[Scharnhorst1943]

Not sure if this has been cleared up yet, but there seems to be some misunderstanding of DCG in this thread. You don't need ROADS for a DCG location, just waypoints. A route for a vehicle in DCG is just a series of waypoints for it to travel over. It's even possible to build them crossing rivers, going through jungles, etc. If the map is missing actual roads, it doesn't matter to DCG, the tanks will just go from waypoint to waypoint. I've even made campaigns where tanks "swim" onto a beach. It's also possible to make a route network with single point locations, like unconnected airfields in a jungle.

A tip for designers - if you run into terrain tanks can't handle, plot waypoints using aircraft instead. FMB might not allow tanks to cross mountains or rivers, but the game doesn't actually know the difference.

Sorry if this has already been stated, but it seemed to be a sticking point.

I know, this is all true, and very good points they are too (from both you and Widowmaker). My concern was making a campaign knowing it might be difficult for some players to destroy the tanks when they get assigned G-Attack missions (and they will). I guess I am very self concious about putting my work out. I want it to be as perfect as it can be, and I want it to be able to be good enough quality for as many people as possible to enjoy it. I know after I put it out there, there will be SOMEBODY who will complain or tell me what I did wrong; how this plane type was not in X battle or my squadron ID's are wrong and bla bla bla. It never fails. I guess I just try to clear out problems when I come across them. Maybe I made a mountain out of a molehill with this subject, but there will be people complain about this. Then you will have the DGen purists who will say DGen is better because this this and this ... using things like this as an example.

And when I was talking in my previous posts, I was not always referring to the physical road on the map, but the road as it relates to DCG. What I failed to communicate was that without those waypts (ie - road) DCG cannot function properly to geerate a campaign because it cannot find locations or move the front. My concern was only from the stand point of a campaign designer, whose job it is to produce quality work that everyone will enjoy. I don't know how enjoyable spending my time flying missions against invincible or impossible to find tanks will be, and I don't expect others to have to put up with less than the best possible solution or work from me.

And as for DCG workarounds, there are several options. I think the best one would be to use the ferry option. Another good one is using paratroopers and dropzones to capture either locations or islands or both. The airfields in particular work well with this option. Another possibility is to have a sea road from the off map supply to each island for invasions, and set up an invasion for every island ... there are many ways to make it work, I guess the problem is deciding which one gets the best results.

Seriously though, I think the ferry option is our best bet. Maybe we can get either a version of the map with a beach around the island for the tanks, or a network of roads or trails. This version can come after the initial release, so there is no pressure to make a special version. I am sure someone in the community will be able to do so to help with any DCG issues. No worries.

If someone can pull it off, I would love to see a tank column of infantry ... then we could just make small trails and get strafing runs on infantry positions or encampments ... Of all of them I think the infantry column mod would be the most bennaficial to the Pacific part of this game.

I get worked up too easily :!:
I need a drink ... or a cigarette ... or both ... 8)

[spud]

I don't know how dcg deals with the requirements of killing the tanks to move the campaign along.

For the sake of argument, if 50% need to be destroyed, could you not limit the tanks to a very little amount of movement on the road? They you know they are inside some grid. The allied mission in this case would simply be to carpet bomb the grid. The % required could simply be reduced until the right number of missions moves things along.



ObSlotImage:


(doh! Had fabian's smoke turned off!)

tater

[FltLt HardBall]

Beautiful! Nice job on the elevation!

[Skunkmeister]

Beautiful! Nice job on the elevation!

You can thank NASA for that

...and Clockwatcher.

[spud]

Cept the foreground hills at Munda, there, they were too small to show up on the radar data, I mouse wheeled those myself

I only had to make 2 hardstands about a half a "parking corner" plate less deep than they were, too, to get Kokengolo hill next to the runway. Biblio might be a little small, but it looks good.

Gotta have "the bomb crater" as the japs called it (kokengolo hill). Important landmark.

[Scharnhorst1943]

The % destroyed trigger for DCG only works with static tanks. You could set static tanks and a percent destroyed, but why would you want to? If you are going to do that it would be better to just place tents at airfields and have the % of tents destroyed or something. That way you are basing ending the campaign on a % of something destroyed at an airfield.

