Map Elevations at Borders Fix?

[LtGeorge]

One thing I've always noticed in the mission editor is that when you define the bounds of a map, the elevations at the edges change. It appears that the game engine tries to keep the elevation along the borders the same. It gets worse if the edge of the map falls over a mountain - the mountain's elevation causes the entire scenario to be in a bowl.

Is there any way of fixing this, such that the terrain continues off naturally beyond the bounds of the map?

[GH_Lieste]

There is an entry in Bugzilla concerning this.

Right now the only way to 'hide' it is to make the map substantially bigger than the operation area, and to limit movement to more than the visibility range +1km from the map edge. (ie. up to 10km from the total map dimensions)

This is bad from a performance standpoint, and can severely restrict the 'usable' areas of a map in SB ProPE, which has lower maximums than the Pro version.

Preventing use of the outer ~1km avoids problems with the steeply sloping terrain on the outcome of battles, but it does look odd, with water cliffs and roads and rivers rising steeply where the land should be low-level plains.

[Ssnake]

It's a consequence of the fact that the Steel Beasts world is a giant torus (vulgo, a Donut) where the same map gets duplicated in all directions about 32,000 times. There are ideas to reduce these artifacts near boundaries, but it will result in other forms of artifacts (less obvious though).

[Hackworth]

George, a workaround i use sometimes is to use a larger area than you really want. then use boundries to keep the player where you want him. then those areas don't come into play. you can even use a penalty zone outside the boundries to keep everyone "honest".

[ShotMagnet]

You can also finesse the playing area such that the 'off-map' parts of the map are flat ground by choosing boundary terrain which is flat, for those borders.

Something to think about when you choose a map for a scenario is what terrain you will be subjecting players to, if they must enter the map from one or more edges. If there's a water obstacle (for example) leading off-map, expect it to cause trouble for units which might enter from that side of the map. Same for trees. And buildings, and so on.

Shot

[LtGeorge]

Yep, that's what I usually do - choose a bigger section of map and stay away from the edges, but then the map size gets pretty big.

It's not a big deal, really - just wondering if it was noticed by more people or if I'm taking crazy pills again.