The Slot - Printable Version

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+---- Thread: The Slot (/showthread.php?tid=51379)

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- Scharnhorst1943 - 04.03.2008

Maybe I got off on a wrong foot with you boys here. Your maps are great. I am not debating the accuracy of the maps. I am not debating the accuracy of how the Pacific War was really fought. You boys are right.

I am just considering addapting these maps to DCG campaigns. The whole point of DCG is to not only have historical campaigns, but open ended campaigns as well. DCG will do BOTH. Some people like one, the other, or both. If I make a campaign on these maps as is, sure as there is a God in heaven some jackass will email and complain about, "All I get are anti-tank missions but I can't see or destroy them through the trees! WTF? Your campaign sucks!" And I will have to deal with it from an angry hoard of idiots.

It will be said and I as the campaign maker will have to deal with this. I am just trying to take all things into consideration and with a grain of salt. I am just trying to tell you guys what to do if you want to intigrate these maps into DCG for THEIR FULL POTIENTIAL with DCG as it is RIGHT NOW. You may not get a new DCG update. If you don't then you are stuck with what you got. And if you are stuck with what we got, then what I have said is how it is. I would love nothing more than to not have to do roads and find a way to update the campaign system to move the front another way. But if that does not happen or is not possible, we need another game plan.

That is all I am saying. We should prepare or consider both scenarios. I say this because I am deeply impressed with these maps and would LOVE to integrate them into DCG campaigns. Actually I am working on a "out of the box" set of campaigns for DCG. I want to be able to have users download and with minimal tweaking play any campaign for any theater. That is my goal, but I have been waiting for these GREAT maps to put into the campaign.

I am just saying AS IS, it would be better if there was a road network to use with DCG. I hope along with all of you that a work around can be found.

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- Scharnhorst1943 - 05.03.2008

FA_Cheech Wrote:~S~ All,
I understand that roads are essential to the conduct of DCG campaigns, and how they work, but the simple fact is:

panzerkeil Wrote:The Pacific War was not a tank war. Nor were their many large convoys on land being attacked (except maybe in Burma) from the air. The air-to-ground war in the Pacific was all about shipping and strong points (the Japanese dug in). Putting in non-historical roads to play a non historical auto-generated campaign would be a waste in my opinion.. 8)

Could not have said it better myself, if I had tried.

Agreed. Those are the facts about the historical Pacific War. And I dissagree. It is not a waste of time. Just because it does not interest you or benafit you does not make it a waste of time. I will hands down agree to the statement above except for waste of time. The fact is the Pacific game we have is not structured historically, so we work with what we do have. A European style ground war in the Pacific. That is what it is.

FA_Cheech Wrote:The mods have broken new ground when it comes to accuracy standards for maps, so I think some new ground needs to be broken with how DCG handles the ground war for Pacific campaigns. Changing The Slot to conform to current DCG requirements is definitely a case of "the tail wagging the dog" ... I agree with ... this statement, the only exception being that adding roads instead of changing the DCG system to support realistic Pacific scenarios is a sub-optimal solution.

I agree 100%. What I am telling you is that it may not be possible to get DCG to do this. Either Lowengrin will not agree to update his DCG for Mods, or he may not be able to. I agree this is the less than "optimal solution," but what do we do if the "optimal solution" is impossible? Other than modding DCG, this is the best we have to work with.

FA_Cheech Wrote:As for "different strokes, for different folks", the best solution is:

fly_zo Wrote:... there is room for as much versions as one likes .... historical ... dcg ready .... you name it ....

after original has been made ... it's not a big deal to plot some roads and get DCG version ready ... no need for Team pacific to waste their time on that ...
Z

I predict there will be at least five to ten modded versions of The Slot released by the community, within one month of The Pacific Team's release at the end of March. There will be dogfight versions, many different versions of jungle, etc., etc., etc.

Again, agreed. All I am asking is that either Team Pacific or the people who will make variations of the maps will take what I say onto consideration, and possibly do this if we don't get a DCG update.