Think of it this way, you have a road that connects two locations. The road network in DCG is made up of a serries of road segiments. So you have ground waypts from Henderson Airfield to Henderson Fighter Airfield. That is a segiment. Then you have a road from Henderson Airfield to Kokombono Villiage. They way the game works is that it advances the armor columns to the next location every mission. So if on mission 1 the armor is at kokombono villiage, that mission is will travel toward Henderson airfield on the preset waypts (road). Whether it gets there or not within the mission span does not matter. The next mission it will be at Henderson Airfield. The tanks will stay there for as many missions as it takes to destroy troops (abstract troops that DCG uses, not tangible troops) and capture the location. When Henderson Airfield is captured (say after 3 missions) the tanks will then start advancing along the road to Henderson Fighter Airfield. They will get there after one mission and a battle will then be fought for that location.

So the road network is a serries of locations connected by road segiments. Actually, think of it like a circuts class. You have voltage sources or whatever connected by wires right? Well same in DCG, the tanks are the current, and they travel along the wire (roads) to the next locations. DCG always makes everything (I mean ground units) move toward the front. Ships either stay in Carrier patrol boxes or follow the sea lanes that the campaign designer makes. They don't necessarily always go to the front, but they do advance to the next road segiment.

I hope this helps you understand

[spud]

In an Island Chain You'd see an invasion beachhead, then they'd move inland, usually with some hills being the important "last stand" of the defenders since failing to take the hills allows the japanese to plunge fire (observed from the hill) onto the airfield.

Once secured, it's a new island.

Some islands are totally bypassed, and just bombed.

[Scharnhorst1943]

I think the best way to incorporate what you just described would be this:

Have a location that is not linked to the road network, like say "Island_Hilltop" to "Artillery_Battery", and have an artillery battery on top of the hill on the island. Because this road segiment is not connected to the road network, it cannot be resupplied. If bombed, it will be either damaged or destroyed. Then the last location of the road would be the airfield on the island. This way it is possible for the US (or Japanese) to capture an airfield, but still have to worry about bombardment from hilltops on airfields. If you really want these hilltop locations to change hands. you could use the partrooper otption to drop troops and capture these locations.

That is the best way to set up DCG to represent what you have described.

EDIT: I guess I won't know until I try it. As soon as this great map comes out we can set up a test campaign and see which way works best

[spud]

New coastline.

[RAF_Magpie]

Looking real sexy there Tater

How do you get on with your FPS with those palm trees? Any negative effect?

[spud]

Seems OK so far. I put less than 50% of the number of palms required for it to be realistic. There should really be a palm between each of the single palms in all directions.

Really, we need to up the visibility range of the palms by a decent amount. At the very least they should be visible from directly above at 15,000ft or so instead of the fraction of that they are now.

I tried changing the visibility distance, but to no avail.

[Widowmaker]

Scharnhorst1943,


The % destroyed trigger works with ANY static object, not just tanks. Any static object in the game can be used as the trigger.

Now here is the trick. If you have vehicle columns in the campaign (note this means vehicle columns, armor columns have no effect and can still be used), they will resupply and "respawn" statics when they roll through an area.

To defeat that, you just do not use vehicle columns in such a campaign.. and just put in trucks, fuel trucks, etc in as single vehicles.

Which makes sense for most pacific campaigns anyway.

Also...

"Have a location that is not linked to the road network, like say "Island_Hilltop" to "Artillery_Battery", and have an artillery battery on top of the hill on the island. Because this road segiment is not connected to the road network, it cannot be resupplied. If bombed, it will be either damaged or destroyed."


There is no reason to have an unconnected road network here. The only reason to even do that is to say, make an airfield active without putting it in the road chain.
In this instance, you would just put the artillery battery there and make sure your actual road network didnt run through the area.(thats if you have vehicle columns in anyway. If you use the % destroyed trigger you wont be using vehicle columns)

[duffys tavern]

Great job, Spud. Not just diffrent colors but the textures blow me away. Keep up the good work.

[spud]

Cheech is the texture dude, I just stuck the field there (based on T's template). My creative work was getting the hill in the right spot, and messing with the coast to get it better (skunk smoothed my sorta jagged version out, which is why my first attempt looks OK).

tater

[fabianfred]

i have never had a problem with palm trees.....with my old slow computer (athlon XP 2200+ 1.8ghz/1.5gb RAM/very low card.... I put an extra 5,000 trees around henderson field for the Cactus Diary campaign...with no effect
not running perfect though...just excellent