Getting ready for Nevada v0.3

[Snake Man]

This topic is for discussion about the upcoming Nevada Theater v0.3 and everything related.

My simple goal is to take the previous version, give it the 2007 facelift to the theater directory name convention thing, NSIS installer setup for all three falcon versions and of course to fix any bugs we can.

Terrain Tiles
The tiles are horrible, we most likely would go with the Qaz 512 res tiles, but the final evaluation of them is still to be done (I dont know if some tiles are missing or are there too much quality difference between terrain types etc). We could of course do brand new terrain types from google earth, that is very painless and quick job, I mean we need what... 3-5 terrain types and thats it.

Sherlock, I promised to you that the next theater(s) that come you can do the texture.zip and bin work, so here we are now at the eve of that task, what say you, are you ready to go?

If you say yes and really can work on it so it wont drag along etc (I mean for weeks or even month), then we must closely coordinate the job what you're doing, basically starting by making a decision about texture.bin "format", do we use the existing one which is cheap copy of ODS, do we just use ODS directly (but perhaps it has too many terrain types, dunno) or make brand new one from scratch. Basically I would say lets use ODS bin because its most advanced now with the CATE conf files, if we continue with the existing one, we have work to do and not to mention if we simply start from scratch.

Campaigns
Campaigns already are pretty darn good, all linking has been done and they overall work nicely. I must tweak them little bit as I noticed there is some balance issues, ie OPFOR kicking my ass in no time. Red Dog if you can, we should do the airbase upgrade and kneemap for the next release, if anyway possible. The campaigns are of course hypothetical and I'm also planning of doing the hardware wise BLUE ON BLUE scenario, where you fly F-16 against enemy F-16, now that will be interesting.

I want to include the existing three campaigns as traditional Falcon 4.0 campaigns West vs East equipment, then another "theater" would be made there there is Blue vs Blue and Red vs Red equipment, also perhaps to add everything mixed equipment campaign, now that will be confusing stuff (at least without labels hehe).

We would need basic trigger files for victory conditions setup also, I guess there wont be much more deeper storyline as to capture some objectives or so. Perhaps we should make real good victory conditions on both sides if some guys play this on MP so they can really get the war going with victory in mind. Or do anyone play adversarial in F4, does it even work?

User Interface
Nevada is 64 segment theater so we dont need the large theater scf file edits, AF UI is about done now and it will be no time when I finish up the RV one. I should be capable also to do basic OF UI, but it would be great if Couby or someone stepped in to help. Also Sherlock if you have any thoughts etc for AF UI then feel free to let me know.


Summary
I have layed out quite much of the stuff here to do by myself, however I'm very happy if anyone cares to help me, so even if you see me saying "I'll do this", you can always ask if you can help me with it. I just want to get this thing done ASAP without any fiddling of thumbs.

Nevada is pretty good theater already, I have always liked it, but perhaps its just because its only 64 segment theater in PMC codelabs, heh who knows. But objectives linked and the three campaigns working nicely it feels pretty solid. Now if we throw in some new tiles, UI, airbases, victory conditions... man it will rock.

If anyone want to help me with the manual writing, perhaps someone educated and native english speaker, or someone really smart non native english speaker, no matter what as long as we get professional looking manual done. What I mean is, I have not much to say about Nevada... "Its here, go fly"? heh

I learned the hard way with Europe v0.5 that now I will not state anykind of hints when the theater will be ready, it will just emerge one day and thats it. I wont get myself stressed over by "promising" you guys a theater in few hours/etc and then some bug comes up for days for me to work on day and night trying to solve it. But if the PMC 2007 comeback history shows anything, it wont be long until this theater is available...

Now, lets get to work!

[Snake Man]

Here is the 6 images found on my hard drive from the good old days, I cannot remember who did sent them to me, so if you're still here please let me know.

These are the suggested theater logo TGA's. I would like to have similar style as in the existing SP3 era logos, but I guess Terry is gone from F4 gfx scene already. If anyone want to submit suggestions for the logo, feel free to do so. We definitely want to add new theater logo for the upcoming new version.

[Snake Man]

Now there is few new "theaters" in Nevada... umm theater.

1) Nevada
2) Nevada Blue on Blue
3) Nevada Red on Red
4) Nevada Mixed

The first is the old which we know already. Second is a new three campaign set of west vs west equipment war, here you get to fly F-16, ie US stuff against... US stuff. Third is same style, but this time east equipment goes against east equipment. And lastly we have mixed setup, where in your strike package you can have F-16's as SEAD, MiG-29 as DCA, TU-16 as Strike while KC-135 is tanker and A-50 is AWACS, on top of that the enemy might have SU-27 as Escort while F/A-18E's conduct OCA Strikes against you... now that if anything is confusing!

I have still the ground troops to configure properly so they are correct type for each side on the campaigns, but at least the air war looks promising now.

Of course we should add one more which would be the realistic/historical Nevada, I mean the scenarios I've done now have little to do with real Red Flag thing, this is just pure fun Falcon 4.0 enjoyment. If anyone have some real life research for it, please share so we can create the scenario.

