Updated 12th November, 2007

First off a note. I'm writing this document because I think it's important that NS' competitive scene has a better selection of maps specifically designed for matchplay. It's also because I'm tired of competitive players coming into the mapping forum and complaining about the official maps. In NS you can't kill two birds with one stone as far as mapping is concerned, that's just my opinion. So I'd prefer to see mappers designing competitive maps that will appease this section of the NS forums, and since you guys rarely give us any constructive criticism I've brought this thread here so that you can finally help yourselves out and get your hands dirty, instead of sitting in your bubble whining about something that you're too lazy to have a positive impact on!

This thread is the place to air your gripes... constructively - Crispy

I N T R O D U C T I O N

This document is the culmination of combined efforts made by both members of the NS Mapping and Competitive communities. Its aim is to provide the former with a set of guidelines designed to make maps specifically for matchplay.

It is by no means a standalone set of guidelines for Competitive NS Mapping, but is intended as more of an addendum to the Official Mapping Guidelines (OMGs). If you are intending on making an NS Map for matchplay and haven't already done so, you should take a look at the the OMGs before reading further. I intend to mark clearly cases where there are are notable exceptions to the suggestions found in the OMGs in order to avoid confusion and to highlight these differences (they are important).

There are two typical types of NS player: the player who usually plays recreationally, and the player who usually plays competitively, and they each have very different expectations for the maps they like to play. For me the two types of NS player (or two types of mentality if you will) dictate to a mapper how his map will be received. It is no coincidence that certain maps, while being praised by casual gamers across the NS community, are loathed by the competitive scene and enjoy very little play by this collective.

I would like to point out that it is by no means the fault of the mapper, who is constantly pandering to the respective needs of two very different sides of the same coin. In my opinion jack-of-all trades maps are the the most difficult to map, which is why it would be better to concentrate on one or the other. We need to change the way we think about this.

We need to imagine that we're designing clothes for the sport-star and the fashionable businessman. One wants superb performance, 100% of the time. The other wants his suit to fit well and look the part. Certain sports apparel companies may make attempts at breaking into the fashion market and on almost every occasion they fail. On the other hand when was the last time you saw a tennis star wearing Lacrosse tennis shoes?

A mapper must be very clear on what he is going to make before he starts making it. He must ask himself if it will be a Combat or a Classic map; a normal or a funmap? I propose that he asks himself one more question: will it be for pubplay or matchplay?

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A I M S

The aim of this document is to provide the NS Mapper with a set of guidelines written specifically with competitive play in mind. To achieve this aim you must understand how matchplay is different from pubplay and, furthermore, how these differences will affect your approach to mapping for the competitive scene.

Competitive play in Natural Selection places greater emphasis on equality between the teams from the start of the round. In practise the teams will never be equal, but our task when mapping for matchplay is to minimise any deviations from the equilibrium which unfairly bias the teams and their players. Veil is considered a great competitive map. It is a great competition map, but it is slightly imbalanced in Marines favour. When the best teams play eachother on this map, it is not unusual for it to draw out two Marine wins.

So how can we minimise these deviations from the equilibrium? We can do this by focussing our attentions on two key areas:

- Tailoring a map for Competitive Gameplay
- Minimising Team Bias


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Tailoring a map for Competitive Gameplay

[Work In Progress, but for your information this section will deal with creating the optimum gaming experience to minimise server and client-side performance discrepencies. Input so far from Zephor (clanned) and Lt. Gravity (mapper). - Ed]

Despite what you may have heard, the NS competitive scene is in a perpetual state of growth. This growth is perpetuated by a continuous influx of new players to the game, some of whom will later decide to take their game to the next level.

It's become so popular that there are teams from all over the globe, but typically they are polarised in two regions: Europe and the USA. But with this international fame arise problems for the competitive scene, the most notable of which is latency discrepancy. In a game as fast-paced as Natural Selection seconds count, but milliseconds count more. Milliseconds mean the difference between a Fade escaping with under 10% of his hit points or a Fade not escaping at all.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to close the gap between the home and away team? To make that latency gap not so prominant? To provide more stable matchplay? Enter the humble NS mapper. Exit r_speeds, stage left, followed by a bear.

Brushwork and Architectural Economics
- how to connect brushes so you don't stick on corners
- using clipping brushes
- which details should be avoided, clipped or made illusionaries
- using nodraw to delete faces

Textures: Downsizing ftl
(Input from Lt. Gravity, author of ns_source)
- don't squash textures below their native size, try to enlarge in multiples of 2

Sound files: What's better left unsaid
- where sound is acceptable

Particle Systems: The real res****s of NS
- don't use expensive 'atmospheric' details

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Balancing Team Bias

A perfectly balanced NS map could look something like this:



ns_lemming
Resource Nodes = 10
MS-HiveA = MS-HiveB = MS-HiveC = x seconds
HiveA-HiveB = HiveA-HiveC = HiveB-HiveC = y seconds
Gameplay = boring

You'll notice that as long as you follow the arrows you will always take the same time to reach Marine Start regardless of which Hive you begin your journey at. Additionally, the distance between any two Hives is always the same, and the distances to the nearest RTs from each Hive are identical.

As mappers we have to understand that like writers of a novel we must, to some degree, influence how our work is interpreted by the reader, or player. If we released the above map, it would by all means be balanced, but would it receive good feedback? My answer would be "no", as it doesn't allow for many different strategies. The map described above does not cater for different strategies, nor does it provide a demand for them.

