Respawn Points or Respawn Zones?

People will only spawn at points. Zones are only to help increase or decrease the chances of spawning on certain points.
Stick with plenty of points first, then add zones as needed after some testing. It may be fine just to have a very basic Hard or Weak respawn zone for each team's portion of the map, then an Anti on each side so that you don't spawn near opposing objectives.

 

If you don't have the basic knowledge of what either of these do, just pretend respawn zones do absolutely nothing. Once you figure out the basics of how to make a player spawn you can start dealing with those.

Spoiler

Initial loadout camera - determines the view players will have before the game starts
Initial spawn point - where players spawn at the start of the game
Respawn point - where players respawn after they die
Respawn zone - influences where players spawn

 

I have a followup-question: Im not too sure how zones work, does a bunch of respawn points without a zone over them spawn players more or less than ones with weak spawn zones over them? And so on. I am just not too sure about how they work and seeing this it brought that question to mind.

 

The points themselves don't really have any weight to them. It's dependent on where teammates and enemies are in relation to the points, and zones help add to or subtract from that weight. For instance, a Weak zone seems to have about the same weight as having one ally nearby, while an Anti is like having one enemy. It's also believed that Weak zones stack, unlike Hard zones.
The actual values and calculations made when spawning someone are more complex, but if you understand the basic concept of how they're supposed to work, you should have no problem making functional spawn systems. Take a look at some of the guides and discussions posted around FH if you want a closer look.

 

There are a few threads in the forum that already give detailed explanations of how to use respawn zones. I'm sure you're capable of finding them yourself.

 

I hadn't seen them, but I might take another look.

 

Points are where you spawn.
Respawn Zone - defines where a team will spawn (with a few exceptions)
Weak Respawn zone - tells spawn engine the area is preferred / safe
Anti Respawn zone- tells spawn engine the area is backup spawn area or open to fire (danger)

See the tutorials on spawning for a more detailed explanation.

 

I'm no expert, but what I would do is flood the map with neutral respawn points, then add a neutral weak respawn zone over each major and minor area.

 

For team objective, that would allow a red team to spawn in the blue base near the objective. You want to use Respawn Zones to define where your team will spawn. Your team won't spawn outside that zone (except if you have stock pile setup, and that can break the rules).

Then WITHIN the Respawn Zone, you want to setup weak respawn zones to define areas of safety (e.g., in a base) and anti respawn zones to define areas of danger (out in the open).

 

Broc is actually correct. You can use a strong respawn zone to define where each team will spawn in objective gametypes (make these zones gametype specific to allow people to spawn anywhere in slayer, koth, oddball, etc.). Weak zones are used to fine tune spawns as broc pointed out.
Don't be an idiot like me and use strong respawn zones to fine tune spawns because that messes up your objective spawns.

 

He didn't say fine tune, and I was just mentioning that in objective games you need more than weak zones. I think I know how to use zones...

 

I've been reading your spawning articles and I've got to say they are the most easily understandable I've come across. The way you've broken down each of the different zone weights into simple terms is great. Very helpful.

 

Didn't realize you meant objective.
I don't know about objective spawning, sorry!
MrGreen's guide is very helpful.