[Sherlock]

Terrain Tiles
The tiles are horrible, we most likely would go with the Qaz 512 res tiles, but the final evaluation of them is still to be done (I dont know if some tiles are missing or are there too much quality difference between terrain types etc). We could of course do brand new terrain types from google earth, that is very painless and quick job, I mean we need what... 3-5 terrain types and thats it.

Sherlock, I promised to you that the next theater(s) that come you can do the texture.zip and bin work, so here we are now at the eve of that task, what say you, are you ready to go?

If you say yes and really can work on it so it wont drag along etc (I mean for weeks or even month), then we must closely coordinate the job what you're doing, basically starting by making a decision about texture.bin "format", do we use the existing one which is cheap copy of ODS, do we just use ODS directly (but perhaps it has too many terrain types, dunno) or make brand new one from scratch. Basically I would say lets use ODS bin because its most advanced now with the CATE conf files, if we continue with the existing one, we have work to do and not to mention if we simply start from scratch.

SM,
Appreciate the offer but I really have no interest at this time in the Nevada theater. I think my time is better spent on Iran which I am keenly interested in. Feel free to do it or give to someone else who has interest in Nevada to do. Thanks again.

[Snake Man]

Okay, no problem. But what about future theaters this "promise", do I still have to ask in each theater if you want to do the tiles or?

[Sherlock]

Okay, no problem. But what about future theaters this "promise", do I still have to ask in each theater if you want to do the tiles or?

No. Not necessary. I will learn on my own. Thanks anyway.

[Snake Man]

Wonder where the sudden drop of activity came, we havent had post like in 24hrs here at PMC Tactical now, not to mention this topic which I hoped will spawn with activity.

Anyways.

I tweaked the campaigns a bit, I noticed during playtesting that they are build too fragile, like when the enemy attacks they can knock out one or two of your fighter airbases and pretty much cain air superiority at least air to air wise (still some remote bomber bases are active). So now I splitted up the big airbases moving the squadrons to other locations around the theater, this way the enemy AND YOU have much harder time to cain air superiority.

I also added few missing aircrafts like JSTARS, ECM stuff and F-117 stealth fighters (which btw are great on strikes to deep behind enemy lines). Also I added the helicopters which were totally missing, now we get good CAS roles and airlifts from Blackhawks. Oh man its sweet on AF's Add Package feature to task a air mobile mission to insert infantry squads into enemy territory, right on top of airfield to capture them, holy smokes! T Rex, man... where the heck is the RV's Add Package feature, PLEASE?

On tiles I took the Qaz tiles, checked them out and picked the most suitable terrain types, umm kind of just leaving out one or two I think. Created transitions them and renamed them, also started to write new texture.bin from scratch... I dont know why really, I guess there are pros and cons about using ODS texture.bin as its so damn large with many terrain types and all. What I hate most about creating new texture.bin is that all the existing CATE config work goes right out the window now, but then again we live in the SeasonSwitcher RV/OF world which fucken dont work if there is "gaps" in the texture.bin so what can you do. Dunno, I guess we could include just some 16x16 res dupes as placeholders for unused tiles in ODS bin if we used that. Nah, we'll see.

Here are the basic terrain types now

Desert


The types are plain desert, "shady", tan and vegetation.

Mountain


I call these mountain sandy, hard and grey. Also in this pic there is basic city tile.

Forest


And this is forest terrain type.

If anyone have any feedback and suggestions, let me know. I was thinking to myself that in Nevada area... is there any forests? Hmm. And do we really need all these different terrain types, I kind of love the existing 128 res Nevadas terrain tiles simplicity, there is like these two or three terrain types used for whole theater. Actually the coloring is very nice on morning light. What I mean here is, these terrain types are not set yet, feel free to voice your opinion about them and as always, if anyone want to help creating new tiles (or improving these existing ones) please let me know.

Thats the update this time, work continues

[marvin157th]

SM,

I am currently flying the Qaz version Nevada. And yes you are right the tiles are very nice, although not very realistic compared to Google Earth in 3D mode viewing. But then again, what theater is??

The tiles you have displayed here I think are very nice, and will look great. Specially if you include them all. Simplicity is nice, however, it is also repitious. It would be nice to include as many different types of shade as you can just to make things different.

I think all the tiles are well suited for the theater except for one. The vegitation desert might need to have the actual vegitation more clear. From looking on google or life photos the green shrubs are much more clear and can be identified quite easily.

What about roads? That is the current problem with Nevada right now. Or at least my version has no roads at all. If we had some nice ashpalt roads in there I think we would be set.

