User Tag List

Page 2 of 5 FirstFirst 1234 ... LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 46

Thread: [FEEDBACK] Mapping Changes

  1. #11
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Posts
    194
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    I more or less agree with that about ice, the key thing for me though is that the ladders underground should mirror the ones over ground. Currently there's no consistency in placement, almost like underground was a separate map that got tacked on afterwards. It might not be a big deal to everyone but underground ice can be hard to navigate, and it would just make a lot more sense for everyone.

    If I had to pick one area of ice that was surplus to requirements and needed to be cut it would by hydroponics, so rare for that area of the map to see significant conflict.


    As far as prison goes it's always been one of my favorite maps to play on (both as a marine and xeno) but it has always stood out compared to ice, BR and even LV with an almost MOBA style lane system.

  2. #12
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    125
    Mentioned
    1 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Ice just needs the ladders to actually link from surface to underground atm. In terms of making it 1 Z-level, which would be sick, you're going to have to figure out a way to not make traversing Ice absolutely AIDS. I'm pretty sure putting it all on one Z-level will create issues on Ice as there are in Trijent Dam in terms of mobility.

  3. #13
    Banned
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    98
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    1 Thread(s)
    Put a gym on the almayer

  4. #14
    Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Posts
    32
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Only issue I have with LV is its poor landing zone layout. Both LZ1 and LZ2 are uninteresting and don't lend themselves to much in the way of FOBs. Marines are constantly getting flanked and if they ever lose the momentum they're fucked. Big Red is what I'd consider an example of well done landing zones, where aliens have flanking options but it requires them to put the effort in to open them up, it's why it's the only map with an FOB that is both fun and worth defending.

    Ice is an abortion. Its previous iteration was superior, and even then it still had problems, but at least it was making use of its setting and unique temperature mechanics. While I think splitting the level into two Z levels is bad, I still think there should be some underground elements at play. Maybe 1-tile wide service tunnels connecting buildings, but nothing big enough to build a hive in. And keep them separated, so marines and xenos alike can use them both for stealthy maneuvers without running into a singular camp.

  5. #15
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    193
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by CABAL View Post
    It maybe a fluff, but shouldn't Almayer, as military vessel, have those cameras in space? It's not submarine, but a spaceship and "knowing" what is going on outside is more realistical. Right now it's completly blind.
    In space it'd be more appropriate to have telescopes... I guess you can still call them cameras if you want, but the distances involved are extreme and rather than visual light the sensor suites would cover the entire swathe of the electromagnetic spectrum from radio to gamma, which doesn't necessarily mean sensors that look like CCTV cameras.

    Most space sci-fi really doesn't do space or spaceships accurately unfortunately. So I guess it's kind of up in the air and just do rule-of-cool. As an example: it'd make a lot more sense for the USCM warships to be shaped like cylinders or cones stacked like a skyscraper rather than a boat, with an outer ablative/whipple layer. Also, a good 50% of the ships' mass, at LEAST, would be fuel tanks. (Realistically like 70-90% of the mass is just fuel). You could probably get away with a 50% fuel mass ratio if you've got some insanely high thrust/low efficiency engines for combat maneuvering, and a sort of 'tugboat' section with low thrust/high efficiency engines and the actual fuel tanks for orbital maneuvers.

  6. #16
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    115
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Best of luck Miraviel, the maps have needed a few tweaks and the task is not exactly an easy one to fulfill. Needless to say that prison and ice will consume most of the changes. Glad to see you've made a thread about this so we can relay and localize comments.

  7. #17
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    193
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Here's a map of prison with issue areas circled in green.



    North push is dark blue, south push is light blue. Red is where nobody goes ever because it's locked down and inaccessible for too long and by the time you can move through it marines are either in full retreat already or have secured a position on civ residences and it doesn't matter.

