Ns_akakios Layout

Comments

• Hsu Join Date: 2003-03-18 Member: 14639Members

  April 2003

  Wow that looks like a really solid floor plan. You must have put a lot of work into it. One of my questions is how big is it going to be? Looks like it will take you a long time to get from one place to the other. Also will there be a train to go along those tracks or is it just for show?

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• Vyvn Join Date: 2002-08-24 Member: 1226Members

  April 2003

  That's some darn nice layout presentation.
  
  Overall, your layout seems almost flawless in design, at least at a glance. Nice solid "diamond" setup, with some twists and curves to keep the marines from getting to the hives too fast. Perhaps you should make the routes from hive to hive a bit more direct, since ideally the paths from hive to hive should take half as long as the paths from marine spawn to hive. Especially watch the connection from the top left to the bottom right hives, as it looks like quite long trek even for a skulk, since the vents don't help much in this case.
  
  Along with shortening these routes a little, you could stand to make some cuts all over the map. It would suck to do that, especially with all the details you've added, but even if you manage to avoid all the possible engine restrictions, that still looks like a pretty confusing map. There seem to be a few superfluous hallways that aren't really needed and could be removed in order to make the layout a bit less snaky.
  
  About resource placement...looks pretty good -- each hive has a "main" resource, and then a "secondary" nozzle they can quickly expand to, with two nozzles up for grabs toward the middle. But how about actually giving the aliens, and the marines, a nozzle in their base? Especially the top right hive, since its nozzle seems a long distance away.
  
  All these comments were made without knowing the exact scale of the map, so I may have been misguided in some of my comments. But overall, just "simple it out" a bit and make a few tweaks, and you look to have a very solid layout.
  
  Heh, and maybe include the marine spawn and hive locations on the gif version? <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->

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• gaggle Join Date: 2002-12-11 Member: 10568Members

  April 2003

  Hey,
  
  I've added the hive and CC placement in the .gifs in the original post as suggested, makes good sense to have them there, thanks.
  
  Hsu, yeah the train is only for show. You'll be able to see train-tracks where appropriate, but it won't actually work. It's supposed to be part of the atmosphere that the trainsystem has trains that has been destroyed and are blocking the tracks, and such. Hopefully good fun <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> Size-wise the spawn-blocks I've updated the .gifs with should now show the actual size of one player. I've made the whole thing to Half-Life scale.. well, roughly to scale, I doubt I can use the current layout directly. But the small boxes there should be 32x32 units, just like you average marine. I didn't make it as a layer in Flash, but I have one here that shows the maximum edges the engine can take (-4096/+4096), and I'm supposedly well within that. As for breaking one of the many other limits in the engine.. well.. I think I have a grasp on them.. that's.. pretty much it *gulp* <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->. I'm hoping for some good solids seconds to pass if marines chooses to rush a hive, I'll gladly take 50 or 60 seconds, something in that range, though I belive that's too optimistic. Once it's made to work in-game I'll go tweak things so it takes the same time to all three hives.
  
  Vyvn, heh, yeah the hive-to-hive routes ended up a little more complex than I had intended. Good suggestions there, I've copied them to the todo list. I'll go chew on it and see what kind of improvements can be made. One thing though, I've likely worked on this so for sufficient time as to've become "blind" to it's potential flaws, so when you mention superfluous hallways and such, my two thoughts are, hey, I like the sound of optimizing the level, but on the other hand, I don't neccessairly see the hallways you mention. If you were to point out a few you think could stand some trimming I'd appriciate that?
  Oh and, right, the top right nozzle.. I see now it's misplaced, a left-over bug from when I reworked that area. Another one for the todo list. It's intended location is in the "freeze chambers" room, just a notch closer to the hive. The idea is that all spawn-nozzles are a little disconnected from where people actually spawn, to avoid the sometimes painfully long drawn-out end-battles. For what it's worth, I've tried keeping nozzleplacement at a minimum, but the amount and their placement is certainly something I'll be tweaking after playtests.
  
  
  Thanks for the comments, valuable stuff for sure.

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• Plaguebearer Join Date: 2002-03-21 Member: 338Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor

  April 2003

  My main concern with this layout is that it seems to be 90% hallways.

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• Spooge Thunderbolt missile in your cheerios Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 67Members

  April 2003

  Wow, that's impressive. I'm going to assume you're a veteran mapper.
  
  Not being a veteran mapper myself, I'll sheepishly note that other mappers have mentioned difficulty with the limits of the hl engine with such complex layouts. But if you think you can do it, more power to ya <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
  
  One other thing, the layout seems very difficult to memorize. Now, I kind of like the "maze like" layouts as it can lead to much longer games, but it might not be openly accepted by the community at large.
  
