The Index is a linear infection map that I am building that is heavily influenced by the original campaign mission 343 Guilty spark, granted you don't actually get the index until the Library. My goal is to try to make this map stand out a bit more by trying to make this feel like a mini campaign or something to that effect. I was also wanting to gauge interest and see if anyone had questions or suggestions that might make the map play better as I build it. The setting is this, A team has gone ahead of you to try to find a group of scientists with whom they have lost communication not to long after the scientist said they had made a great discovery. Communication may be lost due to the weather or the facility. On the way in the other spartan team is attack and their pelican takes a nose dive, but they are able to survive the crash and move on with the mission. You are sent as backup a while later to help retrieve their team and the scientist and or what ever the scientist found. With that the survivors must make their way to the downed ally pelican to retrieve any intel the ship may have before moving on. The pelican acted as a relay between the spartan team and the ship that brought you to this halo, and so contains any information the spartans sent out or stored there. Either the storm or the crash disrupted the antenna so the communication and data could not be sent to you before hand. With this sort of mechanic I was thinking maybe you pick up like a temporary AI or something that who ever activated the computer becomes the key holder and he is the only one capable opening locked doors. and in the event he dies you must go to his body to get the data from him. Having this data also might allow you to see infected within a short range. The infected are going to be themed after infected spartans so they will have shields but weaker and weaker health, but they will have shield vampirism to steal the sheilds of the humans to make themselves stronger the longer they fight. The humans will not have health regen. instead they must rely on health vampirism when fighting the infected to recover health. Their shields will recharge a tad slower too, but will recharge while running. Stages: The landing zone is a small box canyon in the rain. An elevator room followed by the decent into a fore runner facility - Not really sure yet, Either a large bridge and a control room or the Library or somthing like that back into the box canyon to get to your pelican. Since this is like a mini campaign id like you to wind back up getting out of the canyon with the index or what ever, but I cant decide if I want you to go full circle and find a new path to the canyon or force you to back track through the previous stages to get out. Id love to hear your thoughts on the map.
I'm glad you're making one. Sadly I myself have lost interest in forging but I still have ideas I've wanted to pursue and/or got from looking at this thread: - Since it'll be like a campaign mission, allow the infected side objectives as well. Maybe have something where if the infected reach a certain objective or destroy something that humans cannot reach or defend well enough, it doesn't end the game but rather just delays the humans efforts and forces them to work around their mistakes to continue their mission. Something so the infected don't feel like in a constant loop of death. - This might be a stretch considering idk if you designed the scripting already, but maybe after the pelican crash, you can have the humans spawn in separate groups scattered around and their first objective is to meet up somewhere. Especially seeing that first picture, I feel like it would set a nice terror-like mood. - With the locked doors/key mechanic, maybe have hidden caches of forerunner weapon staches to resupply the team along the way. I could see this becoming something awesome and even though forging is a little iffy for me, I'll be sure to try testing this out when you're ready.
@KeeLoker The idea that I have going right now is that the first recover team crashed and went through on their own carrying with them weapons and what not, so there will be weapons going through the facility. The group the survivors are apart of had their pelican land fine. I have tried thinking of some side objectives but Im not sure what to do yet. I thought about having the infected destroy stuff to force the players to go another direction. Im also planning on creating infection forms that chase humans and damage them, plus mark them for the infected.
I really like the idea of changing the environment to alter the outcome of the progression. The infected could take advantage of destructible areas and the like; the longer the match rolls on, the more they have to play with. I LOVE the downed pelican Intel idea too. That being said, I think just 1 person that has these custom abilities is a little limiting. Maybe with each new area you come to there are optional Intel grabs (kinda like the skulls mechanic). That way as the infected grow in number, a group of Spartans properly communicating can hold off the onslaught a little easier. Also, keeping in line with the CE theme, you'll be fine with either backtracking to the downed pelican or creating a new route back. The backtrack feels very halo. Personally, I think you'd get more impact if you take inspiration from the end levels of the first halos: DRIVE LIKE HELL! If there's a way to script vehicles where being out of range would teleport the infected further down the map (to simulate the onslaught of flood as you desperately try to keep your hog from flipping), having a final exciting dash to the finish would be really cool.
Oh my, while it might be difficult with the piece count I do like the idea of a wart hog run. Im not sure why they would be there though.
Yeah I figured you'd be stretched pretty thin on objects. You could have communications back up for the last segment and (to avoid having to script a pelican) hq sends vehicles over whilst you run to the rally point. If the piece count is still too much you could have the installation start a self destruct sequence (wonder where I go that idea) and "destroy" parts of the map to make it more vehicle friendly. Imagine that bridge flickering out with Spartans that didn't drive fast enough lol.