[Map] (beta) boats

[MRB 255]

No, this isn't its final name . I just wanted to get this out and see if it played even remotely the way I expected. It's a ctf-only map that is ment to be a mixture of ons and ctf; your team has to capture the island in the middle if you want to cap quickly, without getting wet and without getting hit by two hellion and one hk turrets. You should have a slim chance of getting past the turrets even if the other team controls them (especially if the other team didn't keep the sheild in the flag room away from you...), but I don't know how the turrets will behave with multiple players.

This map uses lots of target_spawn hackery to make the middle island work (changing to the team's color, displaying the ons control point waypoint of the team's color, etc.) I think I squished all the bugs, but if you put it on a server and it crashes, don't say I didn't warn you .

http://www.mediafire.com/?vzuwjjj3ruh

And a screen shot
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php? ... yi&thumb=5

I forgot to mention it before, but you will need nexuiz's current svn for this to work and you might want to turn on reflections, the water doesn't look very good without them.

Just as a fun fact - the external lightmaps (2048 X 2048) took up 96 MB before I brutally jpged them.

[torus]

Good start! It's an interesting concept, and I can see that it will make for some brutal gameplay (those guided rockets are extremely accurate). In my opinion, it needs:

a) More interesting boats, maybe even more realistic ones. The current boats are pretty boring.

b) More ways to get from one boat to the other

c) A rethink of how the map works. This is a tough call, but I think it would be more interesting if the boats were closer together, so you could actually fire from one to the other without the Nex, and if the middle section were removed entirely. In this map, very little time can be spent on the boats themselves- you are either flying over the water, or inside the hull of the boat. If the boats were made more interesting/complex, that is, set-pieces unto themselves, I think it would be much more fun. The middle area doesn't serve much purpose, aside from making crossing the water almost impossible without the Strength powerup.

I'm kind of envisioning a setup where the two boats would be positioned as if they were locked in combat.



Lots of stuff could be done with this, especially with the turrets (turrets could be used instead of cannons, for example.

You have a really neat base concept here, and it could potentially turn into something really epic. All depends on how much effort you want to put in.

d) some way to make the water end less abruptly. This water + reflections looks pretty good, but it ends in a really ugly way. Could be done with fog. Also, the skybox isn't really appropriate. This isn't a space map.

e) why are there force fields under the water?

[MRB 255]

Yah, the boats are a little ... patchy. Will probably make something in blender so that I can use lod on them. The poly count is already a little iffy. As far as how it plays, I placed the boats that far apart so it would be hard, but not imposible, to snipe. Unless you take the time to grab the minsta nex. I've also been toying with the idea of putting land on both sides of the map; this would be another way to cap, but it would be slower. Those underwater force fields were a crude attempt to speed up swimming so that it would be a viable option to take (probably should have marked them on the radar map) .

[torus]

It doesn't make it harder to snipe- people can still snipe you out of the air quite easily.

[MRB 255]

How does something like this look for fog / edge of water?
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php? ... x0&thumb=5

edit: that's a really crummy screenshot. Use fog 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.1 if you want to see it in game.

And this skybox? I probably should add some sort of a corona around the moon.
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php? ... vm&thumb=5