FA_Cheech Wrote:Oh, one last thing...to my knowledge, no one on The Pacific Team said anything, anywhere, about the Japanese ALWAYS having to airstart. Four of the five versions of the map to be released by The Pacific Team have all historical airfields represented. The only exception is The Slot_44 version, which will not include any objects or airfields in the Russells, Guadalcanal, or the Florida Is., in an effort to avoid memory issues with the Map Editor version of the FMB. This is a small concession, as these areas had become rear echelon by the time the ANZAC campaign on Bougainville began, and would be of limited interest to players.

I know, I was referring to stock maps and campaigns I have already done. I was not specifically referring to Team Pacific maps, I am talking about maps we already have (in particular the default and updated Guadalcanal maps ...) I am sorry for the confusion. I should have been more specific.

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- Scharnhorst1943 - 05.03.2008

FC Wrote:I don't see any reason for DCG not to work properly on Slot map, there are DCG campaigns for Pacific without any ground units ( Coral Sea for example).

FC

Of course you would have to bring up the one exception to the rule. There are a few triggers to end campaigns. One of which is to end the campaign if a CV gets sunk. So in those maps you play the campaign until someone sinks a carrier. For historically accurate purposes, this trigger does not apply to island chain fighting or battles that do not involve carriers.

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- Scharnhorst1943 - 05.03.2008

spud Wrote:Yeah, there were 10 IJA tanks at guadalcanal, and some were not serviceable.

Ten tanks, for the entire campaign.

Not sure how many were on Bougainville, but when I counted wrecks a whileback (listed on pacific wrecks) it was a similarly small number. On Bouganville there could have been perhaps as many as 2 dozen tanks. Other islands? None, or 1-2 per island, maybe.

Given the poor way il-2 handles ground attack, 30 tanks is what, 6 sorties?

Airfield destruction, enemy plane/pilot loss, and shipping is how you measure success in the Solomons.

In real life and to be historically accurate, yes. You are completely right. Working with the game limitations we have. No. In order to progress from map to map in a campaign you need a ground war. It is that simple. Whether it is historically correct is not the debated issue. How to get it to work in DCG and DGen inside the game limitations IS. This is what I am telling you. The game does what it does. Either restructure half the game code, get Lowengrin to update DCG, or build a damn road. Those are the options.

Sorry if I seem edgy, too much stress and a lack of sleep is not fun. Too much stress, not enough IL2 time ... :wink:

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- Dixiecapt - 05.03.2008

Like Spud said, I think it was spud, its late and i'm beign lazy. After the release a DCG version of the Slot can be made, and, or I have mailed Paul Low, the maker of the DCG and sent him messages on his site for him to come and check this all out and see if we can mod the DCG to the Slot.

I figured it was worth asking since Pacific Team had revamped IL2 PTO with this map, maybe Low and his team can revamp the DCG to work better with it.

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- Scharnhorst1943 - 05.03.2008

spud Wrote:There are open areas on the Slot map. Villages, important clearings (many are kunai grass covered hills), etc.

If the handful of tanks were moving from one village to another along the coast (no roads) sometimes in the jungle (layered forest) sometimes visible, and you flew there and they could not be attacked because they were in the trees... tough. Drop bombs on secondary targets, better luck next time. You'd not have seen them in RL, either.

Again, I agree. In real life you would not have seen the tanks, and in real life there were not really any tanks. However, this game is not real life. It is a limited game.

spud Wrote:In general, the vatious important points in the SWPA were not connected with roads. The Kokoda track was a footpath. There should be no tanks on it at all, certainly not in the middle, maybe near the coasts.

