Basic Theme: This map takes place below and within a mountain-top facility. The marine start and two of the hives are in the facility, one hive is below the facility.

Underside:





This map needs a layout.

Any off topic post will be dealt with harshly. Lets offer something real here.

I'll break out mspaint tonight and see what I can do.

What are those screenshots of? The RR?

And what kind of facility? Mining?

Those screenshots are of a style test I did. I haven't decided on the purpose of the facility yet; not that it's required information for making a layout or anything.

ns_veil2 ftw

3 resnodes on each side (including side hive nodes), a double res node and a central hive in the middle.

Yey!

Ok, first an explaination:

This is a pseudo layout I imagined, no details on what it will actually look like, but laid out for purpose (like a flow chart.. omg hax)



From my experience and opinion:

• Each hive needs a siege location, preferably located farthest from marine start.

• You should have 10 nodes average, 11 nodes max.

• There are 11 nodes displayed on this layout. I would rather see either a double node, and have Nodes E,D,and C just be C and D between the three hives (10 nodes), OR just have a single node in double but have the extra node closer to MS.

• Have each siege and spare Res location connected through vents to the closest hive.

• Have the nearest MS nodes and double connected to MS via vents.

• Have all hives connected via vents

• Notice how the hives seem equal distances from MS. Each hive should be the same distance from MS time wise, and not so much physical distance (using ladders/elevators.. etc)

• Hive nodes and alien nodes (note the dbl option with just C and D res towers) should not be able to be shot down from outside the room/hive.

• Each hive should have a particular obstacle to overcome for marines. IE: Weld open the siege room.

• One hive room is very alien friendly but easily sieged, one hive nearly unsiegeable but wide open, one hive (preferably the center hive) a mix of both, possibly two siege points.

• Vents that can not be reached by marines unless designed for it.

• I can not stress enouph how much MS needs more then two exits, a more open room but not a high ceiling. It should be the most marine friendly area of the map.

Again, this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree. I too am very curious what other competitive players would like to see in a map.

I just tried to write a well reasoned response to Digz' layout (THREEE DAMN TIMES) and this stupid keyboard with its teeny weeny flipping POS KEYS took the browser 'back' twice and then CTRL-X'd...

So I'm sorry if I don't give reasons, maybe the sticky in this forum might let you see why I say what I say when I say this layout is seriously flawed.

P.S. Nice style, Mouse. I suggest you give the map purpose and then you'll get ideas for the layout (key locations, etc.).

P.P.S. I've got a keyboard to trash...

P.P.P.S 'flipping'

It might be advantageous to make a copy of this post, or to make a post linking to it on the CAL forums, these guys got useful info. by doing so.

The idea for nodes is that for each hive you should be able to drop 2-3 nodes that can reasonably be defended by aliens. Marines need 2 secure nodes as well, but will usually cap the far side of the map for another two bringing a normal very healthy marine node count to 5 by 4 minutes.

Usually the obstacle to the hive squeak is talking about is a room. The obstacle to cargo on tanith is central access tunnels and the entrance to cargo. On the other side its the elevation differences in chem and acidic. That acidic ladder is a death trap. It doesn't need to be a weldable. The idea is that between every hive there should be both marine and alien biased areas.

The middle hive usually averages 30-35 seconds marine walk time from MS and the wing hives are usually 20-25 seconds marine walk time. Hives aren't perfectly equidistant in most cases, the middle one is a little farther.

Also, you want your map to not interconnect too much. That was the problem with altair, from any room you could get to any other room. Think about veil, if you go out west, you're not going to pipeline. On caged, if you go towards stability monitoring, the aliens know that ventilation is alright, and the inc is to gen. On tanith, you either go towards chem or towards double, and if a marine goes by west, you know he is going to go through waste as well.

Squeak:

Your layout is very colorful and fun. However it has 11 nodes. 11 node maps are generally very large. Very large maps are bad for 6v6.

