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[Vampire_pilot]

Map making is one the last areas where I have never got into.

Until now. During integration of the VP re-textures for the last BAT update I got a bit curious.
I won't be creating maps left and right now, but maybe  some thisandthats, just like with aircraft.

Agracier gave us a basic map of the NAS Pensacola area, which I have used in some missions and scenarios in the past. But for me it lacked a bit in scenery, and it didn't look really populated when flying over. So that became my "patient zero" to play around with the tools and files and I think, I'll drive something home there. Not sure to what degree or quality - I am no match for the master builders out there! - but maybe as a variant of a late 1930s era.


At first I played around with populating towns with a million and 1 houses but then I tried another approach, using textures. I went to google earth and fumbled around a bit with textures. I like this better, especially since you'll mostly view these areas from up high. I'll also add wooded areas.

Here's the city with US street grid style and some suburbs, a new harbor object arrangement and a Bay Bridge.




It's going to be some longer haul I guess. I have no pressure on myself, that's a purely recreational project.

What I have yet to figure out is: Is it possible to copy/paste groups of objects in mapbuilder FMB? There is a copy and a paste function but for me nothing ever gets "pasted"....

[duffys tavern]

Excellent idea. We've needed PNS for some time. Please keep up the good work.

[genXgamer]

G'day vampire_pilot

You've chosen the best method for large cities, providing you have a nice looking texture and not one of those ugly grey city textures used in stock maps.
Experiment using a tree map to line the streets with trees.
 
The answer to your copy/paste problem is to use ctrl v = paste.

EDIT:  Apologies in advance if you have already tried my suggestion, your description of the problem is rather vague and it is my assumption that you are right clicking and selecting paste.
Providing you have added the hotkey entries in the config file there is no reason why ctrl v should not work.

Oh, almost forgot to say the map is looking good so far.

[Vampire_pilot]

I took actual screenies of the area and made them into city textures. American cities and suburbs have this uniformity in their grid which makes it a bit easier maybe

I'll check and see about the ctr+v again... I made the entries as per the tutorial, yes.

Also I thought, it might enable me to make a pre-war and late-war map more easily, simply by "exploding" the city and suburb areas (and adding a few taller buildings to the centers for the 3rd dimension of sky scrapers)

Now the thing I am contemplating is the base itself. The current runway layout is Sherman Field basically (with factional parking areas though). But all missions so far use that one. So maybe it should be retained for compatibility's sake?

But maybe - if for nothing else but an exercise - I may try to make a variant representing something like the old Chevalier field, which was used until the 50s, when Sherman was built.

But first I want to build the station facilities.


Edit:
Ctr c + v does work, just the mouse clicking on the pulldown "copy" does not....
thanks for the hint.

[Vampire_pilot]

What I got so far.
pre-war Chevalier Field and the station / school.



Still woods where later Sherman Field will be built. Far left is the Coast Guard station. There is a seaplane airfield placed in the bay.
At the far top is Warrington.

I flattened my very first piece of real estate to place this runway complex

[Kopfdorfer]

Nice Development VP

Kopfdorfer

[Vampire_pilot]

Apparently, it is not properly possible to set 2 runways on an A-Style airfield under an angle. No matter what I try, only one ends up with correct spawns in the game. Or is there a trick to it?

Here are a few more impressions.
Textures from above. I feel confidently convinced.


The final layout of Chevalier Field and the station


Next target is a new layout of Choktaw Field.
It was only built in 42, so technically no pre-war airfield but I'll include it as it's also of use for a "late" Jet Age version of this project.

Then to some work in Mobile.
I also want to look into Eglin AB eventually.

[SAS~Bombsaway]

Cool. I live about an hour from there and about 40 minutes from Mobile. I look forward to seeing this project finished.

[duffys tavern]

Keep up the good work VP, it's such a swell idea. Looking forward to it.

[Vampire_pilot]

Would anyone have any good layout pictures or maps of the original 1940 Eglin Main?


I just did Wagner Field (Aux 1), so you can train with Doolittle for the raid

[Vampire_pilot]

All new Mobile

The Alabama Shipyards and McDuffie Island coal heaps


First work in the Eglin area:
Eglin Auxiliary #1, Wagner Field


I will be doing maybe some of the earlier Eglin auxiliary fields that were around in early 42. All of them were hard surface fields. So the early map will be a prewar/dawn of the war map.

[SAS~tsisqua]

Cory Station and Pensacola NAS were where I lived and received training in 1979. I was in the US Army, but my specific job required training which only the USN supplied. (I'd tell you what that job was, but then I'd have to . . . lol, you know .) I loved Pensacola, and Gulf Breeze. After I was married and had two children we went there to camp at Big Lagoon State Park. That was the best time I remember having when the kids were still kids. We visited the Naval Air Museum, and I saw my first PBY Catalina there. We discovered Perdido Key, and the best swimming holes in the area. Took a Dolphin cruise, and in the campground, (Yes, we had pitched a tent, not a camper), we saw enormous tortoises and lizards. Over the hill from us was the lagoon, and we saw gators there every day. My wife and I were hanging out in the vehicle after the kids went to sleep in the tent one night, and we joked that they might get eaten by a gator. No sooner than we had chuckled a bit (yes, we are morbid people), this song played on the radio and we are still laughing:



I never fly the NAS map in IL2 without severely fond memories.
Thank you for even considering this.
Bird