Well, here goes my first map post. Description: A mostly symmetrical 3-story map with rotational flow. Tags: r12 reactor, reactor, lift, vertical Gametypes: All but Invasion/Race Ideal Player Count: 8-12 x4 DMR x2 Grenade Launcher x2 Magnum x2 Shotgun x1 Energy Sword x2 Needler x1 Plasma Launcher x2 Plasma Pistol x2 Plasma Rifle Please excuse the low-quality cell phone photos. Reactor is a 3-story map with rotational symmetry and straight paths in the middle connecting the map. The most notable feature is the central reactor chamber, which spans all three stories and can be used as a lift between the second and third floors. The reactor also works to block firing lanes between bases, but enables players in one base to see into the other. This helps the map feel more open, but limits the dominance of rifle fire. While the reactor is by far the fastest way to reach the top of the stage (where the sword is also located), it's also fairly hazardous. The distinctive sound of someone entering the man cannon/reactor gives enemies at the top notice to start shooting the explosive cores at the top. Timed correctly, you'll trigger a fatal trap. Of course, cautious players could also blow the trap before leaping up as well. At the bottom is a larger chamber with curving ramps leading up to the far base, and rooms with lifts leading up to the base above them. These rooms are all distinct to each other to help give the bases more personality. The blue base features a large monitor structure and a server room below, while red base has generators with a maintenance/crew room beneath. As these bottom rooms have one entrance and exit, glass walls are used to limit camping. While somewhat defensible for games such as oddball, enemies know exactly where you are...and where to toss grenades. The map was designed to have interesting pathing and vertical play, requiring a player to decide how to traverse the map. The center bridge on the right is very direct but exposed. The ramp on the left requires players to fight uphill. Above this ramp is a landing from the other base, which players can drop down from (or reach up to with a jetpack), or continue upwards to another open bridge that when crossed enables them to attack the base from a higher vantage. Developer Commentary: The map's original focus was the reactor that was intended to be a hazard that could only be jumped over with Sprint or a Jetpack, but the man cannons would certainly cause a player to have an unfair death before learning that it was hazardous. The second idea was to have explosives drop in, but this simply made jumping up and not meeting a falling core more an issue of luck. The explosives at the top was more predictable, while still offering that level of danger. R12 actually comes from my sorting system so I can quickly find maps (R for Runegrace, up to 12 people). Even though this is my first time posting a map, I've been lurking for a while and also have a FH prefix for maps I picked up right here on the Forge Hub. Current Issues: Slight rotation of the Disk objects in the center still bother me, and no matter of snapping to rotation or grid seems to help. Functionally not an issue, but bugs me as far as looks go. Also, map hasn't seen a lot of play testing, particularly for team game types such as flag, bomb, etc. This also means that object respawn times, and spawning locations in general, may not be ideal.
I'm not getting a whole lot from the images, but from what I can tell, this doesn't look bad. I like that the reactor acts as and aesthetic piece and a defining aspect of the map. The usual problem with vertical maps though is jetpack dominance and I imagine this map will have that problem, but I can't say for sure. If you throw it in your fileshare, I'll take a look at it and give whatever feedback I can.
Images were a bit hard to grab since there's not a lot of open viewpoints. The closed nature should help with jetpacks, though. I'd expect them to be about as useful as on stages like Countdown and Zealot, but that's just from a few slayer-type matches with a couple friends. Objective games with more players might turn out to be a different beast. The map is located in my file share, under gamer tag "Runegrace".
The pictures really don't do the map a whole lot of justice. It's a great map, but I noticed a few problems. 1. There's some z-fighting on the bottom where the dish meets the floor and on the stair case leading to the top most part of the map. Those are easy fixes though and I'm sure I don't need to explain the solution. 2. A few of the dishes create rather large bumps in the ground. They are to the point where they could mess up aim, so I suggest lowering those a bit. 3. The bottom of the map is a little cluttered. The covenant barriers aren't exactly nessecary and the aesthetics in the seperate rooms take up too much space. I suggest removing the barriers and shrinking the aesthetics if you can. 4. The bottom rooms only have one entrance into them. This could lead to those spots being abused and camped, so I suggest creating a drop-down hole where the lift is and opening up another entrance if it's possible. 5. All of the weapons are placed awkwardly. Players shouldn't have to walk into little pockets to retrieve weapons. They should be placed so that players can pick them up without having to stray off of their original path. 6. The power weapon clips and timers need some work. They should all have a spawn time over at least 120s. I would say 180s for the sword and plasma launcher. Also, the grenade launcher has way to many spare clips, so I suggest decreasing the amount from five to one at least. 7. The sword and the plasma launcher are too close to each other. One could grab the sword from top then fall down and take the PL. With the map's size, I would say one central power weapon is enough, so I would remove the PL because it doesn't seem like it would be all that handy. Those are all the problems I can say without testing. Invite me if you need another player. EDIT: I forgot the mention, the edges of the map are pretty cramped. A lot of the paths are no larger than 3 units, so you might want to open it up a little more. This is also because of some rather large aesthetic pieces.
Thanks for the feedback. I went back and re-evaluated several things, especially points dealing with the flow of the map. I've posted a R12 Reactor v2 on my fileshare with the following changes: -Several non-power weapons moved to easier pickup locations. -Plasma Launcher removed, replaced with Plasma Pistol. Plasma Pistols in the two bottom rooms removed. -Grenade Launcher spare clip is based on standard maps such as Powerhouse, but the presence of two could make them far too common. Spare clip slightly reduced, respawn time greatly increased. -Dishes dropped down to remove z-fighting and bump issue. Covenant barricades reduced and re-arranged to give a much more open combat space. -Red base's generator room remodeled to give more walking space, bringing it closer to blue base's computer room. Changes affected bottom room as well; both spaces are more open now. -Bottom room entrances split into a 2-door entrance to make them more open but still afford some cover during certain objective games. Glass still employed to reduce player's ability to camp. -Shotgun is no longer located in a cramped space behind an aesthetic piece. Piece has been removed, single-clip shotguns moved to nearby corner. -Added some aesthetic improvements using additional resources that were freed up with the changes, such as colored pieces in the corners of the hexagonal outer wall to help make the walls less bland and aid base recognition. -Additional team spawns added for multi-team support. As far as testing goes, I only have 2-3 friends to test with, if that. Basically, I spend a lot of time making maps that I'm not able to play on :\