Concept is simple. Attackers need to breach one of two main gates to access the main base area (very radar-ish). There are 2 objectives. The first, is a document/passcode, which must be grabbed and taken to the water depot. Capping the objectives opens 2-3 entrances into the depot. The attackers must then blow up the water cisterns.
Notes: The allied initial spawn will start off completely underground so that the axis cannot call arty directly on top of it.
Let me or Mean Mr. Mustard know if you or your clan would be interested in very early concept tests - really testing connectivity, distances, and game flow before a lot of detail has gotten placed into the map. None
As far as dyno's go, the way if figure it, I compare them to the stock maps:
Radar: 2 x dyno (1 min), 2 x cap
Oasis: 3 x dyno
Goldrush: multiple dynos depending on defending engies and a slow ass tank
Fuel Dump: 1 x dyno and a slow ass tank that has to move a long assed distance
Battery: 1 x dyno, not that getting up the ramp presents any problems or anything
Railgun: just move the train
1. Improved connectivity around the dyno objective
2. Moved Axis spawn back slightly and cap obj forward slightly
3. Reversed elevation so that allies start higher
4. Toying with the idea of a passage from the CP to the truck depot
5. Moved the forward spawn forward and to the left, to make more of difference between that and the CP spawn
If I might ask, what's the purpose of the tank depot? Otherwise nice layout. The only thing I'd be worried about would be FPS lag in the large areas. A big thing in any competition map is to have most of the people playing it at 76 fps solid, even in the outdoor areas, which can be a challenge. Also, another question, can you fit it into 5mb or less? That's a big thing for competition maps, since people might have to grab them off a server in a pinch (and us competition players hate those huge map files). It doesn't matter if it looks bland, most of us are at high picmip and low color depth anyway . Post edited by Dashiva at 6/3/2004 3:54:07 PM
The truck depot there is very much like the tank depot in Radar (notice the source of inspiration?) -- it's really just a piece of terrain and cover.
FPS is a concern and certainly we are trying to address it now, up front. The first thing we will do after dropping in the terrain and major buildings, is the caulk hull. My philosophy is that is you don't get it right now, you won't get it right later on.
Understand the issue about size. Using vengeance as a benchmark, it's coming in at 5.7 Mb. We were able to cut the size of that map from 11 Mb to less than six by making sure we were using jpgs instead of tgas and could have reduced the size more by removing the music.
"could have reduced the size more by removing the music"
Which you won't do, or I'll hunt you down.
About the map concept, it looks interesting. I'm not a huge fan of Radar but if you can make a map that plays similarly well without the annoying and FPS hurting grass and fog, than I'm all for it.
But please try to add a lot of architecture, especially around the "hot spots" where the action will be going on. Fights on simple terrain are the definition of boring IMO (even if there's cover).
I assume that the forward spawn will be permanently secured for the Allies once they breach the main gate (you didn't mention it). Wait, you have two main gates. What's the plan?
What I really don't like is the command post spawn. It's nearer to the dynamite objective than the Axis spawn and as it's pretty near to the forward spawn, I doubt that there'll be any real fight about it. I think that the map could play just as well, or better, if it would be as in Concept3 but without the spawn at the command post. If you don't make the east gate chokepoint easily defendable, then allies already should have pretty good attack routes (unless I'm completely underestimating the size of the map, but then it would be way too much terrain). Even if Axis would be able to hold the east gate chokepoint (which I doubt), Allies already have the choice to attack over the west gate, which doesn't look like a much longer route.
To make the command post still interesting, you could do something like opening the path from 5 to 9 only when the command post is build.
My feeling is, that this would be more interesting (and save us from writing yet another spawn script for a map ) but of course a lot will depend on the actual architecture, etc...
I'm absolutely interested in early concept builds. I hope you'll remind me if you have something or make it public. Oh and please put some radio nead the water tanks.
Well, to address concerns about defendability, I'd say they have the right idea to make it a bit of a challenge for the axis, as their goal is to have a map that will be used for 6's and Stopwatch. Therefore some offensive bias is needed to avoid dual-full-hold land, where those that venture, don't re-emerge for 4 hours.
It looks like an interesting layout, but I had the exact same thought Dash did about the Tank Depot seeming to have no real use. I'm betting there will be some interesting times in matches, though, when the doc runner will hide in there until their allied friends reinforce, and the axis will run around crazily looking for the obj. Post edited by MC at 6/4/2004 3:08:57 PM
Well I'm not concerned about defendability (hey, I play at least two 6on6 pracs each day ), but I'd rather have both objectives somewhat interesting. To compensate for the slightly harder dynamite objective, maybe the docs could be placed in a way that makes it rather easy to grab them, so the challenge is to deliver them (and then plant the dynamite). The command post spawn just looks wrong to me, but making the command post trigger another route sounds interesting and innovative to me (then again, I'm totally biased ).
Hi - I'm assisting Ifurita in the making of this map. Thanks for all the great feedback so far. It's exactly what we were looking for and what we need.
No matter how much we revise a plan, think it's good, we then post it and you all point out 'shortcomings' that we missed. Thanks for that and it'll make the map much better.
Tank Depot: The main reason it's in the map is to block vis from the west gate (3) to the water tanks (8). Without it, the fps could be very bad. We don't plan to have a complex building with lots of routes. Probably one route through it (nothing worse than a useless building full of useless passages...). And tanks, well because it's theme is Rommel..
We are currently working the actual terrain and dropping building placement. I hope we can post something soon for more feedback.