You can scale textures in hammer, ergo I simply make all the ground textures sixteen times smaller than normal, they will still have the same detail as before. It's how you make 3d skyboxes, tiny little 16 times scaled model worlds. Blockiness is an issue, yes, but as they're aircraft maps you won't notice. Vehicle and air maps will be eight times scaled as far as I know, and you don't have to use the whole grid, personally I'd like a four times scale setting for making maps about two miles square, you can still get in plenty of detail at that level and it's easy to work with at four times scale. Not in my map it isn't, I use the normal method which is the visibility system, so the commander lags like hell if he looks across the map but the players get nice smooth framerates.
In the test version, the scale setting was a console command, which worked with values up to 16 with visible difference, beyond that, it either didn't affect anything or was too small to see.
and give them overshields, and instead of refs, add missile launchers. we can then change it from empires to battlefield 2142.
That's great,so there won't be any Hitdetection problems either? I would also think that 4 x times bigger maps would be enough and give us enough room for aircrafts with vehicles. Just make sure the aircrafts handle more like a helicopter instead of a Jet. the Big problem you have with planes or Jets,is that you are much too fast. You can hardly see the enemy from miles away and when you do,you only have about a second to aim at it and fire,because then you are already past it again.... That's not fun at all and extremely frustrating for ground units who just can't see you coming. So I would personally go for Heli flight physics. You can still get more than enough speed with these,but they are much gameplay friendly and you avoid those "too fast planes" which you don't really have a chance of hitting... Different version of these: very slow big "gunship" (heavy transport,infrantry + maybe even a tank?) Rocket ship Fight ship ... The list goes on, So you go from extrem Armor with a lot of firepower (alternatively extrem armor with transport abilitys but weak or no guns,that would add to the gameplay because those needed an escort) to low armor with medium range or rocket arsenals. You get the idea. I don't know what you guys have planned for that,I'm sure you'll find the balance. Remeber,too much speed is bad,this is not a flight simulator!
I've played 16X maps, and they are barely large enough. Aircraft will act the way they should, so fighters would be fast, bombers would be slower, and gunships would be like helicopters. You can find a list of aircraft here.
You keep forgeting Solo, that the front pages have not been updated in many years, Ground-Attack craft aren't even listed. Also, here's the sounds I've done for aircraft. NF Gunship - http://media.putfile.com/NF-Ground-Attack-Aircraft NF Fighter - http://media.putfile.com/NF-Fighter NF Bomber - http://media.putfile.com/NF-Bomber NF Dropship - http://media.putfile.com/NF-Dropship Ride into the dangezone demo - http://media.putfile.com/NF-dropship-demo Takeoff - www.empiresuniverse.com/ac/dropship_takeoff_sample.mp3
Sounds are awsome... But I fear (like solo said) that the fighters will be too fast. When even the 16x maps are too small,the 8x maps won't be good for aircraft either. Oh well,let's hope they know what they are doing,I'm confident
Okay,how big is the view distance? This is another important factor... I remember in Battlefield 1942,back in the days, you had problems aiming at your target because the view distance wasn't big enough and you where too fast with Jets (DesertCombat mod). with 16xmaps,you get 16x viewdistance? you do,right? That would probably do... Another thing I noticed when playing Half life 2: Rocks and cliffs slightly changed when moving away,they reduced their polycount. Is it possible to make the terrain adapt aswell? For instance,when you are on the left part of the map,you don't need to have great detail on the terrain on the other half of the map. But when you fly over to the right side,detail will improve while the left side constantly reduces detail and quality,allowing for high detail terrain without slow downs... But source doesn't have that,does it? It's not a sandbox engine...
Okay,but displacement maps obviously can't use LOD,which is a pitty... hope it doesn't look too blocky
The view distance is whatever I say it is, the mapper sets the amount of fog, if any, the far z clip plane, and the fog colour. I don't suppose the dev team would be able to introduce LOD scaling for displacements too? Like a power three scaling to a visual power two at a certain distance? Or would that not help anything?
The dropships can pick up crates of infantry ready for drop, or carry vehicles. [Unless things have changed since the last time the site was updated]
I dont think thats possible with the engine, and notice in hammer when you scale down displacements they tend to tear, if it did work it would probably be more ugly than its worth.
