Sandbox Short Straw

Short Straw
By David White

Recommended Players: 4 - 12
Recommended Gametypes: Team Slayer, Capture the Flag, Territories, Infection

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Bad luck for those working at the long docks at the shore of Old Mombasa

Short Straw started out when I decided to create a map based on the information we've heard about Longshore, which is very little. After several sketches and map plans I had come up with a list of things Short Straw should have considering Longshore's description and what I could achieve in Forge. I achieved most of those things on that list and others were not possible or changed because of the way I developed my idea while building.

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My original plan:
A fairly open map with long 'streets'. A central warehouse is accessible from the roofs of both bases and is set up with access ramps high up and a ground floor similar to Foundry or one of the warehouses in The Storm.
Each base is unique but have similar features such as locations of entrances.

The map I created:
Fairly open with 'streets' large enough to be courtyards. The central warehouse is home to the ghost and a raised platforms go around the edge at the top and mid way up the wall. The turret on the balcony is accesible from either.
The bases a very similar in layout but each still has a unique feel so you know which one is yours.

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Short Straw is a semi-symmetrical map suited for objective game types, slayer and infection. Its not so good for oddball or VIP but they are still set up, just not perfected like the other gametypes.

The layout of the map is mostly symmetrical. The warehouse takes up most of the central part of the map where you can grab the ghost or turret. Each base is raised with 1 main room, roof access and a tunnel under the main room. From the top of each base you can jump to a ramp which will take you to the top platform of the warehouse, this jump can't be made by bomb, ball or flag carriers. From the ramp, you can jump to the balcony of the base. A good tactic in flag games might be to jump from your base, to the warehouse, on to the oppositions balcony but you won't be able to jump back on to the ramp with the flag. The reverse happens with the bomb. This was basically to stop players taking a quick and safe route between bases to score really quickly and avoid camping up there in Oddball.

The semi-symmetrical bit comes in in asymmetric gametypes and the weapon layout. The tunnel under each base isn't used much, most of the time you'll be wanting to go up the ramp right next to it to get in to the base. However, under the defender's base you'll find a spartan laser and a bubble shield to fend off the attackers. Under the attacker's base is a beam rifle and a power drainer for taking out the oppositions defences.

The vehicles also change. In symmetrical gametypes each team has a warthog and a mongoose and a ghost can be found in the warehouse. The warthogs are on 20s respawn so they're not a weapon you can get rid off for good!
In asymmetrical gametypes, attacker's keep their warthog but the defenders' is replaced with another mongoose.
In territories, the defender's are the ones who will need to be getting around the map fast and in CTF, the attackers need a powerful entrance (warthog) and a quick get away (mongoose, if theres one still there). Thats why they vehicles change.

Things to look out for:

• Look up slightly, you can't miss the 2 enormous cranes. The red crane in the dunes and the blue crane in the warehouse.
• Active Camo can be found at the end of the top platform.
• The mounted turret is positioned so it doesn't totally dominate the front of the warehouse. It might be better to rip it off and carry it back to your base.
• Watch the back door of the warhouse in KotH. If anyone comes in there, they'll have the high ground!
• The 'conveyor belt' through the warehouse sometimes moves! Honest! Really! You'll be like "No wai! The conyeyor belt totally moves, thats awesome!" I kid, its an aesthetic use for the maps textures
• The rocket launcher can be found at the dunes in front of the warehouse.
  

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Looking out from the back of the warehouse
(Note: Tube in the dunes has been removed).


Defender's Base - Rear. Warthog/Mongoose spawn


Attacker's Base - Rear, looking over to the rest of the map.


Front of the Attacker's base. The wooden bridges are to give the two bases seperate looks...


... which can also be seen here by the wooden ramp. The defender's base has a stone ramp. (Note: The wall the warthog is next to has been replaced with a fin)


The front of the warehouse. Rockets are behind the wall on the right.


The warehouse. Active Camo at the top and ghost below. You can see the platforms which go around the edge, the active camo is on the top one and the middle platforms come off from the ghost and lead up to the turret balcony.


The stipes are ramps. The colours show the level they are going from and to.



The above information was written for Mk 1. Mk 2 has has slight changes including a more symmetrical layout and neatening of some objects.

Warthogs: Removed - each is replaced with 1 mongoose. The mongoose already on the map remains, so 2 mongooses per base.
Spartan Laser: Removed - Replaced with Rocket Launcher
Beam Rifle: Removed - Replaced with Rocket Launcher
Turret: Removed - replaced with the power drainer.
Power Drainer: See above, moved to old turrte location.
Rocket Launcher: Removed - replaced with Spartan Laser
Spikers inside base: Replaced with Plasma Rifles.
Bubble Shields: Removed from base, 1 added to each side between the old rocket spawn and spiker pair spawn.

Other than that, its mostly the same. The playtests went well and I may have some action screens up soon.
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Dowload Short Straw Mk 2
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For most of the bits merged in to the sand I used the technique where you have to save and quit with the object at an angle and when you return to the map, its been saved the right way up.
The tube piece was the hardest to do because its shape doesn't allow you to rotate it much using existing scenery and without touching the right trigger. I had to re do that a few times, then I deleted it at the last moment because I removed the 2 brute shots and the tube on its own looked a bit silly.

As for it looking like other maps, that is understandable because I've been looking at weapon placement a lot in the 'Official Halo 3 Strategy Guide' and there are things which are common through most of the maps.
I also have been looking at the default maps a lot in forge and I've made some pretty big mistakes in my previous maps, things that most of us overlook.
One thing was the number of grenades, on all maps, no matter how many grenades have been placed, the run time maximum is always 32. This is obviously so Bungie can just cover their backs in case 16 players do want to have a game on Guardian, they can each have 2 plasma grenades. I suppose if its a map for 12 people, you can set the max to 24, or for 8 players just 16.
Also the max number of each power weapon should be 2 or 3. On Snowbound the Beam Rifle, Lasor and Shotgun are all set to 2 and on Construct the power weapons are set to 3.

The maps I used most for inspriration were The Pit (weapons), Snowbound (power weapons), Rat's Nest (the warehouse), Valhalla (while developing the weapon placement, I used Valhalla's weapon placement as a very rough guide, mainly for the BRs and added other weapons around them).
Its not a copy of these maps, but learnt experiences. For example, the turret of Rat's Nest; how many times have you seen it used against the oppositon charging out of their doorway? I think most of the time it is ignored or just ripped off and carried else where.

 

No, its not possible. The radio tower is secured at the top and bottom with teleporter nodes so it can't be moved and you can't reach the top even with a grav lift. Thats the red crane at least.
The Blue crane (on the warehouse) was one of the last features I added (where as the red crane was one of the features I started with)so I'm not not 100% certain that you can't get on top but sure enough to not remove it.

There was a tutorial in the forums a little while ago, it might be in Forging 101. This technique is best for placing objects in awkward places and you don't want to be too specific with position, because your have to guess where its actually going to be when you save.

Place the item you want to merge in the position you want it to be in, not the location, just the position. In my case, I just spawned a large column.
Pick the item up but don't touch the right trigger ever. Never touch the right trigger. The right trigger will rotate the object and the object spawn position.
Drag the object so the spawn point (the tear drop) is in the location it would be once the object is geomerged. For me, I turned the coloumn upside down so the spawn point was on the top. I dragged the colomn across the dunes so it was at an angle.
Save and quit.

When you return to the map, the item will be in the same position as it was when you first positioned it, before relocating it. The colomn here is standing up.

I did the same for the T Wall and the tube (which I then removed). The Double Wall next to the scaffolding is slightly merged using the traditional method.

 

A good map does not require interlocking and interlocking does not make a map good. I interlock and merge items where it is needed.
For example, the corner wedges at the front of the warehouse, one of those is merged with the warehouse wall.
Or the tunnels under each base, they are geomerged with the ground. I also had to geomerge the ramps at the back of the warehouse in to the sand to keep them flat.

As I said, I interlock where interlocking is needed.

As for the warthogs, I also found that they were not always being used much. The lack of mongooses also seemed to a bit troubling. I tested a version with just a warthog for each team but if you lost the warthog you had a problem with getting across the map quickly. So I added a mongoose.
I thnik I start tweaking a version with 2 mongooses per base and no warthogs.

 

I've mainly being changing the weapons for an updated version. The layout was already semi symmetrical so I decided to make the weapon layout more symmetrical, rather than semi symmetrical like it was before.
Because the Laser and Beam Rifle were tucked away in the tunnels (and the tunnels aren't used as much as other paths), people who knew they were there had an unfair advantage. Usually power weapons are in clear view so hiding them in tunnels seemed silly.
Also, the warthogs just aren't the best vehicles for the map. Although there is quite a bit of space for moving around, using the space effectively to help win a game isn't so easy.

So, the current version (which has not been uploaded yet):
Warthogs removed. A mongoose is placed where each warthog was as well as at the far end of each base, as in the previous base.
Rockets placed in the entrance of each tunnel to replace the laser and beam rifle. This is for balance and easier to see power weapons.
Equipment removed from tunnels.
Bubble shield added to the front of each base.
Turret removed and a power drainer replaces it.
Spartan Laser is now the shared power weapon, it is at the front of the warehouse.

The map has also had a few aesthetic changes:
The tube piece behind red crane base (the one which had a warthog parked in) has been removed and replaced with geomerged scenery.
The barriers along the top level of the warehouse have been merged in to the platform. They are now a bit lower and look much neater.
The walls of the warehouse have been improved. See picture 7, the ramp sort of sticks out of the wall. This has been fixed/covered for a nicer aesthetic.

Filters remain, after so much time forging this map with them on, it looks ghastly if you take them off.

This map will eventually be submitted to Atlas so I'm trying to get it as matchmaking friendly as possible! Which is why I'm glad the first version got comments like:

And to answer a question I missed:

That was why I chose them. I wanted the two sides to look different without flooding them with red and blue lights, so I chose one side to have small blocks and normal columns and the other side has barricades, wooden bridges and stone columns. The barricades and small blocks are both movable. The one thing I have slight doubts about is the Broken Column at the end of the wood/stone base balcony, it can be knocked off if a player drives a ghost up in to the base so it may need replacing for a small stone column.

 

Barricades are movable. So are small blocks (with a vehicle).
Mk 2 of Version 1 is up. See the first page.

I'm going to make more weapon changes and more spawn changes for later versions (thats if I release any more versions. I enjoy buidling maps and I'd rather not spend all my time making small modifications to just one).