Solaris

This map has been Featured. Click here to view the Featured Map thread.


Download link for Solaris​

Don’t stay on the ground too long, or you’ll die from the lava. Give your feet time to cool off before returning to the ground.

Solaris is a small symmetrical map built outside Standoff. In this particular area of Standoff, the ground has a delayed death field covering it, so if you spend too much time there, you’ll die. And if you jump off the ground but return too quickly, you’ll die. Think of the ground like lava. Once you jump off it, you have to let your feet cool off a little before you go back.







If you want the rockets, you have to risk going into the middle. Hopefully the boxes won’t be knocked out from under you.


Running around on the ground is not recommended.


This box can be a death trap. But more cover and another escape route have been added.


Multi-Flag CTF, oh how I love thee.




1v1 matches work great here.



Recommended Games on Solaris
Solaris is great for many different types of games. But to have the best experience possible, you might want to try these settings. Also, if you die from the ground, it will sometimes count as a suicide, so you might want to remove the repawn time penalty and the point penalty for suicides.

• CTF: This is best with Multi-Flag with 2v2 or 3v3. Enable the “flag at home to score” feature, and set the flag return timer to 5 seconds or below, or touch return.
• Slayer: I’ve played 2v2 Team Slayer, 3 player FFA Slayer, 3 player FFA Rockets, 1v1 Rockets, and 1v1 Slayer here. They all work great. But again, you may wish to remove the suicide penalties.
• King of the Hill: This is where this map gets really crazy. There’s only one hill, and it’s in the center where the rockets spawn. Players must try to stay on single crates inside the hill or die from the “lava” ground. It’s almost like a mini-game. Play Mosh Pit, which is a default KotH variant already on your hard drive.
• Assault: Because this is a small map, I recommend Neutral Bomb. Reduce the fuse time for the bomb from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Oddball: I played a 1v1 Rocketball here, and it was pretty fun, but I recommend 3-4 players for Rocketball. And you might want to make it more like Halo 2’s Rocketball and give the ball carrier a little more damage resistance, more speed, or les gravity. But players need to be on the honor system not to escape from the map.

The “Lava” Ground

Here’s everything you need to know about the ground on Solaris. Tell the people in your party before you start the game. Or don’t, and laugh as they figure it all out the hard way.

• When the ground kills you, it’ll usually count it as falling to your death. However, you might also get a suicide or get killed by the Guardians. But if an enemy has injured you at any time in the recent past, they will get a kill.
• If you’re just running across the ground, you have about 2-3 full seconds before you die.
• If you’re hopping across the ground, you can usually get two quick hops before you die, but rarely you only get one.
• If you touch the ground at all and get back on the floating objects, you have to wait 5-6 seconds before you touch the ground again or you will die. Think of it like your shields. You have to let your “safe” status reset. I originally thought that it was tied to player health, because Bungie recently stated that your player health slowly recharges over time like your shields. But this is not the case. Custom games with players having 2000% damage resistance or 10% damage resistance had no impact on the “ground time.”
• FFA games are so fun here because you can hear your opponent say things like “oh crap, oh crap, get back on there, get bac-” Once they get away from safe structures, you can hear the panic in their voice. It’s hilarious.

Design Notes – really boring stuff

• For a while now I’ve wanted to do a floating map with lots of different jumps available to take shortcuts around the level. In a way, I modeled the feel of this level after Lockout. There are shortcuts if you know the jumps and can perform them. You die if you make a wrong move. There are multiple ways to every spot on the level. No one location is overpowering.
• There are a ton of useful but difficult jumps on this map. During testing, I even saw players making jumps that I had never even considered. If you’re good at “drop jumping” and “crouch jumping” you’ll definitely have an advantage here. But all the important jumps are easy to do. Although they are slightly more difficult with a flag or bomb, they are still performable. And you can always run on the ground for a moment if you fail the jump. It’s just a little more risky. I recommend loading up this map and just jumping around for a while before a match so you get a feel for the jumps and the “lava ground.”
• Although this part of Standoff isn’t new, I believe this is the first map to be made so close to the ground in this area. And the reason for that is probably because it’s so inhospitable to Forging. Any item placed on the ground here disappears in about a second. Even once I had the bridges placed to build up from, I still have to use “save and quit” because items would disappear a second after you let go of them. I probably used “save and quit” over 300 times while building this map. No exaggeration.
• If you play Crazy King or Mosh Pit here, the respawn areas won’t apply and players will constantly respawn in only a couple spots. There’s nothing I can do about it, but it doesn’t impact the game too much.
• It is possible to escape from the map and get into the regular area of Standoff. For the most part, it won’t benefit you in any way. But taking the ball out there in Oddball or hiding out there if you’re in the lead in a 1v1 is possible. I tried to keep players in the map area, but there are not enough resources to do it properly, and it would have subtracted from the aesthetic value of the map. Also, it seems that when you actively try to restrain players, it just encourages them to try to escape. It’s possible to escape here, it’s easy, don’t do it.
• On red side, if you try to place a teleporter node or a respawn point too close to the barrier between this area and the default area, it will shoot off into the regular portion of Standoff. It’s pretty cool to play around with, but frustrating to Forge with. Try it, it’s pretty fun.
• I’d like to thank all the testers and everyone who gave me feedback about the map layout. In no particular order, the names you’ll recognize are Turbo Gerbil, NeverlessWonder, Cosmic Rick, Predicide, and Rusty Eagle.

Download link for Solaris​

 

I usually like to post a teaser or overview pic before the summary, and then a layout diagram after. But I see what you mean. They are very close. I'll remove the first one.

I did mention giving the ball carrier less gravity in my OP. Yeah, I haven't played Team Oddball yet. It should be fun.

 

Thanks for all the comments guys.

And yes, this map was a real pain to build. It was incredibly difficult to get everything symmetrical and to preserve the same jump distances between all the different objects. It certainly isn't perfect, but it's pretty darn close. I used a central respawn area to make sure everything was symmetrical and equidistant from the center.

Lol, who is "ferious"? Well whoever he is, he had nothing to do with this map. Just kidding, thanks for the support, "sperten45"

 

This is the first I've seen of that map. Since I haven't downloaded it I can't say for sure, but I have a hard time believing that Mt. Massacre can do the things I've done with Solaris simply because of the differences in Forge objects between Snowbound and Standoff. I think that Standoff is a beautiful map, but it would look better if there was more grass or scenery in the area that I built Solaris in.

Fair enough, but let me assure you the design is sound. I had several people offering suggestions and slight modifications. I think I was able to minimize the frustrating parts of the map and maximize the fun parts. Think of it like a map built over a pit, but with a little added maneuverability since you can spend brief periods of time on the ground.

It's true. I'm not sure if you read my full post, but I already addressed that particular issue. Allow me to quote myself.

 

I was wondering how long it would be before someone asked this question. There are two reasons.

First, just because I've made some great maps in the past doesn't mean that every map I come out with is gold. I want this map to be judged independently of my previous work. I think it is feature-worthy, but I'm biased. I left it up to the other Guilders to decide whether or not it should be featured.

Second, featured maps generally accompany a post on the front page. I know that there are already several things lined up for the front page, and I didn't want to wait to share this with the community. Several people have told me that they've been waiting to see the final version, and I didn't want to sit on the map until the front page was free.

Hopefully people will like this map enough for it to get featured, and you'll see it on the front page soon. But if not, that's ok, because I know it's a good map and I really enjoy playing on it. And in the end, enjoying Halo is what it's all about anyway, right?

Actually, I could have it automatically featured if I chose to. From the Guilder Application Guidelines: