MasterGgmfbstJoin Date: 2003-08-24Member: 20169Members, Squad Five Blue
edited July 2015
Sorry for the late reply guys. I've been moving and am just now getting sort of halfway settled in to my new apartment(which is totally sick btw).
Thanks for your comments guys! I agree that the entry from Pump Control to Station isn't very intuitive and your ideas are great. I think that maybe building some kind of path along the floor combined with the use of lighting to show the way is the way to go. At least I want to explore the option because the room, as it is right now, needs some more oomph in the detail department.
However, I will need some time before I can do anything about anything in the map. But when I do get the time, Drill Site will be a priority in terms of making the room a little better to play in. Other than that I still need to change materials/props in a bunch of rooms in the effort towards unifying the visual theme across the entire map. I may get some time to spend in front of my two screens this weekend, but I'm not sure I want to spend that time "working".
Sorry if this has already been addressed but in your first post it says the modid is "d87397" but shouldn't it actually be "d873977" ??? or am I going crazy
MasterGgmfbstJoin Date: 2003-08-24Member: 20169Members, Squad Five Blue
I fixed that. Sorry for the lack of progress here but real life has been really busy the last 6 months. Hoping to get back to mineral soon, but I can't promise anything.
I fixed that. Sorry for the lack of progress here but real life has been really busy the last 6 months. Hoping to get back to mineral soon, but I can't promise anything.
You heard it here first folks: he's back, and he's promising everything!
MasterGgmfbstJoin Date: 2003-08-24Member: 20169Members, Squad Five Blue
Ok guys I finally got back to work on the map.
The first thing I found was an error made some time between March and April 2015, where I had accidentally moved Transport and Loading Bay(with its occlusion geometry) slightly off grid downwards. This created tiny holes in the world and occlusion geometry between Transport and Storage as well as Loading Bay and Waiting. It's probably had an impact on performance in these areas as well. It was a fairly easy fix and I can't believe it took me this long to discover.
The only reason that I actually noticed it was because I started making some changes to Storage and needed to copy the huge doorway. Which is my next point for this post; The connection between Storage and Repair has been completely redone and I am in the process of redoing Repair in its entirety at the moment. And in the spirit of keeping up interest here's an editor screenshot of what I did in Storage:
I haven't looked into the line of sight/cover issues yet and will be getting back to it before anything is released.
That is awsome man!
I also got some feed back about the games i played on the map.
First of all the map seems a bit marine sided every game i've played on this map (about 10) marines has won almost everytime and acording to the Numbers on the new numebers it also says 75%ish of the games the marine wins. I don't know a lot of things to change but more covers in the corridor south of mineral proccesing and Making the vent in the corridor not be as easly shot in to. Move the vent and make it come down from the roof. Mineral proccesing is currently very hard to hold.
Have a great day!!!
MephillesGermanyJoin Date: 2013-08-07Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
I am actually not sure about walking times here but security feels very close to marine start (not sure how about lockers) but increasing rotation times here a bit will probably shift balance towards aliens favour
As Mephilles said the rt point in security is too close and i think it should be moved up to waiting.
also to be more specific about where the vent should be i marked it.
best regards ~Saffron_Baker
As Mephilles said the rt point in security is too close and i think it should be moved up to waiting.
also to be more specific about where the vent should be i marked it.
best regards ~Saffron_Baker
Waiting is a connection area, can't put an RT in there imo, too much going on.
Think about it, you put the RT in Waiting, marines in Auto or East or Break have an even easier time getting to that RT to defend it. Natural marines RTs must be in favorable positions and tbh I don't think the naturals are the issue. The lack of cover overall in the map maybe.
Also, the Vent entrance you proposed is on the ceiling, everybody hates ceiling vents, they are messy to get into fast and safe when being shot at because of the wallclimbing NS2 mechanic.
Also Mephiles : having an alien-sided map was never the goal. The fact that it is slightly marines sided was even pleasant to us, because it doesn't exist in NS2, whereas there are several maps more favorable to aliens.
In gathers and in the ns league, on mineral's latest iteration, I don't remember seeing more marines wins.
The way I see it is, this map requires a lot of teamplay and coordination from aliens. The games I played as aliens on it were intense, the balance between each side in early and mid game felt great (even though I feel like the late game is more marines favored on this map than any other), and you were required to play together as a team and make crucial decisions all the time. I had the feeling that there was little room for mistake on the alien side. But on the other side, if you get locked out of the top of the map as marines, you're in a bad position, and it's difficult to come back from it.
