emp_fuel_a3 Map: emp_fuel_a3 All required content has been compressed into the bsp, which can be downloaded here or here. A Large classic empires map centered around a fortified refinery station. A pipeline carries raw unprocessed fuel from the Brenodi mainland to a port on the sea, running through an old pumping station in the north east and to the warehouse in the south west. The central refinery houses a few small arms depots for its original Brenodi garrison, now long since departed. The whole area presents a new valuable target in insurgency operations by the Northern Faction with a fuel supply capable of sustaining their war machine with an ample fuel supply for months. Multiple fuel taps are available along the pipeline, 4 major ones of which are capable of fitting a standard issue mobile refinery plant (MRP), 1 at the northeast pumping station, 2 at the central refinery, and 1 at the dock warehouse. Control of the main refinery is determined by a raised platform, from which arms supplies and fuel resources can be diverted to the faction in control. Control of the central station will also preform a drain on enemy reinforcements. 4 taps on the outskirts of the facility draw from reserves stored underground, 2 in now dried up lowlands, and 2 on the corners of the operational area, protected by tall walls of rock. At these fortress like formations, forces from either faction are deployed to the field with a command vehicle, deployable barracks unit, and a single MRP. The coming battle will either demonstrate the iron will of the Brenodi Empire, or the powerful drive of the Northern Faction over control of this vital resource. Changelog: a3- +Changed Material path so as it would not conflict with mvalley (delete all old versions to fix this issue) +Expanded area on lowland hills to allow placement of rax and armory +Lowered Oil Tanks in center refinery and replaced ladders with ramps/stairs -Reduced render distance on props in the center to help fps -Removed additional Props in center to help fps (+/-)Numerous small fixes in the skybox and entities a2- +Added Custom Soundscapes +Fixed NF not getting tickets +Changed fog/drawplane technique (similar system to duststorm, Should improve fps) -Reduced draw distance for many props in the center (should improve fps) -Removed Scaffold/towers behind warehouse (+/-) various small adjustments to map geometry/detail a1- + HDR + Additional Cover + Added ticket feed to center flag (1 ticket per 8 seconds totaling 150 tickets playing out for about 20 min) + Added 2 additional refs worth 1.5 res each in lowlands leading to Northeast + Res increase across the board (2 per spawn, 1.5 for central refs, 4 for Pumping station and warehouse) + New skybox (Pretty & Blue!) + Fog and draw distance changes + Added bits of rock and other cover for infantry across the map + Changed water color to a nice shade of blue + If its transparent, you should now be able to actually shoot through it, bullets, grenades, and all + Added additional paths of movement and flanking for infantry on the vertical axis (added ladders and a skybridge) - Reduced defense capability in the center and increased vulnerability through harsher restrictions on turrets and placement, removed railings, additional flanking paths, and sheer lack of cover at higher altitudes and level on cooling towers and storage tanks. - Reduced skybox height a bit - Removed bleed from center flag prealpha- -(initial release) All required content has been compressed into the bsp, which can be downloaded here or here. Tactical Satellite Map with highlighted Resource points available below (Minimap): On Site Recon (Screenshots): Main Refinery Warehouse Pipeline Pumping Station All and any feedback relating to gameplay/game-flow and aesthetics is greatly appreciated. Let the commentary begin! All required content has been compressed into the bsp, which can be downloaded here or here.
Jesus fuck where did this come from!? In fact, where did you even come from? Looks fucking incredible. EDIT: Loaded it up on EPIC main. The minimap won't work because you've packed it into the BSP. Sadly, it's one of the things that can't be bzipped. You'll have to keep the minimap vtf and vmt separate, which obviously requires a .res too. Whilst you've managed to get it working from inside the bsp, it's generally advisable to keep the .txt resource file outside of the bsp too. So you should have 5 files for release, the BSP, .res, 2 minimap files and the resource text file. Rest you can bzip of course. But honestly, it looks pretty damn awesome in-game. Add me on steam at trickster9012.
SHUT UP AND TAKE ME RES! Seriously eta on this holy crap this is awesome who are you why are you so awesome.
