4c-The Lost River - WIP by Olrox

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Olrox
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Re: The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

Post by Olrox »

Safety0ff wrote:That scavenger base looks pretty good!

In the snow pic, it looks like there are issues with the alpha of the textures, that I don't see in the third pic. Which version are you using? Can you provide any more details about this?
I'm using 2.3 beta 10. I didn't notice that, it's probably due to the shadow effects. I'll do some testing later, but that's my bet - I think the shadows are currently calculated by the entire polygon instead of the shape after the application of the alpha channel, which is a known issue in most models that use alpha-channel, such as MG and Sensor towers.

Hmm, I'll have to fix the northern corner walls - I dunno why tey're like that, probably because of the terrain height changes.

I'll also add more peaks to the map after I've added the planned roads, ghost towns and secondary bases.
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Re: The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

Post by Safety0ff »

Alright, nevermind I mentioned it, I play with "noshadows" on usually.
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Re: The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

Post by RBL-4NiK8r »

OK from what I have read an seen in the pics I will give you my thoughts of things so far. Do to the fact its a 4 player map some starting points have more of an edge then others.

Image

In this pic if you look at the top base and the one on the right they basically have a straight line to each other sure they may have a Scav base near by, but nothing really breaks up the map on that side to stop a truck rush or anything else. Also from my POV the left hand base would have the edge when it comes to resources they have 2 Scav bases and 2 bridges that can share defense from the looks of things. Oh ya about them bridges they are major choke points and defense on either side like bunkers with hardpoints behind them would be very hard to deal with early in game.

I was wondering how long it took you to build that force up that you used to attack the Scav base ? and was this done with just 4 oil wells ?


4nE
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Re: The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

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RBL-4NiK8r wrote:OK from what I have read an seen in the pics I will give you my thoughts of things so far. Do to the fact its a 4 player map some starting points have more of an edge then others.

Image

In this pic if you look at the top base and the one on the right they basically have a straight line to each other sure they may have a Scav base near by, but nothing really breaks up the map on that side to stop a truck rush or anything else. Also from my POV the left hand base would have the edge when it comes to resources they have 2 Scav bases and 2 bridges that can share defense from the looks of things. Oh ya about them bridges they are major choke points and defense on either side like bunkers with hardpoints behind them would be very hard to deal with early in game.

I was wondering how long it took you to build that force up that you used to attack the Scav base ? and was this done with just 4 oil wells ?


4nE
I didn't look at the time it took me. As I said, artillery would surelly have made the task much easier, the force I've used to destroy the base was using the dumbest behavior (Do or die, just were sent to the middle of the base with one click and watched). Scavs don't build up, so you can take out most of their defences, making your task much easier.

About the alterations you've mentioned, I'm glad to say I've (mysteriously) done specific things esactly due to the same motives! Added a cliff prolongation between the northern bases that stops direct rushes, and will add scavengers to the passages to avoid tower rushes completely. In the Southwestern base, I've added a very wide passage (20~ tiles wide I think) to the Southeastern base - So that on FFA games the southern players can be more easily attacked between each other, as the nothern ones will. Reccomended teams will be 1 northern + 1 southern combo for normal games, and northern/southern teams for more difficult ones.

The Southwestern base also may look like it has too much of an advantage by being somewhat less accessible by the other players and having the secondary bases nearer to each other & to the base - but overall, their "island" will have the least oil resources as well. There won't be the ghost towns, with additional resources, directly accessible to their base, as well.

After all, I really did want to make starting positions with different pros and cons so that I might try balancing the map in more interesting ways than the average we see everyday. This final balancing can't be done without the planned beta testing, with the opinions of many different players using many different strategies.

The Implementation of a handicap system directly to the base game, or simply playing with friend you know and letting them in positions that fit their skill level would reduce the inequity level, but I won't count with that! Your suggestion is welcome, and you can be sure it'll affect the development of the map. Always remember, as it is being developed and changed everyday, there's always a solution. There is hardly a solution for people who play the same way for 8 years, though :ninja:

Many changes (hopefully the great majority of them, improvements) will still be made until even the beta versions are released. With good feedback in the future, and constructive criticism, like yours, in the present, I'm sure I can fix the map issues and make the map at least "Average" for all users. Also please note that there will be different versions with more power.
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Olrox
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Re: The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

Post by Olrox »

Okay, thinking about it over, I was questioning myself about the strength of those scav bases.
I was assigning each one:
24 Gun towers (corner & end wall)
1 Flamer towers
6 AT rocket pits
6 Mortar pits
2 Sensor towers
1 Neutral building (with hidden oil drums)
3 Factories
1 Power generator
3 Derricks
27 infantry
3 Jeeps
3 Buggies
9 Trikes

I am thinking seriously about halving the ammount of Corner-Wall towers. Those are the most powerful actually, and reducing those may make it easier to destroy the bases.
Does anyone have any thoughts about that?
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Re: The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

Post by RBL-4NiK8r »

Olrox wrote:Okay, thinking about it over, I was questioning myself about the strength of those scav bases.
I was assigning each one:
24 Gun towers (corner & end wall)
1 Flamer towers
6 AT rocket pits
6 Mortar pits
2 Sensor towers
1 Neutral building (with hidden oil drums)
3 Factories
1 Power generator
3 Derricks
27 infantry
3 Jeeps
3 Buggies
9 Trikes

I am thinking seriously about halving the ammount of Corner-Wall towers. Those are the most powerful actually, and reducing those may make it easier to destroy the bases.
Does anyone have any thoughts about that?