At the time of drawing up a layout, keep it basic. Put the Hives roughly equidistant from eachother and roughly equidistant from the MS. It doesn't matter if the time taken to travel between the Hives and between the Hives and the MS aren't exactly equal because a lot can be done to aid and abet the team or unit type that takes too long to complete this journey.

As is mentioned in the OMGs, a strong and original theme will help players remember locations in your map. While some may argue that this isn't overly important to the competitive player, who may put in hundreds of game hours on a popular competition map. As mappers, however, we have the power to help new players learn the map quickly, which in turn may encourage more players to make the jump from pubbing to scrimming. The less time new players spend on learning a map layout, the more time they will be spending on learning gameplay specific to that map. They'll be spending less time staring at the map screen and paying more attention to the examples set by the more experienced players around them.

Think of some interesting room types/themes and then sketch them out. At first glance, the degree of Alien/Marine bias in this room can determine where you position it in the map. You can visualise this process by taking Tanith as an example, and more specificly Atmospheric Processing. A double res location must be placed within easy reach from all spawning areas; all three Hives and the MarineStart. This process is not dissimilar when you analyse your own potential map locations in terms of their res placement. At this point we are only concerned with res placement because if you run into problems with any map location they can always be fixed at a later stage of development when you come to looking at landscaping (multiple tiers, ramps/stairs/lifts/ladders), entrance design and placement (including vents), location design features (including visblockers) and the vertical componant.

When mapping for the NS competitive scene, mappers shouldn't be looking to eliminate gameplay problems, but instead at providing solutions. If your map has a central relocation spot that can easily be held by Marines -don't make it smaller to stop them from relocating there- add decision and movement entropy. For example: high vent exits with cover in or immediately outside of the room will allow for an Alien counter. The more options you provide each team with, the more playability the competitive community will get out of your map.

With this in mind I will go through all of the elements of a map that can be tweaked to achieve a 'general' balance between the teams throughout the map, while also giving some general pointers about specific map locations that need special attention to detail.

Key Map Areas
- Marine Start - [Done] OMGs (input from Zephor)
- Hive Rooms - [Done] OMGs
- Siege Rooms - [Done]
- Hive Corridors - [Done]
- Resource Locations - [Done] OMGs
- High Traffic/Lockdown Rooms - OMGs

General Map Features
- Size Matters - [Done]
- General Corridor and Room Structure - [Done]
- Lighting -
- Sound -
- Water -
- Vents - [Done] OMGs
- Weldables - OMGs

[Please feel free to add your personal views on any of these areas: what they need/definitely don't need etc. I already have a fairly good idea of what I'm going to write but the more input this document receives (especially from the competitive community), the better the guidelines will be - Ed]

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Marine Start

The MarineStart is the hub of Marine activity. With relocation a cost-ineffective and risk-ineffective strategy, this location will source Marine reinforcements and all their crucial game-winning technologies for the duration of the round. Our main concern here is understanding the needs of a Commander when he lays out his base of operations. In general we don't dictate where any of the structures go with the exception of the CC, and a good Commander will have a very adaptive character so will always get the best out of any MarineStart. However, there are a general rules that suit competitive play that (imho) need to be followed:

• There should be unobstructed line of sight throughout and to the entrances (i.e. no bullet-blocking pillars).
• The res node should be located within the MarineStart room.
• The CC should never be placed in a corner alcove (like in Origin), as it seriously limits the choices available for IP and Armoury placement, to the point where the Commander is dictated to by the mapper.
• The CC should be placed against a wall, so attackers cannot use it for cover or to hide.
• There should be interior corners close to the CC where key structures can be placed (to minimise the amount of angles they can be attacked from, to force attackers to turn their back on the centre and entrances of the room, and to maximise distance to the structure and the room entrance).
• There needs to be sufficient space for:
  - an Armoury, with space around it to drop equipment bundles
  - 2-3 IPs, spaced far apart but close to an Armoury
  - an Observatory
  - an Arms Lab
  - a Proto Lab
  - a Phase Gate, close to an Armoury, but not too close to any IPs
• The first 6 spawn points should be close to the CC to allow the designated Commander to get in quickly (meaning the first 6 Marine spawns entities you create; you can engineer this by deleting all Marine spawns and creating 6 new entities, placing them around the CC, and then adding the rest of the Marine spawns at a greater distance).
• Spawn points (also used for beacons) should not be in or very close to an entrance. Having a Marine respawn in front of a retreating Fade takes the skill out of the kill.
• There should be absolutely no open-close doors in the Marine Start
• Entrances to the Marine Start should be at least 2 Marines wide but small enough to allow a single Marine to effectively (but not necessarily totally) block an entrance.

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Hive Rooms

Hive rooms could be described as the most important room-type to perfect when mapping for NS. Unlike the Marine Start, they represent more than a mere spawn point with res node and space for structures, and you must bear this in mind when planning them.

In addition to representing one of three possible starting points for the Alien team, the Hive room also allows the Alien team access to more branches of their tech-tree. Conversely the Marine team can place their upgrade buildings in any buildable location on the map and so Natural Selection, certainly at the competitive level, effectively revolves around both teams vying for control of each of the three Hive rooms. Since they will always be defended/attacked by either team, the Hive rooms together should promote the necessity for different strategy for the would-be attackers/defenders.

