4.1X Viewing / Editing Theme values

[Gibsonm]

OK happy to be labelled an idiot if there is an easy fix here.

 

However I have read pages 175 - 178 of the Manual and while it describes a whole bunch of whiz bang things you can do with Themes at no point (like in the first paragraph) actually tell you how you can open them to either review their current values or edit them??

 

"The Map Editor also allows the user to select and edit the terrain theme of the map in the Theme menu."

 

In the Map Editor if I choose the default map the only Theme menu option I see is "save as". and all the theme options on the right are greyed out.

 

The same applies if I choose any other published map?

 

Can I only edit the theme as part of the map conversion process?

 

I really don't want to spend the 30 mins or so converting a map just to find a value is no good and then spend another 30mins finding out if the new value is better.

 

What am I missing here?

[Gibsonm]

I'm trying to open a theme just so I can line this table up:

 

 

And work out the English equivalents for the second column and the top row.

 

e.g. "Dreck" apparently is "unpleasant dirt" and "Rasen" = Rush?

 

Edited March 14, 2020 by Gibsonm

[Abraxas]

Hi Gibsonm,

Why does everyone expect English to be used? German is also a worldwide used language!

 

Here are the translations:

 

Spring, summer, winter:

 

0 dirt, 1 lawn, 2 sand, 4 gravel, 9 undergrowth, 11 rock, 12 heath, 13 grass, 8 corn, 7 beets, 6 rape, 10 grain, 3 water, 5 swamp, needle, leaves

 

Autumn:

 

0 soil, 1 meadow, 2 sand, 4 scree, 9 scrub, 11 rock, 12 heath, 13 marshland, 8 field, 7 field, 6 field, 10 field, 3 water, 5 swamp, needle, leaves

 

 

Better to use PONS translater (de.pons.com)!

[Ssnake]

Yeah, sorry. That chapter was caught up in the fallout of "published"/"unpublished" maps. It probably deserves the addition of the following sentence:

 

To edit a theme of a published map, save the map package as a new Delta map. Then go to "Theme" and then select "Edit Theme".

[Lt DeFault]

35 minutes ago, Abraxas said:

6 rape

 

😬

 

I think a better translation would be "rapeseed". Even better than that would be "canola".

Edited March 14, 2020 by Lt DeFault

[Ssnake]

Yeah. Pons.com isn't my favorite online dictionary. Leo.org of the TU Munich is much better.

[Gibsonm]

19 hours ago, Lt DeFault said:

 

😬

 

I think a better translation would be "rapeseed". Even better than that would be "canola".

 

Well even Canola's no good to me.

 

These are my options:

 

 

Rape / Rapeseed / Canola = Heath, Field 1, Field 2, Field 3, Field 4, ... ?????

 

Perhaps if the default theme names were numbered:

 

 

Then I just need to find the corresponding German number and the word wont matter?

 

Maybe they are - I'll just need to open the Theme editor to find out.

  

20 hours ago, Ssnake said:

To edit a theme of a published map, save the map package as a new Delta map. Then go to "Theme" and then select "Edit Theme".

 

Thank you - I'll see how I go.

 

Another note for my growing collection of "stuff that didn't quite make to to the manual".

 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Gibsonm

[Gibsonm]

18 hours ago, Abraxas said:

Hi Gibsonm,

Why does everyone expect English to be used? German is also a worldwide used language!

 

Here are the translations:

 

Spring, summer, winter:

 

0 dirt, 1 lawn, 2 sand, 4 gravel, 9 undergrowth, 11 rock, 12 heath, 13 grass, 8 corn, 7 beets, 6 rape, 10 grain, 3 water, 5 swamp, needle, leaves

 

Autumn:

 

0 soil, 1 meadow, 2 sand, 4 scree, 9 scrub, 11 rock, 12 heath, 13 marshland, 8 field, 7 field, 6 field, 10 field, 3 water, 5 swamp, needle, leaves

 

 

Better to use PONS translater (de.pons.com)!

 

Well as I said in the other thread:

 

 18 hours ago, Abraxas said:

Hi Gibsonm,

Why does everyone expect English to be used? German is also a worldwide used language!

