[DONT USE] Community made fun map idea - Portals!
DarkSeraph
Join Date: 2004-06-07 Member: 29174Members
Join Date: 2004-06-07 Member: 29174Members
The concept is pretty simple - each person makes a room that has a certain number of portals in it to connect it to other rooms. This will only work for Combat (ask me why!).
The FLOW would be as diagrammed below
But the actual LAYOUT would be similar to below:
Why? Chaos is fun! Screw your minimap dependency!
The signup list by room number:
1. RitualSacrafice
2. xtcmen
3.
4.
5. Rudy.cz
6.
7. Howser
8. Pandademic (?)
9. Flaterectomy
rr. Caboose
I can pick up a room if we don't have enough volunteers. I'd also like for the ready room to incorporate the portals somehow, even if those are just the team joins.
Here is the working file: My Dropbox - ns2_co_portals.level
Find your location and create your room there - if you do it elsewhere the textures will be misaligned!
Mappers of ALL levels are welcome. BE CREATIVE. Any room shape, move the portals anywhere, etc. just make sure you follow the usual scale and Line of Sight guides of gameplay. Ask if you aren't sure!
Mapping notes: Don't put an enemy portal facing another one (in immediate Line of Sight). Make sure your portals are the right color - the alien circle when heading towards #9 and the marine when heading towards #1 - yes this means running towards blue means running towards marine base and vice versa. Name your portal the same letter as on the flow chart. You don't have to map with Extra Entities Mod but I won't know which portal is which letter unless you screenshot it for me and then I can add it. I've picked the Descent skybox - we're in space now (not on planet surface). The tech points & room #5 will be slightly larger than the rest. My initial size estimate is that you want a marine to be able to walk from portal to portal in ~5-6 seconds. Keep Line of Sight and camping in mind when designing the portal entrance/exit area; maybe a vent near exits from alien side - excluding the two tech points.
Everyone should do something to make their room memorable! The landmark in #5 is just important because it is the center and we need to block some Line of Sight in a 4 portal room, but you're welcome to solve the LoS issue any way you'd like.
All thanks go to @JimWest for having already programmed all this stuff.
Added minimap:
The FLOW would be as diagrammed below
But the actual LAYOUT would be similar to below:
Why? Chaos is fun! Screw your minimap dependency!
The signup list by room number:
1. RitualSacrafice
2. xtcmen
3.
4.
5. Rudy.cz
6.
7. Howser
8. Pandademic (?)
9. Flaterectomy
rr. Caboose
I can pick up a room if we don't have enough volunteers. I'd also like for the ready room to incorporate the portals somehow, even if those are just the team joins.
Here is the working file: My Dropbox - ns2_co_portals.level
Find your location and create your room there - if you do it elsewhere the textures will be misaligned!
Mappers of ALL levels are welcome. BE CREATIVE. Any room shape, move the portals anywhere, etc. just make sure you follow the usual scale and Line of Sight guides of gameplay. Ask if you aren't sure!
Mapping notes: Don't put an enemy portal facing another one (in immediate Line of Sight). Make sure your portals are the right color - the alien circle when heading towards #9 and the marine when heading towards #1 - yes this means running towards blue means running towards marine base and vice versa. Name your portal the same letter as on the flow chart. You don't have to map with Extra Entities Mod but I won't know which portal is which letter unless you screenshot it for me and then I can add it. I've picked the Descent skybox - we're in space now (not on planet surface). The tech points & room #5 will be slightly larger than the rest. My initial size estimate is that you want a marine to be able to walk from portal to portal in ~5-6 seconds. Keep Line of Sight and camping in mind when designing the portal entrance/exit area; maybe a vent near exits from alien side - excluding the two tech points.
Everyone should do something to make their room memorable! The landmark in #5 is just important because it is the center and we need to block some Line of Sight in a 4 portal room, but you're welcome to solve the LoS issue any way you'd like.
All thanks go to @JimWest for having already programmed all this stuff.
Added minimap:
Comments
count me in for number 7! A Gorge space strip-club is my memorable theme!
EDIT: Also a suggestion - create a rough greybox layout to give us the coordinates of each area where we can start building on. After competition you can just select the area and copy/paste it in the main file without the need to move it around thus destroying all the texture aligments
hahaha off to an amazing start already!
@Rudy.cz that's a great point. I'll try to create a greybox tonight. Should I put initial portals in and then let people move them from there?
