Diary of a Campaign Maker (or How Hard Can It Be?)

[Rends]

Yep put the russians further away. If it´s not the player platoon you can move them out of the playable area where you want.
Do you want the tigers to move? If not set the script to "dummy" then they will stay in position.

[frinik]

In the ME I always set the experience and morale factor to the highest because I wnat the AI to be as aggressive as possible.Not sure if it plays that much of a role though...

Put more T34s in the field; say 12 and set a movement script with fairly high speed - 25 kmph - and then add a mode of movement script with attack set as parameter and your T34s will act much more aggressively.Set morale and experience at the max as well.

[Rends]

In the ME I always set the experience and morale factor to the highest because I wnat the AI to be as aggressive as possible.Not sure if it plays that much of a role though...
...

Well if it´s set to 10 you don´t make them aggressive by default. Sometimes they do the different thing fire a shell and move backwards just to stay save

[lockie]

Now mission has a status "alpha".

[Kyth]

 What difficulty level and morale, or any other factors, should I set at this basic level - are there ‘standard’ game settings that should be used to begin mission building?

For mission building, I'd suggest setting the game at difficulty level '5' and morale/expertise at '2'. i.e. "How the mission is meant to be played".

Everything needs to work fine at that level first,

[Estnische]

Thanks Kyth, I'll work from that.

OK, so now Lockie has made a terrain map for my wishes, I need to create the village of Siivertsi and the other features using the Map Editor. Slowly it begins.



Just need to add trees, and buildings and fences and trenches, something to simulate a cemetery...

How hard can it be?

[lockie]

something to simulate a cemetery...

I think it's possible if some1 will create a model of the cross/grave, then put it in the game as object, i.e. bench.

[Estnische]

OK so now I am assembling the village of ‘Siivertsi’.

Lockie was thoughtful enough to place some sample objects on the map to help me learn. Using the editor has demonstrated that SFK42 is nowhere near as friendly as IL2 Sturmovik in this regard. In SFK42 it seems that to place an object, you have to:

1.   Create a contour, as demonstrated by FabienFred
2.   Select the type of object
3.   Assign it characteristics, all of which seem to vary from object to object

This last part does not seem to be documented in any manuals for the game, which make the learning curve steep.
Here is a map I recently found of the battle site, prior to the war. It is certainly more helpful than the Google satellite image. Of course the map has been rotated 45deg or so to enable the tiling of the map.



From the plan view you can see I have made three dirt roads and placed three houses in Siivertsi. Perhaps you can see that after doing that, the grass remains high, similar to the general countryside. It looks too overgrown. How do I flatten the vegetation in the allotments and the centre of the road?



I attempted to add fences to separate the allotments. I created a fence contour running east to west from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ and added the Landscape property of Fence4. Here is what happened – the panels are north to south!



Am I correct in assuming that I have to align each fence panel?

How hard can it be?

[Kyth]

I think you'll need to set the compass headings of the points in the countour. Probably to face east / west.

By the way, I think you'll find that making a map from scratch, for IL2, is a lot tougher 

[Rends]

About your fence problem it's very easy to fix this.

I don´t have the editor open yet so i don´t know the exact descriptions of each settings but anyway:

Object: Fence4

2.9 or 2.2 (depending on the fence you use)

0.00

Approximate outline

0

90 (yours is set to 0 that´s why the fence point north in the screenshot) and it´s always 90 regardless of the direction of your path if i´m right

fence

[Kyth]

Okay, I stand corrected (about the fence, not about mapmaking for IL2  )

[Estnische]

Thanks Rends, the lesson seems to be that the fence has to be set at '90' deg to the line of the contour no matter which direction the countour runs, which seems counter-intuitive. 

And so the village of Siivertsi takes shape, mostly how I would like it.

But there has been a lot of trial and error in alignments. Buildings and roads are fairly straightforward as you can adjust them if you see they are not in the right location. Fences too, thanks to all of you for the advice.



However trees and plantings seem a little hit and miss. Here are two examples in the cemetery.

The first is meant to sparsely scattered trees in the cemetery. Here though, I only get trees along one edge of the contour. Is it something about my settings?



This next one, I want a line of trees beside the road, but no trees appear after I regenerate and reload.



Any suggestions?

How hard can it be?

[lockie]

This next one, I want a line of trees beside the road, but no trees appear after I regenerate and reload.

Check out the road parameters: distance of the trees placing from the road.

[Estnische]

That was it!

Changing the 'Flora disappearance distance' now makes it look like a - well, a female that doesn't shave or wax! 

[Kyth]

Changing the 'Flora disappearance distance' now makes it look like a - well, a female that doesn't shave or wax! 

Sounds like you're building up a grim scenario indeed.