Which Theater should be modded/further developed first?

[derStef]

I just wanted to bring up the question, which PMC Theater or Theater in general should be focused first for furthter development.


- Everybody can vote 3 theaters in the poll! -

TO ALL, PLEASE VOTE AGAIN! i've updated the list!




i realized that i put much energy into my Taiwan mod for example, but not many others are really interested in it. to prevent this for future work, we should vote to find out the highest interest of the community.

well, so as we try to form some kind of Theater mod group, i wanted to ask you all what you think what we should edit/develop first?
would be cool if we could count on all the mod gurus out there! now it's time to get together and build some good stuff up, based on Snake Man's amzing work.


btw, SM what do you think about such a group? can we count on you? and all the other grand masters here?
or should we leave our dirty fingers from your Theaters?


but please keep the different current stats of the theaters in mind, some are more developed, some more or less completly buggy. Taiwan has good chances to reach an early end of development if some guys would help together. so that would be a fast and nice first try.
IF that works, THEN we are surely prepared to jump to one of the big 128 theaters like Europe, ODS, Iran and so on. keep in mind the 128 theaters are 4TIMES bigger than Korea or Taiwan!!! think about that workload.!

happy voting and every help is welcome!

throw your 2 cents in!


oh, man i'll regret that, no one will vote for Taiwan first.

cheers

Stef

[toonces]

Well, I voted for Taiwan because you're so passionate about it, and you're right; alot of the grunt work is done on it already.

As the second theater, I'd vote for either Europe or Vietnam.

I think both are equally well suited for a real working over into awesomeness. It's hard for me to state a favorite- I think both would be exceptionally interesting.

Really, perhaps the starting point for either is to determine what portion of the war we'd be tackling. The Vietnam war was 10 years long! We have to pick a week or month of the war to game.

Europe might be easier in this respect because a modern Europe war probably wouldn't last more than a month or two. So we can game the whole conflict, pick regions to segment the theater into, and start from there. Molni know so much about Red OOB that this woud be a good on to work on since we have alot of experts and info out there from which to draw.

Finally, Iran would be a great theater to work on because I can totally see a conflict with them brewing on the horizon.

I dunno. Seems like ODS is mostly done and Polak is doing some sweet tiles for it. I downloaded a bunch of Iraq skins from fafa's website last night, so alot of that is already done. Actually, I'm not sure what is broken in ODS...

Some hard work should see Taiwain and ODS done and out the door...frankly, I don't know what's wrong with ODS and Taiwan just has some linking issues, right?

[toonces]

Just one more additional thought on this topic. I was looking at ccc's new planes in sim thread and it got me thinking to a conversation I had with Hustler last week.

One of the primary reasons folks will want to play a different theater (imo) is that it looks and feels different.

Think about it for a minute. FreeFalcon has several variations on the stock Korea campaign. The US versions: 1983, 2012, stock, all interest me. However, I have no interest whatsoever in flying "A European Flavor" or "An African Flavor". Not that they're bad campaigns in any way. But to me, it simply feels like flying the stock Korea theater with different jets thrown in there.

A new campaign is a new campaign because it offers a new experience. Yes, to some extent a new OOB accomplishes this. What accomplishes it MORE, imo, is if everything looks different.

It's one thing to cobble together a new theater using the stock Korea tiles. Europe (and Taiwan) do this well. You throw the same tiles in there, but rename the bases, the layout of the land is different, and the OOB is different, the skins are different...and there is a sense that, yes, I AM flying somewhere other than Korea! Taiwan, in particular, feels different because it is so mountainous and it's such a small playground.

But, even more than that, theaters with totally new tiles do this even better. As far as I'm concerned, ODS has some of the nicest tiles in the PMC theater set; and Polak is going to make them even better. When you boot up ODS, it feels totally unique. You feel a sense of immersion because you're not looking at the same green jungle tile you've seen for the last 10 years.

So, imo, a good candidate for a new theater (or work on an existing one) should take a hard look at the theaters in which we have new tiles: ODS/Iran, Nevada, Vietnam, or a propsective Nordic theater with winter tiles (or Europe with winter tiles).

