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SB Pro PE 4.1 New Features (and stuff)


Ssnake

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3 hours ago, Panzer_Leader said:

The new suspension effects on the terrain in this video look awesome too.

I think the key thing to remember is that this will not be universal, at least to begin with.

 

Not every map with have the new, finer mesh, as it depends on the underlying source data.

 

No doubt over time the proportion will increase but I don't think every single map ever made will be instantly to the new standard (particularly bespoke ones made by individuals, that aren't in the basic set).

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7 hours ago, Ssnake said:

I don't know what camouflage profile he used, but we added a few. 1980s (West) Germany is one of them, I think (at least I think I read that somewhere in the changelog, still on it...), which might explain plain olive with G3.

Kewl.

 

Watching Grenny's video also reminded me of something I was thinking of while doing a skin for the Dingo. SB has such a wide variety of Ambulance/Medic vehicles, yet (from my observation at least) mission makers seem to almost exclusively use the M113. Seems a pitty, really.

 

Regarding the dismountable medics. They're armed (for "self defense") by default, apparently. Do they fire when fired upon in a multiplayer environment? (i.e. default set to "return fire only" ? ) Or ... can they be directed to fire at a given target? I'm assuming AI still wouldn't target them, just like the vehicles, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

Just thinking out loud, in the absence of dedicated skins, I suppose one could make them more obviously noncombatants to the human eye by setting them up as unarmed in the mission maker.

Edited by Splash
pore spellin.
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Does the medic cross/crescent/star of David shine through the TIS for combatant units? Why slanted vehicles do not paint a huge identifier because practically, if I am seeing an armored vehicle wading through casualties, without its proper markings, at my face, coming straight ahead, I can assume it is a transport/APC/IFV/AFV. Whereas if it had the identifier at least on the forward surface, it would not be engaged strictly.

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11 minutes ago, Abraxas said:

In my times as battalion commander, deputy commander and company commander I remember that the medics were armed only with pistols (no G3) and wore the Red Cross sign on the helmets and Red Cross arm bands on the arms.

And I see you did not listen to the informations in the video...

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1 hour ago, wildbillkelsoe said:

Why slanted vehicles do not paint a huge identifier because practically, if I am seeing an armored vehicle wading through casualties, without its proper markings, at my face, coming straight ahead, I can assume it is a transport/APC/IFV/AFV. Whereas if it had the identifier at least on the forward surface, it would not be engaged strictly.

According to photographic evidence, I think the Boxer, at least, should have an emblem on the front. Since that texture is shared with the APC version of the vehicle, ESim could handle it with a decal, in the same way the Dingo is.

 

Edited by Splash
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22 minutes ago, Lumituisku said:

Umm...  So on 4.1 medic vehicles can revive only vehicles.  and medic troops can revive only troops  -  Correct? 

That's  right. In this aspect there is no change from 4.0

Edited by Jartsev
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4 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

I think the key thing to remember is that this will not be universal, at least to begin with.

 

Not every map with have the new, finer mesh, as it depends on the underlying source data.

 

No doubt over time the proportion will increase but I don't think every single map ever made will be instantly to the new standard (particularly bespoke ones made by individuals, that aren't in the basic set).

 

I stand to be corrected here, but I think the terrain roughness seen in that ambulance video was procedurally generated from the terrain theme "bumpiness" value, which will apply to all maps.

Edited by Rotareneg
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8 minutes ago, Rotareneg said:

 

I stand to be corrected here, but I think the terrain roughness seen in that ambulance video was procedurally generated from the terrain theme "bumpiness" value, which will apply to all maps.

Yes, it is the NTA Bergen-Hohne map. The "microstrukture" of the terrain is the effect of the "bumpiness level"

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6 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

I think the key thing to remember is that this will not be universal, at least to begin with.

 

Not every map with have the new, finer mesh, as it depends on the underlying source data.

