Experimental plains only texture.bin & THR files

Nevada theater

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Snake Man
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Experimental plains only texture.bin & THR files

Post by Snake Man » 2009-05-11 16:46:46

I made experimental texture.bin with only plains terrain type (cities were still kept urban type though) and thr file to go along with that. Included in the rar is CATE bitmap of the real terrain, just for reference is someone is interested.

Download nevada_experimental_bin_thr_05-11-09.rar which is up temporary only. Download now before I delete it.

Idea about this is to see if the ground units move any easier on Nevada theater when this .bin/.thr files are in use.

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ccc
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Re: Experimental plains only texture.bin & THR files

Post by ccc » 2009-05-12 14:27:56

it won't work.

i test the route of Sandy-Jean-LV. set up a TE. order few armour units to move between LV and Sandy. no go.

then i go to TerrainView, use existing tiles to create a road for Sandy-Jean-LV. use TacEdit to remove bridges, re-link obj to get much lower move cost value. and run THR creator with no river opetion on, for a new THR. then run LxNormal tools.

run the TE test again, no go.

Snake Man
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Re: Experimental plains only texture.bin & THR files

Post by Snake Man » 2009-05-12 14:30:47

ccc wrote:i test the route of Sandy-Jean-LV. set up a TE. order few armour units to move between LV and Sandy. no go.
How did they move in the original release?
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ccc
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Re: Experimental plains only texture.bin & THR files

Post by ccc » 2009-05-12 14:33:37

Snake Man wrote:
ccc wrote:i test the route of Sandy-Jean-LV. set up a TE. order few armour units to move between LV and Sandy. no go.
How did they move in the original release?
the same. ground units can't pass sandy-jean-Lv.

toonces
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Re: Experimental plains only texture.bin & THR files

Post by toonces » 2009-05-12 19:22:50

SM,
What's the installation procedure for those files? Do I just drop them into my existing Nevada installation?

[edit, dropping them in was fine]

Ok, I dropped in the new files. I ran my modded Nevada save2.cam and nothing really seemed different.

I opened up the save2.cam with tacedit. I added the two junctions in red (US controlled).

Image

Several armor units happily take this new route, over the desert, no roads anywhere in sight!

I adjusted the movement costs of a few links to Las Vegas, but I don't know the ultimate effect of that.

The two units that were tasked with "Capture Boulder City" took a very convoluted route, using their new junctions. They took the route: Tecopa, 612, test2, 594, Pahramp, test2, Sandy, and then the southern route through Searchlight like usual.

I don't know why they do this, I presume it has to do with capturing the objectives, movement costs being so low, and...well, I don't know why they don't go right for Las Vegas. I'm sure it's a wargame thing.

I'm going to add LV as a political objective and re-run this test.

What this means, fellas, is that if we have river free, properly designed tiled terrain, we can move our units wherever we want with links, provided we address the movement costs...

Am I the only one that thinks this is a big deal?

Thanks for the terrain sM- this is exactly the type of stuff we need to run these experiments.

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Re: Experimental plains only texture.bin & THR files

Post by toonces » 2009-05-12 22:20:41

I ran a few more experiments.

1. I altered the Sandy Junction obj by pulling it down south of that river, maybe 3 points on the y-axis. That didn't make the units use the path either.

2. I altered another link, I think I deleted the link between Sandy and Tecopah. This caused ground movement to halt between 612 and test2. The units had capture Boulder City still, but the entire offensive stopped- even though links existed to get to Sandy still.

My thoughts on this are that there is definately I'm not seeing with respect to the Sandy-Jean area; it could be something in Pathmaker or whatever. I really don't know. It could be that the terrain still carries a cost for the mountain there, even though the obj link movement cost is 0 across the board. Maybe the terrain grade matters regardless of the movement cost.
What is essential to notice, though, is that even though the links appear to work- movement costs 0, contiguous links etc, the units all stop well before the "broken" link or region. So, something can be broken 100 miles away from the unit, but the unit will stop where it is, not at the point of the break. I hope I'm explaining this well. The break isn't where the unit is- it can be anywhere on the path the unit wants to take.

I'm not sure what else to test fellas.

I'd like to look into making rivers cosmetic only so units can cross without bridges. I think we have some good ideas of how units move now, and we can start working on the "why" of unit movement rather than the how.

ccc
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Re: Experimental plains only texture.bin & THR files

Post by ccc » 2009-05-13 02:13:59

hmm..so SM's texture.bin and nevada.thr files work in your test?
and, you add Sandy junction between Sandy-Jean, still won't work?

Theoretically.. it should work, but failed in my test. my tweak includes:
- hand tile a road from Sandy-Jean-LV. 100% continuous road, with existing road tiles. theaer.L2 file checked.
- use SM's texture.bin and THR.
- run Lxnormal fix tools.
- TacEdit tweak, remove bridges, re-link obj, check and confirm move cost is low and reasonable.
- i fly in 3d, check my hand-tiled road, i visually confirm the road edits is ok.

but the armour units won't receive order to move pass the road( one from Sandy to LV, the other from LV to Sany) in 2d map. the [move order circle] just can not be dragged and set along the route.

heck..i really scratch my head and can not figure out it.. just a short section of broken road and i cannot fix it :oops: the last thing i wonder is if Nevada tile set/naming system mismatch play any role in this case.. i'll pick a PMC theater using default korea tile set to test, see if my tweaking method helps fixing broken road sites.

toonces
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Re: Experimental plains only texture.bin & THR files

Post by toonces » 2009-05-13 03:12:39

ccc, I'm testing this on my modded Nevada install, not the stock one.

There might be a mountain between Sandy and Jean. If so, the armor units aren't going to use that route I don't think. My spec ops guys will use that route, my armor will not. Moving the junction below the river didn't fix it- that could be because the "area" of the river is so big that it is still existing in the terrain, even if the actual visual representation of it makes it look like the junction is over land and not water. Or, it could be that mountain- I have to fly over that route and check it from the air, but I'll bet that's it.

I don't think the roads matter at all. Those two junctions I added are in the middle of the desert- no roads anywhere nearby. I can post a screenshot if it would help.

Also, make sure you check the movement cost going through Henderson airport- it's very excessive and is probably preventing that route from working all the way to LV. I think the units evaluate the movement cost for the entire path to their destination- not just the next obj. So, if they can't get through Henderson, they won't use the Sandy-Jean-LV route at all no matter what.

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