I guess I'll start off with the picture I drew, and then I'll get into the explanation of this crazyness.


1st thing you will probably notice is that the hive and comm chair are in the same room, yes I know your thinking "OMGWTH hive and CC in the same room O_o". The next thing is that the marines dont spawn by the CC, and the aliens dont spawn by the hive, yes it just keeps getting crazier but I'll explain why I think this map would be great.

What I was thinking by separating the aliens from the hive and the marines from the CC, is that design completely removes the element of camping, and forces there to be actual combat in Combat maps because the other team doesnt have to go past you to reach their objective.

The grey areas on the map are lowered maybe 10 feet ish and exitable by elevators A and B, and are basically for the purpose of creating tension on the team by causing a slight delay in their ability to get to the main room and defend/attack (yeah thats crazy too, both teams are attacking AND defending the same room)

The red line in marine start is a door that opens after you use the weld point in the main room, and the purple line is a breakable thing for the aliens to get access to the elevator(like the glass on top of the spaceship in that one frefall map). Obviously skulks/fades/lerks dont need the elevator, but making the breakable have alot of health before it breaks would need a team effort to make onoses useful because they would need the elevator to get out of the lowered alien spawn.

Both Spawn areas are pretty much spawn camp proof, because of the width and length of marine start, marines would be able to shoot at the small bottlenecked marine start exit from way back at the armouries, where they can keep themselves healed. And the aliens would have 2 prebuilt DC's at the alien side bottleneck (inside of the wall so they cant be damaged) to allow them to get out of spawn, and also I placed all the alien spawnpoints right next to the wall so skulks can just run straight up the wall to the exit when they spawn without worrying about spawning right out in the center of an open room to kill the attempted spawncampers who have nowhere to camp from but right next to the DC's, and then either head out or drop back into the lowered area to gestate.

If there is anyone here who could make this map I would love u forever

i just thought that the breakable glass elevator idea might be bad cuz the aliens could just wallwalk out of the lowered area and then gest. to onos

I suppose it might be... interesting. But you're better off making it yourself. We usually don't do "requests", as we're almost always working on something - and if we're not, we try to think of something to work on. Most people would also prefer making a serious map rather than a funmap as well, since they have a chance of becoming official and funmaps generally aren't too accepted on these forums. Seriously, learn how to map if you have the time - it's really fun and a great stress-reliever. Before I got into mapping I used to make ideas for maps as well, but I realized that if anyone were to play it, I'd have to make it myself. Besides, it's more fun to claim something as entirely your own.

It's interesting, although I think if the area in the middle is going to be open marines will win all of the time. Long range weapons will easily take out those early game skulks leaving them with no chance later on in the game (if it progresses far enough).

yeah sounds like one of those maps where one team will nearly always win

In the centre room you would benefit from a combination of the following:

- Pillars for Aliens to hide behind and also allow them quick access to the ceiling. These should be designed in such a way that Skulks can smoothly move onto the ceiling from the vertical.

- A network of vents above the room, allowing Aliens to drop down in whichever place in the room they want. This would keep Marines on their toes and eliminate them simply concentrating their fire on the Hive and incoming defenders.

The main thing you have to remember when making a Combat map for NS is that the map must promote both teams to attack and defend to win the map. Maps that always end in one team defending more than the other won't give good results for the player or mapper.

yeah i've tried to learn to map for halflife about 10 times over the past few years, and always was unable to make it farther than a square room with no light and a spawnpoint(and just making that would be like a 10 hour session of trying to make a box and spawnpoint over and over again without having compile errors). to be completely honest mapping for anything more advanced than the doom engine is really too complex for me but i suppose i could try to learn an eleventh time .

also i dont think it would be unbalanced towards marines because most of the action would happen around these two doors here

and i purposely have those doors close to the hive so the aliens would be getting healed when they are by the doors.

The Marines would just walk straight past those doors, get one guy going on the PG weld and have the rest covering both sides of the corridor.

The weld point would have to take quite a long time otherwise the 'rines would weld it and just forget about those doors. That said the PG exit does look a bit cramped. Who knows? Maybe it would work.

Solcott, didnt I tell you I'd teach you to make it yourself?

I acctually really like this concept. No spawncamping, and lightning fast game rounds. Sounds fun.

Raise the covered area with the hive/cc and arrange the center area so that it takes some time to get into the actual hive/cc room. A map like this would need to be set up so that one team has at least two chances to stop the other team from reaching their goal. Otherwise they have very little chance to save their objective once it gets to be under attack.


On a related note, can "hive/cc under attack" be used to trigger entities? It would be an awesome twist if it started a countdown to an emergency teleporter activating for the other team - a single marine wouldnt want to attack the hive alone, because the entire alien team could teleport direct from their spawn to him AND the chair

I might mess around with this map at some point, because the idea has potential...

ehh

well a friend of mine is working on the map and so far it seems pretty cool, but i have a question about how redemption works.

does redemption take you to the nearest hive, or does it take you to the nearest alien spawn point(which are normally in a hive so thru normal play you wouldnt really be able to notice if you are being taken to the nearest hive or the nearest spawnpoint unless you keep letting someone almost kill you on a practice game to see if you keep going to the same spot)?

Doesn't look like it'd be a hard map to make. In fact, it's rather basic. Making it look nice would require skill, but if you could whip up a boxmap just to test out the gameplay, and decide whether or not it's viable, I might try it.

And redemption takes you to a random active spawnpoint. Not the nearest. And not a hive - it has no way of checking that.

well i have basically a testmap with textures missing all over the place to test the concept, and so far it seems ok. i mean sure a map with no textures is ugly but i'm not the guy making it i just did the concept/helping playtest but i again have failed in my attempt to learn hammer so i think the guy making it for me is THE MAN

tru dat.

btw the idea sounds great. More power to any team able to hold the doors, basically as soon as the doors are blocked, the game is VERY close to over. Encourages aliens to heal, use speed, and work together, requires marines to take and hold things in groups. Leaves little or no room for rambos an really dosent have a safe zone.

Nice idea too putting the spawn points opposite of each other, cause if rines just go over with most of the team and spawncamp, one lmg could take the hive

That's actually a scarily astute point, because it made me think about one of the benefits of Aliens spawning near the Hive.

Benefit 1: Aliens can be healed while protecting the Hive (still catered for in your map)

Benefit 2: Aliens can be healed when they respawn if being camped (not catered for in your map)

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Essentially, if the Marines rush the Alien spawns then they can get their catalysts, their upgrades and the win. Aliens on the other hand get camped, with no Hive regen which forces them to be superleet or to get regen as a primary upgrade (a lot of people get regen at one point, but not immediately).

Suggestion: a good alternative non-marine route out of the Hive and into the main room, or perhaps to the PG or adjoining corridors.

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My second concern is what Phattey does when he's healing the Hive? He's in a big room with little cover.

Suggestion: Give him plenty of low-level cover. He's only short so you can leave the Fades with minimal cover, but make sure the Gorge can't be taken out from the other side of the map (this means grenades too).

It should be easily possible to place alien spawn right across a wall from the hive room, but make it take time to get there, just look at siege 007

Barring that, it may also be possible to put pre-built dcs and a couple ocs in the spawn room...I know it can be done with turrets (look at co_campers)