    Okay, the biggest problem with prison right now is that the north side is COMPLETE ASS to push through. There are so many 1-tile wide doorways/chokes it's unbelievable, and the entire way is a complete rats' nest. New players have NO IDEA where they're going and get lost easy, and it's a nightmare to try and actually cade up/reinforce. There's a reason south pushes almost always reach the crashed ship - the path is less obstructed, more straightforward and has fewer chokes that kill marine momentum.

    In general, Prison Station is in desperate need of large 3-tile wide minimum hallways connecting all major areas. There shouldn't be ANYWHERE with 1-tile wide doorways that 20 - 50 marines are expected to push through. Even 2-tile wide doors and hallways are really bad. 3 is a minimum, 4-5 is what a large marine push actually needs. It is extremely rare to see a marine push actually get through north section past the chapel. Almost always they get curb-stomped there. This area, more than anything else, is where I'd focus pathing changes.

    That's really what prison needs. Pathing changes. Bigger paths for marines - leave the rats nest for xenos flanking, not marine pushes.

  8. #18
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    2
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Incorporating changes from TGMC, eh? The best of luck to you, you have 2 years of bad mapping practices to go through.

    P.S. LV's APCs has a bunch of pixel_x and pixel_y vars you probably want to get rid of

  9. #19
    Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    37
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Prison changes are in (12th February), LV is next. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any Prison rounds yet, not sure how positively or negatively they affected the map so far.

    Thank you for the kind words!

    Quote Originally Posted by TobiNerd View Post
    On the printer you added in research; great you added it, but think it should be placed elsewhere, such as in the first room closer to the paper trays. It being in front of the Containment Lockdown button is awkward.
    I'll move it after the LV update!

    Quote Originally Posted by Heraclitus View Post
    Honestly a huge fan of all the changes I've seen so far Miraviel. So many small things have been over looked or neglected for a long time, it's a breath of fresh air to see them being addressed. Stuff like the pred ship isn't essential to anyone, but updating it just makes everything more consistent.

    Although it has a lot of problems with 2 Z levels I'll be sad if ice is turned into one large over map though. Have you considered reworking it so the ladders line up more and there's less weird space warping going on? It would mean having to make both the over ground and underground a bit smaller. Game play wise I'm just worried ice will be too similar to BR or Trijent dam, although I can understand people will disagree and say that's a good thing I'll miss the variety though.
    As for the pred ship - spriters are pretty swamped right now but once they get some breathing room, I'll get on it asap. Also, I need to observe it for a short while to see what paths preds usually take to optimize it better.

    I'm not a fan of huge maps either: my main issue with Trijent Dam was exactly its size so if I opt for remapping ice into one z-level, I will try to keep it a maximum Big Red sized map. However, seeing the responses here, my ice remap might not even be that good of an idea as multiple people suggested that two z-levels are fine, transitioning is what they don't like.

    Byond is, as far as I know, kind of limited in terms of z-level transitioning. We have teleports like ladders and some servers have stairs (effectively the same but instead of click + delay, you can bump into a teleport point). On Baystation, stairs work like instant ladders with a bit laggy overlay; on Paradise (hotel away mission), there are stairs that show the person on the other side. Both has the option to throw items through but I believe neither is really good for bullets. You can just stand one tile away from the staircase and shoot an acid blob/rocket/your M4A1 and land kills.

    Unless, of course, I put every staircase ending right in a wall to avoid such kind of cheesing and make its entrance/exit unable to be trapped/stickied/claymoured.

    My initial idea was a complete remap where the caves were around the colony but if the current map's only issues are 1) z-level transitioning 2) unused parts (hydro, research, that area on the northwest I don't even know the name of), we could keep the current map and just improve it.

    Quote Originally Posted by KittyHawkpilot019 View Post
    Put a gym on the almayer
    I'll put something way better on it, just let Monkey work on the sprites.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fritigern View Post
    Only issue I have with LV is its poor landing zone layout. Both LZ1 and LZ2 are uninteresting and don't lend themselves to much in the way of FOBs. Marines are constantly getting flanked and if they ever lose the momentum they're fucked. Big Red is what I'd consider an example of well done landing zones, where aliens have flanking options but it requires them to put the effort in to open them up, it's why it's the only map with an FOB that is both fun and worth defending.

