8 replies to this topic

[Dawnstealer]

So here's a real rough map idea:



There's three levels to it: ocean, city, and base - the base sitting up on a terrace.

One of the issues I have with MWO cities is that they're laid out like arenas. The building are well far apart to allow easy mobility for the mechs moving through them. While this makes for quicker battles, it takes away the one element of Battletech that makes it unique: giant robots stomping around fighting each other.

One of the reasons MWO maps, even the city ones, don't feel big is because of all the space: the scale's off. Not the size of the buildings, which is fine, but they're too far apart. So this makes things a little more claustrophobic, but still give people lanes they can move down.

Attackers drop in the ocean off-shore in water deep enough to cover an Atlas (and cover them from fire). This prevents spawn camping, but also allows them to plan how they want to attack the city.

The city itself has an industrial, "shipping" area to the north, highrise buildings in the middle, and a bunch of actual, house-sized HOUSES to the south, the latter butting up to a small nest of trees.

Dividing the city is a high, elevated highway with several ramps to get up and off.

Beyond is a denser city with a park in it.

The defenders have good sight from their elevated position and can access the city through tunnels. The downside being that attackers can also use these narrow corridors to access the base. To the north of the terrace is a slightly less-angled area where lights, especially those with jump jets, can access the base's flank.

Edited by Dawnstealer, 02 March 2015 - 08:52 AM.

[Kjudoon]

I like it... Make sure it's the size of Tourmaline or Alpine Peaks at smallest.

Edited by Kjudoon, 03 March 2015 - 05:43 AM.

[Dirus Nigh]

Good idea. I like the city because it gives the players a setting that people would actually fight over.

[Dawnstealer]

Kjudoon, on 03 March 2015 - 05:43 AM, said:

I like it... Make sure it's the size of Tourmaline or Alpine Peaks at smallest.

Exactly my thought - this would be a BIG map - a lot of room to maneuver and a lot of different avenues both attackers and defenders could use.

[Wingbreaker]

Dirus Nigh, on 03 March 2015 - 06:03 AM, said:

Good idea. I like the city because it gives the players a setting that people would actually fight over.

Rather the opposite, most conflicts in Btech avoid cities whenever possible.

That being said, I like the idea. However, the mark-up is completely illegible and the scale is probably way too large for it to be in CW.

Part of map design is predicting time to encounter, and if those are anything like what I figure you mean to be (in terms of building size) it'd take waaaay too long for the attacker to get through the city and into the fighting area.

[Tarogato]

I like it. I might try recreating this. =]

(in cryengine, that is)

Edited by Tarogato, 16 June 2015 - 08:23 AM.

[panicbutton]

Aha! I was actually considering submitting a map idea a few weeks ago very similar to this. The general gist was to present several distinct districts with pros and cons to each. The vision I had was a city where one side was industrial (rail depot, warehouses, etc), one side was residential (tall apartment complexes, hotels, etc), and in between there was a business district with a "main street" leading up to a government building (the objective). This is exceptionally close to what I had considered.

Let me toss in the 2 cents that I had. I agree with the building placement analysis. I'd like to further that and say that "not all streets should be passable". Use the buildings and potentially rubble (from fallen structures) to block off lanes of attack through the residential zone. The housing area should have zero defense turrets in it. Make the industrial zone wide open but not easily navigable without jump jets. It should have some turrets, but not a ton. However, main street on the end close to the base. I thought having a typical wide city street capable of supporting maybe 3 'mechs abreast would be very cool. This street, close to the base, should be littered with turrets and defenses. For the formula to work, however, the defenders need to be able to shoot over the walls into the industrial district. You have 3 options for approach: tight, weaving residential district which is hard to navigate and favors short-range builds, wide open industrial district which favors long ranged engagements, and main street which is the easiest approach from a "I can just walk up to the gate" standpoint. It's balanced by turret placement and ease of access to the base.

On a partially joking note... a friend and I went through the recipe for "a believable city" and came up with the following things which really help sell the idea that people lived and worked in the area before you showed up and started blowing **** up.
1. Stadium
2. Housing
3. Parking Garages
4. office buildings with signage (one of them should be a PGI office building).
5. back alleys which are just large enough for people.
6. Stick to the idea of modern city planning. This is 3050, not medieval Europe.
Throw in some smaller buildings as fillers and call it a day.

It would also be interesting to bring back the name that appeared underneath the crosshairs in some of the earlier mechwarrior games. Mousing over an enemy which you could get target info on would cause it's designation to come up underneath the reticle. Similarly, you could sweep the sights over a building and get information on each structure e.g. "low income housing", "Piranha Games Inc", "Earthwerks LLC", or "Krupp Stellar Technologies Inc."

[masCh]

panicbutton, on 16 June 2015 - 09:49 AM, said:

1. Stadium
2. Housing
3. Parking Garages
4. office buildings with signage (one of them should be a PGI office building).
5. back alleys which are just large enough for people.
6. Stick to the idea of modern city planning. This is 3050, not medieval Europe.
Throw in some smaller buildings as fillers and call it a day.

It would also be interesting to bring back the name that appeared underneath the crosshairs in some of the earlier mechwarrior games. Mousing over an enemy which you could get target info on would cause it's designation to come up underneath the reticle. Similarly, you could sweep the sights over a building and get information on each structure e.g. "low income housing", "Piranha Games Inc", "Earthwerks LLC", or "Krupp Stellar Technologies Inc."

7. Garbage
8. Flying plastic bags
9. Buses


Buildings :
FASA
Microsoft

and:

IGP

(destructible) lol

[xX PUG Xx]

I like it a lot, it would work well as an "end game" drop on a planetary capital.