The Blackest Day of July - PreFinal

[Moz]

[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]README[/FONT]

[FONT=System]ADMINS: THIS VERSION IS RELEASED AS IS. THERE MAY BE BUGS. FEEL FREE TO RUN BOTH VERSIONS (Beta 3) ON YOUR SERVER. I DO NOT HAVE TIME TO PROPERLY TEST IT. IT MAY NOT EVEN WORK ONLINE. PLEASE LEAVE BUG REPORTS ON THE THREAD IN THE RO FORUMS.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Title:[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Black Day in July[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Filename:[/FONT][FONT=Arial] RO-BlackDayJuly_PreFinal.rom[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Author:[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Tom “Moz” Hall[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Email: [/FONT][FONT=Arial]Tom.C.Hall@gmail.com[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Homepage:[/FONT][FONT=Arial] None[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Build Time:[/FONT][FONT=Arial] 10 Weeks[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Player Load:[/FONT][FONT=Arial] 26-32 Players[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Requirements:[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Same as Standard RO[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Description:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]On the 12th day of July, 1943 the Battle of Prokhorovka would become the largest Tank Battle in all of human History. This pivotal battle in Operation Zitadelle and of the Battle of Kursk would be a huge turning point in the war and the beginning of the end for The Third Reich.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial]Changes:[/FONT]

• [FONT=Arial]New overhead (darker[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]Fixed the tree problem[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]New objective positions[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]New locking pattern[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]Return of Prokhorovka Line objective[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]Moved Soviet forward Spawn, again[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]Time limit Adjusted[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]More Radios[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]New Command bunkers for artillery spotting[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]New Class: Forward Spotter (limit of one)[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]Added 2 Russian Commanders[/FONT]
  • [FONT=Arial]SVT40, BINOCS[/FONT]
  • [FONT=Arial]Counts as 0 in cap zone[/FONT]
  • [FONT=Arial]Spawns near BA64[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]Some [/FONT][FONT=Arial]new features[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Comments:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]o[/FONT][FONT=Arial]I don’t have the same amount of free time to commit to this project anymore. I’m releasing it as in. I don’t even have time to finish this read me.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Thanks to:[/FONT]

• [FONT=Arial]Wilsonam for his very useful website on this battle. [/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]Tripwire for making RO, and to everyone that put up with the first versions. [/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]Thank you to Xarchon, Jakdo, C3ll and Iron Crescendo for helping me play test many of the different versions. [/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]Thank you to my girlfriend for loving me and not leaving me.[/FONT]
• [FONT=Arial]Thanks to all the players and people that have emailed about how much they love the level[/FONT][FONT=Arial]! Don’t play it too much, there is a whole world outside to enjoy![/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]DOWNLOAD HERE[/FONT]

[aceto]

downloading and uploading to server.

ill report bugs if we can find some.

[sander]

I've just played it a couple of times, all works online. A couple of things:

-The Russians can't see that at the south flank there is an radio (at the Supply)
-Haven't test it but can only the forward scout use the armoured car? I hope it is yes.
-Great addition that forward scout and artillery posts (funny to see that you have 28 artillery strikes).
-Maybe you can use custom skins, most of the vehicles for the germans are still grey
-Nice new admosphere, now it is a perfect black day of july

[Moz]

I've just played it a couple of times, all works online. A couple of things:

-The Russians can't see that at the south flank there is an radio (at the Supply)

there are afew radios that don't appear on the map because it seems there is a limit to the amount of items you can have on the overhead. I was going to fix it but didn't have time.

-Haven't test it but can only the forward scout use the armoured car? I hope it is yes.

They spawn next to them, while the tankers spawn away.

-Great addition that forward scout and artillery posts (funny to see that you have 28 artillery strikes).

I was going to test to see how many would be needed, but I decided 30 was enough to use it often and tactically. (they are short strikes for hitting immobile tank formations)

-Maybe you can use custom skins, most of the vehicles for the germans are still grey

Wanted too but I don't have time.

-Nice new admosphere, now it is a perfect black day of july

I actually don't remember what colour the sky is in this release, I didn't even have time to play it before I released it!

[Capt.Marion]

it seems that you are rather short on time, so maybe you could perhaps let someone help you with some of these things, and you just approve it yourself? (Not that I would want to do it, I'm still learning this whole mapping thing.) Just and idea.

[Bogdan]

Hi, Moz.

I've tried the new version of the map and didn't find any bugs or problems up to now. I only have two minor suggestions:

1) I see a pink color hue about everywhere (don't know if it was intended). The soil is, somehow, pinkish, Tiger's skin turned a little pink, inside turrets I get some pink "reflections" etc. You might want to look a little bit into this, if necessary.

2) The objectives names, on the map, could be written in black instead of white, in order to better stand out from the background. Same font, same size, but black.

Thanks and good work.

[Moz]

1) I see a pink color hue about everywhere (don't know if it was intended). The soil is, somehow, pinkish, Tiger's skin turned a little pink, inside turrets I get some pink "reflections" etc. You might want to look a little bit into this, if necessary.

whoops. I know what the problem is, will fix it for final hopefully

2) The objectives names, on the map, could be written in black instead of white, in order to better stand out from the background. Same font, same size, but black.

Thats out of my control.

[Solo4114]

I just got done playing a round of it. I don't know if this was an issue with the team or what, but with 25 minutes left, the Germans were down to something like 18% reinforcements. You may want to take a look at the total reinforcement count for both sides and make sure they're enough that you can actually have a decent battle. Germans ran out of reinforcements with the Russians at about 83%.

