Hey all,

As I'm sure many of you are away that today, the 2nd of April marks the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War and with it I wanted to do something to commemorate it.

As a result I've been cooking up a little something over the past few weeks while taking a bit of a break from my other tasks.

Before I go any further into this I would like to explain that this is currently only planned as a standalone mini-mod for PR:BF2, much like Project Normandy and is going to be using a lot of placeholders for its first release. One thing I hope is that after I release the first version that the community will take on the development of this mini-mod and refine it, replacing the place holders with the correct assets :D

This mini-mod is based as much as possible on the 1982 war between Britain and Argentinian over the Falkland (Malvina) Islands, taking into account historic factors and trying to replicate them in a way which gives fun and balanced gameplay while also working with the limitations of the BF2 engine and assets we have to hand.

Focusing on the map, I've been wanting to experiment with large scale maps for some time in BF2 and with this project I have finally had the excuse to able to do so, as the map is currently 16kms by 16kms (Kashan is 4kms by 4kms). This is achieved by ditching BF2's terrain, and making the terrain out of a staticmesh (aka, mesh terrain), which isn't without its problems however... The main thing however is that with this size of map, we can really portray the importance of the air campaign in the war to a degree not seen in PR before, as well as spreading out the ground combat a bit.

Since the map/mini-mod is very WIP I'm not going to give away too much at this point as a lot of this is very liable to change but here is the current mini-map + my basic plan and a few screenshots.

[CENTER][URL="http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/promo/falklands_02-04-12/falklands_plan.jpg"][IMG]http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/promo/falklands_02-04-12/falklands_plan_tn.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]

The white box around North East Falklands represents a 4km (Kashan) sized map so you can get an idea on the scale and the flags/troop movement arrows match those pretty closely to what happened in 1982.

[CENTER][URL="http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/promo/falklands_02-04-12/falklands_01.jpg"][IMG]http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/promo/falklands_02-04-12/falklands_01_tn.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL="http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/promo/falklands_02-04-12/falklands_02.jpg"][IMG]http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/promo/falklands_02-04-12/falklands_02_tn.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL="http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/promo/falklands_02-04-12/falklands_03.jpg"][IMG]http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/promo/falklands_02-04-12/falklands_03_tn.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]


For those of you who are not very knowledgeable about the 1982 Falklands War, I would recommend watching the following documentaries which will give you a basic insight to what you can expect from the map :D

[CENTER][YOUTUBEHD]7FNAoPtdIg0[/YOUTUBEHD]

[YOUTUBEHD]7GKFu7od5Rc[/YOUTUBEHD][/CENTER]


I do have one issue with the 16km size that is somewhat of a show stopper however, which is 3 errors that pop up, even in full screen mode telling you the map is too large. Although you can continue past these errors without any problems (although in full screen mode, you are unaware you get them and must alt+tab to see them). If I can't find a solution to solve or suppress these errors it may mean I have to opt for my backup plan, which is basically to make the map an 8km by 8km map which doesn't get the errors and then having the carrier/airbase outside the combat zone. Although this will mean that domes of death are not possible and navigation outside the combat zone will be very, very hard, with jets never finding there way back to the airbase. But I've still got my fingers cross that I might just be able to somehow solve these errors I've got, but I wont bore you guys with that stuff any more but just warning you guys that might be a factor :p


Keep your eyes peeled for any more news on this in the next few weeks ;)


Cheers!