Europe Theater is alive

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-16 18:03:00

Europe Theater is alive.

I have just received the terrain files from Javanree and the project is back alive again.

Next thing would be to apply my CATE into the terrain and then create campaign objectives with my Village util.

So if anyone have good info on european landscape where we should see forest, wet and dry farmland, let me know.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Ender Wiggin · Post by **Ender Wiggin** » 2002-03-16 18:22:00

Forests in Bavaria, mountains in Switerland are the obvious stuff to me. Is Europe a 128 theatre?

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-16 23:54:00

quote:Originally posted by Ender Wiggin:
Is Europe a 128 theatre?

The files I got now are 64 segments. Dunno if the 128 theater would be good as it would overlap much of Balkans and not sure... but it might slice piece of Nordic too.

Its no use to have more overlapping theaters I think.

Any thoughts about it?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Ender Wiggin · Post by **Ender Wiggin** » 2002-03-17 00:27:00

64 sounds good, the bigger theatres love to eat my 10GB hard drive. This is especially with a full install of Diablo 2.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2002-03-17 00:49:00

ya, i think 64 map is ok for such a hi-intensity/density theater. though it make the flight of long range air army? (FA) and some long range strikers less authentic.

anyway, 64 or 128 need some discussion.

as for tiles, i strongly recommend use( i mean "modify skillfully") some beautiful MSFS tiles! the landscape is totally different from Korea!

more trees, forest, armor forces, choppers, sams, and..A10! tons of new 3d toys for NATO and Warsa Pact!

campaigns cover 1960-2000?

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-17 02:13:00

Here is the map sizes of European Theater

First the 64 map I received:

And then there is the possible 128 map

I think that in this case the 128 map is not feasible as it overlaps Balkans.

But here they are, to show you what we can do.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

icebrain · Post by **icebrain** » 2002-03-17 02:22:00

What if you shifted the 128 further north? I don't think you would see as much of Italy and Yugoslavia in such a war, but more of Norway, etc. Or would polar distortion start causing problems?

Ender Wiggin · Post by **Ender Wiggin** » 2002-03-17 03:46:00

I think the 64 is good, not too small and not too big either.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-17 04:04:00

quote:Originally posted by icebrain:
What if you shifted the 128 further north?
Or would polar distortion start causing problems?

Actually I downloaded the 40 by 40 (or was it 39.5 by 39.5 DEM datas tonight, then used the one and only DEM2L2 spherical converter to make that map. The highest point I was able to "fit" the map into the DEM data was that, anything higher to the north would have leave me no data to convert.

The globe server have had for long time now the 40x40 degree limit on the downloads. You could order larger stuff on CD's though.

Widowmaker and I were discussing about if someone could make DEM stitcher program that "glues" two DEM data packets to one... but anyways.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

KBMIL · Post by **KBMIL** » 2002-03-17 12:00:00

do you want me to raise the Netherlands terrain ??

KBMIL · Post by **KBMIL** » 2002-03-17 12:01:00

btw i volunteer for tiling and object placement !!!

greets Joeri

Oliver · Post by **Oliver** » 2002-03-17 12:31:00

quote:Originally posted by icebrain:
What if you shifted the 128 further north? I don't think you would see as much of Italy and Yugoslavia in such a war, but more of Norway, etc.

I second that. That allows for quite some naval warfare, too. Also, if the UK is included, we could stage _realistc_ strikes with F-111s and/or F-15Es.

Of course, with shifting the 128 map further north, it would overlap with the nordic theater, wouldn't it?

It seems like one needs to play three different theaters in future to play a Red Storm-like scenario in Falcon: Central Europe, Nordic and Island.
Any idea how to glue those three together?
Can you have some kind of scripted actions
occur in campaigns, to simulate the invasion of Island in central Europe (=> strikes on UK; lower supply rates), or the airfield strikes on the Kola peninsula?

BTW: I volunteer for helping with tiling Central Europe. How big (in megabytes) is one assignment?

Ciao,
Oliver

NP: Sisters of Mercy - Temple of Love

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-17 15:54:00

quote:Originally posted by KBMIL:
do you want me to raise the Netherlands terrain ??

And what are you, some messiah that will rise Widowmaker from the water?

quote:btw i volunteer for tiling and object placement !!!

Initial object placement will be handled with my village util, it creates villages, cities and airbases instantly.

Of course it needs lot of special objectives to be placed and so on. There we could use your help.

quote:Originally posted by Olivier:
BTW: I volunteer for helping with tiling Central Europe.

I am anti tiler these days, all tiling is bad for you, this is why we have CATE. In last week we have had huge progress on the utils features and who knows what the next week brings, so guys lets not rush into manual human tiling at the moment - if we can get a program to do it, more time are left for us to fly the theater!

If you guys want to help, you can provide this forum for target lists (headquarters, important airbases, army bases etc etc). Also terrain types is important, now we can lay out whatever terrain type we want to whatever location in the map. So if you know that some specific region has lot of farmland/forest/whatever, it would be cool if you can point us some "land use" map or draw it yourself.

