Atomic Mass Beta 4
ChromeAngel
Join Date: 2002-01-24 Member: 14Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-01-24 Member: 14Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Comments
The map has changed quite a bit. Some changes are clearly good and some I'm not sure of.
- Drive Tubes has a good layout, but it is too bright. There's no feeling of danger in it, which is a shame since the layout looks like it is made just for that. Fluid and Warehouse have both the feeling that this isn't a place for lone marine to go wandering, Drive tubes doesn't. Consider lowering the lighting and adding shadows and possibly infestation. Otherwise it's great.
- The new warehouse seems very good in terms of gameplay. The confined space and the huge loader does however require some suspension of disbelief since I can't figure how the loader has any room to operate. But this is a minor gripe. Like I said, in terms of gameplay it is very good.
- Cryonics got a new location and as a result, it feels slightly out of place. It may be that I'm just used to it being near the marine start in place of the new Phase monitoring. In its old place, the surrounding areas were clean and relatively bright. Now the surrounding areas are an infested, dark hive and an industrial looking hallway. It also plays a smaller role in its new place since it has no res and is just a room you pass through. But I make it sound a bigger change than it is. Textures in the south side doors face the wrong way btw.
- Phase monitoring is good. The long hallway leading to Mess however seems like it's long just because it takes longer to reach Mess that way. I feel that a larger room in place of the current Phase monitoring and the hallway might work better giving a reason for the existence of the area.
- Clutter looks very good now. Rolling deck got ditched but it doesn't really matter since the replacement is actually better.
Like you may remember, I was opposed to the idea of the flanking hives having only one main entrance. Well, that hasn't changed but if it has to be this way, you've done pretty good job about it. I still feel that there should be two entrances to each hive, but this is rather small map with few resource nozzles. It may be that aliens need this advantage to be able to cope with the lack of resources. So cautious thumbs up.
Drive tubes feels like it is the best place to start with the new layout. It is far from marine start, well protected with a lift at the entrance and getting to Fluid hive is easy through the vent. It also has access to 2 extra resource nozzles. Warehouse seems like the worst place to start since it closest to marines start, there are no lifts slowing marines down and it has only 1 resource nozzle in its vicinity. Its vent doesn’t serve aliens very well. By controlling the hallway west of Clutter marines can confine aliens in their hive very easily. Solution? Add a vent leading to the hallway south of Cryonics. It could replace the current one leading to Clutter, but I would let both of them stay in order to balance the cons of starting in Warehouse. This new vent would even out the travel times between hives. Currently it’s much faster to go from Drive tubes to Fluid than from Fluid to Warehouse.
Moving the Fluid hive’s resource to Water reclamation is a bit questionable since it puts more importance to the left side of the map leaving Warehouse with just one easily accessible nozzle. I’d say that the problem area of this current build is the area south of Fluid hive that now has Cryonics and Water treatment. Airlock’s importance is huge because the only other way to the other side of the map is through Fluid hive. I know that the airlock is one of the main features of the map, but I would still suggest you consider reworking the whole area.
Well, I can’t seem to wrap this one up. It looks great and the layout is clever, but there are some gameplay issues I’m bothered with. Hope you can make something out of this. It’s still one of the best maps I’ve seen for NS.
I've also taken out the extra lights in the marine spawn ( it has atmosphere again now ).
I would have prefered to keep 2 entrances to the flanking hives, but extending the upper linking routes wasn't within the technical limitations. This way has freed up extra polys that i've used to add detail to the hive rooms.
The airlock wasn't meant to be a big feature of the map, as it has turned out to be it probably deserves more attention. More decoartive details will be added to the area between the airlock and clutter. I think the vents need to become more detailed ( detail suggestions welcomed ). I'm not happy with Phase Monitoring myself, I may re-build it as the bridge or shuttle bay.
<img src='http://www.saunalahti.fi/~soilek/jouni/atomicmass5.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
Now, I want to make clear that this just fooling around with ideas. I'm not trying to design your map for you and I understand if you feel slightly offended by it. I just thought it would be clearer to draw my idea instead of trying to describe it. The thing about one picture and a thousand words...
About the changes. The main one is of course the area south of Fluid Dynamics hive.
- I moved the Water reclamation northwest giving more room to the area.
- Cryonics was moved southwest and was given a resource nozzle in order for Warehouse to have 2 moderately easily reachable resources. The new route from cryonics to the left side of the map and the room itself having a res nozzle makes it an area worth fighting over. This does lessen the importance of the airlock, but at least the new route is rather long compared to the airlock so it doesn't totally take away its importance.
