Afghanistan

My second release: Afghanistan!
Download link: http://www.4shared.com/file/37342772/67cf4693/Afghanistan.html

It's a map of a small part around Kabul, but since it is impossible to make the map too large (realsize) because of lag and the scenery editor program, I decided to make it fictional. Kabul is obviously larger in real life, and trouble spots are located farther away in real life from what I show in my map, but it's about finding a nice middle way between realism, the program's computing abilities, and flying pleasure.



I made it suprisingly quick, because I was actually working on a different map at the time (not Guilin...). That might sound strange, but working on the other map (my first and as yet unreleased project) allowed me to practise on the functions of the scenery editor program, and whip up some items ready to use in Afghanistan. Besides, once I got the mountain and road templates I could simply import them and fit them in place like a big empty puzzle. Of course, gradation quad strips were very important, because they make it look natural. I think most existing maps would look much more convincing if people redid them with grad strips on them.



Afghanistan in my mind is a fascinating map to fly in. The history of the country is amazing, as are the views, and lets not forget that Coalition forces are currently conducting combat missions there as we speak. This, combined with the Soviet attempts to subdue the Afghans in the 80's, makes for a varied range of CAP's to fly, in various different airplanes. And as a bonus you can actually experience how difficult it is to search and attack Mujahedeen that hide in the huge mountain ranges of Afghanistan.


view from an mi-17 Hip Soviet helicopter.

I released this map very fast after Iwo Jima, and it proved to be very popular with the YS Community, which boosted my self-confidence in map making for sure. Some posters even said it is their all time favourite, which is a very great compliment for me I think. Now all I got to do is make their new all time favourite (and I already got a nice idea of what to do). This is the release page of yspilots:
http://www.yspilots.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6275

These are some pictures I collected before making the map:









A funny thing happened when I was on a random flight in my scenery when I tried to attack the Mujahedeen I perched on the mountains in my map. I ordered my 3 wingmen (F-18's) to attack the ground forces and went in towards the enemy. However, the next thing I know is that I see my wingmen bomb a village full of civilian ground objects!! I had meant for them to follow me in bombing the cluster of enemy forces, but I had forgotten that I put one enemy house in between the other friendly village houses, so the computer automatically sent them to that one house. Nothing to worry about you would think, were it not that a computer automated attack usually involves bombs, and dropping them with 2 at a time. So, what happened was that 3 F-18 Hornets dropped 6 250 lbs bombs on an enemy house surrounded by friendly houses, completely levelling the entire village... How realistic can you get? :)





One of the coolest things I think about my Afghanistan map is that you can actually fly through a gorge with high speeds. It's the first and only map (not for much longer though) that has a gorge, and it's way cool.

This is how you do it: