Map - Reflex4 Fission Shelter - b3

[c4]

Beta 2 of Zeta Station, having changed the name, due to a suggestion.  I introduce Reflex Fission Shelter, b2

A special thanks to {NoS} Brain for all his help.

Download:
http://mindstab.org/map-reflex4-b2.pk3

Screenshots:














This map is in the US1 repo, and votable.

Changelog:
Fixed Red Light color to something less pretentious
Changed Light fixture texturing
Made door speeds faster
Removed func_plat and replaced with stairs, moving doorway
Made Alien base into Boiler Room with boilers and pipes, blocking direct view to overmind + eggs
Pipespam
Changed Ladder
Changed info_intermission locations

Pretty much took whatever anyone said and added/subtracted it, except for meisseli's vents.  That'll come in b3


~Spthysis

[Aelita]

It looks good, but it needs some testing, of course. The only qualm I have from the screenshots is the red lighting. Other that that, it looks good
I'll give it a shot later and post more review.

[jez]

Cool. General aethetics are very nice, good job on your first map! The H base and that wide corridor both have some great detailed in. Also, I like small maps.

• Just wandering about, most of the doors feel annoyingly slow, and mysteriously disapear into the walls when they open.

• The human base has 5 entrances, only 2 of which are accessible by humans from the floor! This is a bit wierd, if I were a human builder I'd probably want to relocate to the room next door with the stairs. I'd bear that in mind for playtesting.

• The default alien layout sucks balls. I know you shouldn't leave the grangers with nothing to grange, but leaving all 3 eggs and om snipable from the other end, plus that useless barricade might be a bit much.

• In that room with the staircase going round the edge, the platform feels really out of place. Could the staicase go all they way down to the floor and the door move to the other corner removing the need for it? I also get error messages about it not being able to find the sounds for it.

• The human intermission camera points at a really strange angle. I'd reposition that to where the levelshot is, as that bit looks cool.

• The name is a bit bland.

[c4]

All taken into account. 

[Aelita]

I have to say, the pipework in this map is very cool. Excellent work for your first map!

[Demolution]

Like the others mentioned, good work for a first map.

Allrighty, opinions below:

• The lights appear a bit bland with their current textures. The third screenshot, for example, with the two stripes along the floor. If you were to break it up a bit and maybe do several different lights/fixtures/whatever instead of one long stripe, I think it would look a bit more interesting.
• In the hallway with the awesome pipes that leads into the alien base, you seem to have some light bleeding through right before the door.
  
  
• The alien base, like Jez mentioned, isn't the most amazing situation for the aliens from the get go. I'd suggest adding some obstacles, or perhaps changing the shape of the room itself to provide at least minimal cover.
• The lift in the room with the staircase appears to come up with no support from underneath. I'm not sure if that was intended or not.
  
  
• I think that the map could use some general detail, however it still looks nice for a first map.

Good luck in future maps. Hope you keep at it.

[Xedoh]

Really nice work. There's lot o potential. Especially concerning the details you did with the pipes.

Gameplay:

• The alien base is really open. I think that the room could be filled with high piles of boxes (like in tremor or the arachnid boxroom), creating some corridors and cover for the aliens. Also, I saw some defences in the abase explode due to no creep at the beginning.
• Small maps tent to feature humans, but i think due to the corridor on top of their base aliens get some nice positions for an attack. However, gametesting is required to find out more about the balancing

Design:

• The white light textures look quite plain. I recommend taking some lights from the nexus-shaders. There are some that would really fit well i think. Examples for those lights are the 'e6horzlight_s_XXXX' or the 'e6v_light_s_XXXX'.
• Some of the doors should in my opinion rather move up than sideways. Also, try not making doors disappear into walls (as mentioned earlyer).
• The stairs in the red-room look a bit plain (they are just simple blocks). You could change them so they look like the stairs in the central room.

Some minor mistakes I spotted:

• Check the ladder in the h-base, the horizontal parts are a bit too long
• The downside door to the red-room with the stairs gets a texture-overlay with it's doorframe when opened
• There is  a missing texture near the door from the alienbase to the (awesome looking) corridor with the pipes

The texture overlay

The missing shader

I think the map could provide very nice gameplay, keep it up. *Needs a thumpsup smiley*

[swamp-cecil]

damn. i wish i was that good. either way, its just practice. how long did it take you to make this map?

[c4]

About a month.  I tried to make sure i didnt make any of the mostakes mentioned in the mapping section, and i read all of bubba's tutorials and the tremmapping pbworks as well.

[your face]

I tried to make sure i didnt make any of the mostakes mentioned in the mapping section, and i read all of bubba's tutorials and the tremmapping pbworks as well.

This is the way (that, unfortunately, so few people follow) to start mapping.  Good work, an excellent first map.

[Meisseli]

Really nice layout and gameplay.

Alien base needs to be fixed, those gratings look ugly and the base itself could be even worse than Tremor's default. Needs more corners, boxes, ramps, etc.

