Israel Theater Mac Port Progressing

[Setmose]

Hi --

The Macintosh port of Israel Theater is progressing. I am now flying the terrain on the Mac. If someone has a website in which to store images I can email some screen shots and then I or they make a posting here that includes the links.

So far the experience has been an eye-opener. I had never experienced SP3 (or any SP) before this project. I am seriously thinking about buying a used PC just for this app! In the Mac world, we are hobbled at Mac executable version 1.06d, which means no eFalcon and later executable fixes. Thus we are stuck at 800 x 600 resolution, etc. We do have a Reality Patch from Dragon et. al. that covers weapons, FMs, models, and textures changes up to the early SP releases. Hopefully Falcon OIR and Falcon V, incorporating all the great switchology from the SP series, will be available for Mac...

The main thing I want to say here is to Dudi Likvornik: chol ha kavod! I don't know if most users of Israel Theater understand the fidelity of the terrain. I was able to fly along the Jerusalem Corridor through Shaar Hagai, which is my daily commute route! The Arava Highway is there in the lower valley, and the Ein Gedi cliffs look great! Across the lower Arava in Jordan, Dudi has even included the red rocks of Wadi Rumm. These red rocks, and the red sand that erodes from them, are what gave the ancient biblical kingdom of Edom its name: Edom translates from Hebrew / West Semitic as "red"! Dudi, I really wanted to land at Eilat and go snorkling for an hour before returning to base!

The next steps in the Mac port are:

o Object Placement / Name Strings
o Links
o Squadrons
o Ground Units
o PAKs
o Campaign Strategic Goals and Victory
Conditions
o UI Maps & Kneemap
o Squadron Patches
o Custom TEs (my humble value-added piece)

During this process I have been in communication with and hope to get help from Rick "Dragon" Prior at MacFalcon4 on the Mac version of Theater Builder and his Mac Theater Installer / Switcher. I might bother the guys in this forum from time to time as well.

Avi Metcalfe
Setmose@compuserve.com
Jerusalem, Israel

[ccc]

welcome.

and hope you Mac falconeers can enjoy Dudi's theater, very nice indeed!

[Setmose]

This is a question for Dudi --

In the te_new.tac file for Israel Theater there are many objectives: 6052 compared to 2659 for the original Korea Theater. Towards the end of the list you've added many instances of a few cities to serve as road junctions. "Nazzer North City", "Montefiroe North City", "Al Rabieh North City", etc. These instances do not appear as political assets or infrastructure assets in the map views.

Am I correct in guessing that you used multiple instances of these city objects in order to get around the problem of overflowing the 46K limit for strings in the .wch file? I remember you had a few posts about that.

The issue is that I think these city names are reported in the "Update:" field of the Event Map display. So as the FLOT (Forward Line of Troops) moves one way or the other during the campaign, the user sees a constant stream of reports about a battle centered on "Montefiroe North City", which doesn't give any indication of what is really happening on the ground.

One possible workaround would be to name only the major cities, and then refer to the minor cities with *short* strings that give latitude and longitude, or bullseye coordinates. Something like "City 32.1N 31.2E" or even "C 32.1 31.2".

What do you think?

best regards,

Avi Metcalfe
Setmose@compuserve.com
Jerusalem, Israel

[Setmose]

Hi --

A follow-up question. There are no Israeli vehicles in the SP3 sim database that I can see, so the Israeli units are comprised of American equipment in Israel Theater, true?

If so, would it be possible to get some Israeli vehicles added to the sim database? Is this something to be passed on to the Falcon Unified Team? We would really only need to add the Merkava IV MBT and Achzarit APC. It would not be so inaccurate if the rest of the unit vehicles were American.

It would be great if FUT would do a Lavi fighter model & cockpit, of course!

Avi Metcalfe
Setmose@compuserve.com
Jerusalem, Israel

[Setmose]

OK, one last afterthought --

Instead of using the string "C 31.2 32.1" why not just use a string that gives the coordinates, since there are no ground features associated with these city objects: they are simply placeholders for ground movement. So use a name string like "32.1N 31.2E" which is only 11 chars.

Then in the "Updates:" area of the Events Window we will see transcripts like:

Egypt Migs intercepted Israel F16s north
of 32.1N 31.2E

Egypt 3245th Mech Cavalry captured Gaza
City

Israel F16s struck Egypt 3244th Mech
Battalion south of 30.3N 29.4E

etc.

Avi Metcalfe
Setmose@compuserve.com
Jerusalem, Israel

[Death_119]

Campaign, units they all need links in order for the campaign to function and for them to move. as much as accurat and as many as you got the best. so at first they were all infrastructure not listed any where, but after few tests it was seems that units reacts diffrently to those next to reguler City objectives. so i changed them using a certin City model. i deleted the model for it won't show inside game and changed is icon for the map. but the UPDATE screen still capture those. all names were listed by the parent links.

[Jetfighter]

Great! Another active Mac simmer. Keep it up

Basil, Swissflight
in front of an iMac...