Well, the "Africa" video was based on an old Steel Beasts map in 12.5m resolution that we converted, then modified. Still looks better than before, IMO.

The Finnish Summer Day videos are based on a map generated from 2m resolution LIDAR data, which primarily can be seen at the road bend after which the mine obstacle begins. The cut into the hill slope wasn't procedurally generated, it's original source data. So that's the kind of quality differences that can be observed. But the "wringkling" of the surface that can be seen on both maps is a function of the terrain theme's "bumpiness" values for the individual terrain type.

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56 minutes ago, Eisenschwein said:

Range 9 to be exact....

Is this Map part of the Map Package and can (is it) converted to the new Standart ?

"A" Schwarmstedt-Bergen-Soltau map will be part of the installation. If it's "the" map you're looking for, I can't say. But if you later convert your own maps "from TER" in the map editor the converter should recognize the same heightmap as a common basis, and convert your map as a "delta map" into the same map package folder (so you at least save disk space). The Release Notes will go into more detail about this topic, and others.

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40 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

"A" Schwarmstedt-Bergen-Soltau map will be part of the installation. If it's "the" map you're looking for, I can't say. But if you later convert your own maps "from TER" in the map editor the converter should recognize the same heightmap as a common basis, and convert your map as a "delta map" into the same map package folder (so you at least save disk space). The Release Notes will go into more detail about this topic, and others.

 

I hope this process is covered in exhaustive detail in both the Release Notes and the Manual and at the "Map Conversion for Dummies" type level.

 

I can see a lot of people wanting to convert / update the maps they've created / modified and if its not clearly articulated (screenshots highlighting steps, etc.) and "assumption free" from those who have been intimately involved (i.e. steps skipped due to familiarity with the process) then I can see a lot of angst, or a bunch of new posts in the "Map Request Thread" when people just ask someone else to do it.

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13 minutes ago, Gibsonm said:

 

I hope this process is covered in exhaustive detail in both the Release Notes and the Manual and at the "Map Conversion for Dummies" type level.

 

I can see a lot of people wanting to convert / update the maps they've created / modified and if its not clearly articulated (screenshots highlighting steps, etc.) and "assumption free" from those who have been intimately involved (i.e. steps skipped due to familiarity with the process) then I can see a lot of angst, or a bunch of new posts in the "Map Request Thread" when people just ask someone else to do it.

Well, even I can do it...so most should not have a problem here 😉

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3 minutes ago, Grenny said:

Well, even I can do it...so most should not have a problem here 😉

That's my concern.

 

People who have been intimately involved in the process to date (or at least had access to a beta for some time) will assume its easy and it will rate a sentence in the manual and the rest of us who haven't had that ongoing learning curve wont have a clue.

 

I have some 20 - 30 maps to update (I'm sure other have similar quantities) and I'll be sending them to you if the process isn't "monkey see, monkey do". ;)

 

Ideally something like the Navmesh creation process:

 

1. Open old map.

 

2. Get prompt asking if you want to update the map in question.

 

3. Go grab a coffee and wait.

 

4. Come back and its "done".

 

Edited by Gibsonm
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IMO, the worst that can happen to you is that you might waste disk space in moderate amounts if you convert every map that you have as a base map.

All the legacy maps that we had with Steel Beasts 4.0 and before we originally feared might be up to 500 GByte, then we added compression and thought "maybe only 50 GByte" and now it turns out "just 14 GByte". Which is still a bit more than the maybe 600 MByte in map data that SB 4.0 would install but in the light of the average computer game these days it's still not as dramatic as we originally feared it would be. Which means, a moderate amount of waste is still wasteful, but not such a big deal after all.

Okay, "my" folder of map packages is already 80 GBytes large (thanks to a number of experimental maps from customers that we copied over for debugging/performance tests, so some inflation is bound to happen over time. But that's not related to the map conversion issues.