Before going into the requirements of the latter, there are several general rules that Hive rooms should abide by:

• There should be absolutely no open-close doors in the Hive.
• Where possible, all Hive spawn points should be in cover or at a sheer angle of fire from the entrance to make solo Marine spawncamping from an entrance hard (but not impossible). Basically a Marine standing at a Hive entrance should not be able to spot 90% of spawn points.
• There should be two Onos-friendly entrances, with a route inside the room that connects the two and allows two Oni to pass by freely.
• There should be a res node inside the Hive room so that Aliens have the advantage defending it.
• The Hive should only be visable -and therefore a viable target for Marine fire- from the doorway or from within the Hive Room. Occasionally the distance fom the doorway to the Hive is too great, and we can get around this by putting a visblocker in front of the Hive which forces the Marines to come closer before opening fire.
• Entering, exiting or traversing a Hive room should NEVER require the use of a ladder.
• There must be sufficient -and reasonably flat- floorspace for a Phase Gate and Observatory.
• The Hive room should have vent access that leads to a 'safe' corridor (this is a personal opinion, feel free to ignore)
• Not all Hives should be easily siegable. Different Hives should cater for different types of play in order to take or protect them. Promote the use of HAs, JPs and Sieges for different Hives. The commander should not be able to take a research branch without opening himself up to a sensible counter-play from the Aliens.
• Hive Rooms should have features that complement the Aliens' main advantage: mobility. Try to make it, or the surrounding rooms multi-tiered to restrict Marine movement but aid the Aliens. It always works best if the Aliens have the 'upper' hand (attack from above) when defending the Hive. Hives of this design will make it easier for the Alien team to defend their Hives but, conversely, harder for them to attack them. One could say this might lead to a more likely 2nd Hive with a struggle for Aliens to secure the 3rd. With Natural Selection's gameplay pivoted on the defence/denial of the all-important 2nd Hive, this would seem a sensible hypothesis to put into practice.

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Hive Corridors

There's not too much to think about when designing corridors into and out of the Hive room, it mostly comes down to a few simple rules:

• Like Hive entrances, they must be wide enough for two Onoses to pass freely side by side. See Mother Hive in ns_nancy for a perfect example of how not to design your Hive corridors.
• On the other hand, don't make them too spacious. If the commander decides to siege from here he shouldn't have the space to lay down a mass of turrets without it comprimising the manouvrability of his Marines.
• High ceilings are advisable. This will allow most lifeforms to jump over allies and enemies when retreating and not have to rely on going round obstacles that block their path. They don't have to be phenomenally high, but there should be enough room for a Fade to leapfrog an Onos 'with ease'. For an extreme, see Computer Core in ns_eclipse, but bear in mind this also makes jetpacking easier, and it also makes it easier to spot the Hive, so it's a double-edged sword.
• Try not to throw too many obstacles in the Hive corridors. They will be used for PGs, they will be used to siege from. What's one man's cover is another man's deathtrap. If you do add objects in, make them clearly visible and give them fairly bold and robust shapes and colours so you can clearly define how much space they take up and their dimensions. Sharp, jagged geometry that you can get stuck in or on and coloured to camouflage against the surroundings will not win you over many friends in the competitive community.

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Siege Rooms

When tweaking the balance in siege rooms (SRs), the following areas of thought offer examples of what you can alter to tip the scales:

Location
- How far is the SR from the Hive?
- What is the travel time for different Alien classes?
- How many entrances are there (for Aliens? for Marines?) and from how many directions?

Structure
- How much 2D space is there? (Marine movement, structure placement, Onos movement)
- How much 3D space is there? (Lerk movement, Fade escape routes, supporting JPs)
- How much cover is there in the SR? (for structures, for attacking Aliens, for defending Marines)
- What is the design of the corridors connecting to the SR? (do they promote bunny-hopping? do they adjoin from an increased/reduced elevation?)

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Resource Locations

The location of a particular res node in an ns_map will heavily influence how much attention it will draw from either team. If a res node is inside a Hive Room or the Marine Start it will naturally be periodically attacked, but the placement of the remaining nodes will determine how much attention each respectively receives in a round. Res nodes located in peripheral corridors promote less conflict than those positioned in thoroughfares (high traffic areas - refer to Draconis' stickied article in the Mapping Forum).

For competitive play your map should perpetuate confrontation between the teams in order to ensure frantic and relentlessly demanding games for players on either team. The first and most effective step towards doing this is choosing your res node placement with precision. This is yet more proof of the importance of planning your map carefully.

Firstly the res nodes should be spread evenly throughout the map in terms of distance (or to be more accurate - travel time) and bias. In the event that there are two nodes too close together you will balance the map yourself (see creating bias). If you must have a double res, push the remaining nodes further away from this point in the map, forcing the occupying team to make a trek to the nearest node, Hive or lockdown room. Double res nodes should always be positioned in the intersection of many routes in order to make them a more risky investment. This will ensure that they are difficult to hold for either team; the Marines having to split fire between multiple angles of attack and the Aliens having to keep an eye on numerous Siege locations.

Secondly you should try to place nodes in areas of high-traffic (typically routes that connect the Marine Start to a Hive or Hive-to-Hive routes). This will ensure that they are fought over regularly, and also that the majority of Alien-Marine confrontation is not too heavily concentrated around the spawn points, siege rooms and relocation points.

