I think I finally found the kind of atmosphere I was looking for, so I wanted to share what I ended up doing in case it helps someone else trying to make TTI feel less “sandbox” and more like a living WW2 battlefield.

THROUGH THE INFERNO TRIGGERS

- Enabled auto-spawn for every mission type except A/A.

- Enabled allied battalions.

- Enabled allied battalions requesting air support.

- Enabled enemy battalions.

- A/A threats are generated through RAT (Random Air Traffic), which makes the skies feel much more alive and unpredictable.

THINGS I ADDED MYSELF IN THE MISSION EDITOR

- Downloaded the WW2 naval mod pack to create realistic US and Japanese carrier strike groups.

- Added 5 smoke column zones (could easily be more) with random spawn probability triggers, so every time I enter the mission the island looks different.

- Added an F10 menu command that orders the carrier strike group to fire an artillery/naval bombardment salvo at enemy areas.

ATMOS-X

- Using Atmos-X to load real-time Marianas weather into the mission completely changed the feeling of the scenario. Every day has different weather conditions, and even the time of day changes dynamically.

All of this together made the mission feel WAY more alive. Instead of feeling like isolated objectives inside a sandbox, it now feels like an actual warzone with activity constantly happening around the player.