Arctic Outpost is a mid-sized symmetrical arena map made for fun, intense games of all kinds, especially team slayer, king of the hill, oddball, and one flag. It plays best with teams of 3-5 players each, but slightly more (or less) players are fine too. It has a unique layout and feel, with striking aesthetic features like a huge bank of windows overlooking an inaccessible landing pad, and a see-through floor with waves lapping at distant structures below. Most interestingly, it is symmetrical even though one end of the map is all forerunner structure and the other end is a natural cave formation (with an artificial and partly transparent floor). It should play with no frame rate issues on full screen mode. As with many forged maps, I can't promise the same for splitscreen. Screenshots and video YouTube - Halo: Reach map preview - Arctic Outpost Weapons and equipment - 6 DMRs - 2 needle rifles - 2 needlers - 2 plasma pistols - 2 plasma repeaters - 2 plasma rifles - 2 spikers - 2 grenade launchers (118 second respawn/drop spawn) - 2 swords (120 second respawn) - 2 assault rifles - 2 magnums - 4 health stations - assorted frag and plasma grenades Unique features - Aesthetically appealing dual sword spawns - See-through floor in center area - Aesthetic landing pad with traffic control tower behind large bank of windows - Symmetrical bases with the same layout but entirely different materials - Windows that aren't regular windows (few of my play testers seem to have noticed or commented on this, but I think I pioneered the technique. You will also see it in Requiem Fiasco's map Proteus when it is released.) - Unusual hive-like facade for each base, with multiple doors and elevated entry via mancannon Thanks - Requiem Fiasco, who helped me put together the front area of the bases - SecretSchnitzel, who played the map a couple times and had good feedback for me - Anybody else who helped play test, I know there were more of you
About time you released this! Was fun testing it... Aside from being late at night, grump and Deviant "hunting" me down. Really great map though.
This can fit 12 people? Crazy. I agree with SS, it is about time you released this. It was immensely fun when we tested it a while ago.
Well, that's entirely theoretical. I've only played it with 8 but those games weren't too over the top, so I could imagine a few more players wouldn't totally kill the fun. However, I'd really suggest teams of 3 or 4 as the ideal size. 4 vs. 4 was very fun and I never felt like I was under constant fire or anything - even on KOTH, with everyone theoretically rushing the same spot all the time. Video is done now - I will edit the first post to include it.
Just did a single walk through of the map and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. I love the windows and the overall feel of the map seemed very covenant/forerunner clean. I also like how all the weapons on the map are fairly balanced and the power weapon is the sword. (Few maps properly use a sword, and if it's any larger than 3v3 there shouldn't even be one in my opinion). That being said I do have one aesthetic complaint. The whole map has a very clean feeling to it, so why have the rock side? I understand that you want an easy call out (rock side, metal side) but there are other ways of making the sides stand out. To me it just seems like the rocks break the clean aesthetic of the map. Is this outpost falling apart? It doesn't seem like it is. I think it would be more aesthetically pleasing to just make the rock side look like the metal side, (just change the colors of the metal). You can even make a little window area for that with some other "outside" things. Another thing I noticed, and this might not be a big deal as I have not play tested this with anybody, but there didn't seem to be much of a reason to go to the sides where the covenant energy shields are. It would promote flow a little better if there was say a shotgun resting against each alley wall. That way the shotguns would balance out the swords nicely. Overall I liked the style and cleanly of the map.
Thanks for checking it out, PacMonster. I appreciate the compliments, I did spend a lot of time trying to make sure everything was as clean as possible. Well, the back story reason is that the outpost is built into a cave as part of their scientific explorations. At least that was what I had in mind as I designed it. As for why one end mirrors the layout of the cave side - because this is a Halo map, naturally! However, there were two actual, non-fiction reasons it was done that way. One is that I had the idea when the map was half-built and thought it might be kind of cool. I was tired of just doing red and blue color-coding, and thought it might be fun to try to do something symmetric where the bases still look TOTALLY different from each other. And once I'd built the entire forerunner base and center area, a more practical reason came up anyway - I was basically out of both walls and building blocks. (I actually consolidated and changed around a few pieces just to get a couple more to finish the ramps on the cave side.) You mean the side hallways that connect the two ends of the map? There are a few possible reasons - there are health stations and plasma pistols down there, and grenades as well; plus they are alternate routes between the bases (other than going through the usually-busy center); and finally they have ramps leading to the top level, which is a big strategic thing since that area really needs to be controlled to win most games, and the other ramps in front of the bases are very exposed. Also, some objectives spawn there (hills, neutral bomb and flag). Actually in testing those halls were surprisingly popular, even in slayer games. I think people were comfortable having a more confined place to control.
Great looking map from the video you have. My only worry is that all the action is too close together and there is no real escape from that. Id like to see how the spawns work. Other than that, Great map. Also I liked your City by the sea map! After playing it I have decided that 2 energy swords is too much and great use of the grid!
It reminds me of an actual multiplayer map(by bungie) and I agree with pac monster in the fact that it is very clean and flows well. The only thing i think would be annoying is the 2 swords, or did it work well in testing?
Thanks for the kind words! In testing the swords were surprisingly not that big of a deal - I think because the map is rather open in most places, plus Bungie's tweaks like a melee repelling a sword lunge, the swords don't seem overpowered at all. People rarely held on to them for more than a couple kills before getting taken down in a barrage of AR and DMR fire.
I really like this map of yours, you have to invite me for testing sometime! From looking at the screenshots, it crossed my mind that a lot of sticks were happening. How many plasma grenades and frag grenades are on the map and what are their spawn times specifically?
Oh - those screens are very misleading! The action shots I used were all taken from a game with just me and one other guy goofing around, not from any of my full-team tests (which obviously was the source for the video). So we both had plenty of plasma grenades all the time. Besides, I just like the way plasma grenades look - they really spice up a screenshot. To answer your question though, respawn time on all grenades is set to 30 seconds (MLG standard) and I believe there are 10 plasma grenades on the map - 2 on either side as you leave the base, and 2 on top center. There are 6 frags.
I played a 1v1 match on this today and found it quite enjoyable. We played with no radar, and i must say it was a challenge to track a person, but not too much of a challenge to be boring. The biggest problem I had was being sucked into the man cannons when only trying to walk past them. I don't know that I could think of any feasible solution to that though. Also, maybe cut down the plasma grenades a bit. I'd say about 70% of our kills were sticks, because we always had them to use. Maybe take out a set from each side.
Thanks for downloading and playing, and especially thanks for the feedback! I imagine a 1v1 match on this would be fun (I've played one before but it wasn't serious, and we had trackers on). I agree about the mancannons, we ran into that a little bit in play testing. Unfortunately I'm not really sure what I could do about it either. On the plus side, if you are aware of where they are and hang around them on purpose, they make for an excellent quick-escape method, and if the other guy pursues you can easily turn the tables on him. (That was also true on City by the Sea and its mancannons, but those are in a more out-of-the-way location.) re: plasma grenades, I could see removing one from each side of the two bases (so four total). I think it's a problem of scaling - they are not nearly so dominant in games with 6-8 players, but for 1v1 both players always have them. If I do a version 2 of the map, I may remove those four grenades and see how that works out. Thanks for your thoughts!