Your map also has vents from the center of the map to both marine nodes. This will make it quite alien biased as marines will be harassed by skulks and lerks to no end when trying to cap the nodes that are supposed to be reserved for them. ns_veil certainly has West Skylights but it also has Topographical Analysis.

Crispy:

I don't like the idea of making maps with a central marine start and hives around it in a triangle. Competitive players (at least in CAL) have about 9 maps they consider to be absolutely fit and proper for competitive play, none of which utilize a triangular layout. So I think Squeak is at least on the right track with his layout.

Mouse:

Thank you for making a map for competitive players. I hope you realize that in this process you will have to deal with competitive players. Few travel the road you're on, and that's a fact.

Your style test sort of reminds me of ns_mineshaft. But never fear, I'm sure your map will not remind me of ns_mineshaft. Just make sure to make the map bright and all will be well.

edit: I beg of you, please please please do not name any rooms "Cargo" or "Generator." I am getting so sick of repeating those words.

I don't know much about essential map design, all my attempts at hammer have failed miserably, but one difference between a map like this and a normal one would be movement. Competitive players know how to work maps, wallstrafe, ramp hop and such. If the route between hives is meant to be around the same amount of time, take this into mind. I'm not saying add long walls and ramps. If the route to hive a is a 22 second walk with flat ground and disrupted walls, and the route to hive b is also 22 seconds but with straight walls and a lot of ramps and rails, hive b will be a lot faster to get to. This is all I can think of for the map itself, but adressing what Kmart said:


If people are sick of "cargo" and "generator" why dont people make some alternate suggestions? These names are used a lot because they are standard on futuristic military facilities. Why dont some people make some suggestions for alternates. That is, if Mouse Doesn't mind.

Alternates for Cargo: Hold, Storage,
Alternates for Genereator: Power supply, Engine

These are still pretty generic, but they're a little bit of a repreive from the normal titles. Maybe someone else can think of more.

Keep it simple and it will be a success.

don't forget to leave room for onos

Crispy, they are suggestions, not the rule. Im fine that you disagree with them, but I still think you are taking the layout too literaly.

Squeak, your map sucks because your vents are pink. What kind of stupid map has pink vents. That doesn't even make sense!

every hive room should have 2ish marine enterances

crosspost from CAL forums so others can see

The most popular maps tend to (always?) have 2 marine nodes, 2 contested nodes, and 2 alien nodes in addition to the nodes inside each respective base. The trick to balancing the map is placement. For example, ns_veil has traditionally been a marine biased map. Part of the reason for this is the 2 marine nodes and the 2 alien nodes (overlook and c-12) are skewed toward the marine base and are easier to kill/hold while the 2 contested nodes are skewed toward the alien side. Tanith on the other hand has traditionally been an alien biased map. Looking at the node placement, the two alien nodes (I'll call them as cargo and acidic) are generally skewed toward the aliens, and the contested nodes (chemical and west) are skewed to the aliens as well.

The other main consideration for balance is choke points between the hives. The better maps will have around 2 areas between each hive which the aliens must pass through where the marines can engage them. Passage between the hives should be safe but not absolutely safe for the aliens; give the marines a chance to isolate certain areas. This helps prevent one hive from being the "best" and also helps marines cap the opposite end of where the aliens are, which are crucial nodes to the marine economy. Examples of this are most obvious in ns_tanith where fusion and satcomm are intertwined such that if the aliens start with one the second hive will always be the other. Tanith's design also hurts the marines if the aliens start with waste, since the proximity to the nodes the aliens want makes capping the back side difficult.

Otherwise, marines need large open places to set up phases, usually one of the contested nodes, and they need a decent spot to siege a hive from (biggest offender: sewer on ns_caged), but not to the point where the marines have it too easy (biggest offender: probably the old pipeline hive on ns_veil).

Edit: try to avoid big differences in the z-axis. Having big changes in depth (like in ventilation hive on ns_origin) makes it difficult to command.

crossposts are cool

While I could have given this map a central MS, it's a hard style of layout to get working and balanced (which is why it isn't used much).

