Second attempt QGIS

[exsonic01]

Those are clearly barracks, trenches, and bunkers for artillery (hidden behind the river tile). How about set them as "urban" hex? Since we don't have "military facility" hex format, "urban" might be the best choice for now.


I'm not sure what is that dark region in the river. Could it be the very swallow area, that we may able to assume it as a sort of bridge in game? Or is that the channel for small boats for river-crossing?

[WildCatNL]

ORIGINAL: exsonic01
Those are clearly barracks, trenches, and bunkers for artillery (hidden behind the river tile). How about set them as "urban" hex? Since we don't have "military facility" hex format, "urban" might be the best choice for now.

The defensive facilities do not occupy the majority of the hex. Probably better to make it a field (or mixed) hex on the map, and add a "Improved Position" marker in the Scenario editor.

I'm not sure what is that dark region in the river. Could it be the very swallow area, that we may able to assume it as a sort of bridge in game? Or is that the channel for small boats for river-crossing?

Looking on Google satellite, which shows a bit more detail (but less depth in the water), my guess would be a ferry crossing.
Aside from that, good observation that fordable river sections aren't easy to represent in FCRS (unlike a bridge, they would be hard to demolish).

William

[exsonic01]

Thanks to let me know. But it would be hard to remember all locations of reinforced/trenched positions without some kind of marking, since there are lots of them in AO... Well, I need to think about this.

It is hard to tell even in the Bing and Google Sat view. But I agree that this might be the routes for boats/ferries. That river is too wide to have ford. Regarding fordable spot of river/stream, it would be great if the game has a option for it.

[exsonic01]

One more question, what should "fields" style hex cover? Paddy field or crop field?

[WildCatNL]

ORIGINAL: exsonic01
Thanks to let me know. But it would be hard to remember all locations of reinforced/trenched positions without some kind of marking, since there are lots of them in AO... Well, I need to think about this.

Just add a layer in QGis to mark the reinforced / trenched positions. Disable the layer to create the map values bitmap and build a .fp9 map file.
Next, enable the "trench" layer, export a .png with that info enabled, and use that when you create the scenario. Finally, use a pretty .jpg w/o trench info for gameplay.

William

[exsonic01]

Tried the global forest change data (tm.asp?m=4147592) on my map. I used "treecover2000" data. It is .tif file, and able to use in QGIS.


Aligned, and singleband-pseudocolor is applied. Looks nice. Data can be used/treated in the same way with topology data.


Looks like the AO of my interest suffers from serious lack of foliage. You could see faint white rectangular box, which is the area box for my map, and greenish dots, which is forest and woods from the data. This would be the good news for attackers, and bad news for defenders.

Overall, the global forest change data might be the good choice for Flashpoint map editing. (But not sure on timescale, since those forest data is after the year of 2000.... I couldn't find same data for 1989)

William, I have questions about forest section:
1) Does forest hex tile should be the full hex tile like urban/major river tile? Or could it be allowed to draw half or quarter sized tiles?
2) Is there any way to differentiate the density of the forest?
And thanks for the hint regarding the fortification sites. I will follow your recommendation.

My progress so far. Added railroad, urban, and industry tiles.

[exsonic01]

I'm having trouble with drawing "field"... if the field means the paddy field or any crop field for farmers, almost entire section of the figure above become the "field". Is this OK? Not sure what "fields" are... Also, should it be full hex like urban? Or free shape like forest?


Using global forest change data was semi-successful. As you can see, the contour I extracted from data (green lines) is too fine/small to use as polygon, so I draw forest polygons by myself. In addition, I don't know how to convert contour curves to polygons, and manage them to form a bit larger polygons... But it worked as a good and convenient guideline when drawing the woods polygons.


Current progress. Finished woods. Now the "field" is only thing left to be done IMO, before import to ingame map editor.

[WildCatNL]

ORIGINAL: exsonic01
William, I have questions about forest section:
1) Does forest hex tile should be the full hex tile like urban/major river tile? Or could it be allowed to draw half or quarter sized tiles?
2) Is there any way to differentiate the density of the forest?
And thanks for the hint regarding the fortification sites. I will follow your recommendation.