Maybe this isn't fit for pub play, where new players kind of roam around the map not really knowing what to do or maybe they just don't have the ability to group up and really play as a team.
I don't hate celing Vents...
Also i think UWE is working on better climbing moment.
Anyways that vent should be more like a defense against siege and since it's not in good range for marines it is good i think!
What im saying is that the vent is kinda one sided if you go down you will have to kill you're opponents or try to get back Making a almost skulk vent only.
If we take your vent suggestion, imagine getting shot at by marines and trying to get in there. It takes longer, less cover. You have every chance of getting shot. And if you want to bypass marines in there when you go out of Min Pro, it would still take too long, you would be out in the open for too long against an even just decent aimer.
While I do agree that the current vent placement can be kind of wonky because of the geometry around it, I don't believe ceiling vents are good in any way, movement and combat-wise. They are only decent for camping and ambushing. But then again, you can just ambush in a corner and get the jump on the guy anyway.
ps : why would this vent need to be one-sided ? It's in the room next to an Alien spawn. It needs to be at least a little bit alien favored.
MephillesGermanyJoin Date: 2013-08-07Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
welcome back MV. The corner dedicated to you on caged still exists I think and tbh the balance on mineral wasn't rly an issue for me in the last 2 seasons. There is also a chance that balance already changes due to masterG working on storage which is an often used gorge tunnel
MasterGgmfbstJoin Date: 2003-08-24Member: 20169Members, Squad Five Blue
Thanks for the comments guys and I also appreciate the discussion going on about various things here.
About the Marine Natural RTs - I don't really think moving Security RT up to Waiting will be any good. Like MV said it's a conneting area with a lot of entrances and is far too busy to be a Marine natural. If anything it will lower marine rotation times between their two naturals because Lockers - Automation - Waiting and vice versa is around a 6-7 second run at most if I remember correctly. It could possible make the map even more marine sided because it's sort of designed in such a way that you always need to keep someone back in Automation to spot pushes and other alien presence. The timing for Marine Start - Security is something like 9 seconds to reach the RT from the initial IP position. For Lockers it is slightly longer and the timings are pretty close to every official map as far as I've been able to measure. Aliens also should have a lot of good ways to bypass marines to bite their naturals. A bit more so for Security that Lockers.
The vent entrance in Waiting - I agree the positioning of it is kind of bad. And the entrance to the same vent inside Mineral Processing is TERRIBLE. So I'll be looking into that whenever I feel like I have an idea that is better. I won't do ceiling entrances though because to be honest that would completely suck and not really make a valid contribution to making the vent play better for anyone.
Storage - I'm aware that this is a very good position for gorge tunnels when there's a Mineral Processing start for aliens. I will try my best to have that room feel as close as possible to play in as the current released version. The change to the connection between Storage and Repair is more of a way to streamline movement all the way from Waiting to Drill Site as well as giving aliens a better chance to flank marines position in Storage through the vent going into Transport from Repair. Let's face it, the current released connection between these two rooms is bad for most higher lifeforms on the alien side, specially fades IMO.
Storage right now is also a pretty good room(or very good, didn't keep up with matches played on Mineral the last months) for PGs. That's not something I want to change either, but I feel like due to the state Repair is in at the moment is the real thing to address in terms of balance in that part of the map. Because it's too square, unfinished and lacking proper cover and opportunities for aliens. The plans for the location are already in motion and it shouldn't take very long to get it right. In the long term when everyone gets adjusted to the changes there I also think aliens will have a better chance of defending Drill Site against heavy 3-4 man marine pushes.
Overall balance - I have made most of the level design decisions for Mineral based on competitve games. It was intended for the NSL, one of the main goals of creating the map in the first place, and I was lucky enough to get it in and it's still being played 3 seasons later. I'm very happy with the result, but that of course doesn't mean that there isn't room improvement. However at this point I kind of just need to finish the map and actually move on from it. So any major changes in layout will likely not happen. That said though, I will still keep maintaining it now and then after the "final" version to fix issues that become problematic as well as minor bugs that may arise.
Repair is currently being worked on : detailing phase. Once it's done, MasterG will take feedback as to how it plays out in terms of gameplay. The room has more or less the same layout but some tweaks here and there might have changed things.
