Iran theater

[Snake Man]

Iran theater

This is tricky one as its between ODS and Afghanistan theaters and its not very wise to rebuild same theater space all over again. However Europe theater did show us that small overlap was acceptable.



This is just something I quickly mopped up while refreshing my memory running through the Ultimate Theater Tutorial, (it was fun) take it as an example of the area. Naturally its 128 segment theater.

I think this area would be the most focused on Iran, its completely centered on it and we can include nearby airbases from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Saudi and those other gulf nations.

News! Theater now available for download, see here

Iran theater bugs

--- bugs
- airbase types default 23_05 2 in the "west of ODS" part of the theater.
- airbase background tiles wrong terrain type in many bases.
- transition feature (road/river) tiling messed up in many places.
- campaigns still have CTD issues.
- objective linking not complete.

--- fixes v0.2
- te_new.tac is Korean one, fixed.

[Sherlock]

Can you give some more specifics? How did you tile it? Did you do a land use based bmp for CATE or did you just make one "free hand"?

I would love to get a retail grade Iran theater into Allied Force. What a kick-A$$ theater that would be to fly right now with the way the world politcal scene is shaping up. I would want to put in all the real world targets (nuke reactor sites, chem/bio development sites, SAM sites, etc) and base them on real world terrain pics...that would be incredible!

I was working on an Iran theater before getting involved in redoing ODS for AF. It was centered pretty much exactly where you did yours. Here is my land use bmp pic I did:



Here's my regular map:



Here's the AWACs map I had pretty much done:

[ccc]

wow.. SM is back on it.. great job 8)

how about taiwan theater?

[marvin157th]

Snakeman,

Wow you are truley the master.. Funny, you are just screwing around and you came up with all that! I am so jealous!! I think that would be a really cool theater, as we can make some good hypotehtical campaigns as we could fly out of many neighboring countries.

Jody

[ccc]

iran.. the upcoming new hot spot.. the main work will be terrain and campaign making, it can use existing database of any falcon versions.

[Snake Man]

Can you give some more specifics?

There is not much to say, ask something and I'll try to tell you

How did you tile it?

CATE, naturally.

Did you do a land use based bmp for CATE or did you just make one "free hand"?

I didn't create landuse map at all, just did it with stock default ODS CATE configs, there is only different terrain types according to elevations. As I said, it was simply done to refresh my memory using the Ultimate Theater Tutorial.

right now with the way the world politcal scene is shaping up.

Well that's why I'm basically interested of Iran, meaning COMPLETE Iran not just the edges from ODS or Afghanistan. My only concern is the theater overlapping, which is not nice.

I was working on an Iran theater before getting involved in redoing ODS for AF. It was centered pretty much exactly where you did yours.

Comparing the pics I cant really tell if they are any different. I'm just trying to compare for example the top-middle part and the gulf region of lower right part, they seem to be pretty much identical to me.

This is my Dem2Terrain output text file of the area specifics:

Theater name: my_mideastbig
Theater size: Regular
Size (L2 segments): 128 x 128
Size (L2 tiles): 2048 x 2048
Size (Nautical Miles): 1104.75 x 1104.75
Resolution: 0.134858 Nautical Miles
Centered on: Lat 32.5 Long 54
NW: Lat 41.7063 Long 41.6685
NE: Lat 41.7063 Long 66.3315
SW: Lat 23.2937 Long 43.9767
SE: Lat 23.2937 Long 64.0233
Highest point: 17715ft
Lowest point: 0ft

Can you check what yours is saying? If its Centered on: Lat 32.5 Long 54 then its great because we can share the files... I mean, heh if this gets going somehow, remember this all started by me refreshing my memory

how about taiwan theater?

Many people talk about Taiwan theater. Ok give me some coordinates and I can make one up for you

I think that would be a really cool theater, as we can make some good hypotehtical campaigns as we could fly out of many neighboring countries.

Too bad F4 engine runs out of "sides", the country flags, well at least in the stock default version. Nowadays theaters would reguire few more sides supported. Yeah indeed Iran would be quite interesting.

[Peled]

Good Stuff SnakeMan , like in the old'ays !
........glad you are back in !

[ccc]

ccc wrote:
how about taiwan theater?

Many people talk about Taiwan theater. Ok give me some coordinates and I can make one up for you

i've no coordinates at hand, how about setting the center point at the middle of taiwan strait, a 64x64 size theater?