- The new room that takes Cryonics' place doesn't really have an active role. I moved the elevator near the Fluid Dynamics hive because that hive has 2 marine accessible routes and an elevator just at the hive's defence point makes it a bit harder for marines to gain entry.
- There is the vent I talked about in an earlier post leading from Warehouse to the new room. Also I added the vent that was present in the last build leading from Mess to Phase monitoring.
Well, my there's my 2 cents. Hope you don't mind. =)
<a href='http://www.saunalahti.fi/~soilek/jouni/atomicmass5.gif' target='_blank'>http://www.saunalahti.fi/~soilek/jouni/atomicmass5.gif</a>
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not bad, not bad... <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
the map is great, too. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
i'm waiting for the new release with all the fixes and then i will put it in my map rotation <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
um, the room opposite cryonics (southwest out of north most hive) the donut looking one, - can you siege two hive from there? (I'm assuming that the top left big room is a hive)
Tom Cerul aka Fresh Bait
Revenant : This build is the result of a major carve up to radically change the gameflow of the map, now is not the time to be picky about texture alignments (unless your posting screenshots to make my life easier). The new hallway parts (around the old rolling deck area) do need to be more distinct, I have some ideas about that. I'll add more lip to the doors as you suggest. The layout of readyroom is too confusing, if I have resources left over i'll build a better one.
TomCerul : The ceiling in cryonics is staying, but it no longer has it's own vent. I have no test server for this verison, I should try and arrange something for the weekend (when the new build is ready). You cannot siege two hives from there (not in the tests I did anyway) you can hit the drive tubes room but not the hive itself.
I have a meg of texture memory leftover, if you have any appropriate custom textures I would be greatfull for the contribution. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Well, like I said it was more of a fooling around than a completely serious suggestion. Besides, water reclamation could have sieged two hives with that layout. =)
What never ceases to puzzle me however, are the technical limitations NS maps have to face. I mean Atomicmass isn't the biggest of maps and even so it runs at the margins of technical limits? Well, I am no mapper and looks like I'll never be one. Even if I would take the time to learn it, the technical limitations and problems would drive me nuts.
dead link? <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
All in all, Atomicmass is coming out real nice.
i like the changes you did(no more bright light in marine base <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->)
just added to my server's mapcycle
on many places the invested texturing sould better be a clip brush.
as solid world brush the surface splitting causes more r_speed and ugly wrong falling (sharp) shadows. especially on the northeast hive.
Simple way against that RR hologram borders is texture scaling.
(shrinking the objects size to a not "pow of 2" size will cause quality loss)
I want to see that hologram func_rotate <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Using a decal (aligned to y axis) with hologram appearance would be worth a try.
<a href='http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?doc=1015285823-77031100' target='_blank'>http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?...285823-77031100</a> <b>TIP #51</b>
<img src='http://collective.valve-erc.com/data/docs/1015285823-77031100/files/hl-tips-fig12.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
And about those papers laying on the table with a red substance on them... Maybe someone just knocked over a bowl of tomato soup? <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Other than that, the only other real problem I had is just my personal opinion that red and green lighting does not mix well when it's as powerful as you have it in your one hive.
It looks good, and I hope it turns out well.
*This Map is added to mapcycle*
when you're a commander, there is a white dot on your minimap in the middle where nothing is there. It's just south of fluid dynamics hive, in a corner of a hallway.
The turny door (might be the airlock you been talking about) has no way to be activated from the inside. You have to press the button and run in before it turns. Might be bad if you're trying to go as a group of marines.
>>> <a href='http://www.btinternet.com/~chromea999/NS/ns_atomicmass21.zip' target='_blank'>ns_AtomicMass21.zip</a> <<<
Ollj, I was afraid that's what you meant. I convertted the worst offenders to func_walls, unfortuantely that seems to look worse.
Orcist, yeah it's spilt soup <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> (it is in the mess after all)
Greedo386, I can't remember why I chose not to streach that texture when I was building the hallway prefabs. It doesn't look too bad to me. Regarding the warehouse lights I know "Red and green should never be seen", but I think the contrast works in this context. I'll be trying out some lighting variations in that room.
XHydralisk, that dot seems to be at the origin and makes hive regenerating noises. It also appears on 11th Hour. It's nothing i've done so it must be an NS thing. The airlock now has a button inside.
Ollj, Your second paragraph is rather garbled, can you explain that again please. The monitor is supposed to be curved.
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You can spare the extra planes now with the new compile tools <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->