emp_fuel_prealpha

Discussion in 'Mapping' started by Terminator, May 3, 2012.

  1. Varbles

    Varbles Simply Maptastic. Staff Member

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    FYI Terminator, when it comes to resources, most maps have between 12 to 16 res per second total output, with 10 being the lowest I've seen on a decent commander map.
     
  2. Terminator

    Terminator Member

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    I see we have a good taste in Space RTS :cute:

    The Center-
    I've taken the bleed down to 1 every 4 seconds and I've increased ticket counts to 1200, this should hopefully extend matches and reduce the immediate focus on the middle. I'd rather not take out the bleed completely as it does provide an eventual focal point for the map to climax at in longer matches and gives the center an importance while not making it too overpowered by supplying massive amounts of res If necessary, I'll remove the bleed if it disrupts the game too much but I feel the center might lose too much significance (more play-testing would be required to make a proper analysis). The idea with the multiple levels in the middle as that players would gain a height advantage whilst also becoming more exposed, fixed railings should now properly reflect such a trade-off. The gates in the center will also receive a cool down between uses as requested.

    Res-
    I'll quadruple the output on the outlying refs (NE and SW) to make them more tempting targets. The two refs in the center will be increase by 50% (1.5 res a sec) to also help res output without giving the center too much of an advantage. As of now the initial refs supplied produce 1 res per sec but I'm considering increasing that while also putting a finite amount available (say 5000 or something) which may help push teams to expand and invest in other areas of the map (not sure how that would go so I'm still a little iffy on it).

    Destructible cover-
    I'm also considering adding some one time use destructible cover in select locations approaching the NE and SW refs so that initial infantry combat would be a little more rugged and interesting, later evolving into combat areas best for vehicles (or something like that, not sure how it would actually play out but it would be an interesting experiment, like maybe having to clear an area of debris before putting down a new barracks, much like how some maps in Starcraft 2 require the destruction of obstacles to open new opportunities of expansion and attack, just a thought though).

    Water-
    Not sure what could be done about the water on the minimap without making it look too weird, I'll try out a couple other textures and see if that works.

    The walk/infantry travel-
    I'll decorate the initial paths from spawn locations with bits of rocks and basic cover and foliage to give the walk a little more interest, the key is to keep the area interesting but still easily maneuverable for both infantry and vehicles. The destructible cover listed above could also help here as well.
     
    Last edited: May 4, 2012
  3. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    For me, sudden death tends to have way more suspense in the end than just hitting -1 tickets, and I know that goes for a lot of people to, hence people don't really like bleed.

    Finite refs, whilst obviously an option in the entity, have never actually been used. I've never seen one map ever use them, and I have no idea how clear it's going to be ingame that the ref has stopped producing.

    That idea you've had about a destructible area is really interesting, I'd love to see that played out.

    Oh and as for water, just change it on the VTF, cover it in blue if you have to. You don't need to change the water ingame, just do it in mspaint or something.
     
  4. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    set tickets to 2147483647

    tickets suck - also i should open the year 2012 suggestion thread for removing them. but fear not, i dont plan to ...
     
  5. ViroMan

    ViroMan Black Hole (*sniff*) Bully

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    can an entity be remove dynamically? As in during play when the res point runs out... blow up the res node then remove the res entity and replace the current model for the res node with something on fire or what ever to show them that nothing can go here anymore? Or even better create a crater that the res node sits on top of and then when the res node runs out make a large explosion and make the displacement that the node sits on disappear so there is a crater where the node used to be.
     
    Last edited: May 4, 2012
  6. McGyver

    McGyver Experimental Pedagogue

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    I played the map now for a few minutes and i can only say this is an impressive piece of work. Only two minor errors i found was that it didn't show me the progress bar while neutralizing the flag in the middle and i got some clipping errors when diving in the river in the north-east.
     
  7. complete_

    complete_ lamer

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    you obviously play alot
     
  8. PredatoR[HUN]

    PredatoR[HUN] Member

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    Just palyed it in a 14v14.

    Lots of people noted the fps loss in middle.

    Because of the ticket bleed, people only concentrated on middle and ingored everything else. I suggest removing the bleed entirely or you might aswell just cut out the middle and make it an infantry map.

    The res is really slow. We held the whole map and I could barely research.
     
  9. Sprayer2708

    Sprayer2708 Member

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    CV sudden death is the most annyoying game mechanic, it's an end far too sudden for really tense games trickster.

    With the not shoot-through I didn't mean the railings (thx for fixing those by the way) but also spaces between the oil reservoirs (right word?)

    The four different levels are not an issue of being exposed or not, it's just that players dont tend to look upwards and generally nobody likes to fight upwards, even in games where all weapons are hitscan.

