tweaking my map

[Dead.Rabit]

ok im having some problems..

1st.. i want to make a crossing point... is there a sweet spot where water is shallow enough for units. but deep enough for boats?

2nd. im trying to make a second row of metal patches... half the strength.. of the first... why are the metal calculations soo crazy... =/ ive made the patches of RGB 120,0,0 instead of 255,0,0 and also reduced the metal amount in the .smd by 1/3

originally the 255 patches gave out 2 metal
with a 1/3 off SMD metal multiplier.. its reduced to 1.9....
shouldnt it be 1.3 metal???

similarly the 120 patches should be half the intensity of 1.3
however theyre at 1.8

where have i gone wrong here... NB the metal patches are all roughly the same size give or take a pixel...

but especially help on trying to figure out the sweet spot between boats and land units..

D.R

[LathanStanley]

I'm prolly wrong, I usually just guess on metal..
(These figures are only guesses, but the math is right)
but do the calculation...

pi= 3.1415...
ER= radius of mex (say 50)
RM= radius multiplier of SMD (2)
r= ER*RM
area= pi*r^2
extraction rate = average color of pixel/500000
metal= area*extraction rate

ok, first get the radius of the mex
ER*RM = 18*2 = 36 units (which is about 7 footprints in diameter)
then get the area UNDER the mex
pi*r^2 = pi*36^2 = 4071.5 units^2
now get the extraction rate (using max green for example)
avg.pix/50000 = 255/50000 = .00051
now the metal output
area*extraction rate = 4071.5*.00051 =2.076 units

now, you want ro effectively reduce the rate to 1/2 you have to look at the formulas backwards and play mr. algebra...

either, reduce the area to half (lols.) or reduce the extraction rate to half...
thus, look at the formula for the extraction rate, ONLY the color of the pixel can change it... make it half, half metal...

now, reducing the SMD# can do other nutty stuff...
say its 2 like you started on..
2*18 = 36 unit radius
with an area of 4071.5
now, reducing it to 1.3
1.3*18 23.4 unit radius
area of 1720.21 (effectively 42.25% of the origional)

the origional metal output was 2.076 the new should be 0.877 units

but, is the area of the ORIGIONAL mex 100% full of MAX green???
or is there ANY on the outer edge thats, well... not. (cause then the avg pixel color is less, and when you reduced the SMD you reduced ONLY the extraction radius, and it lost the low end on the outer edge, and just made the average color of pixels higher...

here's a refrence so you can see what I mean,



the one on the left being 2.0 and the one on the right at 1.3

in other words....

keep playin with the GREEN on your map, not the SMD thingie..



all in all...

I'm prolly 100% wrong, but this thought process will find the error. :wink

[hunterw]

1st.. i want to make a crossing point... is there a sweet spot where water is shallow enough for units. but deep enough for boats?

Yes. It takes trial and error to determine what point that is, since it is determined not only by your heightmap, but also by your minheight and maxheight of compile. Just find it by trial and error, and when you do find it, make a note what height it is on your greyscale. For Tropical, it ended up being 65 (the scale being 0 - 255, I'm still using 8-bit greyscale heightmaps like a noob).

[PicassoCT]

Use SMFED - a little Tool that allows to change the heightsettings in the already compiled Files, so you don`t need to compile again and again.

Here is the link:
http://spring.unknown-files.net/file/17 ... _Tools_V3/

Praise to FA who uploaded it..

[ralphie]

On a 200 max -100 min map I was playing with some time back, 69 was the "sweet spot" - all land units could cross, and all sea units but an epoch. It would obviously vary based on your min/max heights, just experiment.