PMC_Euro 25km island + campaign

[Snake_Man]

Thanks for the long post privateguba, you wrote some very interesting and good ideas there.

As I posted earlier, I am working on the PMC Euro island and the campaign. They have changed a lot, hopefully to the better. Yes I know what you're thinking... and I must say I hope I didn't add any lag to the island. At least I can fly A10 with 3500m viewdistance pretty good.

I dont go into the detailed reply yet, just wanted to give my regards to you of that good post. If you have any other ideas etc, feel free to post them here.

[Reacher]

I'm still just waiting for the add-on list so I can finally take a look at this island. Those that have seem to be really impressed with it. I'm anxious to give it a go.

I'm anxious to give anything a go as far as OFP. Something new is needed.

Waitin' on ya, Snake.... 8)

Reacher

[HurricaneJim]

Hey, Snake Man, long time lurker and admirer, first time poster here.

I wanted to reiterate what others have said about your island. Its beauty is in the gameplay that it allows one to enjoy, with long-range firefights and huge combined arms battles. It is currently my favorite island to play with in OFP. I love to fly around in A-10s and AH-64s, pummeling armored columns.

I would like to add to the suggestions privateguba has made with only a couple questions of my own.

Firstly, would it be possible to create a highly realistic airport layout, as privateguba briefly mentioned? One thing I've always searched for, but rarely found in OFP, has been a good, practical, realistic airport, that was made with airbase operations in mind, instead of just eye candy. The main point of contention for me with many addons is the lack of a proper taxiway system and, as privateguba mentioned, improper placing of basic airport facilities such as the control tower. Basic concepts like the need for a taxiway on both sides of the runway, and a proper parking ramp are things that I've found lacking in most OFP islands.

Being that your island is already perfectly suited to flight missions, I think it could be an awesome example of what a practical, well-thought out airport in OFP should be.

My second question is, given that the strength of your island is the gameplay advantages that come with great performance and long view distances, have you considered creating a second variant of the final island with even more performance? I think this might be perfect for missions that are focused almost entirely on flight. The idea being that since in flight, the player wouldn't be really looking at the details of the ground too often, this second variant would have most of the extra ground-level eye-candy removed or reduced so as to maximize the view distance performance, allowing for better overall gameplay when flying.

Anyway, once again I'd like to praise you for your work on this island. It's really fun to mess around with, and I enjoy it thoroughly when I have the free time to do so.

Best Regards

[action_man]

I am having trouble downloading SJB seals,their web site has gone! How about using Lsr seal's i know they are ace,and SJB seal's are very old.

[Snake_Man]

You have a great Island and campaign pack there. Please don't give up on perfecting it.

At the moment of posting this the island looks real nice, the campaign has got a new name and completely new storyline behind it.

Where is the new release then? Uh oh, umm dunno, I still want to make two things, first is to fix one of the roads in south-west which is not aligning correctly to the bridge, for this I have to redo the whole road from the south up to the bridge. Second is that I want to finish my dynamic campaign.

Dynamic campaign you say? Heh well this is NOT like the false thing these guys are advertising in BIS forums, their is NOT a campaign, its a mission. This campaign I'm making is dynamic how I understand it; you do X and AI responds with Y so to speak. Also it has weaponpool (weapons/ammo) are carried from one mission to the next. Vehicles are carried over too.

I'm hoping to finish these two issues (well the road is more simpler) soonish. Stay tuned.

and still I can play your campaign at 3000m viewdistance

With the latest PMC Euro 25km edits I did test flying A10 with I believe 3500m viewdistance and it ran smoothly enough. My computer is umm err 2ghz, 1gb ram and radeon 9800.

Some of the mountains and hills that have no trees, you could make them with rock textures

This is not completely done this way now, but there are some rock textures on the slopes and therefore no vegetation. However I did not add rocks there, so it would be good idea to throw few rocks in there to give some hideouts and ruggedness for the terrain. Good idea.

Don't use those coblestone roads, unless inside the cities.

Yeah I already did one trial run replacing all the "coblestone" roads with asfalt ones because I realized this same problem, cars were driving slowly and really... the coblethingy suits the urban areas, but not the rural landscape.

However I still reverted to the coblethingys because the WrpTool road system will break if I change the objects. I do plan to add them into the release version.

An Island of this size makes more realistic the presence of a bigger airbase that could receive the bigger cargo airplanes and bombers. At least 2.5km of lenght

I finished the airbase, but its quite small at the moment with the traditional OFP style. I'm open to suggestion of how to make it more realistic and larger. Dunno if real life sizes are suitable for OFP though?

