In game map

F

ftgc

Guest
Still having a great time in OFF. One thing I'd like to see though is a small improvement of the in game map. Would it be possible to add the towns to the map like the airfields are? On numerous occasions I'll be flying along and over fly a town, but when I look on the map I don't see it on there. Additionally when I fly over the areas of the map that have that big red dot signifying a town or city I often don't see anything below me. Attached are a couple of shots that show what I mean. I'm hoping that when I get my Trackir that I can get rid of some of the aids but that's going to need a navigable map and it sure would help for claim forms. Not a bitch just something to consider for the future.

Thanks,
Scott
 
Hi, Scott: This has been brought up quite a few times over the years and it's something that we want to do, but is still down the road, if it's even possible. If you do a search on the OFF forum you will find quite a few discussions about it. The most common solution is to use the real WWI maps that are available.
 
A Blast from the Past

To navigate, you need maps. Forget the in-game map. It's too vague and mis-guided. .
The best I've found are screen captures from MS Encarta. You can focus in and zoom on any area that you fly over in WWI. I like these, because they are the most accurate to WM's scenery that are available. Over the entire front, I have found only 3 roads on the maps that are not in the game. The rivers, roads, railroads, and some exisiting airfields are spot on.
Drawbacks: Perhaps too accurate to replicate WWI navigation, features are hard to read at a distance and require going over with markers (I use green for rivers, orange or red for roads and black or RR's), at different levels of zoom the smaller towns names may or may not appear.

I mention the city names because I think it adds to the game when you can see the village or town, after which, your airfield is named and see where it is in relation to your field. To use MS Encarta, I max zoom over the area I want, take a screenshot (ALT + Print Screen) and use Irfanview to view (new blank image, go to edit and paste). I then print it our and go back to the web site, then move it to cover the area next to where I just printed. This gives me 8 1/2 X 11 sheets that I put in plastic page protectors where I can use a grease pencil to make notes and mark targets, such as ballons, army bases, camps, airfields, etc. This comes in handy on lone wolf missions. The sector you fly in rarely uses more than 4 pages so with two to a protector (back to back) you only have two maps to fumble with as you fly, and many times just the one. Again, though, after flying over the area, you will learn it by rote and just a quick review at mission briefing is enough consultation.

Some flyers use warp or autopilot as they don't have the time to fly the whole mission manually. This is understandable as they rarely go under an hour. I never do, but that's a personal choice. If I don't have the time to fly a full mission, I fly quick flight. I won't denegrate anyone who uses those aids, because if they fly OFF , they can't be all bad:applause:. There are a lot of interesting and stirring things to see flying across WM's scenery and you can miss a lot.
 
Chopped map of Flanders uploaded
download the map of Flanders from Polovski's site and cut it into many pieces in the size of an A4 sheet. Print every sheet,file it and you will be able to fly without the in-game map or the TAC just like the guys back in the War.
You can D/L the map from here http://www.sim-outhouse.com/soh_ftp/...aps/OFFMAP.zip
Take notes of balloon positions,enemy airports, artillery activity..increase the fun and the immersion!
Print the pieces so you will be ready when P3 comes!
 
Gousgounis already did exactly the same, I've had his for the last couple of weeks.
 
Actually this is my post copied and pasted :p:.
I am gonna spank gimpy for stealing my thread now..... :running: :violent: :costumes:
 
I went back and found it, I had taken it originally, and knew the date

I would've stuck your name in there, but it's all Greek to me

I added it to my sticky, so it don't get lost again
.................................................
I'm gonna get WF2 on my case also. . sticky again :sheep::sheep::sheep::sheep:
 
Creating Maps

I did some experimenting with flying QC "Free flight" missions at 10,000 feet, trying to hold the plane steady, making the cockpit invisible, looking straight down and taking screenshots.

The idea was to "photo recon" a section of the front & make my own in-game map. But I could never hold the plane steady enough. That was before I learned about auto-pilot, maybe I'll try again...
 
Now I'll have to refill my color printer. Or even better to somehow stitch together all the partial bmps for my 2nd monitor. Interlocutor, pls post what turns out from the recon. :)

Thanks.
 
Around 8 years back, with IL2 there was a ficticous MAP you Downloaded and printed out it was topogaphical, like 7 colors. But in 24 parts, like 6X4, it was HUGE

Time for a little arts & crafts, scotch tape a blank sheet from the back, that's the boarder you'll need to attach the next sheet

7X5 that's IMMENSE

Question: How many rolls of scotch tape :greenf::greenf::greenf::greenf:
 
Dirk98 said:
Interlocutor, pls post what turns out from the recon. :)
Click to expand...

