Mineshaft2 (ns_mineshaft remake)
Zavaro
Tucson, Arizona Join Date: 2005-02-14 Member: 41174Members, Super Administrators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Tucson, Arizona Join Date: 2005-02-14 Member: 41174Members, Super Administrators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Many of the SCC people have already played the map, and chances are if you've been on TA House of Awesome recently you may have as well. I figured I should make a thread for the map, since feedback is hard to keep track of since I have become so busy outside of NS2. It's somewhat passable right now, but I need to bunker down and get some real discussion going. There are some serious problems with the Hive rooms (and the north-side RT count) that I hope to sort out in the interim, I just wanted to do a detailing exercise ala @Flaterectomy's workshops.
For those that don't know, ns_mineshaft was one of the first Natural Selection maps, make by a guy named @Ekaj . It was so old that Unknown Worlds had lost the source to the map after a crash and couldn't continue upkeep on it, removing it from version 3.0 final. It was one of my favorite maps, and a shame that it was sort of lost in the development process.
The intent of this map is to heavily borrow from the visual themes of NS2's Mineshaft, while maintaining the general layout (of the ENSL variation) and the feel of rooms. I'm also using extensive use of @BeigeAlert's Prefab tool to show you the power and utility of it!
BEHOLD!
Comparison shots of Marine start now (mostly) detailed. Check it out!
Comments
Unfortunately this map didnt see much play ( I was too late
Obviously it needs to adapt to ns2 gameplay.
Drill Access was way too open tho and lacked cover props.
Maybe remove one of the two resnodes at Sleeping/Storage?
If you still need the rmfs, let me know, but I guess you are covered with bsp converter and obj viewer.
I also rebuild Tanith for source, when we tried to get a NS:Source going, in case someone is interested in the rmf, but it didnt have layout fixes.
We'll be playing it in 1hr 15 minutes from now on the SCC servers, join us!
Surprisingly the layout works out alright (read: not completely fair). It's impressive. I don't need the RMFs, and I do already have the graybox. There's a few major issues thus far:
Had no idea you were that Yogi guy, but it's a damn fine layout. I really like Storage Access because it's so close to marine start, and a person can easily swap lanes from it, whereas the rest are somewhat far away. I'll probably end up removing the one in Sleeping, even though it's an awesome node room with that vent.
And yeah, send that Tanith my way. I have some.. uh.. under-wraps projects that are sort of in progress, so it would be awhile, but it's something I really want to do. The NS2 variations on Tanith sort of failed, but there's a lot of promise in the map itself, just have to find out how to crack it.
Zavaro, I'm glad u like the layout.
Regarding the res nodes it was kinda the idea behind this layout to give marines one easy additional res node and make the other ones harder to defend or attack.
If you have any suggestions for the map, just throw me them and I'll test them out.
The basic flow of the map puts the majority of marines head towards storage access. The vast bulk of the map routed through storage, the only thing up on the north lane is generator which is about as far away as the secondary RTs from storage, and tram hive, which the aliens are doubtless contesting. This combined with the ready vent access for skulks to respond to anytime an RT goes up in generator makes that entire top lane really unlikely as a marine focus.
This means marines are funneled from Main into Storage into Cafeteria / Sleeping Quarters.
Sleeping as a central point gives marines a striking base from which to attack into cave and refinery and Cafeteria is remote enough from alien start that unless tunneled can be held pretty reliably. Strangely the flow of the map at the same time that it implicitly gives 4 rts to marines also makes most phase gate positions pretty unrewarding. You could phase sleeping and it saves a little time on reinforcement times but doesn't block anything at all, It's central in the map but isn't that close to refinery, generator or u-bend. It only really lets to seige Cave which isn't close enough as an arc position to seige drill and will basically only contain cyst chains. The best phase gates you can hope to get are Refinery and Comp Core.
Refinery obviously as a res node and a lane block to tram (though you can't keep the lane blocked with all these vents and you'd have to keep an eye on it incase of ninja hives) and Comp Core as a striking base into U-Bend and another sort of lane block to sewer.
Both of these however are INCREDIBLY close to the alien reinforcement and will definitely get crushed on.
Given all this, it looks like aliens best bet is immediately tunneling refinery, counter intuitively given its distance from the main it buys an absurd amount of real estate. By tunneling to refinery you have no cave cyst chain to cut, you have lane access to generator, sleeping quarters, and tram. the structure of the room is such that a well placed tunnel and crag can only be shot if the marines are willing to jump down into the pit or divide up their numbers where they are obviously at a disadvantage to fend off reinforcing aliens.
Conversely tunneling sewer can buy you sewer hive but basically nothing else. The reinforcement time to cafeteria means that even if you put it up it will be constantly under attack and need saving, you can deny it from marines but not actually take it yourself. U-Bend is already an easily secured natural for drill and unless marines have a phase in comp core they're not threatening it. A tunnel into tram isn't really better than one into refinery since you're equal distance from generator either way and you have vent access to strike into anyone incoming in tram anyway and tram loses you the fast vent into sleeping.
Obvious hotspots in the map are sleeping and Refinery. Generator is a bit of a cold spot and Cafeteria/Sewer depends wildly on if aliens tunneled sewer, If not then marines will hold cafeteria and harass the rt in sewer/possibly phase it to secure a second tech point (for some reason).
No real arc positions on this map given how far back into the room the hives all are. Lots of vent play for jetpacks and skulks however.
Marines Game 1 (Replay this game):
-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRmJNVIkKfc
-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl8i7KhqkQQ
-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xSvdus5UvE
Aliens Game 2 (Replay this game):
-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq79k_cFu-4
-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RySm6B9u78
-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjYMpw3csrY
The Replay links are just side-by-side presentations of the same YouTube links above. Consider browsings TGNS Replay's list of recent games anytime, as we'll certainly play more ns2_mineshaft2 in the future.