Map Dimensions

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Will maps still be limited to 2000 square kilometers in your Bulge game? [&:]

BTW, I could coax some additional real estate out of the previous mapmaker utility, but not as much as I wanted. [;)]

[Arjuna]

2500 sq kms.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

2500 sq kms.

Hi Dave,

But one more question...

Is that a hard-limit, or is it just a suggested limit that's intended to keep the game running properly on less-capable computers?

Yes or no will suffice (as you have other matters to tend to). [:)]

[GoodGuy]

My guess: Yes.

[Arjuna]

Yes they are just a soft limit. Do I take it you would like to push the boundaries some more?

[GoodGuy]

Edited my post above ...
Is there a unit limit in BFTB??

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Yes they are just a soft limit. Do I take it you would like to push the boundaries some more?

Hi Dave,

So long as there are Windows boxes that can handle the load, I believe that it would be worthwhile to take the engine to it's limits. One of the criticisms of y'all's games has been that they lack a larger "campaign level" of play. However, so long as "operations" are limited, geographically and chronologically, this doesn't have to be a deal-breaker. I've been looking at Salerno, circa 1943, and can't help but wonder if that wouldn't make a dandy "short campaign" of ten days, or so:

[Arjuna]

Hey my father in law fought there with the British 46th Inf Div. That would be cool.[:)]

However, we've added a lot of code and processing to BFTB. It runs fine with the current constraints and scale. Increasing the map area, increased the area that has to be searched for route finding. If the total unit count is low, then it can be managed to a degree. If the unit count is high then it could slow things down to a crawl. Also if you retainthe same map constraints as we have now but increase the unit count dramatically, you increase the number of route calcs and other processing and this too may slow things down to a crawl.

But the proof is in the eating. If you would like to experiment, we could remove the map size limits on the proviso that forewarned is forearmed and I don't want to hear any complaints after you have built your huge map that you can't get it to run at an acceptable speed.

[Arjuna]

Just had a quick look. I think it best to put a limit nonetheless. How big would you want? I can reset the limit to that. Would 20,000 sq kms suffice with a max height/width of 150 kms.

[Arjuna]

Another point to consider with long scenarios is that the engine doesn't model replacements nor repair and recovery of vehicles. So if a scenario runs for a long time you may well end up with seriously depleted forces and no means of rebuilding them.

[wodin]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Another point to consider with long scenarios is that the engine doesn't model replacements nor repair and recovery of vehicles. So if a scenario runs for a long time you may well end up with seriously depleted forces and no means of rebuilding them.

Ideas for a distant future release perhaps??

[Arjuna]

No doubt! [:)]

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Just had a quick look. I think it best to put a limit nonetheless. How big would you want? I can reset the limit to that. Would 20,000 sq kms suffice with a max height/width of 150 kms.

Wow, that'd be a big honkin' map! The contour map JPG that I posted above is 50k x 75k. Were you to remove the cap for us to play with, I certainly wouldn't consider the larger maps to be "supported" as such, "you plays the game, you takes your chances." [;)]

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Another point to consider with long scenarios is that the engine doesn't model replacements nor repair and recovery of vehicles. So if a scenario runs for a long time you may well end up with seriously depleted forces and no means of rebuilding them.

This issue came to mind when I was considering how to build some extended length scenarios for the Anzio map. It may be that I'll just handle it as a matter of unit reinforcements and withdrawls. Re-ups arrive, whereupon, players get AP for pulling depleted units out of the line (exiting the map). It's doable, and happened in the real battle. Towards the end of it all, the Axis couldn't replace their losses, anyhow. For the future, it may be desirable to add command and supply element points to AP exit requirements (augmenting APer, Arm and Bomb exits).

[scsfan]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Just had a quick look. I think it best to put a limit nonetheless. How big would you want? I can reset the limit to that. Would 20,000 sq kms suffice with a max height/width of 150 kms.

thanks, for an operational level like this, 150x150kms is certainly enough. I really look forward to this.

[scsfan]

I was mass around with the map editor today and find that the maximum size of map I can generate is 62,000x40,000 metres (62km x 40km) which is only around 248 sq Km. Can't get 150x150 km map.
Any reason?

[GoodGuy]

Uh.. that'd be a big minus in my books.
Does it just reset to 62km x 40km?

Must have slipped Dave's attention when finalizing the master, eh?
He should get back to using that old school task tracker [;)].

[scsfan]

I made a quick map just by blowing up the existing Dinant.cop to 62x40km. Map file size 4.4MB, It took around 6 minutes to calculate terrain tables and around 11min for generating map draw cache (42mb). Then I made a quick Scenario with this map, gave 6 divisions to each side, around 480 units each side on map at the start, no reinforcement. It took around 1 minute to load the game, then it took around 4 minute for the computer to "think" before the clock start running. it took real time 11mins to run game time 3 hours at the fastest speed (3 arrows). My computer was rather high ended when I bought it 1 and half years ago. I can understand why the restriction for map size is 50x50km.

Processor: Intel Core i7 CPU 965@3.20GHz
Memory: 12278MB RAM
Display:  Dual ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Memory: 3826 MB
Vista ultimate 64bit

[Arjuna]

Actually the map size is 250,000 sq metres. I thought we had increased it. I just checked and we had in the debug but not the release version. I will increase it when we do a patch. That's unlikely to be real soon but there's bound to be a few minor things like this that need attending to.

Re performance. The bigger the map area the longer it will take for route calcs. These are the most processor hungry events and yet they are critical to good AI. Moreover, the more units you have the more planning that is done and hence the more route clacs are performed. I recommend restricting scenarios to no more than 400 units all up, both sides. Eg 300 v 100 or 250 v 150.

[FredSanford3]

That's 400 units on-map right? No matter the size of the Force List OOB so long as it's not all on the map? e.g. if say some intrepid soul compiled the OOB for 12th Army Group, but most were no show status, or exit/enter at seperate non-overlapping periods, then that's fine?