ns2_mesh (used to be called docking2)
Mephilles
Germany Join Date: 2013-08-07 Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
Germany Join Date: 2013-08-07 Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
Since January I have been working on a map. The idea behind the map was basically using the theme of docking (which is like the face if ns2 since it's used in the tutorial and pictures of docking are used in the loading screen aswell) and making a map, which is competitively balanced. I mean it's a shame not to see this in the competitive scene.
Anyway instead of taking the current docking and try to balance it out, I completely build a map by myself and used the docking theme as inspiration (since rooms look similar and uses the same names you can't deny that)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=799246861
@Flaterectomy told me that you like to see how a map evolved over time and I still have some old screenshots. If you wanna stick around just read the rest, if not the link is above and go play it.
So my first idea was a pentagon shaped TP positioning with 10 RTs (like tram) with 2 central rooms. So my first rough layout was finished soon (red X = TP; blue X = RT)
The next step for me was get a rough idea of the room shape and how they connect to each other. Also some vent placements. So things evolved to that drawing:
So after building a greybox Layout of this map and playtesting it, some multiple problems occured:
- Map was huge (descent is small compared to that)
- blocking 4 lanes with 5 guys on the field is kinda impossible
- some vents were leading behind marine natural which opened the way for an easy early base rush
- Terminal spawn required to move further into marine territory to get to the center of the map, which feels wrong
Getting rid of those problems was alot of work and not easy.
I solved some problems with that build, but some stayed and new ones came:
- Map has gotten smaller but still too big
- still having 4 lanes to block
- Cafeteria spawn was OP n this build, due to easy access to both central rooms
Joining the NSL maptest group here gave me a great idea on what a map should be like when it wants to be competitive and after trying around a bit, I abandoned the idea of having 2 central rooms. Also I changed the position if Kitchen and Storage to mmake it harder for Cafeteria spawn to get to Courtyard (the central room). I also added a hallway to connect the southeast side with the center.
This was the first layout that was rly enjoyable to play on. But it still had some problems:
- Still does not feel very intense
- Due to the old layout with 2 central rooms I added an 11th RT to the center (to give a reason to go to the center) and 11 are too many (mineshaft has the same amount btw)
- The Hallway above Terminal (East Wing) was rly OP for aliens so Terminal was not an enjoyable spawn for marines (always remember tight corridors with lots of corners favours Alien and open rooms favours marines)
- Also some vents were just useless. There was no possibility to shortcut or flank strong marine positions with some of these vents.
What I did now (and is not playtested so far) was scaling down the map by a noticable amount and I also got rid of that central RT again.
Due to that scaling some nasty things I had and still have to fix occured of course:
- texture coordinates were completely messed up
- some hallways feel way too tiny and narrow now (this is very high on my priority list btw)
- some props started to think that they need to float now
With that we are at the current version of docking2 which looks like this:
For other screenshots of my map (that actually show how the rooms look like) just visit the workshop page.
btw. possible spawns are:
Locker Rooms - Terminal
Generator - Terminal
Generator - Cafeteria
Departures - Cafeteria
(Aliens - Marines)
The planned topic and story of this map will be how docking looks like after the battle in that town has raged for some time (you know alot of destroyed stuff... how a war zone should look like).
In the end I want to thank the guys of TAW, who were helping me with playtests and awesome feedback on this map. It's thanks to you guys this map is at it's current stage
TL;DR: Don't read the curved stuff if you don't want to read that much.
EDIT: mod id - 2fa38a0d
Docking2Beta: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=561209868
Anyway instead of taking the current docking and try to balance it out, I completely build a map by myself and used the docking theme as inspiration (since rooms look similar and uses the same names you can't deny that)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=799246861
@Flaterectomy told me that you like to see how a map evolved over time and I still have some old screenshots. If you wanna stick around just read the rest, if not the link is above and go play it.
So my first idea was a pentagon shaped TP positioning with 10 RTs (like tram) with 2 central rooms. So my first rough layout was finished soon (red X = TP; blue X = RT)
The next step for me was get a rough idea of the room shape and how they connect to each other. Also some vent placements. So things evolved to that drawing:
So after building a greybox Layout of this map and playtesting it, some multiple problems occured:
- Map was huge (descent is small compared to that)
- blocking 4 lanes with 5 guys on the field is kinda impossible
- some vents were leading behind marine natural which opened the way for an easy early base rush
- Terminal spawn required to move further into marine territory to get to the center of the map, which feels wrong
Getting rid of those problems was alot of work and not easy.