Thanks for the support guys.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Red Dog · Post by **Red Dog** » 2002-03-18 09:36:00

Heya SnakeMan,

I volonteer for all research on
- European Airbases (lenght - rnw - type,...)
- Real tacan channels
- Kneemaps
- Stations.dat file

The way I did for all Sp2 terrains (spreadsheet)
All I need is a list of country implemented in the terrain. From there I can pinpoint all the airbases.

Cheers
Red Dog

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-18 09:43:00

SnakeMan, be warned that CATE will refuse to work on an Europe theater where France would be omitted

Regards.

Oliver · Post by **Oliver** » 2002-03-18 11:18:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
If you guys want to help, you can provide this forum for target lists (headquarters, important airbases, army bases etc etc).

Any specific time frame in mind?

Originally, a mid-80s scenario was planned, although, personally, I think that a late 80s scenario would be better (all the tornado wings were fully deployed by then, the Luftwaffe got their first Patriots in 1989, if I'm not mistaken. Since when did the USAF have the F-15E in Lakenheath?)

quote:So if you know that some specific region has lot of farmland/forest/whatever, it would be cool if you can point us some "land use" map or draw it yourself.

Can you be more specific, please? What should that map look like? Would a normal topographical map from an atlas be sufficient?

quote:Thanks for the support guys.

No problem.

Ciao,
Oliver

NP: Dream Theater - Pull me under

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-18 11:36:00

quote:Originally posted by Red Dog:
All I need is a list of country implemented in the terrain. From there I can pinpoint all the airbases.

All is still open, but its safe to start working on the countries you see fully included in that 64 segment map image above.

quote:Originally posted by Oliver:
Any specific time frame in mind?

I'm open for suggestions.

quote:What should that map look like? Would a normal topographical map from an atlas be sufficient?

Some stupid kiddie style simple map would be the best. Check this Afghanistan forum where we had this same discussion earlier:
http://www.pmctactical.org/f4/cgi-bin/u ... 1&t=000014

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Oliver · Post by **Oliver** » 2002-03-18 14:21:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
Some stupid kiddie style simple map would be the best.

I think that resolution is way too low for that, because most of the time, forests, fields and farmlands alternate pretty often, so you'd be painting one green pixel for woodland next to some brown pixels for farmland or something. That is on a map as seen in that thread you mentioned.

But as a general guideline, the countryside as seen in the default Korean theater fits Central Europe pretty well (well, except for the roads, that is). Of course, we should have our own, though

Don't know if you get what I mean (somehow, they didn't teach us how to talk about this stuff in school

, so sorry for my English)

Oh, one other thing:
Most of Central Europe is densely populated, with small villages almost every other mile.
Can you tweak your object placement script in such a way as to account for that?

Ciao,
Oliver

PS: I'll be gone for the week, so this will be my last post for the days to come.
Just in case you wonder why I'm out of the discussion

NP: Apocalyptica - Refuse/Resist

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-21 19:52:00

I get busy yesterday and build the theater from ground up. Its now fully working in SP2a latest build and runs great.

It has over 5000 objectives, basic campaign, road/rivers are tiled, all airbases are background tiled & leveled. etc.

Installer is ready.

The package is about 8mb of size and it will be available for download (unofficial/limited/whatever) very soon, most likely tomorrow friday when I get last update for CATE.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

kinggeorge · Post by **kinggeorge** » 2002-03-21 21:40:00

Hello guys. My 1st message here...
Congrats to the page and to you congrats to the Eruopean theater project! I can wait till it is finished

So I can test how long I would take from Bozen to Munch in an F-16...

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-22 00:07:00

quote:Originally posted by kinggeorge:
Hello guys. My 1st message here...

Welcome aboard!

quote:Congrats to the page and to you congrats to the Eruopean theater project! I can wait till it is finished

Thanks, by the way CATE (read terrain -> readl2 util area) is developing, I'd say this theater is done (terrain) in no time.

You'll be definitely looking the first version friday "today".

PMC TFW
Snake Man

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2002-03-22 04:48:00

OMG! Snake Man you are making *MANY* theaters at the same time?
ODS, Vnam, Afghan, Europe, then?

Glad to hear beta material can be ready in days!!

KBMIL · Post by **KBMIL** » 2002-03-22 19:13:00

preview on any of the new tiles ??
or are they not made yet...

javanree · Post by **javanree** » 2002-03-22 22:24:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:

The globe server have had for long time now the 40x40 degree limit on the downloads. You could order larger stuff on CD's though.
Widowmaker and I were discussing about if someone could make DEM stitcher program that "glues" two DEM data packets to one... but anyways.

No stitcher needed...
Here's how to do it by hand:

Get two sets of DEM files, (use round numbers, easier) I'll use 68-69N/18-20E and 69-70N/18-20E as example (this is the set I used to test)

Open 6869.fmt and adjust the lat coordinates in the last line to reflect the new range (in this case, if I used 6869.fmt I'd have to alter the 69.000000 to 70.000000, the 68.000000 is the same for the both) Safe as 6870.fmt

Open both .hdr files, and copy&paste one of the two to a new 6870.hdr file.
Now adjust the min and max values for the new 6870.hdr file to reflect the minima/maxima found in both files.