I would see how long it takes to destroy them all in T1, T2 and T3 no base, T1 no base would be what I worry about the most, in time line, if you cant take them out in the first 10-15 mins then I think its to strong, the idea was to stop your tower rush not fight Scavs before you find the other players, also keep in mind that IF you lose 3/4 of your units trying to kill the Scav base in that first 15 mins thats not a great thing either.


4nE
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Olrox
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Re: The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

Post by Olrox »

RBL-4NiK8r wrote:the idea was to stop your tower rush not fight Scavs before you find the other players
Who said that? The main idea is to have the players fighting the scavs before facing each other.

I'll add scavenger units to the passages between the bases to avoid tower rushes and puny attack forces, exactly because I want to make the players to focus on getting their hands on those secondary bases before anything else!

Remember that the less skilled players can play in teams so that they can unite forces to capture the secondary bases one by one, together.

There's always the possibility of those who think the scavs are too much of a challenge deactivating them.

I'll release 4 final versions of the map, as follows:

TLR-EScav-MOil > Easy Scavs, moderate oil
TLR-HScav-DOil > Hard Scavs, moderate oil
TLR-EScav-DOil > Easy Scavs, double oil on all bases
TLR-HScav-DOil > Hard Scavs, double oil on all bases

does that sound good? I'll balance those properly in beta stages. Thanks for sharing your focused thoughts!
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Re: The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

Post by RBL-4NiK8r »

Well post a beta when you can I will run it threw the ringer and give my thoughts good and bad. I for one like that its in Rocky Mout. tile set I always thought that was one of the best tiles, also I want to see how the Scavs are, not really played with them in maps that I have made in the past for them just yet, but I will soon.


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Re: The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

Post by Zarel »

I think that might be a bit excessive to have four different versions.

Like I said, I'll make High Power like 2x power over Medium Power. People shouldn't have to make different maps to accomodate different oil level preferences.
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Re: The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

Post by themac »

I am looking forward to the final map! :)
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Olrox
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Re: The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

Post by Olrox »

Zarel wrote:I think that might be a bit excessive to have four different versions.

Like I said, I'll make High Power like 2x power over Medium Power. People shouldn't have to make different maps to accomodate different oil level preferences.
Well, that might hit the spot... I'll release the version with hard scavs and moderate oil, and if people complain too much, I'll make a version with easier scavs. If the oil levels are adjusted, that would allow having a single version in terms of oil ;)
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Re: 4c-The Lost River - The first map by Olrox

Post by Olrox »

The Lost River isn't lost yet :wink:

Here's a pic showing some things I've done today:
Note the added peaks and dirt areas, as well as new scav bases.
Note the added peaks and dirt areas, as well as new scav bases.
I've added some peaks that will allow certain deployment of support fire units without exposing them too much to direct attacks. I'll add some other passages that will allow similar maneuvers, to the southernmost base, later.

The dirt areas are meant to be the spots where the mysterious ghost cities will be. If I manage to retake my insporation, I might as well as come up with some fancy names for the distinct landmarks across the land (like Rman is doing to AquaMaze, much to my delight - that's why I'm thinking about doing the same to The Lost River).

I'm concentrating on making those scav bases and shaping the terrain until I'm fully satisfied with it, which will take some time but will be really worth the efforts. Only after completely finishing the base terrain I'll start creating distinct landmarks and adding features, as well as some little background story if I manage to :hmm:

Comments are welcome, as always!

~Olrox

BTW, I've noticed that the poll appears closed. Can someone change that please? I'd like to have it running until I finish development, after that I'll post it on the Showcase+Addons page. Thanks.
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Re: 4c-The Lost River - WIP by Olrox

Post by Olrox »

Wha... now the poll is gone :augh:
I guess it's because I've edited the title of the topic, in the first post, and I cannot create polls anymore :(

~Olrox
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Re: 4c-The Lost River - WIP by Olrox

Post by Olrox »

Update:
Red parts are scavs. Note the new terrain details as well.
Red parts are scavs. Note the new terrain details as well.
All the scav bases have been made already, and I've discovered a terrible problem with the mutual protection between the scavengers - everytime a base is attacked, all the units go protect it, I can't go with that... Is that really necessary in the scav AI? Maybe adding a radius to that help order would solve this problem (every unit inside a set radius will help a specific attacked unit)? I may add that to Ideas and Suggestions if some discussion about that arises.

You can see that I've added more terrain details to the gravel parts (dark grey ones), like some Gravel Snow spots. more details will be added after, of course, to all the other parts of the map. A randomization in the cliffs surrounding the river (white snowy parts) will be made, so that they don't look like a lame outline of the river contour only.

Also, it's important to note that the center scav base will be somewhat better than the other ones. I didn't resort to adding more units to make it tougher, but instead made the relief itself around it to provide some extra protection. That, adding to the fact that it'll be truly a place to capture and hold seriously as soon as you've developed VTOL technology, will make it a major point of interest in the whole game.

In case it isn't explicit enough yet, I'm trying to make every starting position so that they have a decent, balanced set of pros/cons that will make the players have to adapt to their circumstances instead of being able to use the same strategy everytime.

I'll be working on some other interesting features later, other than the 8 secondary bases, 4 ghost towns and 4D resources on the river (which will trigger a whole new set of skirmishes once the players are able to access them - the fourth dimension is, obviously, time), and overall epic terrain. Heck, I definetely will put some names on some particular parts :hmm:

Comments and suggestions are welcome as always!

~Olrox
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Re: 4c-The Lost River - WIP by Olrox

Post by macuser »

Sounds gr8 olrox... bout the scavs running back to base. It is probably because if my base is attacked i'll go to defend it but since there is only one group of scavs all the bases are theirs how would the scav ai tell which scavs belong to what base sections unless something else is implemented like a script. BTW I like it I really like it 8) .

-regards macuser
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