[Polak]

My philosophy is rather simple: the most advanced terrain should be finished to the highest standards achievable. Also deserts were already the RL battlefields of 20/21century. Possibly they still remain hot for some time. Secondly I personally had some previous graphic experience in making tiles there. Desert tiles could be used in Iran, Afghanistan, Lybia. IMO getting more photoreal areas into the mix (targets, airbases, cities) may make this really wonderful experience flying Falcon. There is a lot of work.

Voted for ODS .

Vietnam is also very good and perhaps even most interesting choices for well done campaign from game playing angle and not really sightseeing. After all really strong OPFOR was precisely there.

[derStef]

@ toonces

yes also my favourites after Taiwan would be Europe, ODS and Vietnam for sure. also Iceland, Flaklands, Iran and others are interseting...

about Taiwan: well i think that as CCC that there are some issues with the terrain. the best would be if SM or one of the other theater/terrain masters could help here.
yes i know that the standard tiles are lame but i'm have not the knowlege to retile it. maybe we can find someone!
but with spring HiTiles it looks ok....

yes, totally right, a complete different tileset brings up massive immersion, and a nice variation to the standard ones thats right.
talking about winter tiles: i think the only winter tiles are made by TomWaetli (HiTiles dude) as payware. so i think we are not allowed to use them, am i right? but they would be cool!


what you said about the length of the Vnam war is right. we have to pick out some operations. (Rolling Thunder, Linebaker I & II,...)


for Europe, as i mentioned, some kind of Red Storm Rising would be cool (mid/late '80s). or some '50s-'70s era campaigns. CCC has so much wonderful 3D stuff, i still can't believe it that so less is integrated of that amazing stuff. here is everything possible, would be a wonderful theater!

yes, Molni is definately our man for the RED stuff. he knows best. we really need him here.

toonces, how do you want to seperate the map in parts for euro campaigns?. the thing is that if you place the front line between the east sea(north of germany) and Austria, the ATO will also generate fights to strike in Yugoslavia. on the other hand if you place the AC and ground units only southern of Austria/Swizerland, the AC will also fly far north to engage ground objects...
do you understand what i mean?
the ATO will always create flights over the whole map. i mean, every red object(airbases, armybases, radarsites,..) will be attacked by blue.

i think the only way to do it is to remove ALL 3D objects from the area where the ACs shouldn't fly to... but not the perfect solution i think.


@ Polak

You are doing a very good job with the tiles, man! keep it up! and yes, those desert tiles could be used for many theaters as you mentioned, thats also pretty cool.
one thing you have to know: the terrain tiles are not EVERYTHING that is important. there are much more parameters to reach a good theater.

have you ever thought about to retile Taiwan isle? the island is not that big, so would be a fast one, for a test.



Thanks guys for voting!

cheers
Stef

[Snake Man]

Guys, I didn't read everyone's post completely so perhaps there are more items to mention but I'll just put it short and sweet.

PMC as a site/group/whatever has been in the Falcon 4 scene since 2000, yes I "retired" in the craziest mayhem in 2003 (or something) but came back heh, so talking about building a Mod Group is sort of like non issue for me: if someone wants me/PMC to develop theaters, great, but if you guys are talking about going your own... I'd have to be blunt and say that's just stupid.

To sum it up: I'm all for developing theaters and I CAN focus on single one to make it the most finished.

I'll try to re(read) all the last posts on New Theaters and this topic bit better when I have more time (tonight) and give a thorough quoted follow post.

[derStef]

Hello Snake Man.

our intend would not be to steal your work and do our own. don't understand me wrong.
we want to help YOU to get them to a better state. I think a team could make more than one single person. YOU MUST BE IN THAT TEAM AS HEAD, it's your work we are working with.

as i said the idea is that a team could reach more than a single person. if you don't like when ppl develop your theaters further, please let us know and we keep our dirty fingers from it.
that would be sad, because you theaters have sooooo much potential.

my idea was to split up the work to the interested people, work it out, then sent to you and it get packed into the PMC theater installers... nothing else.
sure without your permission and your support we can forget that all. we just want to help you and get the theaters to a higher level and working with the latest Falcon versions (AF/FF5/OF4.7). we are all in a good intend, no one wants to do something here that YOU don't like. you are the Chief here.

