Just a screenie from a tryout today. I am still tiling at the moment.

We visited Ploesti on our trip to Romania a few years ago

Jel

Ploești

A few more preview screenies. Around Sarajevo Yugoslavia:

Great

The mix tile type ¨+ elevation is great : like the river / road in the valley vs forest on the hill effect

Good Job Moggy !

I agree Lolo.
There is nothing nicer in EAW than flying over interesting terrain.
This influences the choice of theatres at GameRanger. We rarely use the ETO theatre other than the ETO MP Special one which is the ETO terrain with the targets moved so that many games are in mountainous areas:


The front-line allows for a number of groundstarted missions in real time


You can see the mountains in the distance.

Jel

First test after Moggy sent me the files. I made the "TargMap.pic" and the "TargMap1.pic" files.
I was using the "European Russia late" planeset

Single mission target/base selection screen:


Parameters:


Take off:


Large pilot-map. The bearing is about 60°:


First kill:


Having got the maps working I will be concentrating on a multiplayer theatre based on this

First multiplayer host only test:

Making the script:


Parameters:


Take-off:


Initial map when airborne- Time 17.10:


Enemy bombers:


Enemy escorts:


Moggy's terrain:


Enemy in view:


Pilot map immediately after the previous screen. The time is 17.16 so it has been a six minute flight to this point in real time:

You can see the separation on the big map which more or less corresponds to the one in the game screenie

Mission de-briefing:

Great stuff Jel. Glad you have it working.

There is a warning on the initial screen of the MP mission maker:


In your set-up the "frntline.dat" files are in separate folders and not in the theatre folder, so the utility will not run.

So I made a Balkans Theatre Manager called "Theatre Manager.exe" which resides in your "MOF-Balkans" folder.


When selected it copies the "frntline.dat" file and pastes it into the "MOF-Balkans" folder, along with the "CapSet.mpf", and "DNAMES.str" files for good measure.

The Mission maker will now work

I am looking at your four mini theatres to find appropriate targets and bases for multiplayer games to use in scripts.
So far I have two scripts saved that work well

There are quite a few campaign possibilities in the Italy/Balkan/Ukraine theatre. Apart from the basic campaigns in the list above, these are the other possibilities:

1938 Czech Defence (fictitious)(after Jan Tuma)
1939 Poland
1939 Slovakia/Hungary Border War
1941 Barbarossa
1941-43 Croats over USSR
1943 Italy Salerno
1943 Slovaks on the Eastern Front (after Jan Tuma)
1943-45 USSR Counter attack and invasions of Romania/Bulgaria
1944-45 Allied tactical campaigns against occupied Yugoslavia and Greece and shipping in Adriatic
1944 Italy Anzio

I just tried a groundstarted intercept across the Adriatic
The bases were as close as I could get them, but probably too far apart for a ground-started mission.

Take-off:


Contact:




The time between take-off and the first kill was 32 minutes in real time and that is far too long.
As I was flying "host only" I was able to accelerate time, but this is not possible in real multiplayer at GameRanger.

Some of the fun that we have in MP games with closer bases is returning to base when you are out of ammo, re-arming, and getting back to the fray.

That would gave been impossible in this mission

A 10-15 minute wait is acceptable- the trick is to take-off, check the map for the enemy planes or ground-target, set your bearing and throttle at 75%, switch to auto-climb and go off to make a coffee

Jel

I just made a new front-line for fun in multiplayer games:




Historically it makes no sense, but you can see plenty of places where there are bases either side of the front-line, which are ideal for ground-started missions

I had a real puzzle just now.
A few months or two ago we had an enjoyable trip to Italy, flying from Marseilles to Bari, so I flew some allied missions from Bari in "host only multiplayer".
This was impossible in single missions. Bari was not selectable.
Checking I found that it was due to the year and aircraft type settings for Bari in "airfield.dat". They are used in single missions but not in multiplayer.

I had thought, for the time being, that I had made all air bases available in a ll four years. So I need to revisit airfields.dat!

Meanwhile, here is a convoy on the River Danube:



Little bit of tile target tidying required as well!

With the multiplayer front line Bari is in allied territory and the "airfield.dat" has it set for Axis planes. It is not a problem, because the multiplayer FL will only be used in multiplayer games.
I just thought that I would mention the difference between the two.

How did you make your convoy- is it on an invisible track?

Yes, made an invisible track for the length of the Danube. They're moving and smoking.

Excellent. It was first used in 1.29, and I think that you may be the first modder to have done that apart from me