Soggy ground ?

[JG1_Butzzell]

S! All

 

Soggy ground prevents mission makers from adding additional airfields and eliminates missions that require a player to land behind enemy.

 

It may be realistic but does it add to game play? Do we need it?

Edited November 12, 2019 by JG1_Butzzell

[JGr2/J46_Hawkeye]

That's a tough one....the feature itself is pretty cool; but if there is no way to limit it specifically to low or muddy areas on a map instead of an entire map, or if there is no way to give control to a mission designer for where those areas are, then it should be eliminated entirely.  Especially with regard to placing airfields, it should be recognized that those would be (and were) improved through drainage and surfacing that renders them usable as such, in the first place.

[Cynic_Al]

51 minutes ago, JG1_Butzzell said:

S! All

 

Soggy ground prevents mission makers from adding additional airfields and eliminates missions that require a player to land behind enemy.

 

It may be realistic but does it add to game play? Do we need it?

 

Has it been confirmed officially that this feature is deliberate?

[cardboard_killer]

53 minutes ago, II./JG1_Luftritter said:

Especially with regard to placing airfields, it should be recognized that those would be (and were) improved through drainage and surfacing that renders them usable as such, in the first place.

 

A large drainage project could take months to complete, even with war time resources. Dry, accessible landing strip sites drove entire campaigns in the PTO, and even in 1944 the US got into a mud puddle on Leyte and spent most of the campaign trying to dry out airfields they built in the wrong place and giving the IJAAF an opening to contest the battle. Its an important historical consideration.

[J2_Trupobaw]

May be true for PTO, but the map most suffering from it is Arras, 1918, where biplanes historically capable of landing  on any meadow sink into the ground.

Note that the problem may be much more prevalent in Pacific and SE Asia than in colder, dried Western Europe... where it's actually modelled.

IMO for feature to make sense planes that historically were able to take off from such terrain (FC planes, U-2, Ju-87) should be adjusted to ignore it.

Edited November 13, 2019 by J2_Trupobaw

[JG1_Vonrd]

It would be nice if they would make it a selectable feature by the mission makers... one can always hope.  ?

[Flashy]

10 hours ago, JG1_Butzzell said:

S! All

 

Soggy ground prevents mission makers from adding additional airfields and eliminates missions that require a player to land behind enemy.

 

It may be realistic but does it add to game play? Do we need it?

Just a quick one: it is possible to make your own airfields in the ME that are fully functional and place them wherever you want, BUT it does require you to run the game in mods on mode for it to work. A possible quick fix to the issue might be to remove the mods on requirement for modified terrain?  But yes, I agree, the "soggy ground" thing is a problem for an increasing number of planes (mentioned above). WW1 planes and similar types should be able to land on some fields, although there is always a risk the ground isnt as flat as it seems:

 

Story time: A couple of years back my cousin was attempting to fly his tiger moth from Perth to Brisbane in Austraila when he suffered an engine failure and had to put the plane down. He chose what appeared to be a perfectly flat and empty field and landed fine, only to discover that there was a large ditch running across the field which he hadnt seen from the air and promptly ran into. Needless to say it caused a lot of damage and required the plane to basically be stripped and rebuilt extensively. So yeah, even flat fields can harbour nasty little secrets! Thats not to say though that the soggy ground logic in il-2 is a good thing - we still need to be able to land in some fields sometimes!

 

P.S: I'm not sure about your poll options. I think the soggy ground is appropriate for most of the planes in Il-2 because heavy ww2 fighters with their small wheels will probably dig into the ground during a off-field landing (which is one of the reasons warbird pilots land wheels up if they have to make a forced landing) but lighter aircraft with big wheels like the ww1 and u2 types probably wont have this issue. I think it needs to either be plane specific as J2_Trupobaw said, or be able to be set in the ME as II./JG1_Vonrd said..

Edited November 13, 2019 by Flashy

[US103_Baer]

Just get rid of it. Its far more important for mission builder to be able to create AFs and mission types they want to.

Landing on uneven fields is tricky enough anyway.

 

[J2_Jakob]

Voted.

1. Yes (it certainly could add interesting gameplay limitations, but it can't just be everywhere as it is now)
2. Yes (per default. Give this option to mission designers, so they can use it where they see fit)

3. No (in Spring you wouldn't land anywhere on any field but you could do that in Summer? Seems unplausible, unless you pick a freshly ploughed field...)