SnakeMan, let's form a team around you and the other dev-chiefs to get the work faster further developed.


please think about! really.



Regards
Stef

[Zaggy]

If youre really going to try and build a new team, I think you need a NEW PROJECT, and a better place to advertise for ppl... The guys that come here are already interested in Terrain Dev, but it kind of sounds like you want to bring new ppl in too?

My next piece of advice; find a good programmer or two, so you can code up custom tools and work with the raw data (SRTM 3ArcS, DCW e00, GTopo30, etc) - a lot of the data out there is 'dirty' and needs work, PLUS if youre interested in 250m terrain, you'll need to talk to Blueprint.

Next, avoid Theaters with water barriers - last I checked, F4 campaigns still dont deal well with it, so your theater quickly becomes useful for only TE's and Force-On-Force...

[Snake Man]

I have posted my replies to 2009 Theater development organized topic. Please check there.

Keep this topic strictly discussing what theater should be developed first, not anything else.

BTW: answer the poll please

[molnibalage]

Falcon engine can model upgraded 3th generation and 4th generation AC. So IMHO upgrading the Vietnam theater is bad idea. Also we can't model the poor accuracy of missiles.

Europe is the best. We can use ALL of SAM and AC while we can keep the realism factor very high. The theater is very big. This is also good.

Second? Hm........ Maybe Georgia. There are very big mountains, provides very good enivronemnt for advanced avionics usage and hiding from SAMs.

ODS. More or less good isn't reqiures too much editing. Can be made out easily with Tacedit. I have a real OOB. (I have the book that was written by Stan Morse, Gulf Air War debrief).

[toonces]

I'll defer to Molni on how well Falcon models the jets in the sim, and why Vietnam is a poor choice for primary development.

I DO think that it would be super cool to be able to fly A-4s, A-6s, F-4s, MiG-21s, and so on in a meaningful theater, but he knows more about how the sim handles these planes than me.

I'm not a big fan of ODS because it's not really challenging. The campaign is totally lopsided for the Allies.

A more interesting campaign might be a hypothetical campaign where Iraq invades Saudi Arabia after seizing Kuwait. From my limited reading on the subject, the biggest fear of the US was that Iraq would keep on pushing into Saudi before the US response was fully mobilized. A hypothetical campaign with the Allied player taking control of Saudi and very limited US forces might be very interesting.

But the stock campaign? I've played it and the hardest part (imo) was actually finding something to shoot, not surviving sorties.

Just my opinions, I could be totally wrong.

If we're going to tackle Europe first (rapidly becoming my primary choice), I figure we should just tackle the central European AOR. Fulda Gap and all. I have a couple of wargames I can break out that, along with Molni's refs, should get a really good working OOB.

Perhaps the best way to keep the campaign engine focused would be to make the theater map smaller...but this is outside of my realm of expertise.

[molnibalage]

I DO think that it would be super cool to be able to fly A-4s, A-6s, F-4s, MiG-21s, and so on in a meaningful theater, but he knows more about how the sim handles these planes than me.

Mig-21 and other AC with data link and superior radar? Huh... IRL the real azimuth angle MiG-21's radar (for almost all versions) was near to 30-40 degrees and not 120... The Su-27 and MiG-29 also has smaller azimuth angles.

Theaters like Vietnam and AC like older A-4s and F-4s good for only movie making if you override some data and you know how works the game or maybe tell other human playres what should they do under recording.. IMHO can't provide a real battle environment. The era will be overmodelled from almost all aspects.

I know that many player maybe want to see this era in the game but for me this means only "wasting" of resources. We can make a really good Europe thater with almos real OOB and unsing almost all 4th generation fighters. They won't be overmodeled soo strongly if players fly with them.