 

I don't - hence why I tried to do the translations myself and indeed attempted to load your themes in my copy to see if that would give me the English equivalents.

 

Neither of these worked so I asked here.

  

18 hours ago, Abraxas said:

Here are the translations:

 

 

Spring, summer, winter:

 

0 dirt, 1 lawn, 2 sand, 4 gravel, 9 undergrowth, 11 rock, 12 heath, 13 grass, 8 corn, 7 beets, 6 rape, 10 grain, 3 water, 5 swamp, needle, leaves

 

Autumn:

 

0 soil, 1 meadow, 2 sand, 4 scree, 9 scrub, 11 rock, 12 heath, 13 marshland, 8 field, 7 field, 6 field, 10 field, 3 water, 5 swamp, needle, leaves

 

Better to use PONS translater (de.pons.com)!

 

Thank you.

 

Although I still don't have the second column: "Bodenwiderstand", ...

 

FYI de.pons.com is unable to translate Bodenwiderstand:

 

 

I'm all for retaining national identities.

[Gibsonm]

6 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

 

Well even Canola's no good to me.

 

These are my options:

 

 

Rape / Rapeseed / Canola = Heath, Field 1, Field 2, Field 3, Field 4, ... ?????

 

Perhaps if the default theme names were numbered:

 

 

Then I just need to find the corresponding German number and the word wont matter?

 

Maybe they are - I'll just need to open the Theme editor to find out.

  

 

Thank you - I'll see how I go.

 

Another note for my growing collection of "stuff that didn't quite make to to the manual".

 

 

Starting to get somewhere.

 

Now that I can actually open the Theme Editor I see:

 

 

So they are numbered, just not visible in the palette??

 

Now I know that 0 Dirt = Dirt, then I can work out Abraxas's entries:

 

 

0 Dreck = 0 Dirt

1 Rasen = 1 Grass

2 Sand = 2 Sand

3 Wasser = 3 Water

4 Schotter = 4 Gravel

...

 

And for the second column I'm going with:

 

Bodenwiderstand = Drag

Bodenwiderstand (na*) = Drag (wet)

Traktion = Traction

Traktion (na*) = Traction (wet)

Tragfahigkeit = Hardness

Tragfahigkeit (na*) = Hardness (wet)

Welligkeit = Bumpiness

Staubneigung = Dustiness

 

* = key not available on my keyboard

 

If I haven't lined them up correctly can a German speaker let me know?

 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Gibsonm

[Lt DeFault]

If you have a number pad on your keyboard, holding the "Alt" key and hitting 225 on the number pad should produce the Eszett: ß. (Just in case you ever find the need to use it again. )

[Ssnake]

3 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

If I haven't lined them up correctly can a German speaker let me know?

Looks good to me.

[Gibsonm]

1 minute ago, Ssnake said:

Looks good to me.

Thanks.

 

I think his figures are pretty much in line with the general observations here:

 

[Gibsonm]

3 hours ago, Lt DeFault said:

If you have a number pad on your keyboard, holding the "Alt" key and hitting 225 on the number pad should produce the Eszett: ß. (Just in case you ever find the need to use it again. )

Afraid I just get a white space.

[Ssnake]

This depends on the character set for a chosen font. Not every font has every possible character of every possible written language that humans ever devised.

[Ssnake]

On 3/14/2020 at 8:38 AM, Gibsonm said:

Reviewing the table, one thing that is problematic is pretty much every type of terrain that isn't rock with its hardness set to .95 and higher.

Extreme hardness indicated rock. We can debate whether limestone should be .96 or .95 (.96 I say, sand stone is even more crumbly at .95), or whether granite should be .99 or 1.0.

 

This will have a number of consequences in coming versions.

Earthworks - be they the creation of emplacements or other - will scale the creation time with the set hardness of a terrain type, and above .95 hardness there will be significant non-linear increases in digging times.

