[Map] Congo Insurgency (2km) [WIP]

[ChiefRyza]

Hello again everyone! After working on Tempest for over a year now, I started working on another side project. This one in particular is smaller (2km x 2km) but I was interested in creating something that hasn't been seen in PR before.

Yes, it is another jungle map, but as I figured it is what I have most of my experience in at the moment, it made more sense and I felt I could complete it much quicker.

The map takes place in a dense jungle filled valley region within the Congo - it will feature the French forces fighting African Militia (the ARF) in an Insurgency format. So yes, it is a Jungle Insurgency map. It is still extremely WIP, only been working on it for about a week in total, but it is coming along well I think. Still fixing up the colouring etc but it runs quite well considering the amount of vegetation on it at the moment. It will be cut down quite a bit to allow for lower-hardware PC's to cope, so when I'm done, I expect the overgrowth count to be around 30-40,000 (it is currently at 60,000), hence why the top of the minimap has no shadows.

Name: Congo Insurgency (Name not decided yet)
Size: 2km

Factions: French forces vs African Resistance Fighters
Format: Insurgency
Focus: Infantry Combat assisted by Armoured support.

ARF will be armed with T62's and light APC's, while the French Forces will utililize heavy armour with the possibilities of APC support. There will be no aircraft due to the low visibility of the map. The view distance is tweaked for armor, while the fog distance is very short, allowing for a low overgrowth rendering distance as well. Although Thermals will need to be utilized, armor should still be of use to hit hardened positions.

The entire map will be filled with lots of possible cache areas. From large coffee plantations to lots of small to large villages, abandoned settlements, ARF strongholds (trench and sandbag bases), a bombed ARF airfield and many more areas of interest. I have about 20-30 areas in mind that will be worked on to place possible caches in.

The map is covered in thick jungle and full of huge mountains that will be covered in thin, winding trails. Fighting will range from urban combat to claustrophobic jungle combat, tight, mountain combat, fighting across the clearings in the vegetation (there for performance concerns, but they turned out quite well) and trench warfare.

Anyways, here are some screenshots, keep in mind I'm still unhappy with a lot of it, and it's a long way away from being completed. Minimap is crappy looking, top area is having some buggy lightmapping issues, and the overgrowth isn't rendering.










Again, huge thanks to GhostDance for his amazing Jungle statics! Thanks to Amokandy as well, your Overgrowth/undergrowth environment tutorial made it so much easier to cover the map in jungle

[Rhino]

looks nice although the fog feels a little ott to me, the concept sounds interesting as well

[ChiefRyza]

Yeah, just trying to get the right feel for it at the moment. I spent about 3 days just tweaking sky, fog and lighting settings and I'm still quite unhappy with it. I guess I just need to spend more time on getting it to look right, but there is plenty of time for that

[Click]

Looks extremely good will be interesting to play.

[pfhatoa]

If you get problems with too much over/undergrowth you can have some open areas as seen in this thread or maybe an area cleansed from trees due to deforesting. Would be an interesting area to fight in too.

Good Luck.

[ChiefRyza]

It's manageable performance at the moment, I'm just trying to improve it as much as possible at the moment. In fact, it runs perfectly on an I7 system, but I'll be doing a lot more testing to make sure it all runs fine.

[VapoMan]

Looking goooood. Even though its 2km, its going to feel huge because of the rough terrain and viewdistance.

The undergrowth is pretty tall for viewdistance though, people will try to hide in it and get shot from afar. you could probably lower the OG number by a couple thousand by using a layer that isnt so dense around the edges of the map where people wont walk around as much.

I really like the look of it so far, and I look forward to playing on it.

[Noeme]

This look extremely nice... It would really bring some variety to the game.. Good job

[dtacs]

Awhile ago I had a similar idea for a 1km map in the northern Congo, forgot the name of the town (edit: name was Ouesso) but I began drawing a basic plan but unfortunately never got around to it. Here are some pictures of the joint, as you can see it has huge dirt streets with drainage ditches on each side, perfect for infantry to avoid the thermals of the French:





Not pictured was a small dirt airfield, which you could add in as a point of interest.

