Category:BATUS Training Area Map: Difference between revisions

RKSL Studios presents the ALPHA of our BATUS map.

Please read the description properly!

This package is 4.5Gb not 450 Steam seems to think it is.

BATUS is the acronym for British Army Training Unit Suffield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_Training_Unit_Suffield

It is a huge open grassland area in Canada leased by the British MoD used for training and testing. Which is what i wanted the map for.

ABOUT THE MAP

• It is an ALPHA - while it is playable and unusable not everything is perfect or fully tested.
• It is experimental at this stage.
• Its a huge 1,677.7 Square Km. That's 40.96x 40.96km playable space.
• The map is largely empty and is a work in progress. But some areas have limited groups of buildings and structures. Others don't yet...
• The sat mask is currently just unedited sat images. That will change.
• Clutter and grass etc will too.
• There is a fully developed and detailed road system, lots of custom markers, objects and buildings.
• Some people have made comments about unplayable FPS drops with ACE/CBA. It works fine without them so its an ACE/CBA issue and not something I can fix.

INTENTION

The map is and always was intended to be largely empty. That will not change. Some areas will get more fleshed out and built up. The idea was for somewhere to use long range arty, tanks and planes properly on a large scale. So I wont be adding towns and villages with proper buildings etc outside of the real life areas.

There is a long story regarding its development but I'll save that for a blog post. But it has involved a lot of learning. And its no where near done!

ISSUES AND TO DO

If you have any issues please let me know via discord. Don't ♥♥♥♥♥ privately, let me know what issues you have and i'll try my best to fix them.

There is still a lot to do:

• The sat map is not that well blended or prepped properly yet.
• The mask layer has some issues, which is why some surfaces will appear odd or glossy.
• There are some issues with sharp edges in the terrain
• and there may be some magical floating water and bridges. Make a note of the location using co-ords and please let me know.
• Oh and there a lots of fences to do.

ACCURACY

The map itself uses sat imagery and is 1:1 scale. The detail on the map has been matched to proper British Army Maps, so all the OP and bridge markers names etc are in the proper locations. Where possible you will also find custom objects and markers at most of these locations.

Some bridges and things are missing and will be added later. However the limits of the game engine mean that some details like trenches and berms require custom objects. I'm not likely to add them so they will likely vanish from the satmap soon.

Notes:

1. I've added some fictional elements like an OPFOR airbase (ENE Side), locations for classic Soviet SA-2 SAM sites (SSE) etc But its largely a fairly accurate representation of the real area.
2. To improve performance and gameplay I have increased the vertical range by 1.5 times. Meaning that a 10m height difference is now 15m. This was done to limit view distances in some areas and provide more dead ground to hide stuff in.

GETTING INVOLVED

If people want to make some decent - on-theme - compositions for CQB compounds and other areas please drop me a link and I may add them properly to the map and credit you if that is what you want.

BUILD STATE

It is being released so that I can get feedback on performance and largely because i'm sick of being nagged for it. But I really would like your feed back on performance and how you use my stuff.

LEGAL & EULA

http://eula.rkslstudios.info/

Credits

Created by: RKSL Rock

Custom Objects by: MikePhoenix and RKSL Rock

Contributors:

• DAR-V Community remnents
• UKAF Sim community for testing
• Tankie2RTR for advice and info
• Melchet for lots of photos of grass and weeds.

If you would like to donate, I would appreciate it. Dropping me a Kofi would be appreciated too, this island making game is a huge time sink https://ko-fi.com/rkslstudios

Thanks

Rock

September 2021