In real life, yes. But listen to what I am trying to tell you. You cannot have DCG without a road network. That is how you have a location in the first place. No roads means no location. No location means no airfields or supply basses or harbors or invasion beaches. No roads means no campaign. The road network is how DCG and the game communicate to each other. That is how they work together. Now you can have roads anywhere you can place waypts, but you still need roads. I repeat, "]The ONLY way to advance a front or capture ground locations or invade an island is with a road network.." Only ground units use the road network. The only ground units that can move the front are tanks. The only way to invade and capture an island is with a tank column. Whether historically accurate or not is irrelevant. That is how this game works. Period. There is no discussion. That is how it is. And let me just add, Paul Lowengrin has improved and added a multitude of things into the DCG engine that DGen does not do. He has ALREADY gotten DCG to do things DGen can't ever dream of doing. He has pretty much maxed DCG out to what the game engine is limited to as far as the campaign is concerned (stock game, that is :wink: .)

spud Wrote:There were airfields along the NG coast, and they were completely unconnected by roads. The 5th AF supplied fields by air. Can planes like C-47s be treated as "trucks" from a supply standpoint in something like DCG?

Yes, they already are. In DCG campaigns, C-47s fly from airfield to airfield. When they land they act like a transport ship ad repair any damaged static planes or objects. So if an Airfield gets anihilated in a mission, and the next mission a C47 flies there, everything damaged will get "repaired" and the airfield will be fully functional again. This is already incorporated into DCG. Now C47's can also do paratrooper drops and capture one location, but they cannot move a front on an island. The one location would be captured and that would be it. Of course enemy partroopers could always take it back too. I don't know. Maybe you could do something with paratroopers, but again, you are going to be extremely limited.

spud Wrote:Seems like it requires a slightly different take on they dynamic campaign is all. The map itself is built of "ideas outside the box," perhaps we need to do the same with dynamic campaigns.

I could not agree more. However, the campaign is more limited then making maps. We do not have as many options as you guys do. We can think all we like, but in many respects our hands are tied. We don't have near as much leeway or room as you guys do. Just being honest.

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- spud - 05.03.2008

Yeah, I see what you are getting at, but I don't grok DCG well enough to be able to talk about it on your level is all.

Once the maps are made, you can always chuck roads on at will and see what happens. Withthe map editing FMB, it's just a bunch of control clicks with roads selected. I had some issues when I messed with it though, roads in bad places seem to make the FMB unhappy.

I tried to read your DCG thread, but I was out of my depth.

Regarding the tanks, at this point we could probably make a new "tank" using the little human figures.



I don't think we're trying to jump down yuor throat, BTW. In my case I don't understand the DCG well, and I think we all figure that once released, it would be easier for someone who understands it to mod the map and show us rather than have the map team learn DCG before we can go forward.

If we get a demo of how it works, and it doesn't require trashing the realism of the map, then we can figure out what to do on the next maps, and maybe someone can retrofit it to the slot.

BTW, in terms of the "look" of roads, we can always make a new road, slovakia did. Maybe more alpha channel so it's VERY narrow.

That make sense?

tater

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- Scharnhorst1943 - 05.03.2008

spud Wrote:Yeah, I see what you are getting at, but I don't grok DCG well enough to be able to talk about it on your level is all.

Once the maps are made, you can always chuck roads on at will and see what happens. Withthe map editing FMB, it's just a bunch of control clicks with roads selected. I had some issues when I messed with it though, roads in bad places seem to make the FMB unhappy.

I tried to read your DCG thread, but I was out of my depth.

Regarding the tanks, at this point we could probably make a new "tank" using the little human figures.



I don't think we're trying to jump down yuor throat, BTW. In my case I don't understand the DCG well, and I think we all figure that once released, it would be easier for someone who understands it to mod the map and show us rather than have the map team learn DCG before we can go forward.

If we get a demo of how it works, and it doesn't require trashing the realism of the map, then we can figure out what to do on the next maps, and maybe someone can retrofit it to the slot.

BTW, in terms of the "look" of roads, we can always make a new road, slovakia did. Maybe more alpha channel so it's VERY narrow.

That make sense?

tater

It makes perfect sense. I am sorry if I got all defensive. :oops: I have had some tragic events going on in my personal life. When it rains if flippin pours. So if I got stand offish I appologise. I guess I was just getting frustrated because I felt that I was not getting my point accross.