Thats perfect!
I've added it to OP as well.
This is the current layout - make sure you are using the right area! Check the location name. We will rename locations to whatever you want - like "Gorge Strip Club".
I've tested all of the portals and it works well - but I really want to stress the danger camping will be.
@Rudy.cz & @Flaterectomy - choose a room. Pick 1, 5, or 9 - I know you're up to it!
It's important to note that we can adjust the distance a teleport_trigger spits you out, which might help with anticamp. Default is 118.
I'd also really like to encourage people newer to mapping for NS2 to try this - it's a great way to get a project started and completed fast! #4 & 6 should be the smallest and easiest.
Awesome - pick one! Marine Start, Alien Start, or Central.
This better be good!
No, not for any room, especially not 1,5, and 9. You can make them any size or shape you want! Don't make them TOO big, but I really want you to change everything there (except the portal) - the box is just for location reference so I don't have to move it later.
For most basic rooms I think it should take around 6 seconds for a marine to walk to the nearest portal - without distractions of course.
Nope, just make it larger than the other rooms, and try to keep each portal out of immediate sight of another. I expect a lot of camping in that room so made it difficult for them. Other than that, anything you want!
Hopefully for most people it won't take a large amount of time, since you're doing a room with no connecting hallways.
This is great - the three most important rooms have already been taken, yay! Now to fill in some of the middle.
EDIT Also another suggestion for the Graybox, I think it would be better to put all areas more apart from each to not accidentaly bump in to each others work
Just preventing further problems.
Unfortunately, it will be difficult. In order for NS2 to consider a location buildable it has to be connected to a tech point. Check how I had to make spacejump viable for building - glass walkways connecting the 'islands'.
Maybe if each room has some sort of 'invisible doorway' and I connect the rooms via a similar glass walkway, after touching up the pathing_settings. I'm still not sure you'd be able to use MACs, ARCs, or drifters. So I guess it's possible, just sloppy, like ns2_spacejump, as the 'invisible paths' will show up on the minimap.
We'd also need to add a couple tech points by adding teleports to #4 & #6.
I might do a room just not so sure on ideas!
Oh that makes sense, I'll try that. Thanks!
Pick a room and decide later - not every room can be gorge strip club! e.g. I was thinking of a theme around water or lava, since I haven't really dealt with either much
So if everyone wants to go classic I'm down. Layout suggestions? Just 1 portal from #4 & 6 to side tech point?
I'm thinking lava cave, or something akin to the sacrifice room in Temple of Doom (with onos idols, obviously).
Lava and onos idols, cool. I think you should take 8, for both size & proximity to alien base. Does that sound good?
Nope, usual line of sight rules will apply to most normal rooms in both combat & classic.
Think of it this way, if a marine walks uninhibited from the first portal for 18 seconds, he is in the alien base - that's not even sprinting! This seems pretty average for combat maps, but I'm worried is too small for classic - any thoughts?
So we could make it classic and then I could slim it down to combat - it's easier than building a combat map up to classic.
Please answer- classic or combat?
If we do classic, would this layout be good enough, or do the side tech points need 2 portals? If so, where do I put the other one?
note that I didn't flip the numbers or letters to the new stuff.
Also the map has been updated with the rooms more spread out - but we might update again depending on response to above. I'll post an updated minimap & file once decision has been made.
:edit:
On reflection, I'd like the ready room.
Love the idea.
Just reread OP and realize a lava cave doesn't make much sense in a space station. If that errant logic doesn't bother anyone else I'll proceed. But if anyone has another idea I'll jump on that too.
I don't really see any issue. That's the fun of this map - there doesn't have to be any continuity!
I think it should be fine - and we can definitely change the skybox, I just chose at random (cuz I like that planet). What skybox would you guys prefer?
Also - I really do need help on the layout if we're gonna make this classic. Any thoughts?
No, which is a big problem. Like I said the alternative is to have 'invisible doors' - models with no collision or pathing, and try to make the pathing go through it and connect to another room. The major problem with this is, for example, the closest room to Marine Start is #8, which portal wise is right next to alien hive. This causes a huge issue with the flow diagram and the only way to fix it is to abandon the wacky layout and stick to the vanilla flow diagram.
Edit: Or we can ask JimWest to try to include drifters & ARCs to the teleport. But I shouldn't ask because I keep asking for dynamic creep in combat and I think I'm just annoying him now