[spud]

I tried putting down some roads along the coast, right through trees, etc. It worked, but a couple times I managed to crash the FMB.

Some questions and an idea.

1. Is there any big no-no for road placement? Meaning that in stock maps they are always in huge clear areas. Is this to make the vehicles use them properly, or will the game crash if a road goes intothe trees (I couldn't care less about getting vehicles to drive through the woods, in the SWPA, they are mostly a visual thing IMO)?

2. Roads apear on top of the underlying tile, correct? Does the road texture have to be a certain size? Is it just the size of a road length, or is it much wider with an alpha channel?

Given those two questions, my idea...

Since the roads seem to sit on top, it might be possible to make new "roads" as a totally new visual effect.

For example, we might make a road texture with side lanes. Who cares if cars won't use them, lay it over regular ground, and place the buildings appropriately along the street. Another use might be lines of foxholes. Basically a 2D set of foxholes that could be placed over any type of terrain to give a sense of the front lines. Or we might make other templates that could be placed on top of another tile for some effect we want. Yes, it will confuse vehicles, but for the SWPA who cares, there aren't many to confuse.

tater

[FA_Cheech]

As I was moving down the slot applying textures, I too wondered about the roads issue. When the default New Guinea map was released I just hated the way the roads and trails were handled, but now that I see the limitations of the software, I defintely have an appreciation for what is "the realm of the possible":!:

I think we should just forget the roads, unless we can do it with some type of simple, realistic looking, custom textures. IMHO, anything that is a non-standard "work around" has way too many drawbacks for mission builders. Especially if there is a danger the FMB might crash, right in the middle of mission construction. :?

[spud]

To be fair it crashed when I was in map editing mode.

Not sure if it was the roads or not.

The only other custom texture might be like "ground plate" but a lot of those has FPS issue if burma is a guide.

[fabianfred]

road are only needed when you are making a vehicle or tank move a great distance along them......as their route will 'snap' to the road

but nowadays I rarely use them in the FMB......just lay out the waypoints where i want.....vehicles will go through (under) forests without any problems

and so will trains...if you edit their WP in the notepad

also using notepad you can get boats to come right up to the beach....or have vehicles cross a river (where you have put a pontoon bridge beside a destroyed bridge ...for example)....or even pretend there is a shallow ford there

[spud]

Yeah, I've moved landing craft ashore that way.

I know what the roads are FOR, but that's not the point. The idea was to make a new road with a totally different texture since the roads allow you to place a texture on top of a tile. Thought it might have someutility becuase they are otherwise not terribly useful in the PTO.