rksl-rock 1301 Posted October 11, 2020 RKSL Bovington Test Area BETA Bovington Camp is a real location in the Southwest of England. Its primary use is to teach members of the British Forces to drive and use all the vehicles in the British inventory. But it is also used to test and develop new equipment and improvements to existing kit. The map was started due to a conversation with @mikephoenix about having a map to test our vehicles on. I blame him for all that followed. This represents a lot of blood, pain sweat and so many tears its really not funny. It is not the best product I've ever released. And I'm reluctant to release it in this state. But so many people want to get hold of it I've chosen to let it escape into the wild. Some things you really need to understand: This really is an UNFINISHED, WORK IN PROGRESS!! Lots of broken and messed up things. You MUST set your view distance to no more than 4000m to get the best performance. It uses a 4096x4096 height map and has a 1m per vertex resolution and any view distance over 4k causes massive FPS drops. It will be updated and improved upon over time. That time frame may be months or millenia. This version is a slight step backwards in terms of progress in that it has a lot of placeholder buildings and objects. The green buildings are placeholders for custom buildings. These will be swapped out over time. White objects are unfinished or I've screwed up. They will be replaced faster than the green buildings. It was intended from day 1 to be an internal project soley for Mike and myself. If you want to whine and whinge about it, just unsubscribe and move along. And if you cant resist are going to whinge. Be constructive and make a Bug report here: BUG TRACKER Version History V3.BETA41 Public BETA - Fixes and additions V3.BETA40 First Public BETA Release Legal and EULAhttp://eula.rkslstudios.info/ Stats: 16.777 sq Km 99,960 ish objects. Some custom roads, Lots of custom objects, 600m Firing Range with custom firing points. 25m Pistol Range Credits Created by: RKSL Rock Custom Objects by: MikePhoenix and RKSL Rock Tested by: - Farsight - Smudge - Siddy - (when he could remember to download the right version) - SmokeDog - Kyle - John M - Lots of ref pics and advice. If you would like to donate, I would appreciate it. Especially now with COVID its hard for people to do but If you like the map and out addons dropping me a Kofi would be appreciated[ko-fi.com]Rock Oct 20 DOWNLOAD @Steam - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2255211315 DOWNLOAD @RKSL - https://www.rkslstudios.info/index.php?/files/file/33-rksl-bovington-test-area/ 16 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
EO 11277 Posted October 12, 2020 A very distinctive terrain, love the lawnmower artwork! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
krzychuzokecia 719 Posted October 12, 2020 (edited) I don't care if it's not finished - 600 meters range and pistol range is something I wanted to see in Arma ever since playing that free version of UK VBS. I already know that I'm going to spend too much time on this map! Edit: I don't know where to post it, since there's no specific thread for that, but the big red banner target from your Training Objects pack seems to be bugged - it sinks into the ground after starting the mission (looks good in Eden). Edited October 12, 2020 by krzychuzokecia Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Omsi_Player_123 2 Posted October 12, 2020 Thanks for releasing, i was following the development of the Bovington map on the RKSL-website. Cool to have a map were you can just have fun and test out the limits of differnt vehicles. Of course there are already other test/ training area maps, but none of them has all this features like ponds, bumpy roads, steep tracks, area with garages etc. Also nice that you are developing custom objects for the map, a lot of map-builders just use standart objects. Imagine building the Bovington Tank Museum on this map. But that would be a lot of work if the buildings should be enterable. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rksl-rock 1301 Posted October 12, 2020 3 hours ago, krzychuzokecia said: Edit: I don't know where to post it, since there's no specific thread for that, but the big red banner target from your Training Objects pack seems to be bugged - it sinks into the ground after starting the mission (looks good in Eden). Oh? I'll have another look at that. Thanks. Just FYI there is a bug tracker on the RKSL Website and you can always drop a note on our discord if you want a quicker reaction. 