[No.23_Triggers]

Yeah, it could be a cool feature, but not at the expense of mission makers being so limited as they are. 

 

I'm not 100% sure if this is an 'intended' feature or not, actually...

Edited November 13, 2019 by US93_Larner

[cardboard_killer]

10 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

in colder, dried Western Europe

 

Yes, if there's one thing I remember from history it's that Europe has no mud.

 

[J2_Trupobaw]

Compared to SE Asia and Pacific? Yeah.

[Chief_Mouser]

11 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

IMO for feature to make sense planes that historically were able to take off from such terrain (FC planes, U-2, Ju-87) should be adjusted to ignore it.

 

It would be nice but I can't see how it can be done as it's (as far as I know) a map feature. There should certainly be a wider strip of good ground around the roads. Even one wheel on the grass will kill you at present. That is, perhaps, possible?

Failing that, how about lessening the effect to about half of its severity? Give us a fighting chance of using the terrain.

Edited November 13, 2019 by No.322_Red_Cat

[JGr2/J5_Klugermann]

3 hours ago, cardboard_killer said:

 

Yes, if there's one thing I remember from history it's that Europe has no mud.

 

 

That's from global warming which was not a factor in WWI   ?

Edited November 13, 2019 by J5_Klugermann

[JG1_Butzzell]

8 hours ago, Flashy said:

Just a quick one: it is possible to make your own airfields in the ME that are fully functional and place them wherever you want, BUT it does require you to run the game in mods on mode for it to work. A possible quick fix to the issue might be to remove the mods on requirement for modified terrain?

 

S! Flashy,

 

The maps come with many airfields placed in historical locations. Mission builders often look for flat areas to place additional airfields. This is done for balance, convenience or due to a lack of appropriate airfields. If you compare the FC Arras map to the same area in RoF, you will find that the Arras map is missing about six airfields.

 

The missing FC locations are:

Bailleul  0105.3
Lomme Lille 0207.1
La Gorgue 0305.8
Hesdigneul 0404.5
Villers-Bretonneux 1204.4
Faucaucourt en Santerre  1206.4

Change name of Villers Bretonneux at 1203.9 to Cashy-Bois

 

Being able to place airfields at Bailleul and La Gorgue would greatly increase the functionality of the Arras map. Placing additional airfields does not require mods on for multiplayer.  I did make a mission with airfields at several of the above locations. I could not figure out what the problem was when I spawned in and the plane would not move when I attempted to take off. I turned on external views and saw that the wheels were bogged down. I can understand this as an extremely wet Spring time. It may be appropriate for Bodenplatte but is it necessary.

 

[JGr2/J5_Klugermann]

10 hours ago, JG1_Butzzell said:

 

Being able to place airfields at Bailleul and La Gorgue would greatly increase the functionality of the Arras map. Placing additional airfields does not require mods on for multiplayer.  I did make a mission with airfields at several of the above locations. I could not figure out what the problem was when I spawned in and the plane would not move when I attempted to take off. I turned on external views and saw that the wheels were bogged down. I can understand this as an extremely wet Spring time. It may be appropriate for Bodenplatte but is it necessary.

 

 

Sounds like 1C programmed the wrong springtime.  

 

Springtime for Wilhelm would be more appropriate.

[JG1_Vonrd]

So, only planes get mired...why don't the trucks sink to their axles?

 

[Feathered_IV]

Soggy ground is only there to try and police online exploiters from zooming out of the revetments without using the runway. 

Edited November 14, 2019 by Feathered_IV

[Flashy]

20 hours ago, JG1_Butzzell said:

 

Being able to place airfields at Bailleul and La Gorgue would greatly increase the functionality of the Arras map. Placing additional airfields does not require mods on for multiplayer.  I did make a mission with airfields at several of the above locations. I could not figure out what the problem was when I spawned in and the plane would not move when I attempted to take off. I turned on external views and saw that the wheels were bogged down. I can understand this as an extremely wet Spring time. It may be appropriate for Bodenplatte but is it necessary.