    Another issue: the ladders are blockabe by placing engineer buildings on them. (Intended?)

    Players on level 2 have no chance of killing players on level 3, and it's very hard for players on level 1 since they would have to expose themselves by running to the middle, so they would have to jump down to level 0. (Especially only one ladder leading to levels 2 and 3 makes it nearly impossible to take them if they are manned, I'd suggest a skybridge from southwest to northeast on level 3)
     
  10. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    Too sudden? It's dragged over 5 minutes, in which you know you have to get into that position to kill the CV. Then when the timer runs out, you know it could end at any moment. I've seen games last 2-3 minutes where the CV will die from anything. Tickets may suck, but Sudden Death does not.

    @ McGyver, that's an Empires bug, not a bug with this map, it's fixed in the next patch.

    But yeah, I agree with Predator, the bleed and resource rate are really holding the map back.
     
  11. Terminator

    Terminator Member

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    Would it be possible to instead have a negative bleed(in essence a "feed" if you will) for the center flag? I imagine it would produce some very interesting gameplay around the flag. It wouldn't be too fast, only like one ticket per 8 seconds.
     
  12. ViroMan

    ViroMan Black Hole (*sniff*) Bully

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    I think I remember someone doing that or at least talking about it.
     
  13. Varbles

    Varbles Simply Maptastic. Staff Member

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    I believe that's possible by setting negative bleed in the flag's properties, if not you can achieve the same effect with some logic entities hooked up to the info_params entity.
     
  14. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    That could be interesting, but I don't think it could ever get to sudden death. A finite ticket boost however, could be really interesting. Honestly, I'd just try it without anything, see if the middle gets neglected in the game, and if it does, then add something to it. But honestly, I think it'll get the attention it deserves, especially if it gets a spawn which obviously gives really good access to the rest of the map. If it doesn't though, then it's nice and easy to add stuff.
     
  15. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    you need to add the tickets of the bleeder for the minimum game time you want this map to play plus some 200-400tickets for the spawns that happen during a round (for 32players, 200 tickets are just ~6 spawns/player).
    if its 30minutes you already need 1800tickets at a minimum but 30minutes is too short for empires. id suggest something in the 2-3000s.

    also for resources, i think this really is an issue with the multis, you cant do shit about it - if you make it playable nicely with 10vs10, its gonna be totally absurd res for 32vs32 already and vice versa if its ok for 32vs32 it gonna be very, very low income for small games. but really, i think devs should remove the multi altogether since we have wages which increase the teams income based on playercount (in the end wages are individual) anyway. if its too low res then (which i doubt) you can increse income by wages slightly.
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2012
  16. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    The multiplier acts anyway. Every 12 players on the server, the resource count rises by the original amount. So if a ref gives 2, it goes 2, 4, 6, 8 etc. If the resource rate overall sits around 14-18 for the entire map, that tends to work out alright, given that realistically, no team will ever hold all the refs, and rarely will they hold more than 75%, it makes for a decent rate.
     
  17. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    but why do 12 players need double the res of 11 (or 23 double of 11 to have it less dramatically)? you only need more res for individual players building tanks and this is better solveable by wages rather then total res.

    my issue with this is that its really hard to have a low income map that plays nicely with 11 and 32 players per team. i have seen none so far. those who are low res with low pop are like money with a high population. on full canyon you can rebuild an early lost rax almost instantly, if its only 6 on your team and you lose one, you are pretty much fucked ...
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2012
  18. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    Wages are terrible. They go against everything Empires should be about, the RTS aspect. If it could be done without a mountain of bitching, I'd remove them.
     
  19. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    if empires would be anything about RTS you should let more then 1 player per team participate in it ...
    just because it has a comm doesnt make empires a RTS with FPS aspects, thats a wrong assumption of a lot of people on this forum. its still mainly a FPS with rudimentary RTS glued ontop.

    the only influence 95% of players on a full server have on RTS is that they can refuse to build.

    if you want to - and i really encourage you to bc i love the idea as much as you do - promote the RTS aspect more, find ways for those 95% to actively participate in the "RTS metagame" aswell.

    another mayor issue is that the 5% RTS can fuck over the 95% FPS completely.

    edit:
    but trickster if you want to keep on arguing about this please split the thread. im fine if we dont bc i said most of this a hundred times already anyway, but we shouldnt hijack this awesome maps thread ...
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2012
  20. Terminator

    Terminator Member

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    No matter what I do I can't seem to get the weapons in empires to pass through grates and railings. They pass through in every other game normally, so is there something that handles empires projectiles differently?
     

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