pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
edited January 2018
Spectated your map on dmd server.
Obviously it's going to need a lot more work, but it is already very promising.
Very creative use of props and geometry to make the different locations and their themes work.
Laundry machines in Laundry are cute and creatively built, but they still look weird. Google "industrial laundry machine" to get some ideas how to setup that room. Bigger laundry machines, a few in the middle of the room as cover. Pipes leading to them. Bigger carts for laundry.
Is Staging Area the fixed Marine Start? At least Marines started there in the game I watched and I think the hallways/doorways leading into it are too small. At least the one coming from the middle of the map needs to have more room for multiple aliens charging in and out. Marines can fall back in that room and shoot both entrances from very far away. At least the power node placement counters that and makes the room kinda work, but it might still need some improvement.
Also I'm not a fan of having ready rooms visible from the rest of map like in Derelict, but it should be better in your case in Staging, because it will barely affect performance they way it is setup.
Quarry needs to make more sense too. It's a nice idea for some work place for the inmates, but I'm not a fan of some rock clump on a hook above lava (I mean molten ore, Hey Zavaro ).
Maybe you should skip the smelting part completely and add some conveyor and crusher elements from Mineshaft there.
Staging Area is fixed for the Marines, and Prison Defenses is static for the Aliens. Sort of intended as a North vs South scenario.
I will give the Ready Room another pass down the road, as I've run into some game play issues since the relaunch. People building Gorge stuff near marine start, because teams were full etc.
The left side entrance to marine start definitely needs some widening or rework, and I'm currently trying to wrap my head around a way to improve it. I guess I'd have to redo the entrance point into the room? It wouldn't do much to just widen the left corridor, after the door, as I have already tried that.
I'll keep your suggestions around, for what's to be done, when I reach detailing laundry and generator in the next few weeks.
Thank you for the great feedback, I personally really enjoy your own work.
Build 0.7 is just around the corner !! I will publish the build tonight or tommorow, just in time for this week's SCC testing. I got a few more issues to correct, but it should not take too long. I am however going out for the rest of the day, so don't expect the build before 02:00 CEST. The build's main feature is a fully detailed Generator room.
This leaves me with laundry and mid + it's four connections. This has been a longer ride than I had ever imagined, but we are reaching the ending
Build 0.7 is here; UNLIMITED POWAH.. That is until the Khaara kills the node..
I finished detailing Generator, I might work more on the actual generator in the future, but for now I like how it ended up, and I hope you will enjoy it too !
LATEST CHANGES; 28/01-2018.
- Finished Detailing Generator.
- Further changes to commander invisible group, should be a lot fewer things in the way (props and high walls)
- Further adjustments to location entities.
- Increased lightning on the exits for Ventilation, they were too dark before.
Build 0.8; Laundry. It was so clean until the Khaara moved in..
I finally after years, finished a new build for Prison. This is by far one of the largest builds I've done so far.
I had honestly begun to believe, that I would never finish this project. Coming up near a decade, 7 years+ in the making.
It will be finished, only mid and it's connections remain now!
What a ride.. Thank you guys.
LATEST CHANGES; 04/02-2020.
- Finished Detailing Laundry.
- Finished Detailing O-liver.
- Remade and Detailed Staging Areas exit going towards Armory.
- Further prop adjustments all over the map.
- Added new props in the ready room, planning a small redo of the Prison exterior.
- Remade Occu Geo to encompass new details.
- Fixed ALOT of Tesselation issues with textures and props, more remain for next build.
- Updated preview image, on the steam workshop, with a new map logo.
NEW MARINE EXIT
Laundry
O-liver; Corridor between General Population, Quarry and Cantina
If you're reading this, thanks for following my project, thanks for past and future tests. Thanks for inspiration and assistance, and I hope you enjoy!
See you all in prison !
This map looks stunning and cannot wait to play it! How do I become a beta tester for it!?!?!
edit - just submitted my map tester application!
Prison is a public mod, you don't need to be a map tester to try it out, you just need to go onto a server that has it on it.