He already put the BSP up, but like I said, the minimap doesn't work. After flying around it, I'm really impressed. The combat looks like it'll get directed really well, and you've managed to include a lot of areas into the paths, although I do worry that some areas might not get used much, such as the staired-minitowers near the warehouse. There's good areas for building placement, although some of the lower ground could benefit from positions to sneak buildings into, even if it is really tight down there. But that's worth waiting until gameplay tests, to see how the area gets used, but either way, some objects of interest in those areas could be nice. I mean, an interesting idea is that you could even flood it with really shallow water (obviously FPS has to be taken into account here), or just some burnt out models or dried out foliage. Anything really. Also, how have you gone about the use of textured railing for the sides, and the floored grating? Can it be shot through? I'd say that you could probably do wonders for the overall looks of the map by playing with the lighting. Getting it to look a bit hazy, and adding a more powerful sun could really bring it to life and add some more colour. Lastly, the texture you've used is the old Mvalley texture (I think) for the desert areas. Whilst nice, someone made a replacement a long time ago. Mvalley got remade during that time and used a different texture entirely, but this one is still floating about. Maybe see how that looks on your map? Oh also, you can still get away with using the emp_fuel_prealpha bsp name, only I've got it and I can delete it, so you shouldn't get any bsp clashes as long as no-one shoves it on VIPER. I'll try and make sure no-one swaps to it on EPIC server. But again, overall, it's one of the best maps I've seen, and I can't wait to play it.
All he has to do is take the current minimap out of the bsp and put it in the right place, and add a .res to accompany it. He certainly doesn't have to make a new one.
Afaik he'll still have to mess with the BSP, although I'm not sure about a recompile. I don't have a great knowledge of BSPzipping.
No recompile is necessary, and a fixed version has now been uploaded. The existing links will take you to it. As for the alternative texture, i'll take a look into it and see how it turns out, but for now I'll leave it as is until some major changes are requested.
Ok, fair enough. Normally I'd just try it out clientside and PM you pics, but with Steampires having some custom content issues I'm not able to do that sadly. If I get chance then I'll do it on my SVN version.
That's pretty much what went on inside my head at first as well. I'm never very optimistic when i see a new map announced, cause 9 out of 10 it's crap. This time however ... i've got to admit i'd like to testplay it. Plus i like texturing terrain, and i see thousands of possibilities to dress up that terrain. If i ever make a new map again, perhaps i should try an approach like this. Also, your brushwork is about the best i've seen in any empires map. Good combination of models in there as well. This is based in the screenshot alone.
I'll give feedback after i've seen it ingame. That said, what are YOUR plans with it, seeing it's prealpha? Mainly graphical changes and details, or some bigger additions as well?
The new version you've created is broken I'm afraid. Tonnes of stuff is wireframe and the minimap still isn't loading. Someone also said that he was unable to place refs in the middle.
To the best of my knowledge, the wireframe problem happens when custom content in the old content location (sourcemods folder) is packed into a bsp for current version of empires, which has the content in your steam account folder. I'm assuming you're using pakrat for this, because I've seen this happen with a few of my maps going from old empires to new empires. I believe a surefire way to fix it is to make sure all your custom textures, models, and the pre-packed bsp itself are in the new content location (steamapps/<yoursteamname>/empires/empires), and store these files in this bsp. Make sure you do the path fixup that pakrat prompts you for for each one. If my memory serves me correctly this will totally solve the wireframe problem for the map, and surprisingly, it can still be played on pre-Steampires versions. The problem comes from the engine seeing the names of custom textures and models used for the map packed into the BSP, and makes sure that content is going to be loaded from the BSP. When it actually tries to load the content from the BSP it fails because the paths are screwed up, but it doesn't fall back to loading it from disk or GCF since it forced itself to load that content only from the BSP. This is why you get the strange wireframe terrain displayed instead of pink and black checkerboards, at least as far as I know. As for the storing the auxiliary files in the BSP, I don't fully understand the way Empires loads these things and I've only ever had success with loading a minimap from the BSP once, a loooong time ago. To be honest, it's marginally better to just keep the auxiliary files separate from the BSP, so when you put out new versions of the map or bugfixes you can use the same minimap that the servers and most players have already downloaded.
Varbles, before he repacked the BSP to take the minimap out of it, all the models were working fine, for me at least.
You placed "emp_fuel_prealpha.txt" in empires/resource when it should be in empires/resource/maps. minimap texture still doesnt work after that, though
fix its path in the res file aswell (im guessing, didnt dl it) also, why does the minimap have to work so damn stupid? cant you just say the files need to be in <folder_name> named exactly like the map? same for that .txt file you need ... additionally, so to say as a bonus, you should also load a default minimap image and display it if anything fails to load or parse, so you at least can spawn or dont have to worry about a minimap when testing.