I made a preliminary layout in one of my lectures today, I'll upload it when I get home.

A preliminary layout. I haven't decided on elevation changes yet.

10 nodes in total, there are nodes in the hives & marine start.

And that is to scale, About the size of a normal NS map.
vents = 64 units wide
hallways = 128 units wide
Large Hallways = 192 units wide

(For reference a marine is 32 units wide)

Wow, I'm a smacktard! That really makes a lot more sense

I could see this layout working, definitely. It's a nice base and if you find anything unbalanced you can tweak the rooms to restore an overall map balance.

BTW, where are you putting the section from the screenshot?

To be honest it was just a style test. I doubt that exact area will go into the map at all. Although that does bring up something I'm yet to do. In my initial post I said the map would be split into upper (In the facility) and lower (below the facility). I haven't decided which parts of the map will be upper and which will be lower; all I know is that the marine start is upper and at least one of the hives is lower. Feel free to suggest which parts of the map shoud be upper/lower.

imo the middle hive should be the lower one for balancing reasons...the right hive seems like it would work better though...but if you could make it lower without it having a disadvantage of some sort then go for it!

If we are to go on the rough distances given in the layout, I'd say keep the left side as an upper tier Hive and the middle as a lower tier Hive.

For the following text, Hives are 1,2 & 3 from left to right.

The left side appears closer to MS which might mean it will have its res nodes attacked sooner. Aliens from Hive1 (this is all based on the distance assumption) should have a little boost by being able to bear down on the res nodes (or at least the far left one). The far left res node should probably be put in the lower section of the map with the Hive1-side entrance (or section of the room that leads to it) having enough height veriation to sufficiently aid the Alien team.

The middle Hive (Hive2) should probably be a lower tier Hive so that Marines can't simply lock down the middle Hive and severely hinder Aliens' chances of dropping and holding the second Hive. However this is assuming that Marines are better off putting up a PG inside the Hive. If you build the middle Hive with a very appealing sieging option, I'd suggest making it so that Aliens can attack the siege room from above (so make Hive2 upper tier, I guess).

Every decision you make on the layout (3rd dimension included) has an effect on the area immediately surrounding it (which could be said to have a domino effect on the areas immediately surrounding them, and so on ).

You are planning on vents out of the hive, right? At least towards ajacent rooms/hallways? It would be too easy to contain them otherwise.

The vent between the two rts in the middle should be hard to get to from either of the rts. Otherwise one skulk can just run to the other rt as a marine comes to save it and then back if he tries to save the other rt. It makes it very difficult to kill a lone skulk without bringing most of your team along. On orbital there is a vent from pen-15 node to one of the hive nodes that does this and it is near impossible to kill one skulk using that without wasting a huge amount of time.

i don't know if it's just because it's a mockup but it looks like you have just hallways between 'important' rooms (marine start, hives, resource tower rooms) and no intermediary rooms which are just there for the sake of being rooms. there should be some 'empty' rooms/areas for relocations, building sieges, etc

also i like the vent placement so far but any of the 'longer' vents should have multiple entrances/exits, instead of just being a vent from point a to point b (ie enter vent at point a and halfway through it, it splits and you can go to either b or c)

Mouse, just start designing hallways/rooms/hives etc with all the same entrance and vent sizes, then when you have maybe a few dozen just frankenstein it all together.

Call it ns_frankenstein.

That's actually what I'm doing. And it's why the area shown in the screenshots won't be in the map itself.

NOES IT IS TEH FRONKENSTEEN MARP!!!

another thing: no doors

avoid lots of ladders and elevators. if you need an ely, be sure to have only one, and have it FAST moving.

also be sure to put an invsiable ramp brush over any stairs that you use, it will make like better for everyone.

Mines are placed around IPs/AA/PGs, and sometimes TF/sieges during a siege.

This information will be added to my Mapping for Matchplay document. Thanks Swift