Very nice inertial model I hear. A few times

Sounds good Argon thanks for that info over in the Pacific Fighters © forum

As compensation though one would have to mention all that open skies and the limitless horizon in Pacific Fighters © which is nice.

Makes a change though and looking forward to trying this inertia stuff in the WW1 mod that Argon has been telling us about over in the Pacific Fighters © forum

Has anything been done about the what-seemed-to-be a tiny amount of terrain last time I flew SDOE? Are the maps larger now?

Just wondering because in Pacific Fighters © I can fly for miles without bumping into the edges, that's an immersion-killer for sure for me

Anyway when I'm recovered from all the elbow-lifting I'll check back for tips on these new larger maps and how to navigate them. I hope there's at least a compass I forget how faithful the terrain is. But hey, who looks at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire

Ming

The SDOP ("Screamin' Demons over the Pacific") group have Wake terrain which is mostly open water - I dunno, is it 250mi on a side? - unfortunately that is the only really large terrain yet. The Russian terrain is a bit oversize, I think 150% of the previous limit. The terrain texture rendering code in SDOE makes it rather difficult to make large terrains other than with repetitive uniform ground features - water, forest, desert or tundra - as more specifically detailed features (coastlines, for instance) have to be painted with full detail, making for an awful lot of terrain texture files.

Of course with the WW1 kites, smaller terrains are less of a problem. Since most ww1 kites fly at about a a third of the speed their ww2 brothers fly, it effectively triples the exsisting terrains size (when you think in flight time anyway). I know when I was playing some of the 1916 campaigns, it would take almost an hour just to get from base to target area and back on the stock Dover map in a Fokker E. III and that wasn't from far corner to far corner either.

Of course some larger ww1 maps would be good too.

hip63 :p

most ww1 kites fly at about a a third of the speed their ww2 brothers fly, it effectively triples the exsisting terrains size

Good point MH

I'm not sure how far one can go with that though, on the slowest-moving means more terrain thing wouldn't Sentinel have an infinite horizon

Infinite horizons I mean. I think you could move* about a bit

Just checking your hippy credentials

Ming

*see 6DOF discussion and definition of 'moving'

But the options are near limitless... Just need someone with time, talent and know-out and anything is possible with SDOE.

You won't regret it Ming. SDOE's WW1 mod is miles ahead of most of SDOE's WW2 stuff, IMHO. I haven't touched the WW2 side of FS for over 4 yrs. Heck, I couldn't even tell you what a/c shipped with the game originally without looking at the box (as was proved in another thread ).

The new WW1 a/c look great and they fly very nicely, thank you very much. Yes, the terrain is a sore spot, but with WW1 kites flying 3-4x more slowly than their WW2 counterparts, it shouldn't be an issue for you. As has been mentioned, terrain size was addressed in a previous patch, but creating a quality large map is very time-consuming which means there are currently no large land based terrains available.

Argon:- Sorry about my behaviour in the thread you started in the archived PF forum. I'll blame it on piles or prostatic hyperplasia - or both . Seriously though, I didn't appreciate Ruger's attitude. Perhaps I just read him wrongly - who knows?

To be fair, the WWII side of SDOE has progressed as well, there's the Base Pack, a standardized group of basic aircraft, the Legacy Packs (a collection of ALL the released aircraft basically, not as quality as the Base Pack, but a lot of aircraft. Of the quality you've seen), and some neat new aircraft, particularly the Catalina and some obscure but nice aircraft done by Scorpion Rouge (like an amphibious Walrus, which Yours Truly did a mini-campaign for). Not to be forgotten, one Mace has done some excellent aircraft, including some Korean War beauties AND actual air-to-air radar and guided missiles!

Still, it's the WWI aircraft that claim my heart. And maybe I'm biased, but I think qualitatively they ARE a cut above!

But a large terrain is planned (I need that extra space as well, although for WW2) and on the drawing boards; its a one-man, two arm endeavor, so will take time. Besides, who needs instant gratification....

Openplane possibilities are really endless. To bad they don't give a college course or something similar on it. And unfortunately my work really does not give justice to this outstanding engine-besides, I'm a slow learner.

The Basepack is pretty useless... But LDOR is great
Im downloading PP4 now, got broadband today and cant wait to try it.
Wil, are we going to find out any more about this terrain?

The problem with SDOE terrains is how they are actually done. It is unique...as far as I know... in the flightsim world.

Rather than using a terrain generation engine that would take sme sort of DEM type heightmap and create a wprld 'on the fly' SDOE uses a pre-built textured mesh of colossal proportions!

This terrain is split up into tiles to allow some lessening of the impact on the rendering.

So..in order to build a larger terrain, you wither have to make the tiles bigger, or you have to make a lot more tiles. Pinpoint accuracy is also called for or you get holes in the world that you can see or fall through.

Texturing them can be a bit of a pain too

I made a double sized Midway terrain for SDOE many moons back, but never released it. There were some issues then which a later patch has fixed.

Further grief comes from trying to host the resulting terrain files....these can run up to LOTs of Mb!

I got fed up with terrains.....they are possibly the most boring aspect of SDOE modding

Many old friends and many great memories, no hard feelings I hope old boy, none here

Don't worry about it guys.

Ming, I really hope you give FS-WWI a try.

By all means, give WWI a try, its defiately worth it. Then you can play with SWOTL in 3D (LDOR add on). The BP _is_ being worked on, with the Russian PAR file in the process of being built... Its like painting the Golden Gate bridge. When you finish at this end, go back and start over again...

I (persomnally) like the smaller terrains. I dont have to fly for 30 minutes to get to target, do battle and then (hopefully) fly home taking another 30 minutes. For thatya type of flying I use MSFS2004 and plan cross country trips...

Nah, a handful of prunes had soothed the savage beast within by the following morning ...

Speaking as a Tarrain texture painter i'll second TG it is very boreing for me the current situation suits WW1 as has been mentioned speed to terrain size but the drop cam to me also seems right for WW1 it's the 256x256 tile size that make accurate painting diffiult it means that a i pixel line a road for example is about 15 feet wide in the terrain. I'm no OP guru but some current airfields are a much higher rez 1046x1048 so is it possible to make a whole terrain this size i know that this means a master tile of 4x 5200 x 5200 or larger but from a painting point of view there are ways around this mind you my 1/2 gig rig would die of exhuastion