Jody

[ranger822]

What happened to Bird and all those tiles he was working on? Also, There is some pretty good photo tiles of Nevada, especially Nellis, Las Vegas, Lake Mead and some segments of the Nellis Gunnery Range. Given the deal with fartiles and DDS it would seem possible to photo tile at least Nellis, Las Vegas and the surrounding area around Vegas. I discussed at some length with Com-GP about the idea of using large blocks of tiles - -say a 30x30 which if stitched together produce a very nice terrain look - the idea is to design the terrain to be flow at a given altitude, then make a terrain block such that it stitches with another in a way that makes flying unable to recognize the tiling effect you see with current Falcon terrain. In effect you need several large tile segments which follow the same principles that Ripsaw discussed on making smaller tiles- - you create a generic border and radomize the edges - - then you can fill the inside with whatever you like - - If you create a simple set of altitidue BMPs for CATE you could visually see the altitude shift and adjust your generic borders to align with low level areas - - so you could use the sandy scrub as a way to patch between terrain types but on a much larger scale. The issue is figuring a way to get CATE to tile a large block of tiles - -

[Snake Man]

although not very realistic compared to Google Earth in 3D mode viewing. But then again, what theater is??

I would be very happy if someone made brand new google earth tiles for this theater.

What about roads? That is the current problem with Nevada right now. Or at least my version has no roads at all.

Well you ain't playing with the official Nevada. I have no clue what the other dudes have done with their theaters but official Nevada theater will of course have full set of roads and rivers.

If we had some nice ashpalt roads in there I think we would be set.

At the moment I only have dirt roads done, if someone makes me good 512 res tile of asfalt texture I could use that.

What happened to Bird and all those tiles he was working on?

Beats me. Seems like being a trend in F4 scene nowadays, alot of promises and zero results

There is some pretty good photo tiles of Nevada

I have never been fan of tiling a theater with style like that, uses too many tiles and so on.

So much can be done with excellent tiles as we use them now, sometimes people lose sight on this fact.

Crossposted from Nevada theater elevated to "PMC Theater" status because it fits here better.

I take it it's time for me to work on airbases I guess.
let me finish Iran and this one will be next if that's ok with you Snake?

Are you seriously asking me? If you are, then start working Nevada right away as its the next theater to be released, Iran is already out and it wont matter if its AB work is delayed for few weeks as the next release arent coming anytime soon, but Nevada is scheduled to be released ASAP. We do Nevada now, then Vietnam and then the 2007 theater update is finally over, most likely at that point I take a mental break from editing (perhaps do OFP/ArmA editing/playing for a while, or simply just go out and have way too much fun), then the cycle starts again and most likely I'll do the Taiwan and Korea 128 before we jump into Iran/ODS (but dont quote on me for this schedule).

Actually the new airbase orientations and deletions would really help at this point as I need to figure out what type of airbase tiles we need to create. So if you can, please start work on the Nevada airbases right away.

You have the raw material and I havent touched the objectives since, so feel free to do your magic and send the new airbase CSV back to me.

[Red Dog]

Rhaa, Crap. I hate leaving a work unfinished....

How much time do I have to send you that CSV for Nevada?

[Snake Man]

Honestly I dont know, but certainly not in next few days for sure. The basic terrain tiles are done, missing bridges, city roads, airbases and hmm maybe some variation tiles. Campaigns are pretty good, victory conditions are missing. RV and OF UIs are missing.

So thinking about the tiles... no, definitely not in next few days for sure. Other than that I cannot say any dates, storry.

Dont worry about leaving job unfinished, you arent. As I already said Iran is long way down the road so its not left unfinished, you have way too much time to complete the task before its next release.

[Red Dog]

No sweat, I was in the middle of a specific phase for iran, and stopping there is creating nightmares when I need to resume work. So I will conclude the current IRAN phase and then start on NEVADA

i have much hope for this theater

[Snake Man]

Anybody want to do the theater logo TGA, please?

[Snake Man]

The UI for RV is done now.

As for tiles, well I'm kind of in dilemma either to use the ODS texture.bin or not, the thought of making a brand new CATE conf files for brand new texture.bin just gives me the chills. I think this stays on hold until I get the new edited airbase data back from Red Dog and add few additional objectives like nuke plants, army bases, depots and such. Then we'll see.

[Snake Man]

The UI for OF is done now.

Also I tweaked the installer to install falcon version specific campaign strings idx/wch files into the campaign dirs and to have common dir for the files used in all campaign dirs (Nevada has 4 now) so its saving quite bit of space with kneemap.gif and the THEATER.* files, it works all pretty good now.

Still waiting for the theater TGA logo artwork, also campaign buttons are completely missing at this point. If anyone cares to help, the theater would look bit better as the missing items are quite visually in-your-face when browsing the UI.

[molnibalage]

VERY nice textures. Will be used these for other theaters?

[Mapi]

Nice work!

Now there is few new "theaters" in Nevada... umm theater.

2) Nevada Blue on Blue
4) Nevada Mixed

Are there europen modern jets too ?
I hope so...

[Doc0301]

Are there europen modern jets too ?

Will it be possible to fly the F-16 AMLU (In F4 designated as F-16AM) in Nevada Theatre? In RL foreign Air Forces also take part in Red Flag. I realy would like to fly in "my" colors (Belgian Air Force, F-16 AM-BE). So far only possible in Balkan Theatre.

[Snake Man]

v0.3 is out now, it has the old tiles, no Red Dog airbase update. I had to do this release now, it was dragging way too long. Actually I enjoy Nevada great deal, the campaigns are great.

Enjoy.