[Fafa]

Well, good stuff Snake Man, you're a hero

[Sherlock]

@ Snake Man:
Here's the info on the theater I was working on:

Theater name: Southwest_Asia1
Theater size: Regular
Size (L2 segments): 128 x 128
Size (L2 tiles): 2048 x 2048
Size (Nautical Miles): 1104.75 x 1104.75
Resolution: 0.134858 Nautical Miles
Centered on: Lat 32 Long 53
NW: Lat 41.2063 Long 40.7632
NE: Lat 41.2063 Long 65.2368
SW: Lat 22.7937 Long 43.0139
SE: Lat 22.7937 Long 62.9861
Highest point: 17715ft
Lowest point: 0ft

As you can see the center points are different between yours and mine.

[ccc]

any progress? will it become another official mod?

[Snake Man]

Hehe don't rush CCC, all in good time

I guess you could see this topic same as the Europe topic long time ago, a suggestion. Who knows where it might lead to lateron... So far all you guys have been excited about this, I didn't expect so good welcome for this.

[Couby]

Great !

Taiwan theater would also be terrific .

[87th_striker]

Nice stuff, Snaky.... I'm still tiling.....

[Snake Man]

With my new HOTAS setup I was flying today in Iran theater, it was really interesting to go against the Iranian F-4 Phantoms and F-14 Tomcats. I actually got fixated just to fly the campaign instead going back to immediately fix some bugs, it was that fun

Tomorrow I'll fix bugs like some airbase types (I'll try to snag them from ODS csv file), terrain types (CATE bitmap) and improved campaign.

[Snake Man]

Now would be good time to gather some of those special sites, for example the nuke plants, into this theater. If someone could do some research and point out the positions and types of the sites to add, I could then proceed and add them into the objectives list.

Here is the theater map in raw BMP format for good precision, we could track down the positions of the sites by marking the x,y coordinates from the map image. Download the map images here - 674kb.

The two map images give good overview of the theater, first there is the features image which inlcudes roads, rivers and citys. Then there is the tacedit use image with country borders and citys.

Sherlock, any chance you could take your CATE land use bitmap and shift it to fit over this theater outlines, I could then use it to create the correct terrain types? I know it would will miss some data from top and right of the theater, but it wont matter, we can easily finish the missing parts.

[Sherlock]

Now would be good time to gather some of those special sites, for example the nuke plants, into this theater. If someone could do some research and point out the positions and types of the sites to add, I could then proceed and add them into the objectives list.

Here is the theater map in raw BMP format for good precision, we could track down the positions of the sites by marking the x,y coordinates from the map image. Download the map images here - 674kb.

The two map images give good overview of the theater, first there is the features image which inlcudes roads, rivers and citys. Then there is the tacedit use image with country borders and citys.

Sherlock, any chance you could take your CATE land use bitmap and shift it to fit over this theater outlines, I could then use it to create the correct terrain types? I know it would will miss some data from top and right of the theater, but it wont matter, we can easily finish the missing parts.

Yeh, SM, I'll take a crack at converting over the land use bmp if you want...but I have to ask would it be easier to shift the theater to the coordinates I used?

I also have most (or all) of the nuke plants, bio/chem factories and airports referenced at these links plus Iran background info:

Military, Chem/Bio, Nuclear and Missile Info
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iran/index.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world ... cility.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-ir ... e-aircraft
http://www.iiaf.net/home.html

Nuclear
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4617398.stm

General Iran Background info
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/irtoc.html
http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iran/index.html
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107640.html

[Snake Man]

Its easier to modify the BMP. If nothing else, rar up the bmp and email to me and I can do it myself. I almost did it with the example jpg but it was too low quality so I skipped it as it wasn't that urgent task.

[Sherlock]

Nice stuff, Snaky.... I'm still tiling.....

@ 87th_striker: Is this an offer to help?

[Sherlock]

Its easier to modify the BMP. If nothing else, rar up the bmp and email to me and I can do it myself. I almost did it with the example jpg but it was too low quality so I skipped it as it wasn't that urgent task.

SM,
I have tried overlaying the Land Use map I made on one of your bmps but the projection is different I guess. I can get it to line up for either the northern part (around the Caspian Sea) or the southern (around the Persian Gulf), but not both. Which do you want? Persian Gulf I would think...?

[Snake Man]

Gulf sounds about right, and hey its generic land use map, its not exact science anyways

[Sherlock]

Gulf sounds about right, and hey its generic land use map, its not exact science anyways

Ok. I had to rotate my image 0.5 degrees to get close line up in north as well as south (hey, it's close but not exact). Here's the link to download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?2tdyooahlt0

[Snake Man]

It looks great, thanks.

Today I fixed all the airbase types that can be found in Iran and ODS theaters, to same as in ODS. Ran new CATE pass for the new airbases so luckily few of them got the tiling right. Tweaked the campaign a bit. Did even some linking between the primary objectives, added bridges but I think I messed it up a bit as the config must have some bridge tiles missing or something.

All in all good progress. Hopefully we could get a first release out of this baby soon

[Sherlock]

It looks great, thanks.

