How do you place docks/cities in the LND layer?

[Ducimus]

This might be the wrong forum to post this, im not sure really.

But, there's something ive wanted to do for a long time, and its hinged on one seemingly simple thing. Being able to place docks/cities in the LND layer. I have NEVER seen them in the editor, so i have no clue as to how rubini or anyone else was placing them.

How do i do this?

[Drebbel]

Think the mission desgin forum is a better place to ask this.

I seem to remember I did see them somewhere, can't check unfortunately. Because altough I have 2 SHIII DVDs I can not get it installed on my system anymore. :D Bye bye SHIII welcome SHIV !

[Ducimus]

Bye bye SHIII welcome SHIV !

That " something ive wanted to do for a long time," is semi related to SHIV. ;)

[CCIP]

They are not in the LND layer. You have to add them manually into Locations.cfg in the terrain folder. The format is relatively straightforward, might take you a bit of trial and error to get the coordinates right.

[Ducimus]

They are not in the LND layer. You have to add them manually into Locations.cfg in the terrain folder. The format is relatively straightforward, might take you a bit of trial and error to get the coordinates right.


Ahhhh. That explains it. So i have to wonder, if you can't see the docks in the editor, how the hell do you place docked ships?

[Egan]

They are not in the LND layer. You have to add them manually into Locations.cfg in the terrain folder. The format is relatively straightforward, might take you a bit of trial and error to get the coordinates right.
It took those of us in the ops-mod team ages to do what you now see in RUB/ NYGM. CCIP is spot on, it really is trial and error and all done by long-hand. Luckily enough, it is really straight forward, just time consuming.

If you want the name of the city or port to show up in game, though, you must add a marker in the LND file. Remember that if the city changes hands at all you will have to add new markers with the correct date to have it appear correctly.

[Egan]

Ahhhh. That explains it. So i have to wonder, if you can't see the docks in the editor, how the hell do you place docked ships?
There is a trick, if I am remembering right, only Harbour models with 'Showonmap=true" will appear on the in-game map. It is quite a few months since I did these so I may be wrong. I think you must also have 'Locationname-' set as well.

God, it brings back memories. Horrifying memories....:o

[Ducimus]

Your scaring me!

[Egan]

Your scaring me!

There is no need to be scared,really...:D

Just take your time and go through it methodically. By far the hardest thing is to get the correct lat/long. What I did was zoom in, rest my cursor over the point of the map I wanted to place my object and make a note of the lat/long readout at the bottom bar of the editor. You may have to close down your windows task bar in order to see it depending on resolution. Once done, go and add your entry in the locations cfg, open up the editor again and check to see how it looks. Of course, cities are harder as you can't actually SEE them as such.....

Actually, you SHOULD be scared...:p

[Ducimus]

Well i had an idea on something i wanted to do. You have made me realize i was being far too ambitious, and im a little too much on the burnt out end of the scale to pursue it.

I thank you for sparing me what little sanity i have left. :D

[CCIP]

Come on, it's not nearly as hard as it seems.

If you have anything of the GW/NYGM unified campaign, look at the Baltic, Med, Black Sea and North America/Carribean. See all those ports and towns?

Well, I put 90% of all of those there :smug:

Egan, Nico, and later Rubini did a lot of work with these things too. It actually gets rather easy with enough practice.

[Ducimus]

How long do you expect it would take to place say. 20 ports (with docked ships) ingame in various places?

[CCIP]

The ships I'm not sure of, it's Rubini's department.

I more or less outfitted the whole med with ports in about an evening's work, and a couple of evenings for Carribean/North America. I'd say maybe 6-8 hours at least, if you're into it.

What takes the longest is not placing but testing. If only SHIII would boot faster.

[Ducimus]

Somebody else needs to make a mod to create type of game i wanna play so i can stop tinkering and play more. *sigh*

[Egan]

Come on, it's not nearly as hard as it seems.

If you have anything of the GW/NYGM unified campaign, look at the Baltic, Med, Black Sea and North America/Carribean. See all those ports and towns?

Well, I put 90% of all of those there :smug:

Egan, Nico, and later Rubini did a lot of work with these things too. It actually gets rather easy with enough practice.

No it's not that hard. Just time consuming and irritating at times.

I did all the new ports for Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Britain, the Atlantic islands, most of Africa and India in about three weeks but getting the actual ports and cities in can be done pretty quickly. After that it is just tweaking. In a few cases I was changing what the devs had put in because it was wrong.

20 ports can be done in two or three evenings. Also remember that, for best results, you will want to add industry and city models beside them to flesh them out. Even so, It isn't that big a project. sorry if I made it seem like it is..

Go for it. Like CCIP says it gets easier with practice. The first few I did were pretty annoying and then you get into the swing of it and lash through it quickly. once you have the basic thing down corrections are easy to do, it's usually just a case of altering the lat/long slightly or changing the heading.

[Egan]

Somebody else needs to make a mod to create type of game i wanna play so i can stop tinkering and play more. *sigh*

Out of interest, what sort of game do you want to play? I'm guessing you are either interested in a pacific type thing or a sneak into harbours and sink things type of thing?

I only did a few ships at anchor or in port areas, mostly for my own experiments. It isn't that hard either, really. Again, it just needs time and tweeking.

[Ducimus]

Somebody else needs to make a mod to create type of game i wanna play so i can stop tinkering and play more. *sigh*

Out of interest, what sort of game do you want to play? I'm guessing you are either interested in a pacific type thing or a sneak into harbours and sink things type of thing?


I meant to respond to this a couple days ago. Its acutally a very good question and i had to stop and think about it because i wasnt sure what kind of game i wanted to play myself!

I think the game i really want, can be summerized as a philosphy of game design so to speak. To summerize, I dont think i want to play a simulator per say, nor do i want a sub shooter, what i think i really want is more of an interactive WW2 sub novel based on historical accuracy.

That is to say, in my mind, i expect every patrol to play out like an epic journey.T me no patrol should be routine. I expect a destination, a sense of purpose, a sense of progression. I expect to make real hard decisions with consequences, and when the patrol is complete, i think i should feel as if i had just completed an adventure.

So to me, simply single merchants doesnt cut it, nor do convoys, nor do harbor raids, nor aircraft alarms, not any single factor. It's the sum of the whole, and it all needs to blend together to form a novel, a movie, your own version of "Das Boot"; Based on history, and the same time cinematic.

Quite a tall order i'd say.