About the map, don't worry about making roads on it. Make your map first, and after you get it initially done, maybe you and me can talk later about how to get it working with DCG.

I am sorry that my DCG thread was too in depth. You should have posted a question. I would love to explain anything you don't understand. Where did I lose you in the thread? I would actually be willing to do one on one via email to show you and share some files if you or anyone else is interested. See that is the feedback I was wanting. I never got any questions, and I did not know if I was too vague or too over bearing ... I guess now I know ... If I could adress this and find a way to explain it on a level you are more comfortable would you be interested again?

Just curious, and a new tank that looks like a soldier is one hell of an idea.

All the best

Brian

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- ex_RAAF_Elecfitter - 05.03.2008

I love DCG, its campaign missions are usually varied and unrepetitive (most times) and I love the detailed debriefs. Why cant the map builders finish their historically correct maps but also release a DCG friendly group of maps? That way we can all be happy?

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- spud - 05.03.2008

The beauty of this community is that once the Slot is out, it will be easy to experiment with for anyone that wants. The FMB tool is stickied in this forum, you can literally place roads the same way you'd place buildings in the FMB. Anyone who understands DCG/DGEN also likely understands the mission builder, but the converse isn't true.



tater

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- Dixiecapt - 05.03.2008

Because (and I hope Pacific Team dosn't mind me speaking for them) everyone has been very excited about this map since November while they've been hard at work on this massive project (w/o pay).

I personaly can't wait to get my hands on the first release, and wouldn't want to see that delayed so they could make a DCG Copy of the Map, or ask them to do more work then they are so close to the finish line. Don't get me wrong, Im a DCG freek, and we will get our DCG version of the map, even if a member of AAA has to learn how to do such themselves (which the will)

BTW, Tanks that Look like Troops!!!! Thats freekin Awesome, that would fit into the DCG PTO issue Nicely! Bravo for that Idea!

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- Skunkmeister - 05.03.2008

If all you need is a network of roads to get DCG to run with the map, we'll just put some trails under the forest canopy and voila, DCG map. Unless its more complicated than that?

I still have the overlay for roads on Bougainville anyway, I can just apply it to the map.

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- Scharnhorst1943 - 05.03.2008

I am sorry if I have offended any of you map makers. I really do appreciate all the hard work you have done (w/o) pay. I did not mean to come across ...um... the way I did. I have had some really bad crap going on and it makes one edgey. This is a fantastic map and it will be enjoyed by all. Please do not over burden yourselves by making additional maps. Just do your release and we will worry about this later. I have seen pictures of your work (outstanding) and I have been personally hyped about this particular map for a long time. I have been checking this thread for updates regularly. As a campagin designer I know how much work and sacrifice in time is required to do a project like this. So my personal appologies.

Seriously. Lets just get the map and then worry about the other stuff later. We still might get that DCG update if Lowengrin can swing it. I would rather have a DCG update than force something so beautiful (your map) to work with what we have.

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- Dixiecapt - 05.03.2008

Skunkmeister Wrote:If all you need is a network of roads to get DCG to run with the map, we'll just put some trails under the forest canopy and voila, DCG map. Unless its more complicated than that?

I still have the overlay for roads on Bougainville anyway, I can just apply it to the map.

Yeah, the only compicator there is seeing the targets through the tree canopy. However the DCG would work correctly! You would just have to use things like F7 and padlock to locate the targets under the brush, or make fog marks on your canopy glass as you peered down below, hehe. However, there is something to be said about Hunting Transport ships that will be carring tanks from Island to Island, and or keeping enemy Aircraft off your own tanks. Also, again, just for PTO realism the Tank that looks like a troops, Nice!

Ok i'm posting tooo much on this thread, just excited is all.
*sits on hands and simply watches for release*

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- FA_Cheech - 05.03.2008

Scharnhorst1943 Wrote:I am sorry if I have offended any of you map makers...

Hey m8, don't sweat the small stuff...no offense taken my friend...hope everything works out at home...your comments and inputs are ALWAYS welcome here

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