Some of this may have been due to poor German teamwork (they didn't manage to hold a single objective), but in this round at least, the balance seemed to have tipped heavily in favor of the Russians. I'll have to play again with a more competent team to tell for sure but it struck me as REALLY odd that the Germans could lose reinforcements THAT quickly.

Question: does a Tank Commander count as 1.5 soldiers for reinforcement's sake? If so, that could be your problem right there. There were tons of tank commander positions available and we had at least 5 of them it seemed. Losing them in rapid succession would deplete reinforcements pretty quickly if that's the case. Probably better to limit it to at most 2 per team. The Panzer IIIs and Stugs are already fairly fragile it seems (a lot of them, even angled, were getting killed in one shot), and with people teaming, that's two kills per tank -- or 2.5 kills per tank if a commander is in there (or 3 per tank if two commanders are).

Again, this assumes that commanders count as more both for capping and for reinforcements. It just struck me as really really odd that the Germans would be SO short on reinforcements with so much time left on the clock. I can't imagine this is intentional.

[Moz]

I don't remember the reenforcements ever coming into play before.

I set them to the aprox historical numbers 200 german; 500 russian and it never came up beyond that.

Were they dying constantly? was it a rapefest?

[Solo4114]

I got in around, I guess, 27-30 minutes in. I don't know how long the map's set to now (I thought it was only like 30-35), but by minute 25 or so (22 at the latest), the Germans were down pretty low on reinforcements and by minute 18-15 they'd completely run dry. They were getting their butts kicked pretty handily, but even in situations like that I'd NEVER seen reinforcements run out on any of the previous versions. It was pretty surprising.

I think the issue may be the multiple commanders, if my sense of their count for reinforcement purposes is accurate.

--EDIT--

Just played another round. At around 18-19 minutes, the Germans were down to 45% reinforcements, while the Russians were at 75% or so. That's a pretty sharp disparity. The Germans didn't seem particularly crappy either. It was just the normal attrition of tank maps in this game. Kind of a drag, really.

[ButchCassidy]

Must admit I have seen the germans running out of reinforcements an aweful lot on this map well before the end which usually tends to kill the map and players end up leaving because of it

[Mike_Nomad]

Originally Posted by ButchCassidy

Must admit I have seen the germans running out of reinforcements an aweful lot on this map well before the end which usually tends to kill the map and players end up leaving because of it

Seeing basically the same thing.........

[=GG= Mr Moe]

I don't know if it is my computer or not, but when I run this map, and this map only, I occasionally get some screen flickering. At first I thought you were trying to simulate lightening, but it doesn't seem to be that.

Strange...

[Moz]

running out of respawns

this has never come up before except in this release.

I guess the added artillery is killing the germans much faster than before.

I'm going to triple the respawns in the final version.

[Solo4114]

Tripling the respawns will probably help some. I dont' know if it's the artillery specifically (I haven't seen that many arty kills on this one), but the German tanks seem to be doing poorer.

The visibility range right now seems to be around, what, 700m at most? Engagement range seems to be between 500m and 600m. At those ranges, the Germans lose one of their major advantages -- gun/sight quality.

German sights are more precise and let you engage at farther ranges, and tanks like the Tiger can really play to their long-range strengths. Even the Pz IV with it's long barrel does pretty well in that situation. By contrast, the Russians are more suited towards <500m fighting, where their tougher armor lets them take a pounding, and at which range their guns become a LOT more deadly.

I think this factors into the attrition rate as well and while more respawns will lengthen the map, it may not change the outcome as much. Shortening the range of visibility definitely plays against the Germans and in favor of the Russians. Combine that with the respawn rates, and you end up with a slaughter for the Germans. At least the two times I've played. I don't pretend to be an authority on this version at all.

[Mike_Nomad]

Originally Posted by =GG= Mr Moe

I don't know if it is my computer or not, but when I run this map, and this map only, I occasionally get some screen flickering. At first I thought you were trying to simulate lightening, but it doesn't seem to be that.

Strange...

Its not your computer.... if you pay particular attention to when you see the flicker... its only when you are in a moving vehicle, not on foot standing still or moving about.

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Originally Posted by Mike_Nomad

Its not your computer.... if you pay particular attention to when you see the flicker... its when you are in a moving vehicle, not on foot standing still or moving about.

True, it was only when I was in a vehicle. I will have to notice if this happens on other maps more then....

[[TW]DrGuppy]

Sounds to me like Z-fighting but with your sunlight actors. Z-fighting is visible flickering when two objects, or parts of objects, are directly overtop of one another. The computer doesn't know which one to display so it just displays both which makes them flicker from one texture to another constantly. In this case you probably have two or more of your sunlight actors with the exact same hue/saturation/brightness values. Try changing these by a small amount, just enough so that they're not the same as any other sunlight and you should be fine.

[Moz]

is it the lighting flickering or is it the skybox filtering, it might be the fog ring acting up (it's scaled very strangely)

[Heler]

Germans got raped in every single round I played in. We couldnt get near the objectives. The russian tanks are faster and stronger. It seemed like every round I'd put into them regardless of the tank would bounce off.

Also, I know you dont like tigers.. but that tiger REALLY balanced the game out for the germans. It allowed them ONE tank that behaved like a t34 minus the speed and turret speed.