..just read this and thought I'd pass it along. I'll try this out later..
I know that we have all experimented with the small offline maps for mission building. The problem is that to create a whole campaign, the limited area gets old after only a few missions.
I am sure that many of you know you can place objects off the map by simply opening the .mis file in a text editor & changing the coordinates. It has never been very useful until now. With the Desert MT map, Oleg & crew were kind enough to give us ocean to the North, two straight coastal areas to the East & West and desert all along the South. This would correspond to the coast of North Africa at almost any point. The lack of significant coastal cities with a small mountain range to aid in navigation makes this map ideal to take advantage of placing objects off the map.
Here is how to increase the size of the MT map from 2500 square kilometers to 22,500.
All you have to do is place your objects, mission goals, waypoints, vehicles, etc. on the map and then close & save the file. You open the .mis file in wordpad or notepad & change the coordinates to the new location you would like them to appear. To move them off the left side of the map (out of Egypt & into Libya, for example), about 40 km down the coast, you would put in the longitudinal # -40000.00 in place of the one in the file. This would be at approximately "Point A" in the chart below. The gray area indicates negative coordinates and the dark grey is double negative (both Longitude & Latitude).
You now have an enemy base down the coast in uncharted territory. The only problem is that your in flight map no longer works. Why? because when you fly off the map, it won't follow your path anymore. Not a big issue on the desert map because if you get lost, all you have to do is turn North & follow the coast back to the mountain range. Now we are even simulating navigation problems faced by real pilots and the "Fog of War". You can't see your enemies icons or the target icons either. That means your briefings are going to have to be very thorough with time & distance to your waypoints. You can always turn on Autopilot to get a bearing to your next WP, get a heading and then turn it back off again. Hidden or secondary mission goals placed at the waypoints also give visual clues that you have "arrived". I personally see it as a whole new challenge.
To work out arrival & intercept times for enemy flights, I have found it works well to place the flight on the map in the mirror image of how I would want it to be off the left hand side of the map. Then you simply replace the positive number with a negative and they have the correct flight times. Keep in mind that when you work with negative coordinates, it reverses the relationship between objects when they are moved. (If the AA was to the right of the truck, it is now on the left)
If you are moving objects off the right of the map(from Morocco into Libya from the East)all you have to do is increase the coordinate number relative to the distance you want to move it.
***important issue*** I have found that once you move objects off the map into the negative coordinate area, if you open the file in the full mission builder, it will corrupt the file and place the objects back on the map (almost). You can go back in & correct them by deleting the - sign that is added after the decimal in the coordinate #. If you save the file under single missions, you can fly the mission & use static cameras to check the location of your objects. Then you can minimize FB & edit the locations in the text file. Save the .mis file & restart the mission to see if your changes are what you are looking for.
I am working in "uncharted territory" so to speak, so if anyone has anything to add, feel free. I have a couple of demo missions here
http://jyarbrough.homestead.com/Index.html called "endless desert" & "desert fortress" for anyone who wants to take a look at them. There is no readme. I did not include a file path but I am sure that anyone who has even bothered to read this far will know what to do with them.
Some people may not be interested in flying over featureless desert or ocean for extended distances (like me) but it does have some possible uses for placing enemy bases further away and eliminating the "hiccup" when you spawn EA during a mission. I hope this helps those of you/us who are wishing the desert map was just a little bigger for our offline campaigns!
TX-Cuda
"A smoking plane is a sign of a good cook"