SCC (Spark Crafter Collective) Do maptesting Sundays at 20:00 CET if you ever want to jump onto it with people, we play Fusion, Prison, Stag and any other up and coming maps that need testing.
Build 0.9; General Population, L-ima, O-Liver, C-harlie and K-ilo!
Hell, it's about time.. Welcome inmate.
One rework destroying 250 hours after learning a lot. Now after almost 1250 hours, split over a period of 7 years, with on and off seasons, prison is finally nearing 1.0 and a final release on Monday 16/3-2020.
The ride to get here has been incredibly, and I want to thank all of you for the support you have shown over the years.
Whatever your role has been, be it testers, critiques, rivals, mentors and friends.
I salute you!!
Minimap updated on frontpage.
LATEST CHANGES; 10/03-2020.
- Finished Detailing General Population and "The Cave Below".
- Finished Detailing L-ima.
- Finished last details O-liver.
- Finished Detailing C-harlie.
- Finished Detailing K-ilo.
- Remade Occu Geo to encompass new details.
- Relocated Armory RT and Node.
- Relocated Laundry RT.
- Made RT's and TP's fit better at their locations, by rotating the entities the correct way.
- Re-added Quarry RT; so that Aliens have 2 Natural RT's to Prison Defenses and Med Bay.
- Made the window in Cantina -> Med bay connection traverse-able by Skulks.
- Split apart the second set of pipes in General Population
- Light levels increased in the last detailed sections.
- There is now an additional secret room.
General Population and "The Cave Below"
L-ima & C-harlie
K-ilo
Armory before
Armory after
Laundry Before
Laundry After
If you're reading this, thanks for following my project, thanks for past and future tests. Thanks for inspiration and assistance, and I hope you enjoy!
See you all in prison !
Thanks!
I thought about it. If we just had some human bones / skeleton props, I would be happy to oblige, not sure much is alive down there anymore.
Maybe I can look into adding them myself and updating it a little post release
Right now visually, the prison is behind the big gate and the truck are loaded going in, I wanted to do the riddick style cave, but it would look very weird empty. This was a nice middle ground and worked well with my "other" idea
Build 0.9.5; Improvements!
Things are looking better and better!
I recently added a lot of changes to the map based on feedback, if you've played the map in the last two weeks, some of these changes might not seem new.
The changes are now however all tried and tested by myself, and ready for proper playtesting. Additionally I detailed the vent going from Gen Pop to K-ilo, so now the map is FULLY detailed!!
I also finally added the renamed locations.
Lighting not turning down with node destruction, is still a known issue. I will fix this when I am redoing all the lights for 1.0.
I hope you will help me test out this version throughout April, as I aim to release the map at the beginning/mid May.
Thanks for all the feedback and playtesting, and sticking with it and me for so long!
Minimap updated on frontpage.
LATEST CHANGES; 04/04-2020.
- Renamed O-liver to O-scar
- Renamed Armory to Loadout.
- Renamed Prison Defenses to Headquarters.
- Added a new hallway to the corridor between Headquarters and Ventilation
- Added a New Ventilation Route towards Generator, going from Headquarters, bypassing Ventilation.
- Finished Detailing all the Ventilation Routes, including the new ones.
- Readded some tables and flipped them as makeshift cover in Cantina.
- Closed off the two exits, in the side of Isolation TP room.
- Added more cover and changed Routing in Gen Pop.
- Added some steel to the backdrop of Gen Pop rock wall, to make skulks stand out more.
- Added blockage to the top of servers in Headquarters, to prevent marines JP'ing between them.
- Removed ladders in Ventilation.
- Further improvements to CommanderInvisible and mini-map.
-fix this onos/exo stuck spot. i recommend changing the ladders to rocks. An onos/exo could easily end up in this pit of death just by hopping up some clogs.
-fix the occlusion layer for these two areas.
Suggested Changes:
-add a loading screen image.
-close this exposed area showing outside the map.
-these walls do not show up on the minimap. it will for sure confuse players learning the layout. you could try making a gap inside the walls where there are no props or faces.
