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Battle of Tarawa - Gilbert Islands Campaign (WW2) [EA28+]

A Dire Situation…

Recommended Settings
Number of Bots: 100-120
Game Mode: Point Match or Battle
Game Length: Long (Point Match) or Normal (Battle)
Respawn Time: 20-40 Seconds
*Adjust Balance Slider if Necessary!*
Items Seen in Screenshots and Tested for this Map:
https://steamproxy-script.pipiskins.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3390697528

Performance Improvement Mutators

Render distance decreaser by Hijong Park
https://steamproxy-script.pipiskins.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2796715882
More Visual Config by Aya
https://steamproxy-script.pipiskins.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2799415310

*Optional* Gameplay Improvement Mutators
Drowning Mutator by Panchuet: https://steamproxy-script.pipiskins.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3358930007
NoParachutes by FilterUnfiltered: https://steamproxy-script.pipiskins.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2913053239
Vehicle Burn Corpse Vanish by Aya:
https://steamproxy-script.pipiskins.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972475835
Limit bot respawn by Gangrenas: https://steamproxy-script.pipiskins.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2923976190
Flight altitude changer by Hijong Park
https://steamproxy-script.pipiskins.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2819996034

Tarawa Atoll is a chain of islands in the central Pacific Ocean. A prominent part of Tarawa is the southern island of Betio, which during World War 2, featured a large airfield spanning most of its length. The Japanese Navy would see this space as a key military base for operations throughout the scattered atolls that form the larger Gilbert Islands and would begin occupying Tarawa in September 1942.

For American strategists, the further Marianas Islands were deemed a priority target for capture, because of their proximity to Japan and thus serving as perfect bases for heavy bombers. However, to reach the Marianas, Japanese forces stationed on the Gilbert and Marshall Islands would need to be neutralized. As such, Tarawa would become one of the first atolls along that path to be fought over.

The Battle of Tarawa began on November 20, 1943, with US Marines landing along the northern coasts of Betio. When compared with previous amphibious assaults, American troops would face strong resistance from coastal guns and bunkers placed throughout the long seawall defending the beaches. Not helping matters was a miscalculation in the height of the tides, leading landing craft to get stuck on coral reefs and Marines being forced to wade through water while under fire.

In all, the battle would last for 76 hours, concluding on November 23. Of the roughly 35,000 American troops that landed on Betio, around a thousand would be killed, with 2,000+ being wounded (a cost greater than originally expected). On the other hand, of the more than 4,500 Japanese defenders and Korean laborers, a majority would be killed, with only 17 soldiers and 129 workers surrendering.

The capture of Tarawa by Allied forces would be their first step in liberating the Central Pacific and lead to a reassessment of how amphibious assaults would be conducted. This came in the form of better communications between units and more prolonged pre-bombardments.

Hi again!
After the success of my first map, I started jotting down a couple of ideas for future projects. I ended up with a decently sized list, featuring battles that I have either wished to see be made in RF for the longest time or that I felt would be simple to make and good follow ups from my previous one (this map is the latter).

Although my original goal after making Battle of Attu was to try and learn Unity+Blender, I ultimately found that I did not have the time to sink into learning both. I had the ambitious idea of trying to learn both simultaneously, but I could quickly see myself getting burnt out fast if I did it like that. It’s definitely better to get comfortable with one program first before the other, but I know that it would probably take me months to become proficient. Also, I thought it would be better to try and experiment more with the default tools first in the editor and truly get a solid understanding of the intricacies of an RF map. Maybe someday I’ll look into Unity and Blender again, as I do have a map idea in mind that could be a perfect one to start with.

Ultimately, this map was first conceived in late November and would fully start development in mid-December.

The Forgotten Hope series of mods for the older Battlefield games is one of my main inspirations when it comes to level design and detailing, with one of my favorite maps from there being Tarawa. To me, it seemed like it would be a great map to make, considering how small it is (Betio island looks like a giant banana lol) and its variety of gameplay (CQC house combat, long-range sniping, tank vs tank, and dogfighting). One of the biggest things I learned when making this map is creating enterable buildings and figuring out the proper scaling needed to make bots travel through them. Man, I was really happy during the first playtests and seeing the bots smoothly go through the houses I had made! I also thought this could be a good opportunity to test something that I had originally wanted for Attu: custom loading screens, specifically ones in the style of Battlefield Vietnam. My goal with these maps is to try and share a bit of the history of these battles, so these loading screen “introductions” really help me get this point across!

On the other hand, however, easily the biggest problem I suffered when making this map was pathfinding issues. Like I had made a lot of progress in December, but my motivation was completely killed for a while, because I originally wanted this map to feature an amphibious assault sequence, but kept coming back with problems with landing craft traveling in unintended directions and bots not attacking points once they hit the beaches. I had spent a lot of hours trying to pinpoint the sources of these problems, but kept coming up short. So, I felt sorta tired whenever I would go to work on this map and decided I needed a break. After a few weeks, I realized I still had a solid map on my hands, with good visuals and gameplay flow, even without boats. So, I came back, cut out the amphibious assault sequence, and changed the map to better suit this shift in balance.

Looking at this map in its current state, I’m certainly satisfied with it and I came out of it with some new knowledge on mapping, but part of me still DEEPLY wishes it could have featured boats!

Anyways, yap sesh done. I hope you enjoy this map! :D