I know that we have all experimented with the small offline maps for mission building. The problem is that to create a whole campaign, the limited area gets old after only a few missions.

I am sure that many of you know you can place objects off the map by simply opening the .mis file in a text editor & changing the coordinates. It has never been very useful until now. With the Desert MT map, Oleg & crew were kind enough to give us ocean to the North, two straight coastal areas to the East & West and desert all along the South. This would correspond to the coast of North Africa at almost any point. The lack of significant coastal cities with a small mountain range to aid in navigation makes this map ideal to take advantage of placing objects off the map.

Here is how to increase the size of the MT map from 2500 square kilometers to 22,500.

All you have to do is place your objects, mission goals, waypoints, vehicles, etc. on the map and then close & save the file. You open the .mis file in wordpad or notepad & change the coordinates to the new location you would like them to appear. To move them off the left side of the map (out of Egypt & into Libya, for example), about 40 km down the coast, you would put in the longitudinal # -40000.00 in place of the one in the file. This would be at approximately "Point A" in the chart below. The gray area indicates negative coordinates and the dark grey is double negative (both Longitude & Latitude).



You now have an enemy base down the coast in uncharted territory. The only problem is that your in flight map no longer works. Why? because when you fly off the map, it won't follow your path anymore. Not a big issue on the desert map because if you get lost, all you have to do is turn North & follow the coast back to the mountain range. Now we are even simulating navigation problems faced by real pilots and the "Fog of War". You can't see your enemies icons or the target icons either. That means your briefings are going to have to be very thorough with time & distance to your waypoints. You can always turn on Autopilot to get a bearing to your next WP, get a heading and then turn it back off again. Hidden or secondary mission goals placed at the waypoints also give visual clues that you have "arrived". I personally see it as a whole new challenge.

To work out arrival & intercept times for enemy flights, I have found it works well to place the flight on the map in the mirror image of how I would want it to be off the left hand side of the map. Then you simply replace the positive number with a negative and they have the correct flight times. Keep in mind that when you work with negative coordinates, it reverses the relationship between objects when they are moved. (If the AA was to the right of the truck, it is now on the left)

If you are moving objects off the right of the map(from Tunisia into Libya from the East)all you have to do is increase the coordinate number relative to the distance you want to move it.


If you save the file under single missions, you can fly the mission & use static cameras to check the location of your objects. Then you can minimize FB & edit the locations in the text file. Save the .mis file & restart the mission to see if your changes are what you are looking for.

I am working in "uncharted territory" so to speak, so if anyone has anything to add, feel free. I have used this feature extensively in "The Blue" which you can DL *here*

Some people may not be interested in flying over featureless desert or ocean for extended distances (like me) but it does have some possible uses for placing enemy bases further away and eliminating the "hiccup" when you spawn EA during a mission. I hope this helps those of you/us who are wishing the desert map was just a little bigger for our offline campaigns!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bird_brain,

I have something to add: Here you can download a Perl script that will move even complete cities (which you have built in the FMB) to other parts of the map or outside of the map within a second. To use it you must have Perl installed on your computer -- and you shouldn't be frightened when you see a DOS window.

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Truly awesome - I hadn't realised that at all but will be having a play later tonight... Thanks Bird Brain

This is inspiring stuff, M8

I'm gonna have a go at this when I get the chance.

Thanks for great info

Hot Space



Festung Europa Spitfire Campaign

Very cool Bird!

I am going to try this. I was working on a small desert mission last night; 4 109 Emils meet up and escort 2 110's for a shipping attack. They're bounced by 4 Hurris on patrol. Then to add some fun an additional 2 Kittyhawks show up that were assigned to escort the inbound ship the 110's were attacking.

I've been busy d/l desert skins for all the relavant planes use in the Med. I hope to have a few missions soon. You're idea has opened up a whole new realm of possibilities.

Thanks

Johann

Horrido!
"We need more ammo!"


"Achtung Kommandant, sind Sie Fläche auf Feuer"

You're all welcome.

I was just trying to finish up a few skins that are unmarked for offline campaigns. They are a little hard to find. I will upload them to IL2Skins when they are done. Look under "jaybird" in a day or 2.

http://www.il2skins.com/?action=display&skinid=12031

http://www.il2skins.com/?action=display&skinid=12120

http://www.il2skins.com/?action=display&skinid=12175

I hope this doesn't give away what I have been working on.


The World's Greatest Aces Collection
The Hell Hawks Campaign

[This message was edited by bird_brain on Tue June 01 2004 at 10:57 AM.]

[This message was edited by bird_brain on Tue June 01 2004 at 11:09 AM.]

Your Car

Hot Space



Festung Europa Spitfire Campaign

this is exhalent info Bird Brian! Would you mind passing this on to Lowengrin of DCG fame? I'm shire he already knows but just in case it could add so much to his program forgot the link DOH! http://forums.jagdgeschwader1.com/

[This message was edited by Popey109 on Sun May 30 2004 at 11:59 PM.]

WELL DONE!

I have always loved setting takeoff waypoints away from official FB airports. Watching AI aircraft take off side by side with desert dust clouds is Awsum! Just like in the movies.

PS:: If your aircraft bounces too much for you on takeoff, you can turn on Autopilot until you are ready to take over. Auto will take your plane smoothly into the air with your fellow wingmen.

Note1 (player plane only):: Fb109 all versions have a nasty habit of bouncing and collapsing gear on off-airport takeoff or landing. Yak~7B and P11c are almost impossible to take off because of Extreme bouncing (Yak) or poor ground acceleration (P11). In the case of P11c this is new, it used to be ~very~ easy to take off from open ground--I don't know what happened.


Note2 (player and AI both):: The following aircraft cannot start engines and take off except at official FB airports....

CR.42
G.50
I~153
I~16
All the turbojets
Me~323
...mmm I forgot if MC.202 can or not
...and of course, the Me~321, naturally....


bird_brain::

quote:

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***important issue*** I have found that once you move objects off the map into the negative coordinate area, if you open the file in the full mission builder, it will corrupt the file and place the objects back on the map (almost).

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I have never seen this behavior. My experiments show FMB opening and leaving off-map waypoints alone, never changing them. Perhaps its something new with The Patch?

[This message was edited by LEXX_Luthor on Tue June 01 2004 at 02:56 AM.]

quote:

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Originally posted by LEXX_Luthor:
bird_brain::

quote:

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***important issue*** I have found that once you move objects off the map into the negative coordinate area, if you open the file in the full mission builder, it will corrupt the file and place the objects back on the map (almost).

---

I have never seen this behavior. My experiments show FMB opening and leaving off-map waypoints alone, never changing them. Perhaps its something new with The Patch?

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LEXX_Luthor, it may just be my computer. Maybe someone can try opening the test missions and see if it messes them up with the patch installed?
My computer crashed again last night & I think it may be from me having too many things running at 1 time. Minimizing FB with Photoshop & word editors open at the same time for example. I have been trying to get a skin pack done and I use the QMB to view them.

Thanks for the info on the off base takeoffs. I have not had time to check into it yet! I am looking forward to setting up some desert takeoffs as well. Is there any area you have found better than others?


The World's Greatest Aces Collection
The Hell Hawks Campaign

Just flat ground is all you need.

Too bad about G.50 and CR.42 though. Something about needing external starters or something...(starter trucks never seen in FB anyway)

What you could do is make the Fiats airstart at 100m altitude and minimum speed to "make believe" they are taking off.

I ~love~ the flat ground texturing that you see beyond the Desert map border. Its hard to tell the difference from the sand dunes when you are at altitude, but down low you see its just flat texturing on flat ground. Well done Oleg!

quote:

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Originally posted by LEXX_Luthor:
Too bad about G.50 and CR.42 though. Something about needing external starters or something..._(starter trucks _never_ seen in FB anyway)_

What you could do is make the Fiats airstart at 100m altitude and minimum speed to "make believe" they are taking off.

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G.50 or Cr.42 controlled by human players will be able to start even outside of runways. Just use a Normfly waypoint with Speed=0 and Height=0 as described in my thread Making AI Aircraft Stationary -- A Guide. The engine will be running already when the mission starts. AI controlled G.50 and CR.42 however can not take off outside of regular runways.

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[This message was edited by plumps_ on Wed June 02 2004 at 03:44 PM.]

Thanks plumps. You know for CR.42 and G.50, if one restricts player to wingman, you could set player on the ground as you described and have player take off when his "leader" (actually an aircraft of another flight) appears at 100m at minimum speed. Good luck catching up though, although the "leader" could be made to airstart going the opposite direction before swinging around, allowing the player to take off and catch up.

This also allows player to have delayed mission start, waiting on the ground in cockpit until the "leader" appears in airstart some time later....but just DO NOT shut engine off in CR.42 and G.50 or you won't get it started again.

quote:

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Originally posted by LEXX_Luthor:
Thanks plumps. You know for CR.42 and G.50, if one restricts player to wingman, you could set player on the ground as you described and have player take off when his "leader" (actually an aircraft of another flight) appears at 100m at minimum speed. Good luck catching up though, although the "leader" could be made to airstart going the opposite direction before swinging around, allowing the player to take off and catch up.

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Actually that's what I did in my I-16 campaign for IL-2 1.2 you can download from my website (I never finished translating the briefings to English).

One more hint: Take-off outside of runways will be much easier if you reduce the fuel load.

Remember that it's a trick, not a feature. Quote from an email I received from Oleg today: "Also the sim is designed to take off only from Runways. That is the rule."

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plumps::

quote:

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Quote from an email I received from Oleg today: "Also the sim is designed to take off only from Runways. That is the rule."

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mmm, not entirely true. Roads have the same smooth effect as official FB runways. That was actually written in a Patch readme last year, and it still holds true today after many Patches. And its an Extreme sport, staying on the road on both takeoff and landing.

If you can set your player plane waypoints along a stretch of road for a very difficult open field plane (like Yak~7), you don't need autopilot to take you off. The AI wingmen don't need roads though. But the player needs to be ~very~ good to keep on the narrow roads.

Yes, if only we had roads on the desert map!

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Hey S! good work ,
i tryed online8aIslands(Pacific) didnt work south but east and north work! I took 1 of Burys coop missions -base attack and set all the US planes at
125667.69 longitude, edge of map east is about
50k, it put them about 12 mins out. no WP type
situation at sea other maps may work

Just tried MT map. Didn't work south. They all lined up on the edge of the map.

EDIT: Ahhh, just caught the part about map on. I had minimap and icons on to help me test out the mission ahead of time. Turned them off and tried again and it worked great!



[This message was edited by Pentallion on Fri June 04 2004 at 10:52 PM.]

quote:

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Originally posted by mongral_336th:
i tryed online8aIslands(Pacific) didnt work south but east and north work!

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If you want to post your mission file, I can check the coordinates for you & see why it didn't move your objects where you thought it should.


The World's Greatest Aces Collection
The Hell Hawks Campaign

It should work as long as you don't edit the Mission in the FMB after you've changed the coordinates.

I'm soon going to publish a mission where the action is south of the map. It works great. Actually that's what I had in mind when I wrote 'To Capetown 7500 km' onto a map design I made in February when Oleg promised to make a desert map:



Doesn't it resemble the map we actually got?

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