Don't forget that if you want to follow progress live you can follow MasterG's hitbox channel (http://www.hitbox.tv/MasterG) and get a notification when he starts streaming. He usually streams during the week in the morning or afternoon depending on his work shifts
MasterGgmfbstJoin Date: 2003-08-24Member: 20169Members, Squad Five Blue
What MV says is true. But I won't be releasing anything until season 8 of NSL is over out of respect for the teams that need to/want to play the map in their matches.
Anyways here's an editor shot of some stuff I've done with Repair so far, to keep the thread alive!
In-game screenshot of the new Repair, and some changes to Storage. The slope inbetween Storage and Repair has been removed so things had to be done to deal with some new issues regarding LoS
Also, I heard some people playing a gather say that the glass next to the Storage RT was a bit annoying due to its collision. It will be removed or a proper collision will be built so it doesn't mess with player movement anymore
MasterGgmfbstJoin Date: 2003-08-24Member: 20169Members, Squad Five Blue
Mineral Beta version 4.00 is now LIVE!
Change log:
- Updated/switched materials in a lot of locations around the map, to unify theme. This is still a work in progress and not all areas have been updated with new textures.
- Opened up connection between Pump Control and Pump Station a little to help the Alien team with engaging Marines in this area.
- Completely redesigned connection between Storage and Repair. It is now a lot larger and should provide more fluid motion through this part of the map.
- Redesigned and fully detailed Repair. This includes some changes to the vents connecting to Drill Site and Transport.
- Started detailing Loading Bay, includes some re-positioning of cover in this location.
- Fixed some holes in Occlusion/regular geometry between Waiting and Repair.
- New font for Welcome to Mineral screens.
- Added "Thank You" screens.
- Probably some stuff that I forgot because it has been so fucking long since the last update!!!!!!!!
Please notify me of any issues, small or big, and I will make sure to hotfix stuff ASAP!
Thanks for all your support everyone and thanks for the Squad5!
Supposed to be in drill site, below the bedrock, and then they go into the drill, into the pipes, through pump stations, min pro, and production.
Imma Matrix this shit "follow the black/grey pipes".
MasterGgmfbstJoin Date: 2003-08-24Member: 20169Members, Squad Five Blue
There's a whole essay in my mind about mineral and the station's story. To give you some info, this facility is built on an asteriod in a field that revolves around its own sun. This particular asteroid contains said mineral.
Due to temperature swings in this region(oval rotation around its sun, lasting for several human years) the facilty is mostly automated because of freezing temperature when the field is farthest from the sun, and only manned with a small crew during the warmer periods. The alien presence was discovered during the warm periods and would probably die off during a freeze, but the TSA were sent in to rescue potential survivors.
The mineral that is being "mined" is in a liquid form, however its form is not affected by the temperature swings. That's why there is a pipeline going all the way from Drill Site to Production through Pump Station, Processing and Transfer.
Hope this explains some of what I am thinking. I do have some great ideas to show off the drilling operation in Drill Site with better detail as well as showing more of the pipeline between Processing and Transfer. But that will have to come later in the polishing phase when absolutely everything regarding gameplay and map flow is set in stone.
MephillesGermanyJoin Date: 2013-08-07Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
A little... well less feedback but more suggestions:
at first: repair looks awesome. great job
at second: I miss hugh in lounge
but now for the real stuff:
I was looking around the map again and looking at stuff that feels weird (visually). The 2 rooms I noticed are Landing Bay (I guess you know why) and the other one is Pump Station.
Pump Station has alot of scaffolding in it that doesn't make sense. It is just there to block player movement in certain areas of the room but nothing but air is behind them. Especially if you look with Alien Visions like huze's minimal you see alot of white outlines in that room since it is full of grated props.
My suggestion here is to replace the scaffolding either with geometry or put something behind the scaffolding so it looks like that the scaffolding has a reason to be there story wise.
For example in Drill Sight the liquid stuff is mined and is somehow transported to mineral processing (I guess). So you could show pipes and storage tanks for the liquid resource behind the scaffolding.
Comments
Thanks for your comments guys! I agree that the entry from Pump Control to Station isn't very intuitive and your ideas are great. I think that maybe building some kind of path along the floor combined with the use of lighting to show the way is the way to go. At least I want to explore the option because the room, as it is right now, needs some more oomph in the detail department.
However, I will need some time before I can do anything about anything in the map. But when I do get the time, Drill Site will be a priority in terms of making the room a little better to play in. Other than that I still need to change materials/props in a bunch of rooms in the effort towards unifying the visual theme across the entire map. I may get some time to spend in front of my two screens this weekend, but I'm not sure I want to spend that time "working".
You heard it here first folks: he's back, and he's promising everything!
and hugs
The first thing I found was an error made some time between March and April 2015, where I had accidentally moved Transport and Loading Bay(with its occlusion geometry) slightly off grid downwards. This created tiny holes in the world and occlusion geometry between Transport and Storage as well as Loading Bay and Waiting. It's probably had an impact on performance in these areas as well. It was a fairly easy fix and I can't believe it took me this long to discover.
The only reason that I actually noticed it was because I started making some changes to Storage and needed to copy the huge doorway. Which is my next point for this post; The connection between Storage and Repair has been completely redone and I am in the process of redoing Repair in its entirety at the moment. And in the spirit of keeping up interest here's an editor screenshot of what I did in Storage:
I haven't looked into the line of sight/cover issues yet and will be getting back to it before anything is released.
I also got some feed back about the games i played on the map.
First of all the map seems a bit marine sided every game i've played on this map (about 10) marines has won almost everytime and acording to the Numbers on the new numebers it also says 75%ish of the games the marine wins. I don't know a lot of things to change but more covers in the corridor south of mineral proccesing and Making the vent in the corridor not be as easly shot in to. Move the vent and make it come down from the roof. Mineral proccesing is currently very hard to hold.
Have a great day!!!
also to be more specific about where the vent should be i marked it.
best regards ~Saffron_Baker
Think about it, you put the RT in Waiting, marines in Auto or East or Break have an even easier time getting to that RT to defend it. Natural marines RTs must be in favorable positions and tbh I don't think the naturals are the issue. The lack of cover overall in the map maybe.
Also, the Vent entrance you proposed is on the ceiling, everybody hates ceiling vents, they are messy to get into fast and safe when being shot at because of the wallclimbing NS2 mechanic.
Also Mephiles : having an alien-sided map was never the goal. The fact that it is slightly marines sided was even pleasant to us, because it doesn't exist in NS2, whereas there are several maps more favorable to aliens.
In gathers and in the ns league, on mineral's latest iteration, I don't remember seeing more marines wins.
The way I see it is, this map requires a lot of teamplay and coordination from aliens. The games I played as aliens on it were intense, the balance between each side in early and mid game felt great (even though I feel like the late game is more marines favored on this map than any other), and you were required to play together as a team and make crucial decisions all the time. I had the feeling that there was little room for mistake on the alien side. But on the other side, if you get locked out of the top of the map as marines, you're in a bad position, and it's difficult to come back from it.
Maybe this isn't fit for pub play, where new players kind of roam around the map not really knowing what to do or maybe they just don't have the ability to group up and really play as a team.
Also i think UWE is working on better climbing moment.
Anyways that vent should be more like a defense against siege and since it's not in good range for marines it is good i think!
What im saying is that the vent is kinda one sided if you go down you will have to kill you're opponents or try to get back Making a almost skulk vent only.
While I do agree that the current vent placement can be kind of wonky because of the geometry around it, I don't believe ceiling vents are good in any way, movement and combat-wise. They are only decent for camping and ambushing. But then again, you can just ambush in a corner and get the jump on the guy anyway.
ps : why would this vent need to be one-sided ? It's in the room next to an Alien spawn. It needs to be at least a little bit alien favored.
About the Marine Natural RTs - I don't really think moving Security RT up to Waiting will be any good. Like MV said it's a conneting area with a lot of entrances and is far too busy to be a Marine natural. If anything it will lower marine rotation times between their two naturals because Lockers - Automation - Waiting and vice versa is around a 6-7 second run at most if I remember correctly. It could possible make the map even more marine sided because it's sort of designed in such a way that you always need to keep someone back in Automation to spot pushes and other alien presence. The timing for Marine Start - Security is something like 9 seconds to reach the RT from the initial IP position. For Lockers it is slightly longer and the timings are pretty close to every official map as far as I've been able to measure. Aliens also should have a lot of good ways to bypass marines to bite their naturals. A bit more so for Security that Lockers.
The vent entrance in Waiting - I agree the positioning of it is kind of bad. And the entrance to the same vent inside Mineral Processing is TERRIBLE. So I'll be looking into that whenever I feel like I have an idea that is better. I won't do ceiling entrances though because to be honest that would completely suck and not really make a valid contribution to making the vent play better for anyone.
