Anybody else tired of 'Station Piece' maps?

Agreed they aren't very exciting, but at least they let newer forgers make something that looks decent and is playable. I don't think one should continue making them, but new forgers can use them as a good step for learning how to design something more creative. I don't personally like them, but I'd almost rather see them than Hemorrhage variant 486.

 

I agree that they're slowly becoming less exciting. I made one just to get used to H4's forge, but I like it regardless. It's just how you use them that they can be exciting to see in maps.

 

They are incredibly useful for floor pieces by using the roof of them, apart from their heavy strain on dynamic lighting.

 

They look nice (hey, it's a change from blocks and ramps anyway - I'll take some station corridor windows over another coliseum wall interior any day), but they do often lead to boring design, if you don't go out of your way to use them creatively. I don't like the kind of forge snobbery that dictates that if a map uses any pre-fab object it's automatically inferior... though maybe that's because my first H4 map used a few station pieces in their intended way. Hey, I'm biased! But I think if you take the time to look at a map for a few minutes in forge, you can usually tell if the map is truly good and original, whether or not it has station objects in it.

I do like flipping the ramps over to use as flooring, too. Since we still can't have 200 blocks, that's the next best thing. Shame the size of them is kind of awkward, but hey, at least they're huge.

 

I believe the thread is more talking about so called "Space Tube Maps," which take place entirely inside the pieces. I love the pieces themselves, as they allow for so much more free surface area than before. Other variants of the station corridor also are much less harsh on lighting, making them very useful as floors, walls, etc...

And Nutduster, true, these maps can be done right, though I think I can make the assumption that most maps that take place ENTIRELY inside the preset space tubes with no breaks or extra geometry will not be very spectacular. I haven't taken a look at Trapped yet but I've been told you do a lot more with it than just magneting them together in a pattern and calling it done (I wouldn't expect you to put that little time/ work into anything you do.) In the end there will always be exceptions, but the the part I think gets dumb with the type of map I listed above is that there are only so many ways to put them together, so they all end up being variations of the same thing.

 

i'm with nutduster, they look nice and i want more pieces to use not less.

i think that there could be more thought into what you call 'space corridor' maps, but if it gets people into forging then i dont see the problem, you cant be made to play their map if you dont want to (assuming they dont get put into the community playlist.)

let people learn the tools, offer them advice and watch them get better.

 

I just started forging, and my first map is going to be on Impact, so I guess I'm that noobie forger everyone above keeps mentioning

I will say though, that my map isn't like the traditional impact maps I've seen so far, not to toot my own horn or anything

 

If I could like this comment a million times I would. I'm all for the variety. I know lots of folks want their 1:1 Lockout remakes, but I'd prefer someone to use the existing prefabs for much of their intended use -- beautification. To each their own I guess. My only problem with the station pieces is that they don't inspire creativity. But I've been pleasantly surprised a few times over already with what people have done, and I'm sure that trend will continue.

 

You mean HAMSTER TUNNELS?!

Yeah, I'm kind of tired of them as well. I knew they'd get overused since I first saw them in forge...

 

They're not too bad to me, but yeah I have to agree it gets repetitive.

 

remember the tubes on Sandbox? same idea.

 

I actuially haven't noticed any maps using them in the original way for quite some time and the flood of them has know turned into one here and there. Everyone has to start some where.

 

Yeah, I tried to anyway. The fact that it used them at all was not my original intent - the map was conceived as a corridor-crawl (think Rat Race from Halo CE) with mantises stomping around in it, so I spawned a station corridor to use as a guideline for how big my hallways would need to be. When I realized it was the perfect size already, I figured building everything myself would be a gratuitous waste of objects, and certainly uglier/harder on me. But I did still have to build the atrium and four adjoining areas entirely from other objects, so it was a lot of work.

I found a few ways to do slightly different things with them, even in the space-tube parts of the map. Some objects can be flipped and stacked to make a mirrored second level; that was very helpful to me to create a 2-tier base with access corridors above and below. The ramps can be rotated to different angles (the default one is too severe, IMO) and still fit together with the other pieces reasonably well, without z-fighting or noticeable ugliness, though it does mean that the map dimensions become non-standard. And I ended up using blocks in places to alter the tube geometry pretty seamlessly; I have a wall made of blocks in the 4-way (large) bases, changing the shape of the room, and I added support pillars for aesthetics and cover on the sides of the corridors as well. Those are all fairly simple mods but they make the map feel less prefab and predictable. I think a lot more could be done in that direction; map makers just need to be creative with it.

 

I agree the "space tube" maps are boring for the most part, but really, why are you downloading so many maps that look boring? Can't you tell before you DL them?

 

He might not be downloading them - maybe he's just sick of seeing them posted, or keeps running into them in customs lobbies.

It's weird though, I run a lobby every week and haven't seen a single map yet with a single space tube, other than my own. And we get a wide variety of participants and maps; I've probably played a hundred different maps from 20+ different people since Halo 4 came out. One guy made a map using the 4-way (large) rooms, that's the only other sorta-instance of it I can even recall. Everything else I've been seeing was made from blocks, etc.

 

since he's a new member I wonder if maybe there is a large concentration of hamster tunnels out in the custom lobby world because people are not necessarily coming to FH to download better maps.

a circle of friends gets together and erroneously thinks that "player x" is a master forger because he put a bunch of pieces in a circle...?

people like yourself are lucky to know where to go for the best maps and best forgers, but maybe out there in teh sea of gamers a bunch of crap is floating around? that'd be my guess.

 

gotcha... thanks for explaining.