-this ceiling is very low. i suggest raising it 2-3 times higher.
-this vent frame is not standard ns2 height, and it is allowing the onos to climb in the frame, popping its head outside the map.
-onos can pop its head through the ceiling, into the floor above. consider not allowing the onos to get in that red storage area.
-i personally do not like the automatic doors, as they are loud and reveal any stealth movement. chose whether that is intentional for the specific area. i think players would rather not have them.
-add some sort of scanning sound when a player walks through this doorway. Kash used one on ns2_unearthed near marine start.
-for these ceiling faces, use rock props instead of rock texture on flat faces.
-maybe allow marines to be able to hop out of the vent here. the ledge you can currently hop on is a tease. players may get annoyed.
-the current position of the naturals is a bit concerning for marines. marines need 2 naturals nearby on both sides. aliens don't actually need many res towers early on, especially nearby (example: veil).
Summary Review:
Well done staying consistent with the prison theme throughout the map. Lots of props, which is good. some cinematic. need to add sounds. lighting is good. i didn't check low lights, hope those are done. The layout of the map is your standard 5-tech, + shape map. Those are usually good for competitions. You could try making it a 4 tech map (remove middle tech point). I personally hate center location priority, whether it be potential hive location or a double res node room. Center tech rooms usually mean one team is going to constantly be hitting the 4-corner natruals. But that's ok. Can't wait to play it on the dmd servers! Well done, Vert.
Wow, you weren't kidding when you said you'd make a nice review!
Thank you so much for putting in the work to make these great suggestions!
** Enough people have suggested it by now, that I also think we should test a RT only General Population, I'll probably patch that in for SSC this week, so you will get it there as well.
* RT in Quarry was re-added so Aliens had two natural RT's, Ventilation is 80% of matches locked down by marines and Aliens expand towards med bay and cantina, having only 3 rt's prior then.
* There is actually a sound beep at the Checkpoint FX, but I have no clue how to set it up to play each time a player passes by, I can only find timed emitters.
* I could see the Isolation pathway get worked into the room instead of being external. The doors being annoying is why I removed them from K-ilo, prior to deleting the hallway they fitted.
* The Onos/Exo issues I had no clue about, the pit in Quarry I've never seen people in. I will work on something!
* I'll try to see if I can make the pathing more obvious on the map, but you can somewhat climb on top of those servers in Headquarters, so having that space void on the map, might cause the same confusion in base fighting. I can test the tiny void lines you suggested.
* The ledge in the vents is unintentional and I might straighten them out. They were caused by a minor misalignment when putting the pieces together. They are kind of disruptive when dropping down the shaft.
* I will try my best to fix all your finds before the final build.
Most of the technical stuff like loading screens, ambient sounds and low lights were on my notes for 1.0, but you really added many more notes to the paper! (There is a lot believe me, even a launch trailer xD)
Thanks for the finds and reminding me of many issues that needs to be fixed!
-the current position of the naturals is a bit concerning for marines. marines need 2 naturals nearby on both sides. aliens don't actually need many res towers early on, especially nearby (example: veil).
Couldn't agree with this more tbh, this is exactly what I was going to suggest for RT changes... Remove the white, add the green.
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
I agree that this map has a weird res node layout.
Nevertheless saying that Marines need 2 naturals and Aliens don't need that many res towers early on is plain wrong and very map dependant.
Nexus only has one strong Marine natural, Veil has basically 2 very secured res-nodes (nano) that won't need seperate defending and potential rebuilding/healing.
had 2 matches on the DMD servers. lots of people complaining about lag. I checked the performance of the map by typing r_stats in console. Then walked around the map standing in the corners of the rooms and found draw calls as high as 4000. That's really bad. Need to get under 2000 on the entire map. The reason this is happening is because there is no occlusion in the pillars, overhangs, partitions, and walls. Seems like there is only occlusion around each room.
Comments
Obviously it's going to need a lot more work, but it is already very promising.
Very creative use of props and geometry to make the different locations and their themes work.
