Submission for Use

General guidelines and requirements for submittting a terrain for use in the online main arenas.

General Guidelines

These are general guidelines for terrains used in the main arenas. These are not absolute requirements, but are recommended.

• Balance

Balance refers to the number and type of bases, and the amount of terrain for each team.

Each team must have equal numbers of small, medium, and large airfields as well as equal numbers of GV bases, ports and CVs.

Terrain balance can be the hardest to attain. When there is a slight imbalance in terrain it can be overcome by modifying the distance between airfields and/or the distance from a base to it's town. Where there is a huge imbalance...start over.

• Field Locations

There should be no more than one airfield per sector. No more than 25 miles apart. No closer than 3/4 of a sector.

A GV base or port, and an airfield may occupy the same sector.

• Airfield Altitudes

No airfield should be over 6k. 5k is recommended.

The simple reason for this is fully loaded Lancasters can't get off the ground above that altitude. They have trouble at 5 and 6k, so anything more just doesn't work.

• Check Your Work

Use the tools built into the TE to check your terrain.

Also, fly out of every base. Be sure bombers can take off in at least one direction.

• Playability

While realistic terrains of Europe look pretty they most likely aren't playable in a main arena environment. Take gameplay into consideration when making a terrain.

• Clouds

A complete cloud system is nice but not required.

Allowed Changes for Main Arena Terrains

• Terrain and object textures may be edited
• Clutter tiles may be rearranged in the object editor

Forbidden Changes for Main Arena Terrains

• Replacing existing terrain clutter objects with new ones.
• Rearranging the layout of existing fields or strat obejects.
• Replacing existing fields or strat objects with custom ones.
• Adding new objects.
• Custom shapes (*.shp) will not be accepted for an MA terrain, regardless of the type of object.

Requirements

These are items that are required when submitting a terrain for use in the main online arenas.

• Terrain Size - All Main Arena terrains must be either 256 miles or 512 miles in size.
• Clipboard Maps - Clipboard maps must be 1024 x 1024 in size.
• No custom objects - All objects must be the default ones included in the game.
• Working Strat - The terrain must include a complete working strat system.
• CV Routes - All carrier task groups must have a default route assigned to them.
• CV Map Rooms - All carrier task groups must have a map room assigned to them.
• CV Ports - All carrier task groups must have a port assigned to them.
• Zones - There must be at least three zones (one for each country) with a complete strat system for each zone on every map.
• Uncapturable Bases - The three bases closest to a country's HQ must be marked as uncapturable of which at least one must be an airfield.
• ME163 - The ME163 must be disabled at all bases except at one of the uncapturable bases.
• Void Objects - There must not be any void object types on the terrain.
• Group Master - Simply put, everything placed on a terrain is a Group Master. The only exceptions to this are Shore Batteries, Spawn Points, CVs, and the map rooms for CVs.

Submission

All terrains submitted for online use must include all of the source files for the terrain, including all textures. RES files will not be accepted as a submission for online use, however a RES file will be accepted for critique.

Once you submit a terrain, all of the source files become the property of HiTech Creations. They may be modified at any time, at the sole discretion of HiTech Creations.

When you submit a terrain, the files must be in .zip format. The easiest way to do this is to zip the entire folder for your terrain.

Example: C:/Program Files/HTC/ah2editor/ahiiterr/Your Terrain Name

When you submit your terrain, put the terrain name and the current date into both the .zip file name and the email subject.

Filename example: montis07022007.zip

Email Subject Example: Terrain Submission - Montis 07/02/2007

This way if there are modifications during the process they can be easily identified by both you and HTC.