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Size Matters
(it is about how big it is and it is about what you do with it)

One thing that should be kept in the forefront of your mind when you are planning the layout and testing a map for matchplay is that the teams are smaller. With only five Marines on the field and six Aliens on the opposing side, your map should not overstretch Human/Alien resources during the game. Players should not be isolated or cut off from their team when capturing res nodes. Ideally they should be able to drop the node and return to the front line with minimal distance to cover and low travel time.

In accordance with the opinions of several competitive players, I would advise the following min/max unassisted Marine travel times (in seconds):
MS to Hive - 25/35
Hive to Hive - 15?/20?

Although these travel times are heavily dependant on your layout, those stated are suitable for a Kite layout. The main thing to ensure is that no one Hive is significantly further to the MS than another.

Furthermore, your map should not have too many routes. The original layout of Altair received very negative feedback from the competitive community for its high entropy. This resulted in few key areas that could be held and fought over by either side and there being too many strategies to guard against. Try to create key areas of your map that fall between the MS and the Hives themselves and keep the layout simple so you can tweak the rooms accordingly.

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General Corridor and Room Structure

The goal here is to keep a general team balance while promoting a varied gameplay throughout.

A mapper must know and fully understand the units of each team: their roles and abilities; in order for his map to be well-suited to matchplay. He must in turn provide opportunities where the usage of different units to change a team's tactics will earn them the upper hand. They say that variety is the spice of life, it is also an essential ingredient to every great competitive map.

Your map's room designs will dictate the best type of play for each area, so mix it up a little. Include a few high, Marine inaccessible areas as Alien healing spots and from which Lerks will be able to harass the other team, perhaps prompting the Commander to rush a JP or GL to the scene. Provide opportunities for ambush: alcoves either side (or on top) of doors, long corridors with vent exits at the Marine end, etc. Be sure to have some tight, twisting corridors to allow Aliens to get a bit closer, and to make the SG, GL and HA a viable counter to this. Conversely make sure the majority of corridors are wide enough to cater for the Aliens' 'hit-and-run' tactics; most, if not all, should at least accomodate two Oni passing by.

Ensure that your map has ample opportunity to take cover. Marines waiting for health or to be welded and Aliens who need to evolve upgrades, heal/be healed, gain adrenaline/invisibility should have somewhere out of sight to do so. Remember that any static architecture that blocks line of sight (LoS) can be considered cover (height variation or pipes, for example).

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Vents

Vents are an integral part to Natural Selection maps, competitive or not. They serve a dual purpose: Firstly they fit very well with the theme and the genres from which NS takes its inspiration. Secondly, and more importantly as far as the competitive side is concerned, they provide alternative routes which increase gameplay options for both teams. Never forget that all vents are usable by both teams (Marines via boosts, mine ladders and JPs), as this sort of underestimation can lead to you overlooking less obvious plays that have the potential to totally imbalance a map. They are a valuable addition to your NSMapping toolbox; a tool that allows the mapper to dictate, to some degree, gameflow by directing both side's unit movement towards or away from map locations. In certain circumstances, and through careful manipulation, we can control the movement speed and direction of particular classes on either team.

Vents can come in many varieties depending on their size and accessibility (or even a mix of the two - see below). Firstly we must think about size and shape, which usually fits in with purpose. This aspect will usually determine manoeuvrebility (especially for the Marine team), so we must ask ourselves a few questions: Is this an air vent or is it a maintenance corridor? Is it designed for easy or frequent use? (by humans?). Is it shaped around the surrounding architecture or designed as the shortest route between two points?

Generally it's a good idea to keep vents small to force Marines to crouch and slow them down which gives skulks a speed advantage. Lerks can also benefit from a speed advantage if the ceiling is high enough to let them flap and glide(X units?). You can also turn this principle on its head. For example, if a Lerk spore spot is too Alien biased lower the ceiling to reduce Lerk manoeuvrebility and speed. Lerks may still spore/umbra, but cannot sustain barrages and must be more cautious. The second reason for low ceilings is to negate structure-blocking.

Vents can be used to great effect when you take into account that they have an entrance and an exit in both directions, a fact that is fairly obvious, but whose implications are often overlooked. You can play around with the vent exits by making one side a low exit and the other inaccessible for on-foot classes. Use this technique where you need to increase the amount of Marines flowing into an area but need to stem those movement possibilities in the other direction. On the other hand you can also create sheer drops in vents to both stop Marines from turning back and also force them to take fall damage as they progress. This can be used in entry points to Alien-biased areas of your map. Depending on where you place your sheer drops in the vent, Aliens may hear the requisite Medpack materialising and have the opportunity to sound the alarm.

- Vent Exits -

Vent exits need to be easily accessible, as they're used as entrances, too. Putting a lip on your vent exit or otherwise having it protrude from the wall or ceiling's surface will not be met with much gratitude from the NS community, as it makes them hell to get into (see ns_nancy as a reference for this).

Hives When Marines are trying to contain the Aliens in the Hive room there should be an alternative route to allow the weaker classes to get within attack range without being easily picked off in the process. Bear in mind that vents with LoS to the Hive should be altered either with a vent cover or a visblocker such as a pillar, crate, pipe or partition of some sort.

Siege Rooms Although not a neccessity a vent exit to a siege room is a possibility if you need to tip the balance in the Aliens favour in an effort to restore equilibrium. Think about the location of the vent; should you be able to spore/umbra/bilebomb the siege room? Should it allow one-way traffic only or should Aliens be allowed to pass eachother in the vent? The answers to these questions will determine how Alien-friendly the vent is, and the same questions can be asked of other vents in your map to further balance areas such as res nodes and choke points.

needs pics =O

There's actually already a very good document stickied in the Mapping forum concerning chain-theory, which has an abundance of pics and good examples. I am, at the moment, reluctant to include pics until I have finished the writing. I do wish I could allign text on this forum though.