 

Interactive map conversion comes with relatively comfortable and error-preventing wizards that should navigate most pitfalls for you. But ideally you would tale a look at the maps that are "yours" first and check which of them are based on the same height map. Then convert the HGT file first. Afterwards you'd convert al the TER variants are are based on the same HGT, and they would be stored as delta maps. Publish them, done. At least in a first step. Then open the scenarios that use these maps, save them again (maybe under a new name), done.

 

At some point you may then want to experiment with the new features such as road leveling. In which case you'd craete new delta maps of the existing ones, and then gradually replace the old maps with the new ones where you may have altered the terrain profile. It's not THAT dramatically different from how you do it right now, but with more safety features to prevent user error, at the expense of a few new concepts such as "published maps" vs maps that can still be edited.

 

But Yes: The Release Notes and the user manual will cover these topics.

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Speaking of THM files, these are the issues that I'm seeing over and over again which should be corrected,

  • Avoid "0" and "1.0" settings.
  • Bumpiness "0" is the Utah Salt Flats, which you find in exactly one place, Utah. And there, only on the salt flats. Bumpiness "1.0" means the coarsest terrain you can think of. Like the boulder fields on the flanks of alpine mountains. Where mountain goats are having trouble. Wheeled offroad vehicles should handle up to 40% bumpiness. Anything above that value would be considered "extremely difficult" with "mobility risk" (even if such a setting by itself will not incur that risk in Steel Beasts). Tracked vehicles may be able to handle up to 80% bumpiness, but that should normally be considered the end of the rope, really. Like, crawling speed at full throttle, or something.
  • Traction "1.0" is the equivalent of hot rubber on hot asphalt. That's a rare condition in nature.
  • Dustiness "1.0" is "Afganistan", "Gobi", or "Atacama" desert. The kind where you open sealed plastic containers and you still find dust inside. "0" is a wet swamp. Any other place on earth is somewhere between these two extremes. Dry grassland might be around 40%. And of course, if you have "0" and "1.0" dustiness right next to each other it makes for very awkward dust development when you drive around. A transition from 20% to 40% on the other hand is a natural and quite benign effect.
  • Hardness should rarely exceet 0.95. Hardness "1.0" is when you don't dig emplacements and foxholes, but you dynamite them, and you need several attempts. Seriously, if it's 95...100% hardness we're talking about different forms of rock. Maybe limestone is just 95% compared to granite at 100%, but it's rock nevertheless. So the terrain texture should also reflect that, if you want to be consistent. So 94% hardness is the kind of concrete-like substance into which fine mud might dry. Realistically, "hard" ground would be closer to 80...90% hardness. And a freshly tilled field would probably be like 40% hardness. A shifting sand dune might be 10%.
  • Think of combinations. If it's rock, and really hard, and super bumpy, can it still have a high traction value? Can a watery swamp offer 100% traction? Of course not. Nor could that sand dune of 10% hardness and 90% dustiness. And in all these cases the ground resistance must go up as well. Conversely, if it's supposed to offer high traction, low drag, what type of terrain can it actually be? If super flat and super hard, we're back at the Utah Salt Flats. Yes, they exist in nature, but they are a rare occurrence. "World famous" rare, actually.
  • Approach it functionally. If you know that 30% of your map are going to be terrain X and you want it to be traversable by offroad wheeled vehicles it shouldn't have more than 40% bumpiness, it still must offer decent traction (maybe in the 75...85%), the bumpier the higher the drag, so if you settle for a 30% bumpiness value that means it's already pretty difficult, and the drag might be in the 25% range, possibly even higher. Oh yeah, that'll slow everybody down. People will hate that. But it'd be realistic for your average "scrub" terrain, or a particularly knobby grassland. On the other hand, if its farm land, the bumpiness tends to go down, and you don't set up a farm on rocks. So it's got to be relatively soft and low bumpiness terrain. Not every possible combination actually makes sense. Ideally you'd have unity of mobility factors and visual representation, in which case you should pick a fitting texture, and give the terrain type a descriptive name.
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