*Thead Update with screenshots to reflect current version* Orion Orion is a vertical map designed to play similarly to Construct King from MLG v8 in Halo 3. It features a single main atrium with connecting outside streets and a basement level. You have three power ups on the map. At top green is sniper, bottom mid is rockets and mid gold is the custom powerup. Additionally there are two controllable jet backs spawning on opposite sides of the basements Green side is similar to sword side on Construct in regards to controlling the bottom hill. This is the difficult hill to hold, that will make or break the game for a team. You have your alternating hills on the streets, red and blue. This are a lot easier to lock down as a team, much in similarity to the street hills from Construct as well. The basement, as well as the addition of the one way tele from bottom green to mid gold, is meant to offer safe spawn locations as well as connectivity to the rest of the map One of the most pivotal lines of sights for breaking up set ups and controlling the map is the sight line between the two power positions, top green and top gold. Additionally, top gold offers a line of sight to the bottom hill. Weapons and Equipment: Rockets x1 Sniper x1 DMR x 4 NR x2 Plasma Rifle x2 Needler x2 Custom x1 Health Pack x3 Bird eye view shot. Blue side. Top Blue Street, Blue Health Pack, Blue Jetty Bottom Green, Bottom Hill Gold Side, Red/Blue Lobby Green Side Mid Gold, Drop Down, Custom Red Street, Street Hill location The map can be found on my fileshare, or by searching for the tag Orion. Take note that there are two variants up, one intended for MLG specifically. Read the descriptions and download the correct variant.
Hehe, I thought the name said onion at first. Anyways, about the second picture in the screenshot section, the bridge looks like it's sticking out and hard to use that incline in the corner. I love the drop down in the middle, reminds me of Boardwalk.
Welcome back to forging, Schnitzy, and welcome to the dark side of Reach (a.k.a. casual gaming)! This is the map I saw you roughing out the other day, yes? Looks pretty good. I like your platform XXL + 2x2 block floors - I just did a similar thing for Hoglaunch and after goofing around on it a bit I started thinking it would look pretty good in a competitive map.
Not entirely sure about the piece, but I nudged it when I went back into forge to tidy up a few things. As for the drop down, I had completely forgotten there was something similar on boardwalk. I thought of it more of a "construct" sort of thing. Thanks dude. Been doing the Platform XXL thing for awhile actually, originally the flooring on Despair was done the same way... But when I scaled it down for splitscreen play, the floors had to go. :O Probably gonna get to designing a BTB map after this. Tired of the MLG tryhards and the b/s drama in that community. Went through the map again this evening and changed a few things up a bit. Broke up some LoS along the outskirts of the map, raised of the flooring in the red and blue lift rooms, and added grenades and health packs. Also uploaded the beta testing variant of the map to my RedSchnitzelSec account. Download here. Um... whats the bungie BB code? And thanks for posting the video Cheeze.
I have to say, the way that ramp is going into the column in the second picture is driving me crazy. Is there anything you could do about that? Anyways, I think there's plenty of color on the map. I really don't see why you would need more. You used quite a few of the nicer textures FW has to offer. The layout looks pretty solid, as well. I can haz DL link?
That section in general is actually bothering me a bit... The stairs seem to long and steep, and the piece you mentioned just looks wrong. I'm pretty satisfied by how much color is on the map. I think it'd be rather difficult to get lost or disorientated on this. There's a link in the OP now btw. Only three gametypes atm... Slayer, KotH and Oddball.
[ bungievid ] The last numbers on your video (Yours are 25854955) [ /bungievid ] So without the words [ bungievid ] 25854955 [ /bungievid ]
Trolling hard of course. But in all seriousness, because of your flat comments I went over the map like a mad man and implemented a lot of changes to the flooring and elevation. I still say it wasn't that flat to begin with, but its much better now. So yeah, actually you do have my thanks. I still say your way of pointing it out and how you reacted to my reaction is bollocks though. Edit: I'm not sure if it was you Hulter, or one of your MLG buddies that I pissed off, but the tagging of the map file was a very immature and bullshit move. I can probably count that it wasn't you, but the grudge some of your buddies have against me is laughable. Seriously, why can't y'all grow up?
Classic slayer? I see a jetpack in there... Anyways this looks nice and colorful. I love maps that have an AA implemented into them as a power weapon and the dropdown looks cool. It looks a bit too open for the energy sword to do any good though. The second to last picture looks funny, what are you going for there?
I'm really excited to play this, as it takes what worked from Construct and got rid of what didn't. The map's got just the right amount of verticality, and everything is well thought-out. I'm glad you're back Schnitzel!
Any slayer variant. The jetpacks are in the place that they are because there is an immediate us for the jetpack that offers another route the the higher levels. The sword I doubt will be of much use, but I included it as a fanfare for players that love sword... It may be removed later on. As of right now, it's only included in slayer. Not entirely sure what you mean about the 2nd to last picture... Thanks Duck. Unfortunately it doesn't have a LoS from the bottom levels to the "streets" like Construct did; however there are other LoS to control the "streets". I am very satisfied with the design, LoS and verticality of this map though. Glad to be back. Got another 4v4 map I'm refreshing as well. Old map I never released from June, currently reforging and tweaking the design. Will be posting a preview thread for it in a few days.