To combine the .bin files I used the Win2k copy command (Win9x copy should work just as well)

copy 6970.bin /b + 6869.bin /b 6870.bin /b

Now 6870.* is the new set of DEM files, fit to import in DEM2L2

Please NOTE THE ORDER! Top to bottom!
Just did a QUICK test, diffed this against a downloaded 6870.bin and it's 100% the same. Will take some time for a 50*45 degree area (you'd need about that size for DEM2L2 I'd guess) but is failproof. No need for tools, plain old "copy" does the trick just fine

Widowmaker · Post by **Widowmaker** » 2002-03-23 16:58:00

Good info

thanx for that one..

Widmak

BelgianTiger_5 · Post by **BelgianTiger_5** » 2002-03-24 21:25:00

If you ppl need any info on Belgian bases and other interesting tgt's or scenery's pls let me know.I'm in the Belgian military.
As I and BT_6 are ready to help in any way we can, do not hesitate to ask us pls .
ICQ
BT_5 127758150
BT_6 38856890

Regards,

BT_5

flanker · Post by **flanker** » 2002-03-25 22:21:00

Congratulations to the Europe theater. Really has turned out well.
Ramstein AB is missing a pity, this, I cannot fly with the Tail the 512 th TFS at all.

Question; How do I get the Save files of the Falcon theater back in the Campaign choice?

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-25 23:54:00

quote:Originally posted by BelgianTiger_5:
If you ppl need any info on Belgian bases and other interesting tgt's or scenery's pls let me know.

Have you guys ever used Tacedit?

We could use help on object placement for Belgium and other countries too.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-25 23:59:00

quote:Originally posted by flanker:
Congratulations to the Europe theater. Really has turned out well.

I'd like to think so, considering it took me about two-three days to put all together.

quote:Ramstein AB is missing a pity, this

Send more details on missing important objectives and those get added.

quote: I cannot fly with the Tail the 512 th TFS at all.

If you mean skins... there are no european theater skins made.

quote:How do I get the Save files of the Falcon theater back in the Campaign choice?

If you are referring to korean theater, then you just use theater switcher and select korea -> OK. Until the SP2a you need to exit falcon and restart it for the campaign objectives to show up correctly.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

KBMIL · Post by **KBMIL** » 2002-03-26 20:08:00

i know how to use tacedit...
did some object placing for Balkans long
time ago.

BelgianTiger_5 · Post by **BelgianTiger_5** » 2002-03-27 19:15:00

Never used it, but is it very hard to learn???
Wouldn't mind giving it a go.
Just tell me what kind of objectives u would like to implement and where I can find this tacedit???
BT_5

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-28 04:01:00

Tacedit can be found on downloads.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

BelgianTiger_5 · Post by **BelgianTiger_5** » 2002-03-28 17:02:00

Rgr, got it from KBMIL, and he was already good enough to give me some explanation on how it works,but I got a long way ahaed.
And I'll defenitly give it a go

)

Regards,

BT_5

KBMIL · Post by **KBMIL** » 2002-03-31 15:16:00

can someone provide me with some maps for tacedit or the l2 + tdf files for europe theater so i can make my own tacedit map ?
If i fire op terraintiler and load l2 i get garbled result

?

thanks greetings Mil

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-31 16:25:00

So you guys want to work on the Belgium objectives or overall the theaters objectives?

KBMIL you got email waiting with the bitmaps.

If anyone else wants to have the background bitmaps for tacedit to use with Europe theater, just email me and request the zip (333kb).

PMC TFW
Snake Man

javanree · Post by **javanree** » 2002-03-31 17:02:00

Nice to see you've managed to keep the project going Snake Man! Did you manage to get the TDF files working (full roads / airports in Germany?)

Will soon try the first test release. Are you still considering 128 theater or is it definately 64?

KBMIL · Post by **KBMIL** » 2002-04-01 09:43:00

quote: So you guys want to work on the Belgium objectives or overall the theaters objectives?

Yes, i'll be trying to set something up with bt_5 or alone if necessary...

thanks

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-01 10:53:00

quote:Originally posted by javanree:
Did you manage to get the TDF files working (full roads / airports in Germany?)

Yes there were no problems creating Germany features.

quote:Are you still considering 128 theater or is it definately 64?

I'm open to all suggestions, but at least the 128 would take lot of Balkans terrain...

PMC TFW
Snake Man

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-01 10:55:00

quote:Originally posted by KBMIL:
Yes, i'll be trying to set something up with bt_5 or alone if necessary...

I think you have more experience adding objectives than I do in the terms of export/import... if you add objectives to Belgium area and the export all of them including the existing ones, will tacedit handle them correctly when I import them back to the master .cam file?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

javanree · Post by **javanree** » 2002-04-01 16:44:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
I'm open to all suggestions, but at least the 128 would take lot of Balkans terrain...

And what would happen if you'd move further north? Like I said, the DEM data limit isn't an issue, I can stitch almost unlimited (even to a 256 terrain!)

You might touch the Nordic theater and Balkans, but a 2-3 degree overlap wouldn't hurt. If you want I can make a big DEM map for you, just give me the top NW and bottom SE coordinate you need.

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