Storage - I'm aware that this is a very good position for gorge tunnels when there's a Mineral Processing start for aliens. I will try my best to have that room feel as close as possible to play in as the current released version. The change to the connection between Storage and Repair is more of a way to streamline movement all the way from Waiting to Drill Site as well as giving aliens a better chance to flank marines position in Storage through the vent going into Transport from Repair. Let's face it, the current released connection between these two rooms is bad for most higher lifeforms on the alien side, specially fades IMO.
Storage right now is also a pretty good room(or very good, didn't keep up with matches played on Mineral the last months) for PGs. That's not something I want to change either, but I feel like due to the state Repair is in at the moment is the real thing to address in terms of balance in that part of the map. Because it's too square, unfinished and lacking proper cover and opportunities for aliens. The plans for the location are already in motion and it shouldn't take very long to get it right. In the long term when everyone gets adjusted to the changes there I also think aliens will have a better chance of defending Drill Site against heavy 3-4 man marine pushes.
Overall balance - I have made most of the level design decisions for Mineral based on competitve games. It was intended for the NSL, one of the main goals of creating the map in the first place, and I was lucky enough to get it in and it's still being played 3 seasons later. I'm very happy with the result, but that of course doesn't mean that there isn't room improvement. However at this point I kind of just need to finish the map and actually move on from it. So any major changes in layout will likely not happen. That said though, I will still keep maintaining it now and then after the "final" version to fix issues that become problematic as well as minor bugs that may arise.
Don't forget that if you want to follow progress live you can follow MasterG's hitbox channel (http://www.hitbox.tv/MasterG) and get a notification when he starts streaming. He usually streams during the week in the morning or afternoon depending on his work shifts
Anyways here's an editor shot of some stuff I've done with Repair so far, to keep the thread alive!
Change log:
- Updated/switched materials in a lot of locations around the map, to unify theme. This is still a work in progress and not all areas have been updated with new textures.
- Opened up connection between Pump Control and Pump Station a little to help the Alien team with engaging Marines in this area.
- Completely redesigned connection between Storage and Repair. It is now a lot larger and should provide more fluid motion through this part of the map.
- Redesigned and fully detailed Repair. This includes some changes to the vents connecting to Drill Site and Transport.
- Started detailing Loading Bay, includes some re-positioning of cover in this location.
- Fixed some holes in Occlusion/regular geometry between Waiting and Repair.
- New font for Welcome to Mineral screens.
- Added "Thank You" screens.
- Probably some stuff that I forgot because it has been so fucking long since the last update!!!!!!!!
Please notify me of any issues, small or big, and I will make sure to hotfix stuff ASAP!
Thanks for all your support everyone and thanks for the Squad5!
but i do have one request the map is called mineral but where are are the ores/crystals/minerals????
Imma Matrix this shit "follow the black/grey pipes".
Due to temperature swings in this region(oval rotation around its sun, lasting for several human years) the facilty is mostly automated because of freezing temperature when the field is farthest from the sun, and only manned with a small crew during the warmer periods. The alien presence was discovered during the warm periods and would probably die off during a freeze, but the TSA were sent in to rescue potential survivors.
The mineral that is being "mined" is in a liquid form, however its form is not affected by the temperature swings. That's why there is a pipeline going all the way from Drill Site to Production through Pump Station, Processing and Transfer.
Hope this explains some of what I am thinking. I do have some great ideas to show off the drilling operation in Drill Site with better detail as well as showing more of the pipeline between Processing and Transfer. But that will have to come later in the polishing phase when absolutely everything regarding gameplay and map flow is set in stone.
at first: repair looks awesome. great job
at second: I miss hugh in lounge
but now for the real stuff:
I was looking around the map again and looking at stuff that feels weird (visually). The 2 rooms I noticed are Landing Bay (I guess you know why) and the other one is Pump Station.
Pump Station has alot of scaffolding in it that doesn't make sense. It is just there to block player movement in certain areas of the room but nothing but air is behind them. Especially if you look with Alien Visions like huze's minimal you see alot of white outlines in that room since it is full of grated props.
My suggestion here is to replace the scaffolding either with geometry or put something behind the scaffolding so it looks like that the scaffolding has a reason to be there story wise.
For example in Drill Sight the liquid stuff is mined and is somehow transported to mineral processing (I guess). So you could show pipes and storage tanks for the liquid resource behind the scaffolding.
This is sci-fi, deal with it!
As for @Mephilles 's suggestions I'll get back to it later. Thanks for the feedback though!