Reading the map

[Leo]

Hi,

it's me again.
One stupid question: :nuts:
I still have troubles reading the map in the demo-scenario.
I mean i cannot distinguish between valleys and hills. At least not in every area. The south-western part from the center of the map is the most difficult area to identify. Yes, i run the game in 16bit and have the contour+colour map on.
Is there a trick to identify the different altitudes of the map on the first look?

-What does the darker areas mean?
-Is it a shadow falling from south-east to north-west?
-Or is it the degree of elevation (steeply areas are darker)?

I think it would be better to have different grey-shades for diffrent altitudes.


thx
Leo

[kbluck]

In ATF, the shading is as if the light source were from the southeast, as in early morning. The shadows appear on the northwest slope of hills.

There is a "helper" on the status bar at bottom of the screen. Passing the mouse over the terrain shows position and elevation in the leftmost pane.

There is a certain skill to reading a contour topographic map. I know a lot of soldiers who have trouble with it, and not just the infamous "butterbars". Here is a link to the official Army publication on land navigation. You may be particularly interested in Chapter 10. Note, however, that ATF does not quite match military symbology in some cases.

http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/3-25.26/toc.htm

--- Kevin

[Hub]

You might want to try just using, "Contour" instead of "...and Colour" On some maps, having both on cause the shading to give the illusion of height, when it is in fact a low spot, and vice versa. For example, the shading sometimes makes a hill look like a depression or a slope. Besides, when you zoom in, the shading just pixelates into uselessness. I always play just using contour lines. You just get in the habit of checking the status bar, as kbluck mentioned. The LOS tool takes a bit of getting used to- it actually works pretty well though.

[CPangracs]

Let me give this a crack...

When you are dealing with contour lines, there is a basic principle to remember: concentric closed lines generally represent sloping terrain going up. I refer you to the below graphic:

http://www.pangracs.com/ATF/mapread.gif
In this graphic, the Green and Yellow dashed lines are representative of terrain sloping up, and the Blue lines represent terrain sloping down. The Red arrowshows the low ground in between the two high spots.

Hope this helps.

Curt

[Leo]

thx for the support :)

In the meanwhile i think i have improved my skill "map-reading".
On the other hand it's possible that it could have something to do with the fact that i tried the scenario several times and therefore know almost every angle of the area. :confused:

[Don Maddox]

I used to be a senior instrustor for land navigation. I was always surprised at how difficult this skill is for a lot of people, but it's easy enough to learn.the Army FM is the definitive source, however, it's dry as a bone.

I may do a down and dirty tutorial on topographic map reading when I get a chance. It seems like this may come in handy for a lot of wargamers.