This. Other than that deformation, the map looks great, I love what you did with those block 1x2 and 1x4 combination they remind me of Tetris for some reason.
The issue with the ramps has been fixed, no worries. Not in the version on my f/s, but the one I'm cleaning up for its upcoming release. The 1x2 and 1x4 structure in the center is my friend Dawkin's contribution. Essentially the aim was to break LoS between top gold and top green. Works adequately I must say. I've gotten a fairly decent number of test games on this map now. For the most part it has played wonderfully. A few issues have become apparent here and there, but the map is progressing marvelously. Hopefully it should be ready for release within a week. Thanks for all the support guys.
Beautiful map dude. The file you linked to, that's the old version no? How long till you release the map? I want to see it soooooo bad! Could you please update the pictures to reflect the changes as well? Many thanks.
Got a game on this last night, and have to say it was for the most part very enjoyable. I REALLY liked how I could look out into the gulch from the edges of the map. That's something I hope more people start incorporating into their maps. Anyways, When I first saw it here, I thought it seemed a little too open. But any such qualms have since been squashed. There was ample cover, but never too much. Oh, and that overshield saved my ****ing life! Perfect placement.
Which file did you play? I think I have 3 different ones on my f/s currently... Orion B being the last of my "unfinished" version, and Orion with the description "look to the stars" being the closest to complete. Anyhow, glad you liked it. As you said it was the most part enjoyable, what are some aspects you didn't care for? Anything you would change? As for the cover/LoS breakage, I'm glad you found that pleasing. That's the aspect of the map I've been tooling around with the most since I got the basic structure up. Originally it was intended to be much more open, but with no-sprint game types out there I thought it best to add some more functional cover. I prefer when a map has some sort of cover or safety within 4 seconds of moving. Originally the OS was in the basement on the midway ramp and rockets at top gold. Unfortunately having rockets in that location makes the lift lobbies and top gold too campable, so I needed to move them. That left two options, bottom mid where they are now or middle plat between initial spawns. The latter location is too close to the initial spawns so I chose the basement, and with the spawn weighting on the lower levels, this can be ideal for breaking up opposing set ups. Ideally this left the middle plat for OS, I just turned off "spawn at start". Anyhow, sorry for the Wall o Text. Cheers to every one who's enjoyed testing the map so far. Hoping to have the final version out this week. Still tweaking spawns and trying to get KotH to spawn the hills in order. I keep mucking up the hill numbering. :O Edited by merge: Major changes have been implemented since originally posting this thread. The walkways outside of the basement have been expanded slightly to allow for players to jump down from red/blue street. Jet pack has been moved to this outlet accordingly. The narrow walling ledge on the streets to the green side ledges have been removed and replaced by direct ramps (which killed the ability of players to drop from top level to basement level). Now I would greatly appreciate if I could get some real tests on this map. Playing it once a week because that's a "fair" testing lobby is b/s. I've got maybe 6 games on this now. This is ridiculous. I haven't released a map since I was a n00b without at least 50 to 100+ test games. *UPDATE* At this point I've managed to get some test games on Orion. Not nearly as many as I would like, but it's hard to get decent lobbies together these day. Too many players have abandoned Reach and most forgers won't help get dedicated testing on a map as they want to test their own maps too much. This wouldn't be a problem if forgers would learn to take their time and release quality maps over period of time via longer design cycles, but every one seems to want to pump out as many maps as possible. Anyhow, /rant. I've redesigned the sides of Orion as the ledge from initial spawns to green balcony weren't the most movement friendly. Instead we now have brace large walkways. This nerfed the ability to drop down to Jet Pack as well as the immediate benefit of picking up JP, so I added a lip on the outskirt by the Concussion Rifle to preserve that element. I also placed some doors on the outside "streets" of the map to further break up line of sight. In addition to these changes, I moved the rockets and OS. The OS now spawns in front of the gold play tele at 2 minutes into the game, and rockets are bottom mid on the ramp down in the main atrium. Snipe has been pushed further back on green platform. Main Atrium Top Green / Snipe Spawn rBasement / Lift Room / Health Pack Blue Door / Jet Pack / Concussion Rifle / Health Pack Blue Side / Blue Balcony / Blue Spawn Mid Gold / Gold Tele / OS Spawn / Main Plat Rockets / Bottom Green / Green Tele Red Balcony / Red Stair Red Jet Pack / Red Concussion Rifle Red Side / Red Spawn Rockets / Plasma Pistol Cubbies Additional call-outs are Red/Blue Lobby (top of lifts) and Top Gold.
This better play one-flag. Overall, it looks clean and pretty. I'm always a bit off about having Armor Abilities on the map but I guess i'm just not hardcore enough for that.