Sure :). I even tried to use Mission Builder to construct simple missions, flying due North-South, to make the "recon mission" easier. But my missions kept bombing out with various error messages, so I guess I'm missing something about mission building.
 
Interlocutor said:
Sure :). I even tried to use Mission Builder to construct simple missions, flying due North-South, to make the "recon mission" easier. But my missions kept bombing out with various error messages, so I guess I'm missing something about mission building.
Click to expand...

Thanks, keep it up. If there's an undocumented satellite 'developers' view it would help to create some sort of a useable map for the game (with visible in-game towns and forestst in the first place) for those who love dead reconning instead of GPS. I hope the developers could chime in here, even unlock such a view for a while till the next update. :)

Dirk.
 
Shame we have to fly this very fine simulation with incredible scenery details by GPS and/or RADAR. I wonder if anyone from the developers has a sketch of the game map. What is basically needed is not even a scaled map, but just approximate drawings of sections of the game area, with towns, villages and blocks of forest. Anyone tried to put something together for dead reconing in OFF3?

I know it's a huge job to even make a rough but useful drawing of the map but it's really a shame to miss the amazing ground scenery and details put in by WM, that we basically skip when pull up GPS map or the radar aids.

Please post your ideas! :ernae:

Thanks.
 
Well, I had some good photo recon results yesterday, thanks to "autopilot" :).

I found I could start a QC at 15000 feet in any plane, head it in any easy to remember compass heading (say due north), level off, and hit autopilot.

Then I choose external spot view, center the view right above the aircraft looking straight down, and hit the "zoom out" key until I've gotten as high above the plane as it will go.

If the weather is good (no clouds), the plane will show up as a small image far below in the view. I then start snapping screenshots in a overlapping pattern. When I've got a good swatch I exit, call up Paint, and cut-and-paste the bitmaps together to make an aerial recon "map".

Save the result as jpeg, put in place names e.g. airfields, town, roads, RR, & rivers, and you've got a map.

Working on Flanders now, near where I like to fly as RNAS out of Furnes & Droglandt...
 
Interlocutor, pls save your valuable job. If you can share it at some point pls let us know here, it will be very much appreciated for sure. I hope more recon maps will come on in this thread from other 'sources'. I would even ask the moderators to create a special sticky for these maps.

:bump:
 
Dirk98 said:
Interlocutor, pls save your valuable job. If you can share it at some point pls let us know here, it will be very much appreciated for sure. I hope more recon maps will come on in this thread from other 'sources'. I would even ask the moderators to create a special sticky for these maps.
Click to expand...

No problem :), of course I'll save the maps. I'm still working out the mechanics of doing the job. Today I took a swath of Flanders, north from Droglandt airfield to the sea, then cut-and-pasted the screenshots together in paint.

Now I'm looking at Winder's (?) period map of Flanders to try & put in place names & such.

Ideally I'd like to run photo-recon missions "in game", i.e., take off from an airbase flying a two-seater in campaign mode, abandon whatever mission I was supposed to be on, and instead fly my "swaths" north-south along the lines, taking screenshots from 15,000 feet. If I get attacked, so much the better :). A very immersive approach, I hope...
 
Interlocutor said:
No problem :), of course I'll save the maps. I'm still working out the mechanics of doing the job. Today I took a swath of Flanders, north from Droglandt airfield to the sea, then cut-and-pasted the screenshots together in paint.

Now I'm looking at Winder's (?) period map of Flanders to try & put in place names & such.

Ideally I'd like to run photo-recon missions "in game", i.e., take off from an airbase flying a two-seater in campaign mode, abandon whatever mission I was supposed to be on, and instead fly my "swaths" north-south along the lines, taking screenshots from 15,000 feet. If I get attacked, so much the better :). A very immersive approach, I hope...
Click to expand...

What a fantastic idea! :applause:
 
Interlocutor said:
No problem :), of course I'll save the maps. I'm still working out the mechanics of doing the job. Today I took a swath of Flanders, north from Droglandt airfield to the sea, then cut-and-pasted the screenshots together in paint.

Now I'm looking at Winder's (?) period map of Flanders to try & put in place names & such.

Ideally I'd like to run photo-recon missions "in game", i.e., take off from an airbase flying a two-seater in campaign mode, abandon whatever mission I was supposed to be on, and instead fly my "swaths" north-south along the lines, taking screenshots from 15,000 feet. If I get attacked, so much the better :). A very immersive approach, I hope...
Click to expand...

Please see this post: (click here)

Thanks,
 
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