Laundry machines in Laundry are cute and creatively built, but they still look weird. Google "industrial laundry machine" to get some ideas how to setup that room. Bigger laundry machines, a few in the middle of the room as cover. Pipes leading to them. Bigger carts for laundry.
Is Staging Area the fixed Marine Start? At least Marines started there in the game I watched and I think the hallways/doorways leading into it are too small. At least the one coming from the middle of the map needs to have more room for multiple aliens charging in and out. Marines can fall back in that room and shoot both entrances from very far away. At least the power node placement counters that and makes the room kinda work, but it might still need some improvement.
Also I'm not a fan of having ready rooms visible from the rest of map like in Derelict, but it should be better in your case in Staging, because it will barely affect performance they way it is setup.
Quarry needs to make more sense too. It's a nice idea for some work place for the inmates, but I'm not a fan of some rock clump on a hook above lava (I mean molten ore, Hey Zavaro
Maybe you should skip the smelting part completely and add some conveyor and crusher elements from Mineshaft there.
I will give the Ready Room another pass down the road, as I've run into some game play issues since the relaunch. People building Gorge stuff near marine start, because teams were full etc.
The left side entrance to marine start definitely needs some widening or rework, and I'm currently trying to wrap my head around a way to improve it. I guess I'd have to redo the entrance point into the room? It wouldn't do much to just widen the left corridor, after the door, as I have already tried that.
I'll keep your suggestions around, for what's to be done, when I reach detailing laundry and generator in the next few weeks.
Thank you for the great feedback, I personally really enjoy your own work.
LATEST CHANGES; 15/01-2018.
- Further changes to General Population:
* Now has a walkway across the upper level.
* Lowered the "channel" in the floor, so skulks can go under the runway.
* Lowered the ceiling in two locations.
* Removed the no clip doors near General Population, just one solid door now for the room exit.
* Raised said hallway to General Population's ceiling and made comm able to drop items into it.
- Removed the hanging rock in Quarry and replaced it with something else.
- Adjusted location names on the mini-map, some were badly placed.
- Made the external vent exit piece and the rocks outside alien spawn not visible on the map.
Runway across General Population.
pSyk0mAn's crusher suggestion for Quarry realised.
This leaves me with laundry and mid + it's four connections. This has been a longer ride than I had ever imagined, but we are reaching the ending
See you all in prison
I finished detailing Generator, I might work more on the actual generator in the future, but for now I like how it ended up, and I hope you will enjoy it too !
LATEST CHANGES; 28/01-2018.
- Finished Detailing Generator.
- Further changes to commander invisible group, should be a lot fewer things in the way (props and high walls)
- Further adjustments to location entities.
- Increased lightning on the exits for Ventilation, they were too dark before.
- Gave all vents new textures.
- Fixed a few holes in the map.
- Cleaned up fugitive occu geo.
See you all in prison !
I finally after years, finished a new build for Prison. This is by far one of the largest builds I've done so far.
I had honestly begun to believe, that I would never finish this project. Coming up near a decade, 7 years+ in the making.
It will be finished, only mid and it's connections remain now!
What a ride.. Thank you guys.
LATEST CHANGES; 04/02-2020.
- Finished Detailing Laundry.
- Finished Detailing O-liver.
- Remade and Detailed Staging Areas exit going towards Armory.
- Further prop adjustments all over the map.
- Added new props in the ready room, planning a small redo of the Prison exterior.
- Remade Occu Geo to encompass new details.
- Fixed ALOT of Tesselation issues with textures and props, more remain for next build.
- Updated preview image, on the steam workshop, with a new map logo.
NEW MARINE EXIT
Laundry
O-liver; Corridor between General Population, Quarry and Cantina
If you're reading this, thanks for following my project, thanks for past and future tests. Thanks for inspiration and assistance, and I hope you enjoy!
See you all in prison !
Time to get another test going it seems!
edit - just submitted my map tester application!
Prison is a public mod, you don't need to be a map tester to try it out, you just need to go onto a server that has it on it.
