Hey, just wanted to say that I'm working on a new map at 16x scale. Without the new Empires out yet, however, I have been finding it increasingly difficult to make a map at that scale without being able to test it. I figured we could start a thread about all the questions people might have about the subject, and to kick it off, I have a few of my own. How large of an area do the airplanes have to have to take off? Can you only build aircraft from having an aircraft factory? (No brush-based AF's and no having aircraft already built. Am I correct in thinking that player size at 16x scale is 2 units wide and 4.5 units tall? Have all these questions already been answered in other threads? Lets talk about big maps...
halbalbador, the only one who has made a 16x map is R_Yell because I gave him access to a version of 1.08 with aircraft. I suggest you PM him.
I'd like to help you halbalbador, but what can I do? I just made an aircraft map (1:16), not meant for ground troops. I didn't needed to know too many things, there weren't any buildings, scaled props or vehicles, so can't gather too much experience from it. It was more an exercise to convert real digital elevation maps from a well known place into an Empires map. Anyway, everything should be proportional to scale you are using, that's the golden rule. Maybe you should wait a bit, trying to make a map without the possibility of testing in-game is risky.
Please do tell more. An experiment to make mapping more easier? Any locals we may know of, or is some one planing on making a map of there own back yard? lol
He used maps created from real terrain in his map, scaled down 16X to see if it would work. I don't know what he did, but i guess he used something like the grand canyon.
Using real-world data would definitely produce a more realistic result, but would probably need some tweaking to make it work gameplay-wise. I've not tried my hand at scaled maps yet, and probably won't until long after release. I'm occupied with other projects at the moment (this trailer set is taking longer than anticipated :D).
Damn cool thought. Would be cool to play. Already can picture a bitter tank battle in the confines the Grand Canyon. Whole new meaning to Death Valley.
Real world data is really not very useful except if the map is aircraft only. On the other side, using height maps is almost a requirement if someone wants to make one of these maps without spending too much time. That's also good because you can use World Machine to produce erosion. That's what I made on MValley but has more sense on a map like this, where total area is immense.
In recent progress Krenzo has been able to use ground units on 16x maps along with aircraft so just makeing Aircraft only maps isnt the best idea anymore. We NEED an island hopping map, 16x size...someone make one.
Well with 16x maps, not all of the area has to be traversable with tanks. You can afford to have inaccessible areas. And they don't even have to be linked! Because drop-ships can be used to move between them. So in that sense, I can see modified height-maps working really well. Island-hopping ftw!
Well we cant do anything untill we can get access to 1.08 to be able to set up the maps correctly. But that should give every one time to practive to get some maps done. Damn and I have been thinking of a few ideas but ill create a new thread instead of hijacking this one. Maybe create a compitetion to create a specific map type, that is open to every one and see how many are interested.
Are you the only person currently working on a 16x map R_yell? Would you say its too large to make it detailed enough to look good from the perspective of infantry?