Certain visual effects might not materialize if the terrain is "rock hard"

 

Even where the terrain becomes soft with increasing water saturation, the question is how many scenarios already start with moist ground or use the default of "bone dry" with no rain later on. I suppose it's okay for desert themes to start with a default water saturation of the ground of .05 or less, but for woodland and winter .3 to .5 appear more adequate. These are things that you may want to consider when modifying terrain themes, or when creating scenarios. It's not just weather changes during the mission but also the initial starting conditions.

Of course, with rainfall the ground can only get wetter. It will never dry up during the typical duration of a scenario by a noticeable degree.

[Gibsonm]

I understand "it depends".

 

What I needed as a non German resident was a guide - which is what Abraxas provided.

 

Until eSim or someone produces a X hundred page set of values for given locations at given times of year (which I fully understand is extremely unlikely), I think I'll just opt for a quick and dirty "near enough is good enough" solution as detailed above.

 

The other "option" is hours spent looking stuff up and probably just getting it wrong anyway.

[Ssnake]

All I'm saying (and all that I've been saing in all the years) is, reserve extreme values for extreme terrain.

 

100% hardness means that it's close to the hardest surfaces that you will find in nature covering larger areas.

100% dustiness means, it's the worst dusty environment you can find (Australian/Afghan/Chilean/Mongolian desert like)

100% bumpiness means, it's the most rugged terrain thinkable (irrespective of our engine's capability to render it)

100% traction is hot rubber on warm and clean asphalt (IOW, practically nowhere in nature)

100% drag is, well, a tar pit, I guess.

 

0% hardness is, water (still forms a surface, at least)

0% dustiness even in dry weather means, it's a swamp.

0% bumpiness means, it's the Utah salt flats

0% traction is teflon, coated with ice

0% drag is "air hockey"

 

Not every parameter combination that you can set actually makes sense. Low friction high bumpiness, how's that to work? High bumpiness, low hardness? Why doesn't gravity "melt" the bumps? 0% dustiness gravel, is it being wetted?

 

• Hardness, anything between 40% (mud) and 90% (dried mud) is going to be fine. Here you probably have the biggest freedom. Just avoid settings of 95% and higher, unless you mean it (rock), or under 40%, unless you mean it (watery swamp).
• Dustiness would normally be somewhere between 20% and 60% in woodland scenarios, much reduced in winter, and generally upped in desert themes.
• Bumpiness should be under 40% to allow wheeled vehicles to travel off-road, and ideally not exceed 80% for tracked vehicle movement
• Traction and drag go together. The difference between the two determines how fast vehicles can accelerate, their max speed, what gradients they can climb, or whether you get stuck (drag>traction). A 30% difference is not great, but still a 0% drag/30% traction combo is substantially different from a 70% drag/100% traction pair. With 0% drag your vehicle will slide down a slope if you dry to traverse it. With 70% drag you may be excruciatingly slow, but you can still negotiate most obstacles.

As long as you keep these basic guidelines in mind your themes and scenarios using them will work, whatever new features we might throw out in the future. Extreme settings are where changes in the way we implement some features or where we introduce new features and rendering tricks can throw a wrench into things. 100% hardness and mine plows, for example, might make a bad mix in the future. Or maybe we decide to scale IED crater sizes with the hardness values, and all of a sudden the big crater that you expect looks disappointigly small.

 

 

Just think of the bumpiness settings that we introduced with version 2.5 (yes, it's been that long). We couldn't visualize that until version 4.1 (but it did already help to break vehicle suspensions back then). Still, a lot of themes used 100% bumpiness for forest tiles simply because it made infantry more survivable. But I wish people would have settled for 75% bumpiness in those case, it would have made the transition easier. Now we detect legacy scenarios when loading a file, and auto-scale down the bumpiness so it doesn't look totally weird. But we probably shouldn't mess with traction, hardness, or drag values. We have no way to say in which cases the settings were intentional and in which cases mission designers simply didn't think much about it. But as soon as this will have an effect in visualization everybody will be quick to point out "bugs" that "make craters disappear" when the new method simply factors in values that were previously inconsequential.

[Gibsonm]

On a related matter I'll add a request to the "Wish List" to just type in the values, as opposed to what can be a sometimes frustrating "bracketing" approach with the sliders.

 

 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Gibsonm

[Ssnake]

Fair enough.