Started the new campaign, The Road.


In other news.....

Been getting vary interested in doing a historical mod of Vietnam heavy on the M113a1 ACAV. I have a massive soft spot for cavarly soldiers. Best damned soilders the US Army has. Ok I am baised on that.......... But the 11th ACR Blackhorse Troopers did an ass kicking job with the M113a1 ACAV. Hell, thats where the term ACAV came from. It may have been the RVN that came up with the 113 ACAV, but it was the 11th that made it work.

But as much as I love SABOW, I will probably have to move engines in order to do it. ARMA 3 engine is the most promising. But I will need to do a MASSIVE unfook what BI has done to the armaverse. I do not think they ever fixed how armor was handled. APOS/SABOW does such a better job of this. That and deformable terrain. But this is a one of those embro ideas that can evolve. Perhaps an APOS total conversion? Would prefer playable 113a1 but honestly in terms of popularity tactics type games are more popular. Think I will start to put out feelers and see if any moder types have interest. To do it right would need a team of folks with intermediate skill level for model/textures and ALOT of time to devote. I wonder if there would be any commerical interest? Like i said.........embryo idea.

Not my war but I will always be a cav scout at heart I am discovering. That was my Mothers war...........she told me NEVER join the Marines.....she was 100% right on that.

Thoughts or comments on this?

BTW I am still finishing everthing I started for SABOW projects. I am noticing a drop in downloads/interest.

I think most people are afraid to download since that patch is coming out within the next few weeks

Well there is that.......... If publisher did not have heads up their rear end a DLC/ADDON would have been at least annonced. Just saying...........I think sales where high enough to warrent that????? Graviteam needs to make more cash so they can self publish.....

I mean really? How hard is it to under pay some dude to do a little PR? Talk about a daft buisness practice for a publisher.....


OKdoky.............back to making my SABOW mission The ROAD.

Just releaiazing how much of my SABOW work can be recycled. M2Hb, M1 helmet, F5, m113 (not done), hell even part of of my old saladin armored car. Producing most of the small arms m14, m16, m1 carbine, sks, m1919mg, m29 mortar, maybe m1 garand (ARVN early days), BAR (ARVN early days), would take me perhaps 1-2 months depending on how much time I put in. The rest of weapons are same as APOS.

Big stuff that would be nice to have like m41, m48a3, pt76, t54 would take perhaps 2 weeks per vic for model, lods, and texture. Still have swiss cheese understanding of rigging these alas....so more time for that.

Campaigns.........takes me about 2 weeks to make and test/tweek a camapaign. Much faster with help for testing.

Buildings and vegitation........ Unknown with SABOW APOS. But a decent building should not take more and a few days including lod, destruct models, and textures.. Rigging........unknown. Vegitation....easy but time consuming. Weak spot on my portfolio.......could fill it eassy.

BIG HOLE............no maps. Everyone that Graviteam has set up with this in Russian community has failed or is stalled.

Character models........never done one. That is an issue. But I went to art school..........lol. Sure I can but would try and find someone with experience. Modding existing models.........no source files or understanding to rig with animation system within apos.

Doable project with help from Graviteam to fill the holes.

Got quite alot done on mission The Road. Should be able to start testing/tweeking it in a day or two. Ran into a wierd issue where I can not add spaces for reserves on movement map. VARY WIERD. Not a huge issue for Iran side, put a big issue for Iraq side.

Getting vary excited about the prospect of a new APOS/SABOW patches. Can't wait to release everything I have been working on.

Oh geezz forgot to ask one thing....

Could use a few folks for a closed beta of missions and mini mod. PM if intereted. Would start sometime next week.

Having a weird issue with movement map and spots for reserves....... There use to be a tab under movement to select what kind you wanted, but as you can see there is nothing. ?????????????

Anybody else up for a alpha (not beta for sure) testing of V1.9 minimod and The (FML) Road mission? So far just whukid and myself. The Road so far is a ball breaker (unfinished, unbalanced). Message me if interested.



A semi-historical campaign....

So I either I have gone completly daft.............or the progressive movement command in both SABOW and APOS are missing in current released builds. UGH.

The road shows great potental so far, but need the dang progressive movement map to complete it. The other option is to overload all platoons to double strength. Probably end up doing this for testing purposes until this issue is resolved.

May finish up Mardga Redux Expert here in a day or two as i figure out what the heck to do.

Also have been looking into modding polygon files. So far I have only gotten 4 files to open. But the ones I am most interested in modding are the tree layers and more elevation changes. I suspect that if this can work only minor things can be none as the "cells" need to still intergate between themselves. BUT, even mild elevation changes of 1 - 3 meters is enough to totally change experience of firetest (ya who cares, lol) and susangerd. I looked up the area on google Earth, but if its anything like Central Iraq then there should be ALOT of mild elevation changes that would not show up on crappy maps. I have gotten the normal map to open for some cells of firetest. But I would expect this to be primarly for "noise" and the heigth map (which I havent gotten open) more for elevation. Need to take the pludge and see what happens if I try and make a big ole hill in firetest with its normal map.

As I suspected.........normal map is just a normal map . Need to figure a way out to get at the height map and or to compress it to whatever format it is using (binary?) Ugh.......probably a dead end.

Been working up Mardga redux and tweeking mini mod for afgan side. One the mini mod part added in molatov's (useless but nice light show) and smoke grenades to afgans, along with an extra rpg for infantry squads. On the mission side removed entire 2nd btr platoon that is in north west corner of map and tweeked the recon platoon. In marda redux I was able to kill insane abouts of infantry with 1 t62. But I had support of those platoons on my flanks to keep away pesky infantry. Now its just 1 reinforced recon platoon with a t62. Should turn into the Alamo now. Removed 1 to55 platoon and added a one t62 into the other. Those flame tanks are pretty bad ass in a night fight. Now you will have direct control of 3 of them in the chemical tank platoon. Dropped most of the dismounted infantry and but them back the way it was. Just to much of a pain to deal with the dismounted infantry on the attack. Still have them in recon platoon though. Also soviet bmp squads now have a full 8 man squad of infantry instead of 6. No idea if this is historical for soviets in that war, but the 2 extra body's are going to be needed for Mardga redux Expert. Added in 24 personal as replacements in the supply section. Lots of tweeks to reserve pools on both sides. Attempted to make the mission scale depending on settings. Historical on will be VARY hard. With it off player will have access to a number of replacement vehicles.

Also attempted to make t55 playable with t62 interior. Ya.....NO......sort of funny bad. I knew it was never going to work, but one of the little things I have been wanting to give a go too. BUT....with alot of trial and error (mainly error) I beleave something could get faked for a really bad playable tank.



Ya looks real bad from side and front.

Did you try scaling it down? It looks as though it would work just fine if it was alittle smaller over all

Was just a quick cfg change. Honestly think it would be easier to just build a half arsed interior from a clean slate. These models where built with blue prints so with a little care building just the basics of interior should not be to awful. But alot of cursing would be involved. Or just make basics of interior, with no lights, a black texture, with vision blocks.