Today I fixed all the airbase types that can be found in Iran and ODS theaters, to same as in ODS. Ran new CATE pass for the new airbases so luckily few of them got the tiling right. Tweaked the campaign a bit. Did even some linking between the primary objectives, added bridges but I think I messed it up a bit as the config must have some bridge tiles missing or something.

All in all good progress. Hopefully we could get a first release out of this baby soon

Were you aware that a few of the airbase tile arrangements in the AB CATE script were porked? Check the "32_14 Airbase Rvr" airbase portion of the script. This is one that had consistent mis-aligned tiles (laid down in improper order). My notes show at least 10 out of 22 airbases in ODS of this type had this consistent problem with their airbase tile arrangement.

And I am really looking forward to that first release!

[Snake Man]

Now I fixed Sunan, Kimpo and 23_05 airbase type configs (for desert terrain). More fixing to do tomorrow, but looks much better now.

[Snake Man]

I'll fix bugs like some airbase types (I'll try to snag them from ODS csv file), terrain types (CATE bitmap) and improved campaign.

Airbase types are now changed. Terrain types are layed out from Sherlocks land use bitmap (thanks). Full set of easy, medium and hard campaigns have been created.

Still having some difficulties, one of the campaigns crashes, I'm not happy with the tiling, the nuke plants are not added, etc. But overall its okay backbone.

I was hoping to release "Developer" version out of Iran theater already today, but its not yet ready even for that. Still have to fix the CTD and do overall testing in campaign.

Developer version? Yeah kind of like the Korea 128 was before, the current unfinished version as just rarring it up and write a readme install instructions, so no one click installers. This way some hardcore editing guys can test it out (or anyone who can read a install instructions) and provide perhaps some feedback.

[Sherlock]

***SNIP***
Developer version? Yeah kind of like the Korea 128 was before, the current unfinished version as just rarring it up and write a readme install instructions, so no one click installers. This way some hardcore editing guys can test it out (or anyone who can read a install instructions) and provide perhaps some feedback.

Sounds Great SM. I am on this like "stink on $_it!" Be glad to take an indepth look and add to the content where I can.

[Closter]

I am ready to look for bugs in it!

[Sherlock]

@SM,
I am prepared to research the TacEdit locations for all the Nuke, Chem/Bio and Missile sites if you still need that info. Just let me know.

[Snake Man]

Yes I thank you for the good links you provided, I leeched the images from there. But still if you can get me the x,y coordinates and F4 objective types for the nuke/etc targets to place, that would be great.

Btw since I'm posting, I now fixed the ODS texture.bin (which Iran uses) bridge placing script, now all 4300+ bridges have been placed. Also the linking went mostly haywire so I fixed it and did tons of new linking, at one point the link queue peaked at 350.

Maybe tomorrow would be a good day for dev release. We'll see

[Sherlock]

Yes I thank you for the good links you provided, I leeched the images from there. But still if you can get me the x,y coordinates and F4 objective types for the nuke/etc targets to place, that would be great.

Btw since I'm posting, I now fixed the ODS texture.bin (which Iran uses) bridge placing script, now all 4300+ bridges have been placed. Also the linking went mostly haywire so I fixed it and did tons of new linking, at one point the link queue peaked at 350.

Maybe tomorrow would be a good day for dev release. We'll see

Ok. I'll get busy on that and get it to you ASAP. So in summary what you need are as follows:

1. Objective type (Bio Plant, Chem Plant , Nuke Plant, Missile Plant, etc.)
2. X & Y TacEdit location (based on your Iran BMP image posted earlier in this thread).
3. Name of objective

Anything else?

[Snake Man]

One through three sounds great, can't think of anything else right now. If you get those researched it would highly boost the interest of this theater, to go really after the current event targets so to speak

Dunno how many you will research, but it shouldn't take long for me to add them in then.

[Snake Man]

I had some trouble with the land use map, I mean I guess its off a bit as Kuwait had that grazing terrain type instead of the wasteland desert, its now fixed on that part.

Few of the campaigns still give some CTDs, I now got the magical Afghanistan CTD after exiting Falcon heh, great. There is some problem in Ahwaz region at F4AF when it CTD's when flying, RV works ok which is strange.

I disabled the threat range circles so at least one known CTD is "fixed". I haven't done any more linking since I want to finalize the L2 first so all bridges are set. Heh and "finalize" heh I guess I'm getting ahead of myself since this is just a unofficial have-fun-edit theater and so on

Anyways, I'm not sure what else in this stage I can do for it before the developer release. If we get the Sherlock's special nuke / chem / missile site info into the .cam file before release its great.

