Movement Effects

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Chief Rudiger
Posts: 183
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 6:46 pm
Location: Scotland

Movement Effects

Post by Chief Rudiger »

Hello,

I want to show small watercourses on a map as dashed blue lines, similar to the track line type, to mimic the map attached below. Graphically, i do not see how this can be achieved. I assume, for areas, the MapPatA.bmp acts as a stencil for the block colours in MatPat.bmp, but can one change the appearance of lines, like roads and rivers?

As a work around i tried changing the "Movement Effect" values in the stream/river layer window to 100 for both foot and motorised units (like roads). I thought watercourse could be made to act like roads, and vice-versa, make dashed line tracks act like rivers and impede movement.

My tests indicate thought that with streams set at 100/100 they don't enhance movement over clear/level terrain but in fact just cease to impede movement.

Are watercourses hard coded to impede movement (0 being totally (like major rivers), 100 being not at all) and roads hardcoded to enhance it? If so, why is the motorised value for minor road set at 3 whereas track/roads/highways are 40/86/100? Shouldn't minor roads rank in the 60's?

If tracks were made to offer no movement bonuses and made blue to look like small streams (that in RL wouldn't greatly hinder movement) AND streams made brown to look like roads, again, with no movment maluses, would the A.I. handle them, or is there something hardcoded in the A.I. beyond the movement values?

Anyway, i've ranted long enough. Perhaps i shouldn't try to make an operational level game map over clutterred...

...Is there any other way of changing the stream line type to from solid to dashed?

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Prince of Eckmühl
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Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2006 4:37 pm
Location: Texas

RE: Movement Effects

Post by Prince of Eckmühl »

I'd like to layer in a related question...
 
Can someone point me to a thread that explains how to mod the terrain graphics that the Chief makes reference to?
 
 
Government is the opiate of the masses.
Chief Rudiger
Posts: 183
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 6:46 pm
Location: Scotland

RE: Movement Effects

Post by Chief Rudiger »

Good question.

tm.asp?m=1255334&mpage=1&key=MapPat&#1255334

Is the best i could find.

It appears that the files listed at the end of this post are made up of a grid, 6x20+. There are 6 columns, one for each of the map view scales (2-64m per pixel) in each file. The 20+ rows represent the different layers. Some, like the altitude layers are solid colours in one file and have no "stencil" in the b/w file. Allternatively, the orchard fill effect(s) is made up of the 8th row from the top in each file. One file dictates the colour, the other the pattern.

Here, i stencilled your initials into the Heide terrain!

Don't know why the lettering is black though... and when i alterred the city tile it went bright green... little help!

C:\Matrix Games\Conquest Of The Aegean\Graphics\Map\Default\MapPatA.bmp
C:\Matrix Games\Conquest Of The Aegean\Graphics\Map\Default\MapPat.bmp


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Prince of Eckmühl
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Location: Texas

RE: Movement Effects

Post by Prince of Eckmühl »

In fairness to the developer, there's a brief explanation on page 31 of the mapmaker manual.

That said, it's pretty spare on particulars. [;)]
Government is the opiate of the masses.
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Arjuna
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RE: Movement Effects

Post by Arjuna »

Yes rivers have special characteristics/behaviour that is hard coded. No there is no easy way to dash the lines. They are hard coded as solid lines.

Re track move rate. In crete and Greece the tracks represented glorified mule lanes and not much more. Hence they were an avenue of last resort for motorised. Feel free to change their value. Trial and error is the hallmark of scenario design.[:)]
Dave "Arjuna" O'Connor
www.panthergames.com
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