I'll probably host it myself once it's finished so it can be viewed in a nice format.

[Edit] There will be pics.

I would say the perfect balance map would be one not with the marine start in the middle and all the hives set at equal distances away but one with the three hives closer to each other and the marine start further away, but still the same distance to each.

My point was more to highlight that sheer "Balance" through symettry is not our goal when mapping for matchplay, which is why you are more or less correct in what you said.

You also can't simplify the layout without the Res Nodes on the drawing. It's a combination of about 1001 things that makes a map balanced, but primarily we can judge by the combination of the Hive/MS to RT routes/times and the MS to Hive routes/times.

You can make maps as precise as you want, fundamental and rough strategic concepts will always be more prominent and necessary. You need them in both map styles and there is no player worth playing with who wouldnt want a strategically sound map, sadly the underlying concepts are so beyond subtle I doubt many people could put them in words. This should be the focus of any ns map in general, if people dont like playing maps because they play not knowing theyre strategically dominated then they should play combat

Actually I'd have to say you're not entirely correct. People who play recreationally have a much higher tolerance to how 'balanced' a map is, and might love playing on it purely for it's style. I personally like the challenge of playing a map where the team I'm on is the obvious underdog for the map, it makes winning so much more satisfying.

[Edit] However I will freely admit that always being the underdog makes map tiresome and boring, so you have a very valid point.

But just to add to that, basic strategy is a huge concern of the better map-makers out there. I think you have to realise how hard it is to try and balance everything through the continual changes in gameplay that each version brings. Units are buffed and nerfed and a lot of the time mappers just get fed up of trying to cater for every possible type of play.

Mendasp and KFDM are examples of people who are constantly looking to keep their maps up to date, but it's a tall order and often it requires the input of the competitive scene, which is rarely given.

I dont really like playing on servers where it is possible to comfortably win on positionally or strategically lost maps, it seems like simply cheating people out of the game. Im sure there are better servers out there where this isnr so much the case but I dont have an internet connection.

Are there any comments on the third post in this thread before I write up the section on mapping the Hive Room?

I'm increasingly surprised at the lack of interest in this project from the competitive players. Regardless of the fact that the current season's recently begun, I'm sure you guys don't spend all your time training.

Crispy, i am sure you will have better luck with mappers input. Good luck with your project!

Thankyou for the interest.

I'm still working on this. Currently the first section (Tailoring a map for Competitive Gameplay) is undergoing development. Expect to see some updates in April.

Updat0red, any competitive players got any input on what's written so far?

How about my opinion.. simply awesome idea.... Nice work...

Adding my input. I think it is also important to note some stuff about Marine start:

1.) There should be adequate room for all the marine structures you need. (ie dont be like nancy) That means you need room for 1 armory, 1 command chair, 2 ips, 1 arms lab, 1 prototype lab, 1-2 observatories, 1 phase gate, maybe a turret factory. The room should not be cramped with all the buildings in there and every building should be able to lean against a wall without casuing too many problems. There should also be plenty of room to move around with all 5 marines in base

2.) Armory placement should have a line of sight to 2 doors (doesn't mean they need to see down both hallways, just make sure that you can see the doorway. (iffy topic since only 2 maps in all of ns follow this)

3.) Command Chair should have enough room to walk around as a marine. This will allow commandesr to jump out facing the direction of the base. You should also keep in mind to make it so that there isn't a extremely big disadvantage when you jump out.

4.) There should be at least 2 exits to marine start.

5.) No doors at all to marine start.

6.) Make sure that spawnpoints are a reasonable distance from the command chair. That makes sure that all 6 marines spawn fairly close to the command chair so the designated commander will be able to jump in easily.

7.) Doorways into and out of marine start should be small enough so that one marine can block a fade if needed running out of base.

8.) You may use vents in marine start but make sure the line of sight into marine start is VERY VERY constricted. You do not want a lerk sporing marine start for the entire game from the safety of the vent.

9.) You should not be able to bile bomb any part of marine start from the vent.

10.) Marine start should not be large(think metal). You should have enough room to jp around but too much room and it makes it too easy to fade in the room and too small will make it extremely easy to spore.

Misc Stuff That I just remembered:

r_speed
Run through your map with cl_rspeed 1 (I think). Nowhere on the map should you have a extremely high r_speed. (I'll ask jazz or a real mapper for some real info about this since I do not know too much)

Res Nodes: No less than 5, no more than 9. They should be spread out. There should be at least 1 accessable alien node near(not next to) each alien hive and 2 accessable marine nodes from marine start. Thing to keep in mind, most aliens get 2 nodes right off the bat. Make one node a fairly easily attackable node and the other one should be the future hive node. Nodes should not be easily shot down from a different room. If you want to have a line of sight to a node make sure that it is not too easy for the marines.

DONT MAKE A MAP TOO BIG.
25- 30 seconds to each hive is a good number to keep in your head. Do not make excessive rooms. There should not be ridiculously long hallaways.

I'm stealing this from ultranub:
From marine start, all left turns get you to a hive and all right turns get you to a hive.