[Fafa]

I choose IRAN but could have chosen ODS due to some reasons :
1/ I have some beta skins somewhere on my HD...I already started some stuff around an OF version including skin of mine or from other people lods, data edit etc... (unfortunatly it can't be uploaded due to the fact that it is a mix of the 2 versions OF/FF) before I stopped anything around F4. Now I am waiting for Falcon's next stage. LOL.
2/ I got complete doc around the 8 years IRAN/IRAQ war.
3/ An hypothetical conflict between a coalition against IRAN should be interesting.
4/ The AFGHANISTAN/ODS/IRAN DB should be common due to the skins and the exported types of aircrafts in persian (F15, Mirages, Migs, Sukhoi etc...). More simple to edit and update.

[lamurt]

voted nevada for redflag.
has no orbat limit, thus any plane / sam can be thrown in and they will still "fit", if you get what i mean.

[derStef]

TO ALL, PLEASE VOTE AGAIN! i've updated the list! i've changed the list, now every theater can be voted for!

- Everybody can vote 3 theaters in the poll! -




@ Zaggy:

yes advertising would be necessary!!!
IF the time will come, could you tell us more about the issue with water barriered theaters?

I'll defer to Molni on how well Falcon models the jets in the sim, and why Vietnam is a poor choice for primary development.

I DO think that it would be super cool to be able to fly A-4s, A-6s, F-4s, MiG-21s, and so on in a meaningful theater, but he knows more about how the sim handles these planes than me.

I'm not a big fan of ODS because it's not really challenging. The campaign is totally lopsided for the Allies.

You both are true.
i also agree about ODS reallife campaing. your idea about Saudi vs. Iraq sounds interesting! or Iran vs Iraq?

also for me, after Taiwan, Europe is my first choice. indeed great things can be done there.

@Fafa, i know about your works on Iran theater. those things can be integrated for example.

[molnibalage]

Balkans are twice in the list but I still can't see Nordic.

[toonces]

I downloaded every Iraqi and Iranian skin I could find on fafa's website last night.

You know...just in case...

[derStef]

Balkans are twice in the list but I still can't see Nordic.

ooops sorry, updated again!
PLEASE VOTE AGAIN!

[Fafa]

...

[Snake Man]

I voted again, thanks for tweaking the list derstef, glad the 20 entries on vote polls helped.

I just wonder... did the initial votes get erased, or does it now count my vote for ODS twice in fact? Its sort of cheating then(?).

BTW I again remind that lets keep this discussion strictly on which theater should be developed first. Everything else can be discussed elsewhere, thanks.

[derStef]

I voted again, thanks for tweaking the list derstef, glad the 20 entries on vote polls helped.

I just wonder... did the initial votes get erased, or does it now count my vote for ODS twice in fact? Its sort of cheating then(?).

no, all votes from before were removed..

cheers dudes.

[Hustler]

For FreeFalcon 6, this team will be fully supporting the development of theaters and campaigns. We will offer code support, tool creation, and our extensive database of aircraft and weapons. Anyone from here interested in more information may contact me here via PM or at the FF website.

[derStef]

For FreeFalcon 6, this team will be fully supporting the development of theaters and campaigns. We will offer code support, tool creation, and our extensive database of aircraft and weapons. Anyone from here interested in more information may contact me here via PM or at the FF website.

WOOOOOOT


i hope you mean that serious!

again Snake Man, WE NEED THAT BEER SMILE HERE!!!!


cheeeeers


Stef

[Zaggy]

@ Zaggy:

yes advertising would be necessary!!!
IF the time will come, could you tell us more about the issue with water barriered theaters?

I'm definately not the expert on this, BUT as I understand it F4 has a problem with transporting materiel over water... the reason, you need to load a unit onto a ship or a/c to transport it across the 'barrier'. F4 doesnt deal with this well, in fact, not at all; so I'm told. So what will happen, is all your ground units will advance to the coast, and stop! Not good for a dynamic campaign!

I've a few idea's on how to fix this, but yeah...