With the thickness of the overgrowth, heavy armor like Leclerc's wouldn't be wise, maybe just heavy APC's like the VBCI and some transports, going up against BMP-1's. It isn't logical to have an Insurgent force storing their weapon caches in coffee plantations etc. when they have the base to store an operational Soviet tank, including logistics chain.

I'm sure you know immersion is going to be a key factor, so if you can get any sound files of exotic birds and insects then that would truly add some flair to it. Maybe even a mosquito buzzing past the ear once in a round that happens at a random time.

Also, mines, basically the Korengal/Lashkar caves turned on their side with ladders going down to the bottom. That will be cool to fight in.



And some random names I thought of: Canopy, Dark Heart, Forest's Heart, Indomitable, Mantis.

[Wakain]

looking good, I like the concept. To be honest I expected a river, just because every jungle map seems to have one

I like the fog, that together with some nice ambient effects will make this jungle indeed pretty claustrophobic
however the lighting of the fog reminds me of bad weather, perhaps a little rain effect will add to the feel?
hope you continue working on op tempest as well

[ChiefRyza]

looking good, I like the concept. To be honest I expected a river, just because every jungle map seems to have one

I like the fog, that together with some nice ambient effects will make this jungle indeed pretty claustrophobic
however the lighting of the fog reminds me of bad weather, perhaps a little rain effect will add to the feel?
hope you continue working on op tempest as well

There are 'rivers' so to speak, working on it at the moment. Not a large one, just lots of thin creeks and waterfalls, seeing as it's supposed to be in the wet season.

[STORM-Mama]

:O

Looking really promising!

But is there really a need for such heavy assets on a map like this? What sensible army would send APCs into terrain like that? (judging from screenshots here)

[Amok@ndy]

what kind of buildings are that on the minimap ? chinese ones ?

[sweedensniiperr]

in contrary what rhino says, i like the fog.

[ChiefRyza]

what kind of buildings are that on the minimap ? chinese ones ?

Just some wooden, corrugated iron-roofed buildings. There isn't much variety unfortunately, I plan on creating some new ones however. Nothing Chinese looking on this map or Op. Tempest, I am trying to keep the feel to the map as much as possible, but for now they are just placeholders or as close as I can get to African-region buildings with PR's range of statics.

[Pantyfas]

Are you aiming for quite dense jungle-like areas or have something else in mind?

It isn't that easy to advance throught the jungle with any vehicle at all, you could use the dirt roads of course, but if u are aiming for a wet like map, the roads aren't that viable in Africa, especially deep inland and in the hoods where the Insurgents are hiding at.

I'd suggest you to look at some Angola Colonial War References to see some Conventional Armed Forces fighting against Guerrilla tactics (the environment is not that different)

[Sgt_Doctor]

Thanks for FF and ARF mate !

Your map looks brilliant ! I'm really impressed by your work.

[Wakain]

There are 'rivers' so to speak, working on it at the moment. Not a large one, just lots of thin creeks and waterfalls, seeing as it's supposed to be in the wet season.

perhaps good to note that I was pleasantly surprised, almost all jungle and woodland maps seem to sport large rivers nowadays, I was in no way suggesting a river

to come back to the rain, which was sort of a suggestion, what do you think about that? on another note, do we actually have a rain effect? I believe we do, hence the suggestion, but I'm not entirely sure.

[VapoMan]

to come back to the rain, which was sort of a suggestion, what do you think about that? on another note, do we actually have a rain effect? I believe we do, hence the suggestion, but I'm not entirely sure.

There is a rain effect for bf2. Its used in one of the maps in Forgotten hope 2. It got problems though. Because the the effect is made up of lines (so it can be seen better) and the lines are always lined up with the screen, when you look directly up at the sky, the lines will start falling down sideways.

EDIT: and it can also cause lag, something that jungle maps already have enough of Ambient sounds are enough IMO.

[lucky.BOY]

Yeah, i dont think we are ready for this kind of effects, look at Barentz offensive or what its called, dunem used snow flake effect in that map and he got (apart from great atmosphere) lots of people whining and yelling at him because they got lags, CTDs, server crashes and what ever.