Been getting a bit of input from both Competitive players and Mappers alike. The CAL forums weren't very helpful, though. Only a few people seem to give mappers sound critical advice instead of dismissive comments and 'balance' changes that aren't well justified. Other than map-specific changes I didn't really get much out of it, apart from seeing that Router Box is someone you can depend on for good advice if you need your map looking over.

It seems like most CAL forumites don't bother checking the latest map versions and base their opinions on the trouble-ridden older versions, versions that the Mapper has normally tried to fix in the more recent versions.

Ah well. Beggars can't be choosers and no chooser will go begging. If you give positive feedback to the maps you'd like to see balanced then maybe you could fiddle around with the seventh and eighth spots to give you better matches...

bit of a necropost, but...

Check out the concept behind my map, ns_nexus, here

Basically, i figured that the only way to have each hive and MS equal distance from each other, would be to form a triangle-sided pyramid. This is where you take a 2d triangle, lay it down, then put a point directly in the middle; raise the point up (forming a pyramid) until all sides, including the base, are roughly the exact same size. This is the only possibly way to make four points equal distance.

I took that design concept, and tilted it a bit. On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is the lowest point of the map, 10 is the highest, the two bottom hives are 1's, MS is about a 4, and the middle hive is 10.

It worked out very nicely. Each hive has a runtime from MS of 30-35 seconds. Although the overall layout of Nexus is more complicated than usual, when we had large servers playing it where most people knew what they were doing, the effect was perfect. Given any of the three hives to start with, either of the other two were viable 2nd hives. The usual 'diamond' effect, where you NEED the middle hive for your 2nd if you start with one of the outside hives, was completely avoided.

An interesting concept. My only concern, based entirely off that screenshot of the map, would be the siegeability of that central hive. (I'm sure you would have found if a double (triple?) siege in engineering halls would work at all by now though.) That bloody "shoot through the walls" business always makes me wary of tight-knit map designs.

I've put a bit of thought into "equidistant" hives, all on paper mind you, as none made it all the way through hammer. I like the idea of not "having to have" that middle hive like eclipse, veil, tanith, metal, and oh crikey, every other map.

The other two variations on this concept that I've dabbled with are both similar to each other.

The first is where the marine start is in the middle, with a hive north, southeast and southwest of ms. A similar "pyramid" or obstacle course design could make that one work as well, as otherwise it's a short hop for the marines to any hive and a long jaunt for the aliens. Having not really thought about slowing them down in such a manner, I quickley tossed this idea out.

The variation on this would be to have the hives in the same spot, but the ms in the south point. A concept I drew out would have the marines head north to the middle before they could get to each hive and not able to access the route between the two south hives without actually going to a hive first. (My drawings measured out to be roughly equal distance to each hive and ms.) I prototyped this design (all symetrical boxes and ugly) but never got around to finishing it. (I too would have gone for the "real spaceshipy two engine/thingees on each side for hives" design too! Had it all in me head!)

Come to think of it, I'm going to download that map just to see how many other ideas you stoled out of my brain!

lol

ive already drawn up the designs for what could be my next ns map. It goes back somewhat to the standard diamond layout, except that it gives great access for aliens to go from the outside hives to each other. As such, it may just turn out the same, without using the vertical as the differential..

Who knows. It may never even make it into map form.

Interesting layout, I quite like it. Which servers can I find it on? I'd like to see how it plays...

tacticalgamer plays it sometimes

Ns_nexus_b2 is on the end-round votelist on Gorges Hideout and Tacticalgamer, in the rotation on BAD, and on the server (but has to be switched to by an admin) on G4B2S and H|M.

Very big kudos to Crispy for doing this. I used to be a pubber guy who loved atmosphere-based maps like bast, agora, nancy etc. but when after I moved to clan games I started disliking such maps and emphasize more on gameplay. Basically because I play maps for the game and competition, not because the map looks good. If the game is boring, the good outfit is not going to change it. The competition nature of NS is the very basic reason people still play NS. People don't / didn't play game classics like Starcraft, Street Fighter, SSBM, TFC, BZ2 or Subspace or whatever because they had good looks or nice sounds. They play because all of those games have a competitive nature: people create the content, not the game itself. When the game creates content - or more accurately it has a static amount of content - the game is ought to run out of content one day. I won't start naming but there exists helluva lots of those kind of games. Basically most of the singe player games and MMORPG's are like that.

People just love competition, because its in the human nature and games like NS, Starcraft etc. give players intuitive methods and means to compete against other players. Good apperance and stuff like that are just very nice bonuses.

For long time I have been thinking "What makes a good gameplay?" and that problem is rather complex. Many (not necessarily many but the loudest ones) competitive players know which maps have a bad gameplay (they formed an opinion on the subconscious level) but they rarely know the exact reasons for it because they have not given much of a thought for it. Then their opinion is expressed eg. "Its just (insert bad language)" which is everything except constructive. Usually they know some details but they are not the worst reasons for a bad gameplay. Layout and the mappers' approach into the map are. The thread main post is a really good compilation of these points.

When I used the the word "gameplay" I meant the game style that competitive players prefer. When I talk about maps with a bad gameplay I mean maps that don't really work for the competitive games but ultimately those maps are not necessarily bad. Some maps are just meant for pub games where the only gameplay requirement is balance. On the contrary, maps that have a good gameplay don't have that good atmosphere (dark rooms, lots of smoke, realistic layout etc.) because it breaks the gameplay. Therefore I find it best to hope that we see more gameplay-biased maps in the future instead of trying to make competitive maps out of "pub maps".