SCC (Spark Crafter Collective) Do maptesting Sundays at 20:00 CET if you ever want to jump onto it with people, we play Fusion, Prison, Stag and any other up and coming maps that need testing.
Hell, it's about time.. Welcome inmate.
One rework destroying 250 hours after learning a lot. Now after almost 1250 hours, split over a period of 7 years, with on and off seasons, prison is finally nearing 1.0 and a final release on Monday 16/3-2020.
The ride to get here has been incredibly, and I want to thank all of you for the support you have shown over the years.
Whatever your role has been, be it testers, critiques, rivals, mentors and friends.
I salute you!!
Minimap updated on frontpage.
LATEST CHANGES; 10/03-2020.
- Finished Detailing General Population and "The Cave Below".
- Finished Detailing L-ima.
- Finished last details O-liver.
- Finished Detailing C-harlie.
- Finished Detailing K-ilo.
- Remade Occu Geo to encompass new details.
- Relocated Armory RT and Node.
- Relocated Laundry RT.
- Made RT's and TP's fit better at their locations, by rotating the entities the correct way.
- Re-added Quarry RT; so that Aliens have 2 Natural RT's to Prison Defenses and Med Bay.
- Made the window in Cantina -> Med bay connection traverse-able by Skulks.
- Split apart the second set of pipes in General Population
- Light levels increased in the last detailed sections.
- There is now an additional secret room.
General Population and "The Cave Below"
L-ima & C-harlie
K-ilo
Armory before
Laundry Before
If you're reading this, thanks for following my project, thanks for past and future tests. Thanks for inspiration and assistance, and I hope you enjoy!
See you all in prison !
Good job on those rooms btw.
I thought about it. If we just had some human bones / skeleton props, I would be happy to oblige, not sure much is alive down there anymore.
Maybe I can look into adding them myself and updating it a little post release
Right now visually, the prison is behind the big gate and the truck are loaded going in, I wanted to do the riddick style cave, but it would look very weird empty. This was a nice middle ground and worked well with my "other" idea
Things are looking better and better!
I recently added a lot of changes to the map based on feedback, if you've played the map in the last two weeks, some of these changes might not seem new.
The changes are now however all tried and tested by myself, and ready for proper playtesting. Additionally I detailed the vent going from Gen Pop to K-ilo, so now the map is FULLY detailed!!
I also finally added the renamed locations.
Lighting not turning down with node destruction, is still a known issue. I will fix this when I am redoing all the lights for 1.0.
I hope you will help me test out this version throughout April, as I aim to release the map at the beginning/mid May.
Thanks for all the feedback and playtesting, and sticking with it and me for so long!
Minimap updated on frontpage.
LATEST CHANGES; 04/04-2020.
- Renamed O-liver to O-scar
- Renamed Armory to Loadout.
- Renamed Prison Defenses to Headquarters.
- Added a new hallway to the corridor between Headquarters and Ventilation
- Added a New Ventilation Route towards Generator, going from Headquarters, bypassing Ventilation.
- Finished Detailing all the Ventilation Routes, including the new ones.
- Readded some tables and flipped them as makeshift cover in Cantina.
- Closed off the two exits, in the side of Isolation TP room.
- Added more cover and changed Routing in Gen Pop.
- Added some steel to the backdrop of Gen Pop rock wall, to make skulks stand out more.
- Added blockage to the top of servers in Headquarters, to prevent marines JP'ing between them.
- Removed ladders in Ventilation.
- Further improvements to CommanderInvisible and mini-map.
* SCREENSHOTS *
Table changes in Cantina:
TP changes in Isolation:
Cover changes/Route changes in Gen PoP:
Ladder changes in Ventilation:
New hallway between Headquarters and Ventilation:
All Ventilation Routes Detailed:
Critical Changes:
-add ambient sounds to every room.
-add reverb sound effect.
-fix this onos/exo stuck spot. i recommend changing the ladders to rocks. An onos/exo could easily end up in this pit of death just by hopping up some clogs.
-fix the occlusion layer for these two areas.
Suggested Changes:
-add a loading screen image.
-close this exposed area showing outside the map.
-these walls do not show up on the minimap. it will for sure confuse players learning the layout. you could try making a gap inside the walls where there are no props or faces.
-this ceiling is very low. i suggest raising it 2-3 times higher.
-this vent frame is not standard ns2 height, and it is allowing the onos to climb in the frame, popping its head outside the map.
-onos can pop its head through the ceiling, into the floor above. consider not allowing the onos to get in that red storage area.
-i personally do not like the automatic doors, as they are loud and reveal any stealth movement. chose whether that is intentional for the specific area. i think players would rather not have them.
-add some sort of scanning sound when a player walks through this doorway. Kash used one on ns2_unearthed near marine start.
-for these ceiling faces, use rock props instead of rock texture on flat faces.
-maybe allow marines to be able to hop out of the vent here. the ledge you can currently hop on is a tease. players may get annoyed.
-the current position of the naturals is a bit concerning for marines. marines need 2 naturals nearby on both sides. aliens don't actually need many res towers early on, especially nearby (example: veil).
Summary Review:
Well done staying consistent with the prison theme throughout the map. Lots of props, which is good. some cinematic. need to add sounds. lighting is good. i didn't check low lights, hope those are done. The layout of the map is your standard 5-tech, + shape map. Those are usually good for competitions. You could try making it a 4 tech map (remove middle tech point). I personally hate center location priority, whether it be potential hive location or a double res node room. Center tech rooms usually mean one team is going to constantly be hitting the 4-corner natruals. But that's ok. Can't wait to play it on the dmd servers! Well done, Vert.
Thank you so much for putting in the work to make these great suggestions!
** Enough people have suggested it by now, that I also think we should test a RT only General Population, I'll probably patch that in for SSC this week, so you will get it there as well.
* RT in Quarry was re-added so Aliens had two natural RT's, Ventilation is 80% of matches locked down by marines and Aliens expand towards med bay and cantina, having only 3 rt's prior then.
* There is actually a sound beep at the Checkpoint FX, but I have no clue how to set it up to play each time a player passes by, I can only find timed emitters.
* I could see the Isolation pathway get worked into the room instead of being external. The doors being annoying is why I removed them from K-ilo, prior to deleting the hallway they fitted.
* The Onos/Exo issues I had no clue about, the pit in Quarry I've never seen people in. I will work on something!
* I'll try to see if I can make the pathing more obvious on the map, but you can somewhat climb on top of those servers in Headquarters, so having that space void on the map, might cause the same confusion in base fighting. I can test the tiny void lines you suggested.
* The ledge in the vents is unintentional and I might straighten them out. They were caused by a minor misalignment when putting the pieces together. They are kind of disruptive when dropping down the shaft.
* I will try my best to fix all your finds before the final build.
Most of the technical stuff like loading screens, ambient sounds and low lights were on my notes for 1.0, but you really added many more notes to the paper! (There is a lot believe me, even a launch trailer xD)
Thanks for the finds and reminding me of many issues that needs to be fixed!
Couldn't agree with this more tbh, this is exactly what I was going to suggest for RT changes... Remove the white, add the green.
Nevertheless saying that Marines need 2 naturals and Aliens don't need that many res towers early on is plain wrong and very map dependant.
Nexus only has one strong Marine natural, Veil has basically 2 very secured res-nodes (nano) that won't need seperate defending and potential rebuilding/healing.
-these location volumes need to be flush. cant leave gaps as player will build there and it wont be powered.
-this location volume should just be adjusted more to the right to cover the rest of the room, but make sure central doesn't overlap.
-marine start can essentially have 9 sentries covering the base due to the location volume. id just change it to match the red outline.
-cant see the power node when the camera is too far right. use commander no see for the top half of the face.
-drifter can'y go down these stairs. fix pathing.
-drifter can't move directly on the tech points. fix pathing.
-merge these two rooms together. they are pretty small and both don't have a node.