Discussion bout (future) Eastfront

[Die Happy]

hurray for early eastern front maps
panzer II and III and very few panzer  IV would be the bulk of the german force vs KV1 and t26, interesting i think.

also italy vs russians would be nice but needs some desperately needed italian vehicles like upgunned semovente that could actually kill tanks.

of course there is the need for the "big" things like stalingrad, kursk etc

but i rather have some of the not so well known stuff in.

anyways somewhat the whole thread is just dreaming into the future anyways so i demand remote controlled russian anti tank dogs that randomly reverse  controls from time to time

[Eat Uranium]

hurray for early eastern front maps
panzer II and III and very few panzer  IV would be the bulk of the german force vs KV1 and t26, interesting i think.

also italy vs russians would be nice but needs some desperately needed italian vehicles like upgunned semovente that could actually kill tanks.

The semovente in the mod now was the most powerful peice of armour the Italians had on the eastern front.

Also, I demand Pz38(t) and PzT34(r)!

[Mud Buddha]

Personally I'd like to see Eastern Front (or Pacific) before more Western Front maps. I'd say make 1 or 2 Ardennes maps and the same for Market Garden and move on to the east. From a developers point of view I get the theatre-after-theatre approach but personally I'm a bit bored with Normandy. I love FH2 to death but the cool thing with FH1 was the diversity in maps and fronts, and my personal preference was always the east and far-east.


So, my thoughts on eastern front:

- Although I like the see the most obscure battles of course, I'd say: remake the old/impressive favorites (The Storm, Seelöw, Kharkov etc for those major tankbattles. Stalingrad, Berlin, Pavlov etc. for close quarters). It probably saves a lot of time.

- Consider that the added value of the more "obscure" maps isn't that much. You'll only please a small amount of people more, but with a whole heap of extra work. The rest just wants cool eastern front maps. So just stay "mainstream". I'm all for the more less-known stuff, but time is of the essence and the mainstays like Stalingrad or Berlin simply have to be in there.

- As for actual ideas: yes, include Operation Barbarossa. As I recall it wasn't featured in FH1 and it's a really interesting period, hardware-wise.

- Maybe try to include the doctrine difference into the opposing teams, with the russians having more manpower (but being very careless with it) and the germans having the technical upperhand (but less resources). I don't really know how this would work in-game but maybe the Russians can have less ticketbleed per killed footsoldier or anything. That footsoldier would have to be armed lighter than his german counterpart to balance it out of course. I dunno, just a rifle with 1 clip and no grenades or bandaid versus the german grunt with full grenade/ammo/bandaid kit.

- Concerning actual hardware ideas, I'll leave that to the guys who know way more than I do about that stuff. But maybe a plane-oriented map would be cool for the eastern front. Especially in the early stages when the Stuka still mattered, like with the Battle Of Sevastopol.

[Paasky]

Theres nothing wrong with 0.7's finnish voices.

*cough*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKv1v4p61jA

Correct you are, they still sound great.

[Paavopesusieni]

Yeah i remember those, awesome. "Tulta munille" boom .

[Miklas]

How much is needed for an operation Barbarossa map?

There already is:
All German hand weapons
The needed German tanks and halftracks in panzergrau
Russians could use lend-lease halftracks and jeeps
Russian and German voices
German planes are also there right?
Enough "terrain stuff" for it to look like eastern Europe as long as the battles don't take place in cities.
Is one of the current German player models OK?

What is needed:
Russian hand weapons (were some donated already?)
One or two Russian tanks
One or two Russian planes
Russian player model (the hardest bit?)
A few house statics to get the real feeling of eastern Europe

I know this is a lot but there is certainly less content required compared to Pacific or Finnish maps.
What have I missed? (a lot probably)

[Paasky]

Soviet player models, work required: At least two months.
Soviet hand weapons, work required: Probably the same.


That's why.

[9.Pz Kreuzer]

Flippy, you remembered me about FinnWars mod! that mod was fun!
Fight the soviet invaders to the last man in trenches or foxholes in the woods, tank...whatever! charge with molotov!!

[Eat Uranium]

Soviet player models, work required: At least two months.
Soviet hand weapons, work required: Probably the same.


That's why.

A set of maps for these to play on, work required: At least a year

[sn00x]

I demand my Luchs!

[Paasky]

A set of maps for these to play on, work required: At least a year

Pfft, give me some statics and I can have a map ready in three days. Although it would still require all the nibbly-tiddly-bits we all love, like shovels and piles of cowshit.

Import heightmap from old FH1 map or Google earth.
Generate textures with Tpaint or that-other-program-which-does-it-better-but-I-don't-know-how-to-use-it.
Open the big detailmap in PS, resize to 512x512 and lower to 4 colours.
Save as under & overgrowth maps.
Open the editor, add a few flags and buildings (this takes the longest).
Add roads. Erase undergrowth from under buildings.
Generate under & overgrowth using the pre-done maps.
Increase road widths by 8, and use the BurnRoadFromUndergrowth tool to autoremove the undergrowth under roads.
Copy-paste undergrowth maps over the overgrowth ones.
Regenerate overgrowth.
Create basic shadows.
Play map!


Then spend a few weeks adding the details and playtesting.

[Miklas]

A set of maps for these to play on, work required: At least a year

Import heightmap from old FH1 map or Google earth.

Zielona Gora plz!!!!

[Alakazou]

I prefer to see the rest of the western front of war before eastern front and the pacific war before eastern front, but I think kev4000 is right about the eastern front.

Why pacific? You know pacific is much more harder to do then Eastern!

And i have to agree, Mid 1942-1943 might give the best battle's

I don't want to start a debate, but it will be easier to make the pacific then the eastern front for many reason
First: the eastern front need too many static (finland stuff, winter in Russia, summer in Russia, caucasus, poland, Ukraine, germany, romania. Each of this need different Architecture and naturel stuff)
Second: we need many new army and technology (hungarian, romania, italy, finland, poland)

For the pacific: need new stuff, but not that much. (much than the western europe, but less than the eastern front) and another reason is because the pacific it's a different war than NA and Normandy and the gameplay will be different. We already have big tank battle and city battle like you will see on the eastern. I want to see a remake of coral sea, I hope to see battle with massive use of flamethrower.

But like I say, I want to see western europe battle first(Hurtgen,market garden, crossing the rhine, holland battle, bulge battle) because it will be faster to release.

[ajappat]

Hate to say it, but lesser countries like finland and such, could just be ditched. Only Germany and USSR at first. Also by doing only winter or only summer stuff at first would make it faster.

[Cory the Otter]

I still say FH2 needs Westerplatte--the first battle of the war that no other game has made