  Good luck and I look forward to screenies <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->

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• Hypergrip Suspect Germany Join Date: 2002-11-23 Member: 9689Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor

  April 2003

  Well that's the best map presentation i've seen so far (maybe i'll try something liek this, too.. at least it makes pll really look at the map <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> ).
  The theme is nicely chosen and one can see you did a lot of thinking before aktually starting to map... very good!
  Some Points of critism have already been mentioned aothers haven't (or I simply oversaw them <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> )
  
  - very complex layout:
  On the first look this layout looks very complex wich could not only result in players needing a lot of time to learn the map (wich is not THAT bad in my oppinion) but also in reaching the limits of the HL engine quite fast.
  
  - manly hallways:
  Because most parts of the map consist of hallways Marines might have a huge advantage in early game.
  The lots of vents my bring back the balance but since i cannot see how the hallways do look like, I can't say anything about that... just wanted to point you to a "might-be-problem".
  
  -res node placement:
  I think for a map this big there should be some more res nodes.
  Aliens might have a hard time to get their first res towers up, especially when they start at Ventilation.
  
  -strategic rooms:
  In your map you marked two rooms as being strategic important, but I really can't see (yet?) why they should be...
  Ok, i think welding the Generator will light up some places of the map so Mariens can see Aliens besster, but what will Operations be for?
  some more information on this topic would be nice.
  According to the layout itself (but not knowing the actual sizes makes it quite hard to judge) Operations has so many entraces that it will be very hard to defend.
  
  Final words:
  This map (or better: the layout) looks very interessting and "different".
  Some parts MAY bring a lot of fun, others MIGHT be a real pain in the part-where-your-spine-ends... so this map will need a lot of playtesting (i voluteer <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> )
  And, as i said before, without some screenshots of the Hallways and stuff, it's very hard to judge if soem parts of the map rally are as unbalanced as they might appear on the layout.
  
  good work, looking forward to more stuff!
  
  Hyper

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• gaggle Join Date: 2002-12-11 Member: 10568Members

  April 2003

  Hooray, comments.
  
  I've added the whole lot to my lists, I already have a lot of new things to think and be careful about. Very cool, thanks a lot for the feedback. I understand the concerns about it being mainly hallways, the facility just seemed to flow in that direction when I was dreaming up its purpose and such. My intentions are, especially now more than ever, to make the hallways not feel like transitions between rooms but interesting places in themselves. It's on the top of my concerns-list as it stands. Complexity-wise, I think (rather, I hope) it won't come off as something bad. From the beginning I've planned to have signs and overview-maps showing the way around (nothing too obvious, just so players don't get lost in annoying "WTH am I?!" incidents. So hopefully it won't end up being a problem. I fully agree though complex can mean trouble with the HL limits.. I'm pretty much just hoping I've guestimated what I can and can't do correctly at this point, and that hope likely won't change until I start ramping up the brush-work.. hm. I have my fingers crossed <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->.
  
  As for the strategic-rooms, yeh, I was playing it a little coy there earlier by only hinting at them. Guess I was tired. Or, well, I'm not entirely sure they'll work, so I've been keeping a low profile about them. I have some limited backup-layout plans in those two areas if they turn out not to work like I intend them to. To put it all on the table though:
  The generator-room opens up for the vents marked "closeable". Yes, those are not weldable vents. So far there is infact no weldings.. it's the one thing I known all along was missing from my map, and I'm hopeing I'll be able to add at least a little welding during layout-playtesting.. I've never mapped for a mod with anything like welding before, so I'm having trouble figuring out how exactly it affects gameplay. Anyway, so basically if the aliens has "flipped the switch" in the generator-room, they have much more access to certain areas. It's not intended to completly change the course of the game, but hopefully it'll offer some added dynamics when attacking certain rooms. Also there should be lights and such failing as the facility falls back on its reserve power, to indicate if power is on or off. The reserve-power comes in the form of kinetic energy stored, as marked in the detail-layer in the Flash part, in a huge ring near the ventilation-hive.
  Operations is the pro-marine room, if they take it the commander gets access to commander-specific buttons in certain rooms (large floating buttons where no other players can reach). Hot damaging steam for instance, to get those pesky skulks out of hiding, or lights turned on in darkened areas. Also some doors can become functional that allows easier access into certain rooms. All hopefully accomplished using the master-entity and such, shouldn't be super-advanced.. in theory. What exactly, and where this will happen, will have to be decided during playtesting. Those two rooms are the most theoretical parts of the map, so I intend to run some experiments first before implementing the whole nine yard.. if they get axed I'll just have to live with that I suppose.
  
  Oh and at the moment it seems very likely another resource-node will be added near the ventilation-hive, to give aliens there something to do besides running half-way across the map to the nearest other nodes <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> Good point indeed <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
  
  Thanks for the comments so far people, it's much appriciated. I'm also very glad of the positive feedback on the Flash presentation, I wondered if it would come off as too gimicky, but I'm very glad it seems to be a pleasent way of doing things. ..now if only I had sufficient skills to zoom in and have the user scroll around interactivly.. hm.. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->

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