@forest: forest for me is the exception, and I draw partial forest "pizza slices" when creating maps. I basically copied that approach from Plodder's Berlin map.
@forest density: I wouldn't bother with forest density - it's information the commander in his HQ wouldn't have, and has little impact on combat. I do draw forest clearances when they are substantial. I do distinguish between between orchards & vineyards and "standard" forests, as the former offers less concealment and more mobility.

I'm having trouble with drawing "field"... if the field means the paddy field or any crop field for farmers, almost entire section of the figure above become the "field". Is this OK? Not sure what "fields" are... Also, should it be full hex like urban? Or free shape like forest?

Fields is land offering very little concealment and good mobility. Crop fields, golf courses, grass runways for gliders: they would be fields to me.
Rice paddy is an interesting one; if offering good mobility, it would be a field. If not, you're better off leaving it empty (Mixed).
Southern Storm will make it easier for you to handle those "custom" terrain types.

Keep it going!

William

[exsonic01]

ORIGINAL: W1ll14m

ORIGINAL: exsonic01
William, I have questions about forest section:
1) Does forest hex tile should be the full hex tile like urban/major river tile? Or could it be allowed to draw half or quarter sized tiles?
2) Is there any way to differentiate the density of the forest?
And thanks for the hint regarding the fortification sites. I will follow your recommendation.

@forest: forest for me is the exception, and I draw partial forest "pizza slices" when creating maps. I basically copied that approach from Plodder's Berlin map.
@forest density: I wouldn't bother with forest density - it's information the commander in his HQ wouldn't have, and has little impact on combat. I do draw forest clearances when they are substantial. I do distinguish between between orchards & vineyards and "standard" forests, as the former offers less concealment and more mobility.

I'm having trouble with drawing "field"... if the field means the paddy field or any crop field for farmers, almost entire section of the figure above become the "field". Is this OK? Not sure what "fields" are... Also, should it be full hex like urban? Or free shape like forest?

Fields is land offering very little concealment and good mobility. Crop fields, golf courses, grass runways for gliders: they would be fields to me.
Rice paddy is an interesting one; if offering good mobility, it would be a field. If not, you're better off leaving it empty (Mixed).
Southern Storm will make it easier for you to handle those "custom" terrain types.

Keep it going!

William

Thanks William. It would be good idea if we use orchard/vineyards for less-denser woods, since it would represents the condition comparably.

Regarding tracked vehicles on paddy field, things are really different from usual field. Condition of paddy fields depends on weather and season of the year, but typically, rice paddy fields are flooded by water from early/mid of May to the late September ~ early October, at least in Korea. Depth of water also depends on the season of the year, but typically 2cm~10cm. But the soil is very softened even under few cm depth of water, because it is fully flooded. As a result, it basically can't provide any mobility to vehicles like other fields, not even close. Many reports and books about armored warfare of Vietnam war and Korean war mentioned this difficulty regarding paddy field.

But I'm not sure should it be the swamp hex or empty (mixed) hex. It can bog down the tanks, and it can be a great obstacle, but it is not impossible to pass, because it is not like the real deep swamp.... So I don't know, and I really wish to see if there are any experiment.

If it is from late fall ~ spring, than it could be modeled as field. But I was considering my scenario in May~summer, so paddy field should be flooded. I will leave it as just empty hex for now.

[exsonic01]

I added small "fields" polygons to my map, because 90% of empty spaces in my AO are paddy fields. They should have some mobility disadvantage from May~October, so empty mixed hex would be proper. In addition, there is no way to distinguish paddy field, and field for others, such as corn/potato/wheet field, or just empty field... They really looks the same, and satellite view gave me not enough detail to differentiate those different fields. I wish there are some kind of "agricultural" data for QGIS, to get different field data, but I couldn't find.

So, here it goes. My results for south of Pyongyang


This is FCSS style over ESRI satellite view.


This is the same map in FCRS style.


Ready for the print composer.


Hexside Obstacle ID working. This was also not easy. There are so many rivers in my AO... William, could you please check my numbers are proper in fp9 file?

[exsonic01]

Thank you so much William~!



Rendered map of Southern Pyongyang by William's OTS mapping engine. Looks great. But need to do additional work on edge area and streams network, and naming of the roads. Looks like FCRS map editor is unable to fully depict the complex stream/river connections, causing trouble with hexside obstacle ID working. I may need to delete some detail, and slightly modify the stream direction.

