UNSC Horn Of Plenty

Hey guys, this is the first real map I've made using Forge, and the first map I'll be posting on Forge Hub. UNSC Horn Of Plenty is a huge, fully detailed UNSC freighter ship. It's complete with an entry/storage bay, sleeping quarters, cafeteria, two engine rooms, a barracks, and a bridge. I've also included a storage shaft that connects the front of the ship to the bottom. It runs along the belly of the ship. And finally, I included an open shaft that is located on the exterior of the ship. This shaft allows players to enter through some of the vents running through the ship to reach the inside. Think of it as a back door entrance, in case you don't want to use the main entrance

This map has 16 spawn points. 15 located on the ship, and 1 located by a Banshee for some fun So, if you really wanted, you could have up to 16 players playing on this map. HOWEVER, I highly do not recommend this, at least not in it's current state - the ship would undoubtedly lag with that many people. The main purpose of this ship is aesthetics - if you want to convert it to function with a gametype, I would recommend deleting a few things to help with the lag. You can message me if you'd like to hear what I'd recommend.

So I'll start with the pictures. If you have any questions, feel free to ask away.



I started building this ship in late October, with no goal in sight. I just knew I wanted to build a ship. After a few days of building, I lost motivation to continue so I took a huge break. I just picked it back up last week and it really started to come together.



I knew when I was building the ship that I didn't want to make it blocky. That was a goal from the first day. So I did my best, with regards to the budget, with trying to avoid simple "3x4 building blocks", and ect. Of course those blocks do exist inside of the ship, but I feel I did a pretty good job of hiding them on the exterior. As I worked my way down the ship, my budget quickly vanished, but I made the best of what I could.



For the back of the ship, I made use of an orange light instead of using a bunch of man cannons. My original plan was to use 2 one way shields on each of the three platforms, but I simply didn't have $1200 to spare by the end of the project. If your going to be using this ship for machinima, I highly recommend putting those one-way shields back.



The loading bay is the primary function of the ship. Being a freighter ship, it transfers cargo to and from other loading bays. If Forge allowed me to put hundreds of cargo containers instead of just 12, believe me, I'd have invested lots more money into them.



The large ramp leads to the main entrance to the ship. The other two ramps, on either side of the main entrance, lead to the "belly" of the ship, which is used for additional storage. We'll get to that later though.



Another view to help visualize what the main entrance looks like.



Once inside the main entrance, there are two corridors that both lead to the same place. Down these corridors are the sleeping quarters, cafeteria, and both engine rooms. The ramp leading up to the next level will take you to the barracks, and the bridge.



The sleeping quarters is accessible from either corridor that runs alongside the ship. There are only six beds however. This is because the freighter ship only requires a skeleton crew to run and maintain. Although it may look plain, there might be a secret to this room..but you'll have to see what I mean later. Oh and by the way, the beds have PILLOWS now.



At the end of the corridors, you enter this room, which holds the two massive cooling tanks found on the ship. These are connected to the main engine room, which is located directly below this room.



One of the two cooling tanks.



This is the door that leads to the cafeteria from the cooling tank room.



The cafeteria. This is at the very far end of the ship.



Another view. Now, this room is also the main entrance to the engine room. Let me explain.



The Engine Room is only accessible by dropping through this maintenance hatch. Dropping through it will take you to a very narrow corridor. Follow through that corridor a few steps and you emerge at..



The main engine room. The two power supplies run directly to both cooling tanks found above. These power units are what powers the massive engines found on the back of the ship. This room is located right at the heart of the ship, making it tough to disable if ever attacked by an enemy ship. Although this ship doesn't have weapons to fight back, it would be able to make a jump to a safe location before taking heavy damage. As such, it isn't the most convenient room to access by crew.



Following back through that narrow corridor takes you to another maintenance hatch. Dropping through that..takes you to the belly of the ship. This large storage shaft can be used by crew if they have a lot of cargo to carry. It leads directly to the main storage bay, at the front of the ship. You can also go back up to the main engine room from this cargo shaft. If you noticed the blue glow on the ceiling, that's a shield door. Standing directly below it and jumping, will take you up to the main engine room. I thought it was pretty nifty



At the end of the cargo shaft, is the secondary engine room. This engine room has an electronic unit directly hooked up to the ship's engines.