Now the next thing I MUST say is, when it comes to new theaters, FORGET THE FACTS! By this I mean, do you really think that both sides will leave their airbases as we see in F4? a/c lined up nicely on ramps, no extra dispersals built, no extra HAS's, no camoflaguing of taxiways, etc? Look at what the dev teams have done; a great job mind you, but they have modelled a PEACE TIME Military base! Despite the 'accuracy', its really not that 'accurate'... One of the first things the US did in Saudi (and later in Iraq and Afgahnistan) was to seriously upgrade the base infrastructure IN CASE of conflict... As things escalated, so did construction!

So, whatever you do, you need to find some ppl who understand a bit about dispersals, how theyre formed and used, etc, and get these ppl into the game on Airbase work...

The same will also go for any major military emplacement in theater...

As for theaters, I would suggest a Nordic-type theater, just a bit further north, for a 'classic EF2000' type scenario. Why?
i) the tileset is going to be simplier than other area's
ii) if you get the original Nordic guys involved (who are nice guys as I remember, like striker), you'll have the basis of your research done
iii) you can model a nice, BIG full scale war with Russia vs the West, you've plenty of water for naval fun and relatively small transit times!
iv) visually, its one of the prettiest area's on earth!

And if you wanted to really do it justice, you can add 3-5% power to the jets and a little extra to the lift co-efficents on the flightmodel - all that COLD, THICK air, REALLY gets the jets to shovel along with NOTICABLE performance increases!

The negatives: the main one is the Nordic Peninsula (is that the right name for it?) extends ABOVE 60N lat - this is important as SRTM 3ArcS data only goes that far! So, if youre going to go with the 250m terrain, you'll need that coder I was talking about above to get to work on some of the 30ArcS data (GTopo30, DEM, etc) out there, write some good interpolation algorithms on it, to get it down to 3ArcS (that would be fun actually - wouldnt be that hard a app to write), then the fun bit would be to 'merge' it smoothly with the SRTM data from further south... Again, not hard if you know how!

BUT, once you have this data put together, you should be able to contact Bluey and get a 250m L0 made...

It would be a good and unique theater...

[Zaggy]

FF *shakes head*

[ccc]

Glad you hear Zaggy's still alive and kicking

How's Berling strait test theater? isn't it a high-lat terrain mod like Nordic?

[Sherlock]

I voted :

#1 Iran

#2 ODS

#3 Europe

Iran (and therefore ODS) are the closest to being finished and, therefore, could be finished the quickest with the lesser effort. Obviously, as someone has already stated they share many, many things in common so developing art (terrain tiles and skins) for one can be used in the other without change. They are also "where the action is" these days and will get the most attention from the simmers out there (or at least I would think that). I voted #3 Europe because I have always wanted to build a Tom Clancy "Red Storm Rising" scenario!

[Malc]

I voted as such -

ODS - I think the best option cos it already has the basis of a very good texture base (important) and has no water to get in the way.

Israel - Similar, has some very good tiles which if worked on would elevate to excellent.

Both have the most scope for "real-world" backgrounds to the campaigns, and given the areas are seemingly forever getting bombed to hell and back, are always in the public view and so interest will be higher.

Kuriles - don't know why really... shit terrain from a campaign POV but something draws me to this region like no other.

[87th_striker]

In another post I said something about SRTM coverage. The SRTM coverage rules out the following theaters: Island, Nordic (Norway, Sweden, Finland Russia (Kola), Russia North, Alaska (?) (maybe 20 meter data available ), Canada (?). Without the SRTM coverage, we'll step back to end of last milennium. ( viewtopic.php?f=12&t=21726&p=179946#p179946 )

Another factor is the available datasets( e00 ). To produce a quality theater they need updating. In Europe that would be a very complex job, while in the less densly populated areas it would be easier.

The above factors narrows things down somewhat.