Here is example screenshots of the existing airbase.

Overview of the airbase region


Then closer look of the airbase and buildings. The right hand side grids are 50m x 50m in size for reference.


When you look at the grid reference, I believe the runway is like 1250meters in lenght, I guess the 2500m runway would not be completely impossible to do. But indeed it would be damned long for OFP standards.

Keep the suggestions coming and I can modify the airbase to suit better realism features.

Build a bigger city at the coast or an emptier spot along the river bank.

One of our design plans was to have a big city, however all the cities turned out to be these "5 building citys" heh.

In some missions you should have given us some Anti-Armour weapons and/or satchel charges.

This will be fixed in the new version with tweaked loadouts / weaponpool.

add traffic along the roads. Put one Ural with a few troops, one UAZ and one BRDM also with troops in long, circular routes around the big mission area

I did this already at least on one or two missions, but indeed I should make it better by tweaking the traffic. It does add atmosphere so much.

Add Spetsnatz patrols with high skill

All my machine gunners and speznatz guys are with maximum (high) skill.

3 spetznats + 1 sniper

I've added them as 6 men teams with normal AK74S (or whatever the short one is called) weapons, I have no idea how russian special forces are setup.

Also, no HD weapons for those Spetz.

Heh well, yeah, but I feel that any non HD weapons mix the balance of the mission too bad.

Have one BMP along a big, circular patrol around the mission area.

Yes I have been planning to add "stupid" search and destroy pattern for BMP/fast vehicle like I did in my early missions. That would be highly random them, but in the same it might cause the vehicle to patrol on "stupid" locations.

Have a patrolling chopper in some missions.

This has been added, I'm not sure on all missions but few. I'll check it out and do more tweaks if necessary.

Have a bad weather probability in at least one more mission.

In all but one mission, we should have random weather... I think.

Then make a 'Deluxe' version, with the tanks, spetsnatz patrols, choppers, and more addon units for the folks with better hardware.

Heh I think I'll keep working on one version, but it would be suitable for all players, with or without hardware

The VITAPC pack,

Ahh, sorry, I will not add further addons to the campaign. In fact I'm planning on removing the LSD because its not used really in any missions except eyecandy on couple of Ranger missions. I hate using addons "for nothing" and too many of them in general.

have you considered creating a second variant of the final island with even more performance?

I did some PMC_Aircombat island, but heh believe it or not with my poor memory, I cannot remember how it looks like. But at least its 51.2km x 51.2km in size, so its big.

We could work on that, but lets make a new topic for it or something. I dont want to make any PMC Euro light version.

this second variant would have most of the extra ground-level eye-candy removed or reduced so as to maximize the view distance performance, allowing for better overall gameplay when flying.

Yes like scattered trees to simulate forests areas, lot of farmland textures which cause no lag at all and then urban areas with buildings, but placed in the manner which wont cause lag. Yep I think it would be quite nice aircombat island for fast movers.

How about using Lsr seal's i know they are ace,and SJB seal's are very old.

In fact the new version of the campaign is using LSR SEAL units

[Kikill]

i love this island, you did a great job on this snake
i can only second all that has been said recently, i really do have fun flying around with a helo. particulary on long range insertion and extractions, deep in enemy territory. it's really stressing

about the airbase, there is a thread in BIS forum concerning this "matter", there is maybe a solution that could please you. i also posted a few links to download some high quality runway textures.

I know, you already said you won't add new addons, so i'd just remind you the HAS and camo-nets addon packs released by RKSL Studio. maybe, you'll consider them for another map ? i really look forward to the 50kms island you're making.

Voila, i wish i could give you ideas for the campaign but i can't even create a mission for myself :-/

[Kikill]

what about nato military symbols ? would you use them for the map in your campaigns ? i think it's a little extra that gives much atmosphere in a mission

[Snake_Man]

Using the USMC markers would be kind of nice, although I use so little markers in my missions that dunno if its another addon for such a little return. But yeah I agree they look nice and are standard use in my addon dirs along with reguirement on CoC CE missions.

Maybe I'll start to use them. is the Phaeden's USMC Symbols still the one and only marker addon out there?

[Kikill]

i don't know any other

[Snake_Man]

PMC Euro 25km is now gone...

Just kidding, the island finally has now a name so I decided to close this topic and start a new one. Look for PMC Rugen topic!