I think the ladder on top of the human base is a brilliant idea. The human base itself seems to be a bit too powerful and jetcampable like karith default although one can't say for sure because of lack of playing.

Overall the map needs more interesting details like boxes, perhaps pipes in the ceiling and so on. The rooms could have some more variety like ramps touching walls (cf. human side entrance in Nexus6) and other things like high stack of boxes making each room have an advantage, small or big, for certain team or class.

Vents are cool (if done properly ) - a vent to alien base would be nice if it would be placed so you can't shoot anything from the vent, only if you exit it.

The hall next to the alien base with the pipes looks great, although it could have something else braking the basic straight corridor. More of that!

Very nice for a first map. Keep improving this map, it's bound to be awesome!

[your face]

also, /cg_draw2d 0 and drawgun or whatever it was while taking screenshots, please.

[swamp-cecil]

oh yeah, i think you guys noticed this after a while, in the red ven near the alien vent in tremor, look at the left corner in the red vent entrance when looking outside. there is some texture overlapping.

[c4]

oh yeah, i think you guys noticed this after a while, in the red ven near the alien vent in tremor, look at the left corner in the red vent entrance when looking outside. there is some texture overlapping.

Offtopic much?

[Ingar]

Nice indeed,
the rounded doors in the tunnel near the human base look a bit weird when they open though.
I'd make them open upwards and add an extra hole the door dissapears into
ofc, it doesn't have to go up, it just looks like a door that would.

Also, the default platform sounds are missing in Tremulous, if you use the platform
you get the annoying default sound. You can easily fix this  by setting the sounds yourself:

Code:

"sound1to2" "sound/mahmap/platform-02.wav"
"sound2to1" "sound/mahmap/platform-02.wav"
"soundPos1" "sound/mahmap/platform-01.wav"
"soundPos2" "sound/mahmap/platform-01.wav"

Note: it is possible some other map includes those,
but don't count on it.

[c4]

Updated to b2

[Demolution]

Omg! Yes! I love how much you've developed it. I also love its simplicity. Kudos to you sir.

[DraZiLoX]

Looking good. Specially alien base got better. Theres still some boxy rooms, you could maybe add more details to them(?).

Also you could do something here:

[jez]

Awesome stuff. I like all the changes.

[rotacak]

Uploaded to R Funserver CZ (1.1) and R Unlimited CZ (1.2)

[KillerWhale]

Overall, I like it.

A few issues:

• The map is too bright. My gamma is set at 1.2 and the map still feels like someone has floodlights all over it.Now, it's not to say that high lighting can't be used to an effect to make the map feel more arcade-y, but I'd like to see this map be a bit more atmospheric.
• Some rooms are too boxy. Most are, actually. The largest problem is ceilings, although they are not the only. In my opinion, Nexus6 is a great map to look at if you can't think of any ways to spice up that ceiling.
• More aesthetics. You have that whole TRaK texture set, put it to use. Add some variety. Some ideas: Make door frames, add something around the edge of the stairs to keep it from being floating rectangles, add useless wall decorations that don't serve any purpose but looking cool, windows in doors, pillars that are structurally useless but aesthetically cool, reactor cores; the skybox is the limit. (*rimshot*)
  

Also: Pipe misalignment.

[A Spork]

Overall, I like it.

A few issues:

• The map is too bright. My gamma is set at 1.2 and the map still feels like someone has floodlights all over it.Now, it's not to say that high lighting can't be used to an effect to make the map feel more arcade-y, but I'd like to see this map be a bit more atmospheric.
• Some rooms are too boxy. Most are, actually. The largest problem is ceilings, although they are not the only. In my opinion, Nexus6 is a great map to look at if you can't think of any ways to spice up that ceiling.
• More aesthetics. You have that whole TRaK texture set, put it to use. Add some variety. Some ideas: Make door frames, add something around the edge of the stairs to keep it from being floating rectangles, add useless wall decorations that don't serve any purpose but looking cool, windows in doors, pillars that are structurally useless but aesthetically cool, reactor cores; the skybox is the limit. (*rimshot*)
  

Also: Pipe misalignment.

Not bad Looking from the Screenies...Althoguh the alien base is very red....

Also, Whales D:! Virus Alert!

[KillerWhale]

Also, Whales D:! Virus Alert!

I get none such thing; browser warning page?

[A Spork]

Avast! Popped up warning of a Trojan....

[c4]

Avast sucks

[DraZiLoX]

Avira AntiVir ftw!

[mooseberry]

Just one problem I see. There should never be so much bland space, _something_ needs to be added (not just in that one spot) to spruce it up. That's details of course, but it really makes the difference between mediocre and good.

[c4]

B3 is out. 

http://mindstab.org/map-reflex4-b3.pk3

Changelog:

MORE SPACE: Different h base, 3 new halls.
Alien base made less open.

Skybox

more, but I'm too lazy

[Meisseli]

I can't open the map - seems like the .bsp file is missing.

[c4]

Yeah, sorry guys.  Ignore that.  b3 had a serious bug,  I'm trying to fix it