Making an entire AFB Mapgen

[evilexecutive]

Alright, so I’ve currently got on the drawing board some plans to make an Extremely large Ultra-rare Mapgen, which will consist of what is essentially an entire Air Force Base. I’ll probably need to ask other people to help out with the idea. But right now I don’t have any idea how the process for making large mapgens would even work, but here’s the gist of it.

• The mapgen will be of an extremely high difficulty, intended for highly experienced survivors. It should also be very rare, with the intention being that a survivor would either be extremely unfortunate for one to spawn near them at the start of mapgen, or they would have to do a lot of exploring to find one.

• Several tiles consisting of North, South, East, and West “Wall Segments”. These will be double thick barbed wire, patrolled by lots of zombie soldiers and Military Searchlights, but behind them is empty space with sparse shrubbery. A Trio of “Gate Sections” will also be present, with roads going from them to the rest of the base. These gates would be guarded by turrets, and obviously still, soldier zombies.

• sparsely wooded open ground, where leftovers of a horde of regular zombies can be found,

• Additional supporting tiles of Northeast/west, Southeast/west corner walls, which will also have searchlights and zombie soldiers

• 2x2 building tiles consisting of hangars, with scrap planes inside, as well as technicians and soldier zombies

• multiple 1x1 runways in sequence, which are well lit and possibly suicidal to cross, these would have permanent, active light fixtures on them, as well as hordes of regular zombies. Sometimes there would be a plane stuck on the runway, with intact autocannons that could be salvaged.

• Barracks sections, living quarters mostly

• A Military Hospital, not as large as the regular one, but still a 2x2, with parking lots surrounding it.

• A Commissary building, consisting of a 2x2 parking lot, and a shopping center wrapped around it to form a total area of a 3x3 tile.

• A large command center(2, maybe 3 Z levels tall), with an attached bunker and underground spaces. The command center would have radio equipment, and multiple turrets guarding it, as well as a few hordes. Inside of the bunker would be an underground complex with Several hundreds of zombie soldiers, Technicians, and Shockers, all in tight spaces with occasional computer rooms. This will be where a great deal of loot could be found, if a survivor can actually fight his way through all of the command staff died in the apocalypse. I would probably include things like Deployable Folding Turrets, experimental weapons, rare ammunition, and the sort.

• Records, logs of what happened to the base, how everyone inside was overrun.

The story of this would be that; obviously when the apocalypse started and most nationwide communications ceased, the New England Air Force Base found itself almost immediately beset upon by the apocalypse. They unfortunately were not prepared for such an attack, as they had no tanks, no support, and being caught in the apocalypse with their next shipment of fuel two days out. With no ability to evacuate the base, they followed procedure and locked all support staff down inside the command bunker, while all combat-ready personel went topside. They knew fully well from the sight of the hordes that they weren’t going to survive, so each man decided solemnly to fight and take as many zombies with them. But they were not men of the army, or the marines, they were Airmen who were unused to combat.

Naturally, they ran out of ammo. The hordes reached New England AFB’s command bunker, and the non-combat staff inside died in a literal wave of bodies falling down to the zombies. When all was said and done, at Day Zero; T+0900, New England AFB’s last remaining airman put a 1911 in his throat, just as the bodies of his own comrades surrounded him from a mere two feet away.

[vache]

The big problem with what you’re describing is the size. Right now, the realistic maximum for an overmap special (the multitile structures) is 9x9x11 (1 surface, 10 underground). Since a tile is roughly a meter, this leaves the maximum size of a structure as approximately 216 m^2.

It is possible that a larger sized structure could be placed, but it would have to be very lucky, and it might have unintended consequences elsewhere.

You will probabaly have to scale down the size of the runway, fence, and gate sections to make it work.

[evilexecutive]

[quote=“vache, post:2, topic:10710”]The big problem with what you’re describing is the size. Right now, the realistic maximum for an overmap special (the multitile structures) is 9x9x11 (1 surface, 10 underground). Since a tile is roughly a meter, this leaves the maximum size of a structure as approximately 216 m^2.

It is possible that a larger sized structure could be placed, but it would have to be very lucky, and it might have unintended consequences elsewhere.

