What's with the "empty" portions of terrain?

[Spectator6 0]

I was messing around with the editor the other day and I was REALLY surprised to discover that a great deal of the map doesn't have any trees/roads/buildings/etc. Part of what got me so excited about this game is how massive the land area is... until I made this recent discovery.

Does anyone know why BIS chose to do this? Are the other portions of land going to be fleshed out in the future with updates or something? Because it would be REALLY neat to have it completed (if that's even the right way of describing it)

[Thirdup 0]

Don't look at it as "unfinished"...see it as "potential expansion".

Whether BIs populates it or some modder, it'll get used eventually.

edit: The area used for ArmA2 is approximately 225 km² and is based on actual satellite photos of České Středohoří.

ArmA1 had 400 km² of terrain.

Edited August 1, 2009 by Thirdup

[mr_centipede 1]

Are you sure you're still in chernarus? because outside the border of chernarus, the infinite land is definitely empty... and those portions are not exactly part of the map

[maturin 12]

West of Zelenogorsk is actually Chernarus proper, so that may be a possible expansion direction. North into Russia may be more likely, though. I'd love to see BI take 50 square miles of Daghestan or Chechnya next.

[H.A.L 10]

Mr Centipede, yeah i think Spectator6 kept on flying north. . .

. . .which randomly generates terrain as you go.

[jakerod 248]

Don't look at it as "unfinished"...see it as "potential expansion".

Whether BIs populates it or some modder, it'll get used eventually.

edit: The area used for ArmA2 is approximately 225 km² and is based on actual satellite photos of České Středohoří.

ArmA1 had 400 km² of terrain.

I am fairly sure that the 400km^2 took into account the ocean though. I don't think the 225km^2 does.

[Eagle911 10]

Don't look at it as "unfinished"...see it as "potential expansion".

Whether BIs populates it or some modder, it'll get used eventually.

edit: The area used for ArmA2 is approximately 225 km² and is based on actual satellite photos of České Středohoří.

ArmA1 had 400 km² of terrain.

http://www.myshaweb.cz/wp-content/uploads/clanky/ceske-stredohori/ceske-stredohori-1.jpg

Looks like the castle near vysnoha

[Thirdup 0]

I am fairly sure that the 400km^2 took into account the ocean though. I don't think the 225km^2 does.

I'm pretty sure you're correct.

The ArmA1 Sahrani map was a 10x10 grid (including water) with each grid (2 km x 2 km) representing 4 km². So, 400 km² total (and yeah, a lot of that was water).

The ArmA2 Chernarus map (portion that has been populated) is 15x15 grid (including water). Mine has no scale on the legend (I assume it's 1 km² per grid since BIS claims it's 225 km²). 15x15x1 km² would put it right at 225 km².

IMO, of course....

Edited August 1, 2009 by Thirdup

[Spectator6 0]

Are you sure you're still in chernarus? because outside the border of chernarus, the infinite land is definitely empty... and those portions are not exactly part of the map

Ahh, that's what I was encountering...

It just caught me off guard to see that where I spawned my plane, there was nothing on the land.

So for all intents and purposes, the extreme west and north regions of the map are "yet to come" portions?

Still an impressive amount of area, don't get me wrong. The landscape is amazing. I was just wondering why they didn't make the end of the cityscape area the actual end.

But since it sounds like players may be able to mod in some new areas, etc. I guess I should look at it as BIS's way of saying, "This is the great area we came up with. Now here's some extra space to play around with on your own, have fun =)"

---------- Post added at 08:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:38 PM ----------

Mr Centipede, yeah i think Spectator6 kept on flying north. . .

. . .which randomly generates terrain as you go.

That's actually a pretty cool feature, I wonder if it could somehow be put to use...

[Apocal 10]

That's actually a pretty cool feature, I wonder if it could somehow be put to use...

Nope, the map will only look that far off-map if it's zoomed out and the AI won't go outside the defined portion.

[NeMeSiS 11]

The empty part was added in 1.02 i believe, and after the empty part thats still on the map you go to the generated area.