I solved some problems with that build, but some stayed and new ones came:
- Map has gotten smaller but still too big
- still having 4 lanes to block
- Cafeteria spawn was OP n this build, due to easy access to both central rooms
Joining the NSL maptest group here gave me a great idea on what a map should be like when it wants to be competitive and after trying around a bit, I abandoned the idea of having 2 central rooms. Also I changed the position if Kitchen and Storage to mmake it harder for Cafeteria spawn to get to Courtyard (the central room). I also added a hallway to connect the southeast side with the center.
This was the first layout that was rly enjoyable to play on. But it still had some problems:
- Still does not feel very intense
- Due to the old layout with 2 central rooms I added an 11th RT to the center (to give a reason to go to the center) and 11 are too many (mineshaft has the same amount btw)
- The Hallway above Terminal (East Wing) was rly OP for aliens so Terminal was not an enjoyable spawn for marines (always remember tight corridors with lots of corners favours Alien and open rooms favours marines)
- Also some vents were just useless. There was no possibility to shortcut or flank strong marine positions with some of these vents.
What I did now (and is not playtested so far) was scaling down the map by a noticable amount and I also got rid of that central RT again.
Due to that scaling some nasty things I had and still have to fix occured of course:
- texture coordinates were completely messed up
- some hallways feel way too tiny and narrow now (this is very high on my priority list btw)
- some props started to think that they need to float now
With that we are at the current version of docking2 which looks like this:
For other screenshots of my map (that actually show how the rooms look like) just visit the workshop page.
btw. possible spawns are:
Locker Rooms - Terminal
Generator - Terminal
Generator - Cafeteria
Departures - Cafeteria
(Aliens - Marines)
The planned topic and story of this map will be how docking looks like after the battle in that town has raged for some time (you know alot of destroyed stuff... how a war zone should look like).
In the end I want to thank the guys of TAW, who were helping me with playtests and awesome feedback on this map. It's thanks to you guys this map is at it's current stage
TL;DR: Don't read the curved stuff if you don't want to read that much.
EDIT: mod id - 2fa38a0d
Docking2Beta: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=561209868
Comments
Anyway, the historical is very constructive, if you're interested, it could be easily possible to add your map on the Map Index, just need more informations via Steam (you're already in my friendlist so...).
1. You've got some pitch-black shadows here and there. I would light those up slightly with some ambient lights.
2. The RT in Generator is very close to the wall on two sides, and you'll usually want players to be able to move around an RT.
I look forward to playing it on Sunday.
I just loaded it up and ran around a little bit. A few notes:
- You've got some occlusion geometry issues around the maintenance area.
- You should move that vent in departures. A gorge could just sit there an bile an entire marine base, and there's not much they could do about it until jetpacks.
- Escalator -> Junction is a bit of a long hallway.
- There's a marine-inaccessible vent right in front of the bar RT.
- moved Generator RT further away from the walls
- moved stability monitoring RT
- moved departures RT
- fixed occlusion geometry bug between ball court and maintenance
@BeigeAlert thx for that feedback. the hallway between escalators and juction was planned to be changed anyways. And I'll take a look on those vents.
Like you acknowledged over Steam chat yesterday, one of the biggest issues is the narrow corridors. The general rule of thumb is that main routes should be around 160-192 units wide. The occasional doorway bottleneck is fine, of course.
Some of your rooms have non-obvious exits. Example below. By this I mean that the eye is drawn to an exit (the one on the left with the lights in and around it), but the darker exit on the right is the route I had been meaning to take. Light them up, and if possible, try to separate them further.
The last issue I mostly remember from last night is the long line of sight from Ball Court into Locker Rooms. It's a narrow corridor and marines at the end of Ball Court looking at the hive can cover it easily. There's no alternative route from the hive to Ball Court, making it fairly easy for marines to build up in Ball Court.
Keep at it!
Anyway, I will gladly play another game or two on this map next sunday. Maybe to organize a 6 v 6 could be interesting as well.
So my feedback will not be that accurate/pertinent since I've only played 1 game on it with the SCC last sunday.
Tech points : they looked good, they felt good. Although they might be a little too small. Like Terminal, Departures and Gen. The room you have arround the actual tech point is very limited when you want to drop all your shit. Think about 2 ips with mines, armory, arms lab, obs, robot. Try to put them all in a single tech point, so they can be easily defended by a commander that jumps out, or by a respawning marine.
