Re: [SG] Terrain ... How Much

On Wed, 13 Mar 2002 09:28:37 -0500, "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)"
<Brian.Bell@dscc.dla.mil> wrote:

>This seems a little overkill for most areas in the world that I have
been
>in. Most areas (except national parks, forests, etc.) have less than
25% of
>their area covered by plant terrain. 

Okay, I live in rural Louisiana, but in a city. In this part of the
"city"
(population around 50,000), 75% plant terrain is not too high. In fact,
I
believe I'm within walking distance of alligators.

If you're talking science fiction games, that level of plant terrain is
going
to be fairly accurate on low population worlds.

If you want to play a more modern, or urban, game, you'll need more
urban
terrain. This is harder to make and store, which is why I think a lot of
games
tend towards plants more than buildings. 

>In cities, it may be different. Downtown would have a _lot_ of building
>terrain. But it would also have _long_ corridors and large areas of
empty
>space. It would be interesting to see a SG game in an urban setting
(anyone
>willing to take up the challenge for ECC?).

I was thinking of it for a 15mm game. I'm still waffling over making
15mm,
10mm, or 25mm urban terrain. I have almost all my 25mm figures painted
and
25mm urban terrain would be good for FMA, but it takes up a lot of
storage
space. On the other hand, I have 1 company of NAC and 1 company of ESU
in 15mm
that could do the trick. Finally, I found some old 10mm Battletech
figures,
with about two platoons of each. I could use THOSE for urban battles,
too.

So far 15mm is winning out, but making enough modern/sci-fi buildings to
make
an interesting game will take a while.

>But in a suburban/rural setting, how much ground cover by plants/trees
is
>necessary for a good game? 10%, 25%, 30%, ...?

As I said, around here it would be 75% if you're outside of the
subdivisions.
In the subdivisions around here, you'd need to surround the area with
swamps,
levies, woods, and then plop your little houses grid fashion in the
centre of
the battlefield. Hmm... this WOULD make an interesting battle area...
Not much
in the way of hills, though.

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

"At long last, the earthy soil of the typical, 
unimaginable mortician was revealed!"