3 hours ago, Omsi_Player_123 said: Thanks for releasing, i was following the development of the Bovington map on the RKSL-website. Cool to have a map were you can just have fun and test out the limits of differnt vehicles. Of course there are already other test/ training area maps, but none of them has all this features like ponds, bumpy roads, steep tracks, area with garages etc. Also nice that you are developing custom objects for the map, a lot of map-builders just use standart objects. Imagine building the Bovington Tank Museum on this map. But that would be a lot of work if the buildings should be enterable. You are welcome. Its something I've wanted for a while and the timing was just right when it happened. It really wasn't planned. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wansec_6 200 Posted October 15, 2020 Gday @rksl-rock, Had a chance to have a look at Bovington today. I reckon it looks great so far. How accurate to the real Bovington is yours? Looking forward to seeing how Bovington progresses. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rksl-rock 1301 Posted October 15, 2020 3 hours ago, wansec_6 said: Gday @rksl-rock, Had a chance to have a look at Bovington today. I reckon it looks great so far. How accurate to the real Bovington is yours? Looking forward to seeing how Bovington progresses. Glad you like it. Re Accuracy: Well it uses real world 1m resolution DEM heightmaps. So from that point pretty accurate until you get out to the 600m Range and the helibase in the NW (My god son made that area, he's 12). Those areas are pure artistic licence. But the road placement is 100% real. The tracks maybe not so much but ive tried to stay close ot the way the terrain changes so they are - i beleive - pretty close. The building placement around the SW is mostly correct with some bits missing but the rest of the map is missing some key bits. Lawerence or Arabia's house for example at Clouds hill. There are several houses and farms missing. I didnt feel they added anything useful so didnt bother with them. I think this needs to be said. When I started this it was PURELY as an internal project for @mikephoenix and I to test our vehicles on. i had zero plans to take it to what it is now. I showed some screenshots on my discord and people began asking for private version. It was only then that I even thought about releasing it. I've already got what Mike and I needed from this map. Having said that we are going to continue to develop the buildings etc. But as so many people want to use it as a training map, I think leaving most of the space open for what ever use Clans and GU's want to do with it is probably the best way forward. So you will see lots of fixes and the new buildings will start to appears, specialised spaces will get more populated eg testing tracks will start to fill out. Maybe some ambient buildings too but I'm not sure what else I could do with the map and still have it as flexible as possible. I'm open to suggestions. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rksl-rock 1301 Posted October 22, 2020 Just a heads up: v41BETA is due in a few days It's likely to be Saturday (24th) Morning. Whats changed: Some minor tweaks to road network, smoothing corners and merges. Tweaks to the colours on the Satmask and maps. Toned down the saturation on the heather...way less purple now. Added some more vegitation in the sparser areas. Widened some of the country lanes to make AI use easier. Added the River Piddle. Sentry put in a request for a river to enable river crossings using RHS's new pontoons. This was something I wanted to do orginally. But for various reasons did not push it. There is a actually a river in this area with the fantastically British name of "Piddle", It is the real name and I'm not making it up. So I have added it in. I'm going to stream some of the clean up work a bit later. Internet permitting. I was planning on doing this last night but my connection was going up and down all night. The river is located in the NE corner. it doesnt really affect what was already there too much. The height map already included most of the detail already. So if you've already begun using the map for training or missions you may not be affected. You can watch the earlier work to make the changes ingame. Here: I should be streaming the rest a little later on today. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rksl-rock 1301 Posted October 24, 2020 RKSL Bovington Test Area BETA41 is out on Steam. Now with added watery bits as requested by SentryUK. As always - READ the page first. Have fun. v3.BETA41 Update: 24 Oct @ 4:58am - FIXED - Geo location this has had the desired effect on the lighting. - ADDED the River Piddle. Yes that is its real name. - ADDED extra hescos at various locations - FIXED - several uneven roads. - ADDED - Lots of reeds and bushes along the river banks. - Added several new tracks - Added several bridges. - many more small tweaks and changes. 4 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