    Ice is an abortion. Its previous iteration was superior, and even then it still had problems, but at least it was making use of its setting and unique temperature mechanics. While I think splitting the level into two Z levels is bad, I still think there should be some underground elements at play. Maybe 1-tile wide service tunnels connecting buildings, but nothing big enough to build a hive in. And keep them separated, so marines and xenos alike can use them both for stealthy maneuvers without running into a singular camp.
    I too, dislike the LV FOBs, even ice LZ1 is somehow more defendable. Once I'm done with the more problematic maps (Prison and Ice) or I get a sudden inspiration for it, I'll propose a few LZ1 variations here - maybe for LZ2 too as it is now a technically viable FOB just not by design.

    Ice comment is above.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boersgard View Post
    Here's a map of prison with issue areas circled in green.

    (...)

    North push is dark blue, south push is light blue. Red is where nobody goes ever because it's locked down and inaccessible for too long and by the time you can move through it marines are either in full retreat already or have secured a position on civ residences and it doesn't matter.

    Okay, the biggest problem with prison right now is that the north side is COMPLETE ASS to push through. There are so many 1-tile wide doorways/chokes it's unbelievable, and the entire way is a complete rats' nest. New players have NO IDEA where they're going and get lost easy, and it's a nightmare to try and actually cade up/reinforce. There's a reason south pushes almost always reach the crashed ship - the path is less obstructed, more straightforward and has fewer chokes that kill marine momentum.

    In general, Prison Station is in desperate need of large 3-tile wide minimum hallways connecting all major areas. There shouldn't be ANYWHERE with 1-tile wide doorways that 20 - 50 marines are expected to push through. Even 2-tile wide doors and hallways are really bad. 3 is a minimum, 4-5 is what a large marine push actually needs. It is extremely rare to see a marine push actually get through north section past the chapel. Almost always they get curb-stomped there. This area, more than anything else, is where I'd focus pathing changes.

    That's really what prison needs. Pathing changes. Bigger paths for marines - leave the rats nest for xenos flanking, not marine pushes.
    Funnily enough, I posted a quite similar map to my mapper application topic.

    I agree with the one-tile areas being bad, I got rid of one of the main pushing lines on the north during the latest Prison patch that led through a few of those.

    However, marines always had the opportunity to push through the middle, the only problem was always the closed Yard (that is now open) - even though corridors around it were always unobstructed. Truth to be told, having those narrow corridors on the sides were rather a price for marine metarushes. The wide zones always opened after 30+ minutes, opening up much safer paths to be pushed and reinforced.

    I think the main issue was that it became a habit and "the meta" to just push through medsec since once you were sent to set up power, you could chase the first xeno there to the crashed ship and boom, you were at the hive. As I walled off this chase path (still openable by a single C4 or with enough bullets), it'll hopefully tunnel marines more to the center.

    Quote Originally Posted by Alterist View Post
    Incorporating changes from TGMC, eh? The best of luck to you, you have 2 years of bad mapping practices to go through.

    P.S. LV's APCs has a bunch of pixel_x and pixel_y vars you probably want to get rid of
    I have no clue about TGMC nor I have been ever to it. Using sprites, codes, and years of work under a different name, without permission is something I don't endorse, regardless it is SS13 or not.

    LV APCs will be fixed, someone on Gitlab pointed them out. (Big Red has a magical APC too...)

  10. #20
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    2
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Miraviel View Post

    I have no clue about TGMC nor I have been ever to it. Using sprites, codes, and years of work under a different name, without permission is something I don't endorse, regardless it is SS13 or not.

    LV APCs will be fixed, someone on Gitlab pointed them out. (Big Red has a magical APC too...)
    Then I suppose great minds think alike. Speaking of LV, I just remembered that the generators there are wired in the worse possible way. I mean they technically work, but I'm sure you can improve it

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •