WATER & Fords

[ShoutingDog]

Is water (not streams) ever fordable in SB PRO PE? Even if it is just 1 meter deep? Is there a ford terrain type and if so where is it at?

[Kingtiger]

small ones you can ford, its more a question about how deep the water is then how wide the ford is...
and that you cant find out ingame but have to be cheked in mission editor.

[dejawolf]

no, theres no way to adjust the depth of a river.
it automatically increases in depth as it gets wider.

[Captain_Colossus]

Which then seems to correlate the width of the water obstacle and fording to some degree- the kinds of water obstacles which are thin enough to bridge appear just as easily crossed otherwise without them, seemingly make the bridges redundant, even time-wasting.

Wide bodies of water on the other hand will terraform steep river/ lake beds in the fashion of a very sharp 'V', forcing amphibious units to get hung up on the banks after fording the main obstacle. The stream tool on the other hand creates a flush line on the ground- no such problem occurs. In other words, I think it would be more useful if the banks weren't so steep or an alternative option for creating water were available- if you tried to simulate a wide river, a lake or an ocean beach, the banks always drop off in very dramatic dips into the water. They can't be bridged, obviously, but amphibious crossings are also ruled out in the face of the banks on the waterfronts.

[tarball]

Captain C.

Do mean that you can't bridge wide bodies of water with a bridge layer? Or to you mean that you can't bridge them by laying a bridge in the map editor? In the case of the map editor, you can bridge water of any distance. In the case of the in-game bridge layers, you are correct.

[Captain_Colossus]

Captain C.

Do mean that you can't bridge wide bodies of water with a bridge layer? Or to you mean that you can't bridge them by laying a bridge in the map editor? In the case of the map editor, you can bridge water of any distance. In the case of the in-game bridge layers, you are correct.


I mean the bridge laying units- not the map bridges.


The consequences of the water paintbrush in the map editor creating steep inclines means that the bridge layers have a larger distance to span- as far as I can tell, one paintbrush pixel wide is the widest can be bridged (the thinnest line of water created with the line drawing tool), or the computer won't attempt it. That's also about the same distance which still won't swamp a vehicle. The effect then is that the widest river which can be bridged is the widest river which can still be crossed without a bridge layer-the bridge becomes redundant. Although this is the narrowest possible river to create without the banks interlocking or touching at a point, this T-72 seems about to disappear down into the river due to the sharp drop:

http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/5573/ss140137gc6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


Howver, from the side aspect it appears to do ok by itself without any engineering bridge; it's the banks which would give the most trouble, not the deepest part of the river. Note the the extension of land in the water- this helps to support the crossing while introducing a much more gradual slope; it also makes the water less of an obstacle requiring bridges or amphibious units:


http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/4914/ss140054dd1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


This also demonstrates a peculiar rendering consequence with the map editor-this river cuts through the map at about a 45 degree angle, which creates little land extensions into the water and narrows the river. All water which runs parallell or perpendicular to the map edges have a consistent width without these land extensions.

[Captain_Colossus]

This is another screenshot illustrating what I mean by the land extensions- created when a river placed with the line drawing tool (the thinnest line possible) slanted across the map with respect to the map edges and gridsquares. A water line otherwise drawn straight up and down or left to right won't do this. The problem remains the same though- the only advantage of a bridge layer in this situation means that the vehicle won't have to negotiate a steep bank- it's not the water in itself which needs to be bridged in order to effect a crossing; then again, if the vehicle can find these land extensions, that's not so much of a problem.

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/1006/ss140013ln8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[GaryOwen]

The terrain tiles are squares that have corners, thus in Colossus' words the river banks have 'extensions'. That's the key to one solution for making fording spots.

Using the map editor, create a one tile wide water obstacle. Where you want the fording site, just have the adjacent tiles abut their corners rather than having them share a common side.

[ShoutingDog]

The terrain tiles are squares that have corners, thus in Colossus' words the river banks have 'extensions'. That's the key to one solution for making fording spots.

Using the map editor, create a one tile wide water obstacle. Where you want the fording site, just have the adjacent tiles abut their corners rather than having them share a common side.

That works! Thanks

[enigma6584]

LOL! Man you learn something new here every day. I didn't know about creating fords...:luxhello:

[Ssnake]

The best way currently to utilize bridgelayers is to create two bridge segments in the map editor ober a wide stream that cannot be forded - as if the bridge was demolished. Save the map under a different name, then use it in the mission editor. (Existing scenarios can be "upgraded" with broken bridges by "Map... replace...")

There are plans to quadruple the terrain resolution in the vicinity of embankments which would then allow the creation of unfordable 18m streams which can still be bridged.