But in the end, I still want to thank all the mappers who have made official maps, matter what the gameplay. They have made lots of voluntary work for the good of ns which is something that should be appreciated.

Added a pic of a concept layout for ns_lemming (the 'perfect' NS map).

Hell, if any newbie NS mappers wanna break themselves in on something straightforward then feel free to use this design layout (just be sure to credit me for it ). I could see it being very boring, but maybe some of the competitive players would like it!

Well, personally i don't want to see a new kind of maps : after ns standard and co maps, competitive maps ?
I think that a standard competitive player is nothing else than someone who lost the great feeling he got at walking alone for the fisrt time through a map he didn't know by heart (its layout), who lost the sense of danger and who still find this feeling only when playing matches with clans. Occasionally, he thinks he is too good at playing FFA ("killed 2 onos with the knife, ah ah") with "newcomers" and sensitive people who appreciate the atmosphere and order/chaos of a random public game.

In France, where i'm from, this resulted in that these last of the mohicans "competitive" players and their wishes and behaviors drained and murdered NS practise (websites, fanzines, servers, community) .. because nothing excepted their point of view was respectable so they excluded any other way of practising NS for them and for the others. But if NS is a tree where active servers represent the trunk, and if the trunk is greatly supported by competitive clans and their daily matches, they didn't realise that it is too by pure NSlovers for whom a trunk is nothing else than a dead tree without its connects (mapping, artwork, ..).

When you talk about the game style competitive players prefer, i agree and i add that they prefer this game style and their ns maps because i think they are lazzy or ppl under external pressure who need to finish competing before mum tell them to go sleeping. They need competitive maps to play fast and finish soon because their organization is : one match | 2 maps | 2x kharaas | 2x marines + mum & dad syndrome.

I don't care their wishes. In my opinion, any ns map deserves to be respected and played in a competitive situation, ESPECIALLY if competitive players don't like it, because struggle for life (and that is all what NS is about between Kharaas and TSA) isn't confortable .. and this sense of uncomfort allows weak clans to compete the eternal experts. It's like rain or wind during a match that can change its result. It is part of the strategic choice. The only reason a map wouldn't be good for clan competitions is mapping bugs.

And the only reason competitive players want new competititive-friendly maps is that they are bored to always play the same 3 maps day after day !!

Anyway, there is a difference between daily training matches and official matches : during official matches, you can spare your time, it is «Serious Time». During trainings, you just need to train and work the tactics and strategies. And as you do it daily, you want to finish fast. This different Time Management between trains and officials results in selecting only NS "competitive" maps for officials because they are the only one that can be daily played during trainings. That's a ridiculous logic.

The trouble is coming from them, not from the maps, that's my opinion. I already had this words on the mapping forum before the hack. The conclusion was : for NS (so called) "competitive players", a good competitive NS map would be .. a TFC map. That's nonsense.

you should realise that competetively-played maps are all very different from each other, and that the maps that are rejected by the competetive community (this simply means that said maps aren't played in a competetive environment) are done so for different reasons. it can be a small issue in the layout or in the 'feel' of the map, or it can be a series or rather large flaws in the map. sometimes a part of the problem is that the map simply hasnt been given enough time and attention.

a (competetive) ns map should have a layout that makes sense and doesn't favor marines or aliens, because the gameplay is balanced. it shouldn't have unequal hive start positions because the aliens cannot choose which hive to start from. it also shouldn't render certain things that are vital to the gameplay excessively difficult or excessively easy. in other words, while the teams have to work within the map and the strategies and tactics specific for that map, there shouldn't be any circumstances affecting the outcome that are out of the players' hands.

currently the ensl ( http://nsleague.com ) uses 7 ns maps in its season: lost, origin, eclipse, metal, veil, tanith, orbital. of these, two are currently unofficial versions.

why isnt oribtal an offical map already? It's one of the best imo..

and if pen 15 node is the rationale....lol

Noticed the links to the OMGs (Official Mapping Guidelines) were broken. Now they're fixed

Nice work Crispy

There shouldnt be much difference in ns maps and "comp"ns maps. If you look on the public server stats, you dont see maps like machine being played as much as eclipse for example. Most new maps i see are very big, many useless spaces that serve no purpose at all. If you put all youre energy into making the nessacary rooms more athmospheric and nice looking, everyone is happy. Hardly any player wants to play a huge map where he is looking for 7 enemies. Its half-life, same for cs,tfc etc. Smaller, maps with a lot of actions, are played more then any big map, dust for example.

few questions on vents

what is the minimum height (in units) for crouch only, and what is the height for venthop to be available to marines (like the vent in MS on the map ns_nothing) and what is a decent common texture for the vents?

32x32x72 : Marine, Fade, Onos (crouched)
64x64x108 : Onos
32x32x36 : Skulk, Lerk, Gorge, Marine (crouched), Fade (crouched)

Not sure off the top of my head what the crouch-jump height is. Best way is to build a small room with a table and see what height the table needs to be before the Marine can get onto it. Or you could try the Mapping Help and Troubleshooting Forum.

For other damage, speed, range, etc. values; see the [...]Steam\steamapps\xxxxxxx\half-life\nsp\Balance.txt file.

