Zephyr Net

Can someone enlighten me on how to implement those brown city marks onto the map terrain?

Just a summary will do (for now).

TIA

You mean change what tile shows up at that location?

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Is that how it works? I don't know how it works, and would like a brief, general overview.

Well editing the terrain tiles to make changes isnt just a simple thing. You have to create the MM file of that particular map in the FATK and then add it to either a lib or directly into the FA directory for your changes to appear...

And you have to know the layout commands and what tile you want to use.

Also all the maps are different in their command sets. I only have experience with a few of them so what I know may not work on all maps.

In the MM file (lets take NSK.MM as an example since I have edited the Korea map for FAF so heavily) there is a section that controls what tiles go where and in what direction ... Its all a easy numeric code that tells the game what tile to use and what direction to point it (N,E,S, or W by number. We will get to that in a second...)

At the bottom of the .MM file is the tile control layout... It looks something like this...

tmap 4 0 25 3
tmap 8 0 33 2
tmap 12 0 44 1
tmap 16 0 26 2
tmap 4 4 22 2
tmap 8 4 18 3
tmap 12 4 56 0
tmap 16 4 47 2
tmap 4 8 24 0
tmap 8 8 33 2
tmap 12 8 44 1
tmap 16 8 26 2
etc...

The first row of numbers is the actual location on the map from left to right where that tile will go. They change in increments of 4... Thus 4, 8 ,12, 16 .. up to the maximum number of tile locations the map will hold in width to lay tile. That can be farther than 256, but the tile will not have any ground under it and when it disappears due to distance only water will show because in FA the terrain map itself can not extend beyond 256x256 size... I have this on part of the Japanese islands I added to the korea map for a naval base. The terrain only shows when you get close to it as its on the very far bottom right of the map far away from Korea... (I do not know if there is a position 0 for tiles as I have never used it but there probably is. It will be the bottom lower left tile spot on any map that has terrain and not water there)

The second row of numbers is the row number, from bottom to top of the map... 0,4,8,12,16 etc again... The entire row will have this number...

The third number is the actual tile itself you want to use. Those tiles are in the FATK for that map if you want to look at it to make sure you select the proper tile to put where you want it...

The fourth number is the layout direction with 0 being North as you see the tile in the FATK. The top of the tile points north, if you want to change that you change that number to 1 for east, 2 for south, or 3 for west to rotate the tile around to align it properly...


Also the numbers in the rows and in the tile location numbers can be skipped of there is water on either side of the tile like in between the islands on the falklands map...

tmap 4 0 22 1
tmap 8 0 33 2
tmap 20 0 55 0
tmap 24 0 34 2
tmap 28 0 44 0
tmap 128 0 35 1

In this example there are no tiles between position 28 and position 128 and it is shown as open water on the map as I said like in between the islands on the falklands map or the kuril islands of off a shoreline like on the korean penisula...

You can also get all this information from the FATK Help Files. They don't work from within the toolkit anymore but if you click on them directly in the FATK folder you should be able to take a look for further reading...

That is a very short tutorial... I suggest you use notepad to open the MM file after you create it in the FATK to edit it by hand for tmap changes as it is much easier... You will have to experiment a bit to see which tile you want and to find the proper row and number to insert it and its proper orientation on the map...

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Thanks for taking the time to explain this. It is very helpful.

I am available if you have any questions...

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FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...