Their are two windows here as well. The light found in this room is entering through these windows. The engines are very powerful, and give off a lot of heat, hence the glow.



A view of the start of the cargo shaft. If you continue walking..



You'll end up here, back at the main cargo bay. So to sum it up, taking the cargo shaft will lead you to both engine rooms. It connects the front end of the ship to the back end of the ship, providing an alternative route.



So, lets go to the second and third levels of the ship. Here's the stair case leading upwards to the next area of the ship.



The bridge is found through the door to the next staircase. However, the armory is on this level.



There is small entrance leading to the armory. It's nothing flashy, I guess the crew didn't want to brag much about what they have.




..For good reason. Most of these guns have been snatched from some of the cargo they've moved over the years. If any official caught wind of all these weapons, the crew would surely be punished.



Now, heading up to the third level takes us to the bridge. The crew spends most of its time on the bridge, hence the large table and large monitor for contacting other ships and loading bays. It also has a huge glass screen that allow the crew to be able to physically visualize where they are going, instead of just relying on external monitors.



Another view of the bridge, showing an electronic unit used to control some of the vital functions of the ship.



Here's something that I thought you guys would enjoy. The crew forgot to close one of the two ventilation shafts to the ship. Someone must have opened it when the ship was docked at it's last station. This shaft can be used by any attacking force.



When you drop down inside, you'll find yourself in a tight, crammed corridor. If you follow it long enough..



It will lead you directly to the sleeping quarters. How inconvenient.

The only thing I didn't take pictures of, is the underside of the ship. This part of the ship hasn't been built up or covered, because I simply don't have any pieces left. I've used them all up. If your looking from the ground up at the ship, you won't notice much, it looks fine just as it is. But if you hover around in monitor mode, you'll see what I mean. Just know that I'm aware of this, but there isn't anything I can do. You won't notice it unless you go looking for it.

So there you have it. Please leave your feedback and let me know how you like it. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed building it.

 

Go for it! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I encourage you guys to customize the ship to your liking, for fun and whatever else you want out of it. I remember when I first downloaded some ships, me and my friend would add some vehicles and have these crazy battles. Deleting the light, the cargo in the main storage bay, the hornet, and a few other small details like pillows should allow the map to run smoothly enough for vehicles to rage battle and whatnot.

 

I understand what you mean. I started building this ship as a project. When it was nearing completion, I realized how awesome it would be to play a gametype on this map, like slayer or invasion. But I don't feel this map would be very appropriate for a gametype because of two flaws - the layout not being balanced, and the lag.

With that being said, I'm eager to start again on a new project. I have some great ideas, and this time, I'd make a custom gametype, not just an aesthetic map. Now that I've got this ship under my belt, I can take what I learned, and apply it to my next map.

 

Thanks for the comments, guys. This map just hit 1000 downloads, I'm really happy that people (seem) to be enjoying it.

After running through the map, I noticed two small errors I made before uploading. One, I forgot to delete three spawns by the Banshee. So there are in total, 19 spawns, 15 being on the ship. The second is a small piece that's clipping a wall in the hanger. It moves a crate a little when the match starts, you may have noticed it.

I meant to fix both of these but they snuck through my final play test, so my apologies. I'm being really picky right now I know, but after so many downloads..I want you guys to know that I'm not a sloppy forger.

I'm currently tossing ideas around for my next map, but I could use some help. If you want to see something just toss the idea my way, I might just try it out. Right now I'm leaning towards making a map centered around a few smaller ships, or maybe a Fallout-3 inspired destroyed city (much like the map Wreckage, if you've played it)

 

I used all of those pieces up long before I got to the beds. Budget wasn't really an issue, but using all the pieces up in each category was. I ran out of the building blocks so damn fast, they essentially just make up the skeleton of my ship. I had to get very creative with how to fill in the rest of the space. But I always had tons of money lying around, that's why I was able to use so many shield doors.

I spent around 2 hours swapping blocks around on my ship and replacing them with flat-sided ramps where I could. It came out really nice though, don't think it's patchy - I doubt you'll notice. I made the best of what I could still use.