You can choose any texture for the vents, just make sure you try to use a different texture for vents vs. corridors so you don't confuse players or commanders. Lighting the vents red is a common way of distinguishing them as vents and not proper corridors, but that rule doesn't always have to be followed. The vent systems in Nancy are blue, in Nothing/Sava/Hera they're red. In Ayumi all the vents you can weld mostly have no distinguishing features, but most non-weldable vents are clearly marked with red lighting, apart from 1 or 2 vents that are left in the dark. Eclipse and Veil also use a mix of vents that are clearly visible and 'stealth vents' that are hidden behind cables or in shadow. One interesting thing that KFS has done with the vents in Veil particularly, is have a bright light that comes into view as you approach the vent, so you won't take note until you're close up. This is a neat trick that means Marines new to the map will get a bit too close to vent exits before they realise they're standing next to a vent, but by then they have a Skulk clamped onto their leg and it's too late!

P.S. Apologies for not gamma correcting those screenshots. They're a bit dark but they tell the story just as well.

I assume you mean bunnyhopping in vents.

The minimum height is just greater than the height of the ducking marine's hull, 36 units. However, unless you want to make people jump 18.6 times per second* (for height 37), you'll want to set the height significantly higher.

* 1/((-268+sqrt(268^2-4*400))/(-800)+sqrt(2/800)) = 18.6

The maximum height depends on the marine's loadout. For a marine with no weapons (base speed 220), the maximum height should be 66 units. For a marine with default loadout (LMG active - base speed 203 if I recall correctly), the maximum height should be 61 units. For a decently loaded shotgun (base speed ~180?), the maximum height should be ~56 units. For the heaviest possible loadout (base speed 166), the maximum height should be 53 units. (I say "should" because I haven't tested any of this.)


Skip the rest of the post if you're not interested in the technical details:

The explanation is that a marine can bunnyhop on landing if the magnitude of the vertical component of his velocity is less than his base run speed.

A marine jumping in a vent falls from the ceiling with no initial downward velocity. At the moment he touches the ceiling, the bottom of his hull is 36 units below the ceiling, so if the ceiling is at height h, the bottom of the marine's hull is at height h - 36 units. The acceleration due to gravity (for default sv_gravity of 800) is 800 units/second^2.

We ignore any horizontal movement, as it is irrelevant. The marine is then falling from height h - 36 u with initial velocity 0 but constant acceleration 800 u/s^2 downward. Thus if v is the marine's downward velocity upon hitting the ground,

v^2 = 2*(800 u/s^2)*(h - 36 u)
(v^2)/(1600 u/s^2) = h - 36 u
h = (v^2)/(1600 u/s^2) + 36 u

(u is the HL unit of distance; s is the second)

To be able to bunnyhop, v must be less than the marine's base speed. Thus, to find the maximum vent height h, we simply plug the marine's base speed into v.


(For a few other pieces of obscure experimentally-derived technical information about NS you can see this thread, though only two of them could relate to mapping.)

Edit:
The jump speed of everything in the game that jumps is 268 units/second, so the maximum height attained (by the bottom of the hull) is:

h = ((268 u/s)^2)/(2*800 u/s^2) = 44.89 u = 44 units

Added section: Hive Corridors
Updated section: Hive Rooms

Finished section: Hive Rooms
Began work on section: Marine Start

Some really fantastic guidelines here.

Still ironic though, that all of the main competitive maps fail on SO MANY of the points .

The one map I don't really get much play on is the CAL version of Orbital, so I don't know about that, but other than that the maps I'd consider to mostly fit these rules are: Eclipse, Veil, Tanith and probably Lucid and Metal. I'd even say Eon fits the guidelines but I don't think it gets played competitively so I'll have to look into why that is and adapt the guidelines to reflect that.

In Lost, Alpha Continuum Hive only has 1 Onos exit until welded.

In Caged, Sewer Hive has 2 ladder exits and Vent Hive has ladders and an elevator exit

In Nothing, Vent ([Edit] Viaduct) Hive has ONE ladder exit (and technically 2 vent exits if you can get there without being shot, and that's before we even start on the red room)

In Hera, Vent Hive has ladder issues.

Origin has small Marine start issues and ladder issues in Vent Hive (although the remake is waaaay better than the original)

In Shiva, Datacore and Water Collant Hives have ladder issues.

In Bast, Feedwater Hive has ladder issues and Vent Hive is massive.

Machina is just a tad too big.

Ayumi is a lost cause and probably has the worst Hives in the game along with Nancy.

---

However, all that said, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Eon and Lucid not being played much competitively is probably just a case of late arrival. It takes a long time for competitive players to embrace new maps, even when forced to play them by competition organizers, for some strange reason.

Good job on the guidelines, although it is surprising to see someone who's never played competitive make them (not intended in a negative way).

Added Zephors earlier points on the Marine Start.

There is one thing I'm leaving out, and that's his suggestion of leaving a gap behind the CC to allow Commanders to get behind it to face the rest of the MS when they exit. If a Commander can get behind it, a Fade or a Skulk can, which could give valuable health/adren regen time (realistically in Competitive play there is no chance of them 'hiding' there). Plus I gather you can boost a Commander into the CC at the start of a map for CC jumping, so it seems like there is a solution.

The next part I will get round to will probably be about clipping and detailed architecture. The absolute most annoying thing that can happen is to get killed by just clipping a bit of architecture when it could be either flat or slanted to not hinder movement. Take Team Fortress 2, for example: have you ever got caught on anything at ground level? This is because it has been clipped meticulously to turn what looks like 90 degree angles into gentle, sloping architecture.