You will probabaly have to scale down the size of the runway, fence, and gate sections to make it work.[/quote]

So what you’re saying is that as this structure gets larger, the odds of it actually spawning in decrease? Would this be because the mapgen would struggle to actually place it inside each “Map Area”? What kinds of consequences would I be looking at if it was a 11x11x5(2 surface, 3 underground), nevermind positive Z Levels, I do know they exist, and sort of work fairly well.

[vache]

Right now, the way specials work is that it generates everything else first, then it splits the overmap into 9x9 sections, and then it picks a single point in each of those sections and tries to place something there. The larger the special is, the less likely it will find a valid placement location overall, but in general, specials larger than 9x9 run a much larger risk of it due to overlapping the areas of other specials. If it was able to spawn, it would also run a much larger chance of being next to something like a fungal tower or megamart.

[evilexecutive]

Right now, the way specials work is that it generates everything else first, then it splits the overmap into 9x9 sections, and then it picks a single point in each of those sections and tries to place something there. The larger the special is, the less likely it will find a valid placement location overall, but in general, specials larger than 9x9 run a much larger risk of it due to overlapping the areas of other specials. If it was able to spawn, it would also run a much larger chance of being next to something like a fungal tower or megamart.

Okay, so it would definitely -not- be okay to have a complicated area like an AFB splitting a shopping mall in half. So I won’t be going above 9x9, but I absolutely will be trying to figure out how to fully utilize the 9x9. I’ll probably scratch out nearly all of the freespace in the designs, and focus more on the actual buildings in that case.

[Random_dragon]

Interesting concept, though I do wonder what other realistic military installations would be feasible to implement in a realistic manner, given the constraints of mapgen. As it stands, the existing bunkers and outposts are a tad…small and lacking in basics, essentially.

[vache]

It’s easier to put in larger installations underground because it’s a lot less crowded down there, especially when you’re not in a city, that’s one of the reasons why labs can grow randomly and be quite large. Still, a 9x9 is a pretty large area, if you add every tile, its over 46,000 individual tiles, and that’s only on one z-level. A multitile structure at the maximum of 9x9x21 is almost a million tiles.

[evilexecutive]

Interesting concept, though I do wonder what other realistic military installations would be feasible to implement in a realistic manner, given the constraints of mapgen. As it stands, the existing bunkers and outposts are a tad…small and lacking in basics, essentially.

There’s another concept. I do think Outposts should be made more like a FOB, seeing as how that’s more likely what the military would be using. An enclosed area with Barracks, Motor Pool, a small CIC(A heavily armored, small single room building with comms equipment), and a shipping/receiving area for supplies and patrols. It might be feasible to create mini-fobs in only a 2x2 tile area. They simply need to have all 4 of those things available to be a functional FOB.

That being said, I can’t even start this thing without first knowing where to even begin the process of creating mapgens. I don’t know where to start, as the most I’ve ever done was make a Flintlock Pepperbox and some early holsters (A Go Bag, but as a Gun Case).

[vache]

If you wait a little while, I should have a multitile building editor out soon.

[evilexecutive]

If you wait a little while, I should have a multitile building editor out soon.

Oh, kickass then! I tried out your editor and thought it would be useful. Let me know when you’ve got the Multi-tile editor out then, I’d be happy to take a crack at improving many of the military stuff in the game.

[Random_dragon]

[quote=“Random_dragon, post:6, topic:10710”]Interesting concept, though I do wonder what other realistic military installations would be feasible to implement in a realistic manner, given the constraints of mapgen. As it stands, the existing bunkers and outposts are a tad…small and lacking in basics, essentially.

There’s another concept. I do think Outposts should be made more like a FOB, seeing as how that’s more likely what the military would be using. An enclosed area with Barracks, Motor Pool, a small CIC(A heavily armored, small single room building with comms equipment), and a shipping/receiving area for supplies and patrols. It might be feasible to create mini-fobs in only a 2x2 tile area. They simply need to have all 4 of those things available to be a functional FOB.

That being said, I can’t even start this thing without first knowing where to even begin the process of creating mapgens. I don’t know where to start, as the most I’ve ever done was make a Flintlock Pepperbox and some early holsters (A Go Bag, but as a Gun Case).[/quote]

That’s was I was thinking, the outposts should have at least some of the basics. As it stands it’s either just a barracks, or just an odd little storage room.

I like the idea of them being compact, but they should at least have enough amenities to support a squad or platoon.