[ccc]

In another post I said something about SRTM coverage. The SRTM coverage rules out the following theaters: Island, Nordic (Norway, Sweden, Finland Russia (Kola), Russia North, Alaska (?) (maybe 20 meter data available ), Canada (?). Without the SRTM coverage, we'll step back to end of last milennium. ( viewtopic.php?f=12&t=21726&p=179946#p179946 )

SRTM is cool.
BUT current f4 terrain engine can't handle it properly..jumping terrain levels, and the worst thing in my campaign test is "ground units sinking into other ( or deeper) level of terrain that make it invisible". the bug is very frustrating and leave many ghost ground units in campaign- the unit is killed, yet still have visible icon in 2d map, and you can not find it in 3d world! Even the flat, shallow slopes/dune in israeli theater, i experienced this upsetting bug.. i can not wipe out ground units completely- remaining units keep throwing AAA tracers from a dot of nothing.

i hope you realize SRTM feature is limted by current terrain engine..it looks good, but not good for killing ground units. that's it.

[Luk]

I have the same opinion. SRTM is not so important for current engine. And it is even worse in AF. I dont know, where is difference in drawing a terrain in AF and FF. Perhaps there is only some "variable" diversity. But simple/default L2 based terrain is hidding ground units often in AF (somewhere near L2/L3 switch or something). I did not seen it in default FF4 terrain (but I fly only AF now)...ok, this issue is for another topic...
In my opinion L2 resolution theater can be good enough. But the L2mesh should be tweaked in that case. In "big-scale" mountains it is not so important, but smaller peaks can be totaly washed out by L2 resolution-degradation. There are some sharpening algoritm for DEM data. It is olso possible to get GIS vector dataset with peaks + high values (then snap them to the nearest L2 vertex+update terrain). I think the proces can be automated. I did it by hand.
Also whole tile phylosophy of F4 terrain is based on L2 resolution. The same for objectives placement, radar profiles etc. And the download size is noticebly smaller, then SRTM packages.
Luk

[molnibalage]

(maybe 20 meter data available ),

Do you want to say that Falcon engine can handle this so really high detailed terrain mesh? OF has in Korea BaZ SRTM. A smoother terrain mesh will be good for all Falcon versions. The ultimate upgrade will be the RipTiles but it is hard to say when we see that...

[Snake Man]

Stop the srtm discussion right now, what does it has to do with what theater needs to be developed next, nothing.

Next post offtopic here will get some sort of angry response from me. You have been warned.

[Sherlock]

I'm curious as to why Vietnam is getting as many votes as it has (7 at this time), putting into 3rd place at this time. Anyone want to elaborate on why they voted for Vietnam?

[Closter]

I have voted this three:

-Taiwan: I agree with Derstef. The reasons he gave are strong. Perhaps Campaigns need to start from a given point (half divided island) so the ground war goes smoothly.

-ODS: it is the flag theater of PMC, and a jewel that needs a little polish to be nearly perfect. Perhaps working on the ground war and improving some of the tiles...

-Nevada: it is a nice place to "play". All of us would like to do missions of a Red Flag there, with a nice view of the terrain and a credible action going under.


There are a little bit of the Falconeers that are worried about theater making, but plenty of thinking, testing and developing invested in it. We must joint efforts to make something that it worths.

[derStef]

I
We must joint efforts to make something that it worths.

THAT IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!


cheers Closter!

[Sherlock]

So are we going to get started anytime soon on ODS since it is the clear winner of the poll? There is a lot of good work going on by toonces on fixing the ground war movement over in that other thread. We need to get more people involved doing the same thing he is doing (imho) so that we can get the data to make some fact-based decisions on what exactly makes a ground war work properly. More eyes looking at it the better off we'll be imo. Thoughts/observations?

[derStef]

So are we going to get started anytime soon on ODS since it is the clear winner of the poll? There is a lot of good work going on by toonces on fixing the ground war movement over in that other thread. We need to get more people involved doing the same thing he is doing (imho) so that we can get the data to make some fact-based decisions on what exactly makes a ground war work properly. More eyes looking at it the better off we'll be imo. Thoughts/observations?

Sherlock, i'm doing the same like toonces, but i do it since a year..in my Taiwan mod...

but you are right.

[toonces]

Let's head to ODS.

[Snake Man]

Indeed 70 people have voted and so far the theater to be developed first is Operation Desert Storm.

Lets keep this topic on track, discuss only which theater needs to be developed first, not HOW it should be developed.