Just to make myself clear, I'm not talking about the size of the room, I'm talking about the room arround the CC. Think about the golden rule, don't put all your buildings close to each other so that they can't be hit by a single bilebomb. If that works in all your tech points, then you are good.
Courtyard : hmm how to put this, I don't even know how to say this in English but let's try. I found that there were too many levels of height (lol, is that English ? who knows), there's at least 3 or four storeys. haha, so confusing.. Hmm I don't know if that's a good thing or know.
Actually many rooms in your map have a problem (at least that's what I think), let me explain. Usually when you enter a room in NS2 (as aliens or marines) you're pretty much able to immediatly know/see what's going on it in. Just check some corners, watch for ambushes.
In some of the rooms of your map, like courtyard, ball court, etc ... (I don't remember all the rooms that had this issue) you can't see shit at first. Crappy line of sight. The train wreck is beautiful, but I don't know, I cuts the room in half and ... shit I don't even know what I actually think about that, if that's an issue or not. At least that suprized me.
Size wise: you know you have something good when aliens are able to wall jump to the marines naturals and get there just a little after they started building.
I will have to play more of this to get you more feedback, though. at least you have my first impressions
Keep up the good work
Do we know each other?
Anyway thx for the feedback. For Ball Court it was originally intended that the room is cut in half by a train. However in earlier builds I used the whole lengths of a room but the train got such awesome feedback that I decided to leave it in there (btw that was the first prop in the map).
I am not sure what you mean with Courtyard. You got a higher level where you have the connection to Junction and Central Access and you got a lower level where you have a connection to Tower and Maintenance Access. I am not sure where you get the other levels from. All we got there is the different looking vent entrance at the top of the room. It might get confusing when you come from Tower and want to get to Junction or Central Access (always remember map is above if you get confused), but I got a ladder for that purpose in that room (maybe I need to highlight this more)
I see what you mean with cafeteria regarding the building space around the CC. It's probably the best move to get rid of the Pillar between the CC and the window here. I think Terminal is fine. I might move the CC a bit further back into the room but I think it's generally fine. The other TPs are alien spawn locations and I never tested them as a marine base. I guess I will do this in near future and see what I can do about that
I'm talking about the Departures marines tech point because Marines took it in our latest SCC playtest, and put a CC in there with all sorts of shit
- widened back alley
- bar vent is accessible as a solo marine now
- lowered departures vent
- added Locker Rooms - Ball Court vent
- widened southern part of Northpoint
- widened Junction
- tower vent leads to courtyard now
- widened Cafeteria - Look-Out hallway
First 2 rounds was 7v7 and the last 2 was a 6v6.
http://www.twitch.tv/heftydk/b/564846362
http://www.twitch.tv/skyfishart/b/564845627
2 different perspectives for you
Enjoy
- widened Terminal - Landing Pad connection
- widened Lifts - Escalators connection
- widened Storage - Kitchen connection
- widened Central Access
- widened Tower
- moved Courtyard ladder so it's easier to see
- blocked vent access in Back Alley
- widened Back Alley a bit more
- raised Bar ceiling
- removed some ceiling cover in Plattform
- moved the Power Node in Plattform
- hole in the wall of Tower is gone
- commander camera in cafeteria is lower now
- widened Look-Out - Bar connection
- textured Maintenance - Courtyard vent
(yes that's a vent)
update changelog 14.10.2014
- fixed ladder entity in Tower
- changed Back Alley so you can't shoot the hive from that highground anymore
- added crates in the pit of Tower so an Onos can get out of there
- added rain to Landing Pad and Courtyard (want feedback on that one)
- carved the techpoint hole in generator
it's not much sadly but development slowed down for multiple reasons. Some of them is lack of feedback
others are NSL season 5 and TAW maptesting
Anyway with the current build I am not sure if Locker Room spawn is a balanced spawn. Meaning this might be a horrible spawn for aliens. If anyone could test that or give his oppinion on that, that would be great.
You can see the tunnels from basically the whole south side of the map.
Look through the windows and you can see if there's a tunnel on the map
The tunnels are the two black lines far away, where the inside of a tunnel is created
When a Gorge puts a Gorge tunnel on the map, you always see it outside the map. But in general, it's too far to be easily noticeable like on these screenshots, 2 black points or something. And if you join the spectators and try to reach them, you'll get it.
Proper occlusion will hide it in this example.
Anyway now that I have feedback I have actually something to work on. I guess I will take care of that tunnel thing at the same time