 

S! Butzzell,

 

Ah, no sorry perhaps I didnt make myself very clear: What I mean is that you can specify areas of the map that the game treats the same as any other airfield using the surface editor functionality of the ME. You first have to enable the surface edit function of the mission editor:

 

and you will then get something that looks like this where there are existing airfields:

 

 

These are all the different parts that make up an airfield in the game, and most of them are just texture overlays that help the airfield blend into the surrounding landscape tiles and make the airfield look like its been landed on by planes etc, but the important one is the part that actually defines the area of the runway and which changes the physics of that area to be solid. See below:

 

Here you can see it has a width of 300 (meters probably) and the length is whatever the length of the object is in the editor, and the physics are set to "Solid".If you copy and paste this one object anywhere on the map, you will be able to take off and land from that location (obviously dont place it on a hill etc), but you do need to run the game in mods on mode for this to work. However, I think the easiest way is to go the "secret" airfield in Sochi (block 2535.1 on the Kuban map) and just copy that whole airfield and paste it anywhere you want. That way you get all the textures as well as the solid ground runway object, and its a nice small little field with little unnecessary junk that you'd have to remove. I did it in this video where I just chose a random flat field on the kuban map and pasted it down (had to do a bit of editing of the other texture objects to get it to look decent, but it literally took 5 mins):

 

 

 

 

[cardboard_killer]

Mules are high ground pressure.

 

 

-------------------------------------------------------------

Here's what happened to me when I got stuck in the snowy mud.

 

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by cardboard_killer

[JG1_Butzzell]

8 hours ago, Feathered_IV said:

Soggy ground is only there to try and police online exploiters from zooming out of the revetments without using the runway. 

S!

 

That is what I thought. They made the Arras map with the same framework of the Rhineland map. No need for soggy ground in WW I. No takeoff exploit.

[JG1_Butzzell]

S! Flashy

 

Thank you VERY much.   That is a feature I was unaware of.  That helps place the needed airfields.  It may help with other missions such as landing behind enemy lines.

 

Unfortunately, this means as FC moves forward it will be a mods on project.

[Flashy]

12 hours ago, JG1_Butzzell said:

S! Flashy

 

Thank you VERY much.   That is a feature I was unaware of.  That helps place the needed airfields.  It may help with other missions such as landing behind enemy lines.

 

Unfortunately, this means as FC moves forward it will be a mods on project.

haha no worries! I also only discovered this about a month or two ago (been using the editor for 10 years since Rof and never thought to play with the Surface Edit functionality - I'm an idiot! ). But the mods on requirement is a bit annoying. I obviously dont know enough to speculate why the devs made edited terrain a mods on feature - maybe there are cheating implications? But maybe they could look at it again and see if there is a way to have this feature without the mods on requirement. If we could add airfields wherever we like in mods off mode, it would greatly enhance the usefulness of planes like the U2 and WW1 types..

Edited November 15, 2019 by Flashy

[Jade_Monkey]

Soggy ground prevents WT Chad from not taxiing properly, for that reason my vote is 100% to keep it.

 

Maybe a compromise: Keep it near airfields, remove it anywhere else to be able to do "behind enemy lines landings". I'm ok with those.

[JG1_Butzzell]

17 hours ago, Jade_Monkey said:

Soggy ground prevents WT Chad from not taxiing properly, for that reason my vote is 100% to keep it.

 

Maybe a compromise: Keep it near airfields, remove it anywhere else to be able to do "behind enemy lines landings". I'm ok with those.

 

Taxi?  WWI planes do not taxi.  Are you saying keep it for WW II but ok to get rid of it for WW I ?

[cardboard_killer]

So much mud. . .

 

 

 

[Jade_Monkey]

3 hours ago, JG1_Butzzell said:

 

Taxi?  WWI planes do not taxi.  Are you saying keep it for WW II but ok to get rid of it for WW I ?

The poll says nothing of WWI

[JG1_Butzzell]

true.

 

So the only benefit is forcing people to taxi?  

[jollyjack]

On 11/12/2019 at 9:28 PM, JG1_Butzzell said:

S! All

 

Soggy ground prevents mission makers from adding additional airfields and eliminates missions that require a player to land behind enemy.

 

It may be realistic but does it add to game play? Do we need it?

 

What does ground leveler do here?

[jollyjack]

I think it's relevant as far as realism goes ... most places on flat land are not suited for landing aircraft anyway.

In TC tanks seem to have some difficulty there too, never really looked in to that.

 

As far as creating map changes with surface edit and airfields, a great tip.

But if you want to 'publish' a mission using that the map changes must be transferred too. Is there a JSGME transfer trick for that?