:08

1. So, are you saying that erasing the water and relinking objectives did or did not fix the choke points? Because if erasing the water and relinking isn't fixing the ground movement, we have a big problem.

2. If this is working to repair the choke points, can you save some of these fixes to import into my Vietnam tweak? There is an awful lot of work to do, and I could use the help. I can provide the major axes of advance in the other thread if you'd like.

3. I understand that AF engineer units fix bridges. From a PMC campaign perspective, though, I think eliminating the bridges/rivers is still the way to go. Otherwise, the campaign could be dependent on proper ground movement of the engineer units- and we're just barely figuring out how ground movement works on a good day. Maybe we can build a PMC campaign where the ground units will fix a bridge or maybe not...just eliminating the water definition removes one more obstacle to that elusive "working" status. Just my opinion of course.

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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by ccc » 2009-05-20 02:46:45

a bit late to reply, I've difficulties testing my choking point fix in *.cam. so, once i figured out the trick [ rename tac_new.tac into tac_new.cam for editing], i resumed the tweak in past few days.

Why i want a blank TE to test? because it's clean, and the ground units always follow my order to move, to check the continuity of roads. the tweak result is ok - now the route from Vinh Linh to Hue is open. :D

i use [combined tweaks] to break the choking sites..theorectically i should do it systemically to find out which single tweak method is the true magic. here's the tweak process..bear with me again..

- use Pathmaker, i delete river/bridge/road definition on river-road tiles, then add single road defintion on them, save/update the texture.bin file.

- use TerrainView, i check main combat route/roads from Vinh Linh to Hue.. fix the broken sites, and replace river-road cross tile with pure road tile(double safe check - tho i've edited tile definition).

- i did not generated a new vietnam.thr for Tacedit -> Pheonix711's THR creator doesn't work on 128 theater.. and the THR generated with Pathmaker is broken, unusable.

-now comes to use TacEdit.. first i check the [move cost] between obj.. if the value is too high, i delete the link and re-link it again. if the value remains high, i slightly move the positions of obj( based on relief map, i move the obj closer to/or right on brown road line), then do the re-linking to lower [move cost].

- for bridge objectives, i did not delete all of them. as i focus on choked [Vinh Linh to Hue] area, and previous TE test shows ground units move pretty well outside this area, i only touch bridges in this area. Again, if the move cost is high, i simply delete bridges and re-link neighboring obj. i delete most bridges between Quang Tri to Hue, and re-link meaningful obj. i delete fewer bridge, maybe 3 or 4, between Quang Tri to Vinh Linh. i am satisfied as all link move cost lowered to acceptable values.

- then i go to TE, add few armour units, order them to move along the routes Vinh Linh to Hue, at 64x. the test result shows they can move freely from N to S, or S to N. it takes about 12-15 campaign hours to complete the movement. Test shows ground units can move further to Vinh( north) and Da Nang(south), without any route tweak. Honestly in my previous tests, i've reported that main routes from south up to Ho Nei is roughly ok except for few choking sites, one is quang Tri arae, and the other two or threes choking points are very very close Ho nei.. bridge type choking points. so, vicotry by capture Ho nei is possible.

i'll post my obj-linking pic later.
=====================================

now some random thoughts..
2. If this is working to repair the choke points, can you save some of these fixes to import into my Vietnam tweak? There is an awful lot of work to do, and I could use the help. I can provide the major axes of advance in the other thread if you'd like.
i don't know. ask SM. BUT - the same edits can be done on your campaign.. it won't take long.

3. I understand that AF engineer units fix bridges..... more obstacle to that elusive "working" status. Just my opinion of course.
imo..i don't want to do the job -remove all bridges - it just too much work. Instead i choose to fix/delete those make trouble... for limiting the scale of workload. and more..we definitely need some bridges for "Dragon Jaw".
====================================

and more serious thoughts...for SM, toonces, and those want to take it seriously..

1. Terrain is the base work, comes first. Tile sets, current ones is incomplete and could make further dev a big headache. two options..

option A - if some tile artist(s) can do a [ compete tile sets] package for vnam mod.. we may choose this way. ( imo chance is minimal)

option B - use CATE to re-tile vnam, use default Korea tiles. simple and easier. the boring korea terrain-looking could be improved by [ painting vnam feature/rice paddies gfx on existing korea tiles]. Extra new feature tiles can be added later, and won't hurt the dev process.

2. once tile stuff is set, fixiing choking points - as i mentioned above.

3. campaign, once you enter [campaign-making stage]..it may not work as you expected. my impression from previous test..
- NVA, most with infantry units, may dare not to launch any offensive. my campaign obsevation shows most offensive is led by armour units. in vnam, NV counts on infantry and VC.. dare they(with much more quantity advanatage) advance to challenge SV/US armour units?
- the strong air power/striking power from US, make NVA infantry retreating, not advancing. even with an oriented TRI file, Red side refuse to advance south.
- it's a bit hard to balance the power of war.. look at default korea..
US/ROK - fewer ground power, stronger and superior air power.
DPRK/CHN/CIS - more and stronger ground power(with many mechanize units), weaker air power.

now historical Vnam..
NV/CHN - massive ground power( but few mechanized unit), minimal air power.
SV/US - much less ground power( more mechanized), much strong air power.

as you can see, to balance the quation is..power of will.. blood is stronger than iron. To reproduce it in falcon campaigns, you probably have to do some compromise, or tricks like..
- give NVA more and more armour units, just like DPRK has. then it got the momentum ot advance regardless of US air power.
- edit NVA infantry/VC unit with f4browse, make them more resistant to air strike, move fast, tougher as commando, or has similar feature as mechanized unit... and hope them could vulunteer as spearheads in campaign.

4. database, adding new 3d stuff is always the last thing to do.

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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by ccc » 2009-05-20 10:50:06

Image
Image
Image

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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by ccc » 2009-05-27 09:25:53

Alright im obssessed by maps recently..
more pics to show main road system around Quang Tri area.. and SAT image.

This one shows MAIN road from Vinh to Da Nang..compared with prevous TE pic, we are close.
Image
close-up of Quang Tri area..road system is simple. actually it's one-way from Dong Ha to Hue.
Image
SAT view over Quang Tri..Korea tiles should be ok..
Image
focus on Quang Tri.. the large river width ranging from 100-300m!
Image

impression - Vnam theater can use default Korea tiles.
following tile upgrade could be done by adding rice paddies texture, and purely cosmetic small river tile set.

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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by Snake Man » 2009-05-27 11:32:49

We are not going to use Korean tiles for Vietnam.
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Re: [Pathmaker tweak] on Vnam terrain, no joy.

Post by ccc » 2009-05-27 12:50:13

Snake Man wrote:We are not going to use Korean tiles for Vietnam.
alright, thanx for clarification.

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