[battlerbritain]

Here's a question I've been thinking of but don't know enough about QGIS to answer:
Can QGIS run automated commands, ie be used in command line mode?

If it can then once a conversion process has been hammered out then it'd be really nice to run it as an automated routine.

Just thinking...

B

[BeirutDude]

looks great!

[exsonic01]

@battlerbritain // QGIS have python command console inside the program, so I think it would be possible to write some scripts. In addition, QGIS plug-ins are based on Python. I think some steps of the map-making still might need human intervention, but automation script would save lots of time.

@Beachinnole // Thank you But it is not yet done

[battlerbritain]

@exsonic01: Python, ok. Python is on my list of new things to look at at work in the next year. I'm doing C# at the moment. I'm also working with a developer who does a lot of QGIS work for bus routes and the like. So I'm hoping to start delving into this but not sure when.

Cheers, B

[exsonic01]

This stream has only 3~4m width itself, but become 15m wide when considering bank. The bridge in the figure is also about to 15m. Is this should be ignored? Or should be considered as minor stream?

I'm reducing number of streams in my AO, but sometimes it is very hard to judge. Countries like NK are suffering from lack of water control facilities and channels, which resulted the numerous natural streams with deep curves, streams with dramatically varying width, and narrow stream with wide banks. This is tricky field for wargame map makers. :{

[WildCatNL]

ORIGINAL: exsonic01
This stream has only 3~4m width itself, but become 15m wide when considering bank. The bridge in the figure is also about to 15m. Is this should be ignored? Or should be considered as minor stream?

First of all, you are the map maker, and it is at your discretion. Second, the satellite image may represent a different season (dry or wet) than you are aiming for.

I would be tempted to ignore this stream, because it isn't consistently wide across a length of 500m, and seems to offer some narrow spots that can easily be crossed.

William

[exsonic01]

ORIGINAL: W1ll14m

ORIGINAL: exsonic01
This stream has only 3~4m width itself, but become 15m wide when considering bank. The bridge in the figure is also about to 15m. Is this should be ignored? Or should be considered as minor stream?

First of all, you are the map maker, and it is at your discretion. Second, the satellite image may represent a different season (dry or wet) than you are aiming for.

I would be tempted to ignore this stream, because it isn't consistently wide across a length of 500m, and seems to offer some narrow spots that can easily be crossed.

William

Thank you William, that is good point - stream with accessible point can be ignored. I'm in the middle of the learning curve of map-making, and your help is great support to me.

[exsonic01]

First of all, thank you so much William, and other OTS ppl, and FCRS forum members for your interest and support. This would be impossible without your help.


Finished map of the south of Pyongyang. Actually, the northern part of the map (few km south of Junghwa-eup) is in the district of Pyongyang, and city of Pyongyang appears from 10km above the northern edge of the map. The map is 20km wide and 25km long.

This map has wide open fields here and there, but not all of them are "field" as we know in FCRS. About 70~80% of them are paddy field, which degrade the mobility of any vehicles. Timeframe for this scenario is May, which means that the paddy field will be flooded by water. Typically, below the 2~10cm of water, 25~30cm of softened soils are layered in paddy field from May to October. This would not be the impossible terrain like natural deep swamp, but this would be good enough to delay the movement of vehicles. In this map, paddy fields are placed near the streams and river, and I put them more based on satellite image. But it would not 100% accurate, since it is very hard to distinguish the paddy field and normal crop field by just satellite image.

One other difficulty was the streams. Numerous number of channels and streams are placed in this region, but most of them are removed based on their width. The width of streams varies frequently, so if the stream has narrow section (less than 5m) within the 500m hex, then I removed the streams in that section. But inspecting all water channels and streams was really pain and confusing.

I will do test run soon, but my work and my baby doesn't give me the time Meanwhile, I will start next region (I'm thinking of 5~6 scenario campaign), and will investigate about OOB, formation, and units.

Question: Any good source of OOB (regiment~battalion level) & formation of PLA & KPA after 1995 or 2000 other than MicroMark Army Lists? Especially, it is really hard to collect the data of PLA OOB.

[CapnDarwin]

Looks great! [&o]