[Iosyn]

Bravo, OP. This sounds like a great addition. Instead of making a full-size AFB though you might have to condense it. The runway alone is going to take up a lot of map tiles and if it’s really ‘endgame’ content might be a bit cruel to section off half the map. Can probably just cut the runway size and handwave it by all military aircraft in the near future being capable of JATO/SHTOVL/VTOL.

I’m planning a war-room type base-- something similar to Cheyenne mountain, currently planning the layout right now but a FOB sounds good too-- just remember the setting is New England, not the invasion of some dictatorship. National guard outposts/recruiting stations/firing ranges still have a place.
Then again there are FEMA camps and Refugee centers right now so some FOBs enforcing the quarantine shouldn’t be that much of a stretch.

Maybe we should upgrade the military outposts into a 2x2 or 3x3 FOB?

[evilexecutive]

[quote=“evilexecutive, post:8, topic:10710”][quote=“Random_dragon, post:6, topic:10710”]Interesting concept, though I do wonder what other realistic military installations would be feasible to implement in a realistic manner, given the constraints of mapgen. As it stands, the existing bunkers and outposts are a tad…small and lacking in basics, essentially.

There’s another concept. I do think Outposts should be made more like a FOB, seeing as how that’s more likely what the military would be using. An enclosed area with Barracks, Motor Pool, a small CIC(A heavily armored, small single room building with comms equipment), and a shipping/receiving area for supplies and patrols. It might be feasible to create mini-fobs in only a 2x2 tile area. They simply need to have all 4 of those things available to be a functional FOB.

That being said, I can’t even start this thing without first knowing where to even begin the process of creating mapgens. I don’t know where to start, as the most I’ve ever done was make a Flintlock Pepperbox and some early holsters (A Go Bag, but as a Gun Case).[/quote]

That’s was I was thinking, the outposts should have at least some of the basics. As it stands it’s either just a barracks, or just an odd little storage room.

I like the idea of them being compact, but they should at least have enough amenities to support a squad or platoon.[/quote]

Okay, so to outline what a Platoon would need, you need 10 to 20 beds(Condense it into 10, and say they’re bunk beds maybe?), as well as a 2-man CIC to coordinate their actions, a motor pool with 2 trucks, and a small storage area for receiving/shipping supplies to maintain that platoon. Maybe there could be turrets included, but for only a single platoon I wouldn’t include any more than 2.

The CIC could just be a 3x4 room attached to the end of the barracks, say a concrete structure with reinforced doors leading into it from the barracks, and having a radio tower outside of it. So we have a 48x48 space to work with if we’re going to make this a 2x2 outpost.

Bravo, OP. This sounds like a great addition. Instead of making a full-size AFB though you might have to condense it. The runway alone is going to take up a lot of map tiles and if it’s really ‘endgame’ content might be a bit cruel to section off half the map. Can probably just cut the runway size and handwave it by all military aircraft in the near future being capable of JATO/SHTOVL/VTOL.

Okay, so instead of long runways, we could have a small number of map tiles dedicated to launch pads.

[Random_dragon]

Hmm. I’m guessing that the existing 1x1 space would only be viable for supporting a squad at most, and logically it’d be more of a camp than a pre-established outpost.

[Iosyn]

Nah, don’t discount the runway entirely, just don’t make it super huge if you’re going to have an external chainlink around it.
As long as it’s in proportion with the rest of the AFB it should be fine. About double the size of the main AFB should be enough I think.

TT
TT BBB T- control tower
HH | | | BBB H- Hangars
HH | n | BBB | | | <-- two runways.
HH | u | FF B - Misc buildings. Barracks, admin, etc.
HH | | | HH BB F - Fuel store/pump etc.
| | | HH BB (+) - Helipads
(+) | | | HH BB
(+) | | | HH BB
(+) | | /
| | (+)(+)
| | (+)(+)
| |
| |
| |
| |
/

There’s my shitty example. Not to scale, skimped on a lot of the misc buildings to save space and it’s totally not a carrier.
I’m sure you can make a much better one than that. A motor pool/garage area would go down well I think and you’re always going to need stuff like a surgeon’s ward/hospital or armories.
Anyway good luck mate, I’m gonna start having a go at the FOB tonight. Or something bigger than the outpost anyway.