[Sherlock]

***SNIP***

Anyways, I'm not sure what else in this stage I can do for it before the developer release. If we get the Sherlock's special nuke / chem / missile site info into the .cam file before release its great.

Just to let you know I am working on it. But it is still a few days off as a minimum since I am heading out of town this weekend and probably won't get much chance to work on it. Hope it's okay but I will be giving you the AF objectives and OCDIDs since that's what I fly. Maybe T_Rex or someone on the FF team can cross-correlate what I generate to RV and let you know what their OCDIDs are (I am pretty sure they are different).

[Snake Man]

Ah no problem, I'll just start to put together the release package now then. We'll get the special sites in for the first update.

[Snake Man]

Iran theater v0.1

Download Iran_theater_v0.1.rar - 14.7mb

This is Iran Theater dev release for Falcon 4 Allied Force and RedViper (should work in OpenFalcon too but I have not tested, Couby hint hint).

Before you start to install, download the current terrain building utilities - 350kb. This rar includes LxNormalFix v1.5.2, SPTinstall some version and SeasonSwitcher some version. Most likely theater enthusiast guys already have these small utils, but they are now in this one rar for very easy one link download. No need to go hunting the correct versions around all web sites.


Install

1) Unpack the rar into your Falcon directory. If you already dont have, it will create "Theaters" sub directory in there, ie <falconroot>/Theaters/ directory folder. Readme can be found then on the <falconroot> directory called Readme_Iran.txt. Also you must unpack the TerrainBuildUtils.rar into the Theaters/Utils/ directory, make sure you unpack the exe's correctly into this utils dir.

2) Copy <falconroot>/campaign/ files into Theaters/Iran/campaign/ directory, do not overwrite the following files: Instant.cam, Kneemap.gif, save0.cam, save0.tri, save1.cam, save1.tri, save2.cam, save2.tri and te_new.tac files. If you use RedViper, then most likely you want to copy stuff from <falconroot>/campaign/SAVE/ dir. If you're F4AF user, then copy stuff from <falconroot>/Campaign/Korea/ dir.

3) Copy original Desert Storm (ODS v0.512) theaters texture/ and weather/ directorys into Theaters/Iran/terrdata/ directory. RedViper users need to get the ODS texture/ from the FF 3.1 installer, F4AF users have to take it from the original ODS v0.512 release. I know this part is a bitch (to find/download it), but it saves us 220mb worth of download.

4) Add line "Theaters\Iran\iran.tdf" into theaters.lst file located in <falconroot> dir.

5) If you use F4AF run "Iran_F4AF.bat" with RedViper run "Iran_RV.bat" batch file. These batch files can be found on Theaters/Iran/ directory. Hopefully these batch files find the utils and point to the correct terrain directory. Its very very important that the bat file is located in the Theaters/Iran/ directory! Also make note that LxNormalFix util is very poor, it will bog down your computer quite bad and most likely wont even work with 512mb ram setups. Basically what you need to do is to run SPTinstall, LxNormalFix and in RV case, also SeasonSwitcher.

Done!


Feedback

We are looking for bug reports and feedback as this is developer version, if you are interested of helping to edit this theater, just let us know, we will welcome any and all help being it research, bug testing or actual editing.

We will answer all your questions and then some. If you do not have account in here, you need to email me so I can create one for you (new user registrations disallowed because of too many spammers). Email me to pmc at pmctactical dot org address or contact me at Frugals or FreeFalcon forums.

[Couby]

(should work in OpenFalcon too but I have not tested, Couby hint hint).

I'm in .

Taking a look.

Will you open a dedicated room for the theater ?

[Couby]

In order to get the LxNormalFix process working I had to copy :
- <falconroot>/theaters/iran/terrdata/terrain files
in
- <falconroot>/terrdata/iran/terrain

Then I execute the LxNormalFix process.

Then I copy and overwrite files from :
- <falconroot>/terrdata/iran/terrain
in
- <falconroot>/theaters/iran/terrdata/terrain

Then I delete the <falconroot>/theaters/iran/terrdata/terrain folder.


LxNormalFix doesn't seem (for me) to read and use correctly regkeys. It only reads current theater name and not terrdata path. So it is systematicaly looking for the <falconroot>/terrdata/<active_theater_in_registry>/terrain folder.


I'm ending the install, checking it and will rapidely build an installer for OF. And then I'll fly and try to help with reports .

[Snake Man]

No, it does not read registry but takes the path as parameter. This is my full example from F4AF command

LxNormalFix.exe $LP @Iran @d:\games\f4af\Theaters\Iran\terrdata

I tested the release with the .bat files and they ran fine on my computer with the path being just @terrdata

Perhaps you run the .bat file on wrong directory or something?

[Couby]

Mmmh you're right . I didn't enter the path as parameter correctly .