Astarte

Astarte A11

A3 Changelog:

  • Decreased setup time from 1:30 to 1:10
  • Fixed being able to cap last without the intel (for real this time)
    • This time it was caused by a stray input from the first point being captured that enabled B's capture area accidentally
  • Added partially missing respawn room in RED spawn
  • Replaced RED "egypt" spawndoors with regular shutters (they were pretty experimental anyway)
  • Remade most of the BLU spawn -> A lobby area
    • Now BLU has height advantage coming out from their own spawn and RED should not be able to hold lobby as easily and keep BLU locked in their spawn
    • This opening area also has an experimental "oasis" theme
  • Remade BLU right-side route to A entirely
    • I was trying to get an open route to work, but I wasn't able to come up with a solution I was particularly happy with.
    • Now, the right side is a high ground route which gives significant advantage to BLU if they can take it
    • It lets them invade RED's high ground from a one-way shutter, getting them closer to the point and in an advantageous position for defending against re-pushes.
    • This is VERY experimental, and it may play awfully. Depending on the feedback it gets, I may roll it back to the previous version and try a different solution.
  • Remade BLU left-side under route to A
    • In the previous version, snipers on RED's high ground or in the pillar room window could easily see into there and deny it.
    • Now, there is a much larger outside platform that's a one-way drop down for attackers and serves as a better place for BLU to get towards the point
  • Gave BLU a forward spawn after A is capped
    • The forward spawn is in the new BLU right-side building at A
    • After the point is capped, the intel spawns on top of the point.
  • Increased the base cap time of A to 14s
  • Increased the base cap time of B to 12s
  • Repositioned some pickups/added some new ones
  • Numerous other changes that weren't significant enough for me to remember what they were/write about them here
screenshots coming later
A2 Changelog:

- Expanded capture zone for A and B significantly
- Changed RED's full ammo pack on high ground at A to a medium
- Removed small health and ammo from column room beside A
- Shuffled around/added/removed other various health and ammo
- Redid right (from BLU perspective) route at A
* This route suffered from some nasty sightlines in the original playtest, rendering it semi-unusable. This redone version gives it much more height variation in displacement hills and gives more cover from snipers, allowing flankers to get closer to the point.​
- Raised intelligence briefcase up 8 units to prevent it obscuring sticky traps
- Removed broken pillar jump-up at A to the window of the column room, replaced its original position with a smooth displacement ramp
* The broken pillar had some jank collision on it and as a result didn't make for smooth gameplay. This ramp onto the point makes it much easier for BLU to actually get there.​
- Raised ground near pillar room window to allow for a jump inside for spies/other aggressive players
- Made big ramp going up to RED's high ground at A 192 units wide instead of 256
* This was mainly for the sake of reducing sightlines onto the newly redone right BLU route, because otherwise, snipers would still have pretty stupid sightlines on it from the high ground.​
- Added a tf_glow to the intel so that BLU can see where it is at all times (though this also affects RED -- if I can figure out how to make it only affect one team, I may change it in the future)
* Through some testing, I've noticed it sometimes gets overridden by a red tf_glow (the default one for the intel), regardless of team. Not really a big deal for now, though. If I can figure out a way to fix it I will.​
- Smoothed out the displacements in the yard leading from A to B
- Altered RED's spawn to make it less "gigantic flat plane"
- Removed/cleaned up/fixed various jank caused by the 3 hour time limit from the microcontest
- Renamed the map from ad_halfcircle_mc3 to ad_astarte
- Scrunched lobby at A a bit to make it less wide
- Lowered respawn wave times across the board (RED at A: 7s, BLU at A: 3s, RED at B: 8s, BLU at B: 2s)
- Fixed a bug with the gamemode allowing BLU to cap last without the intel
* In case anyone else is using the same prefab I am (Muddy's) and is having the same issue, I had to give the first control point an output to enable the last point's flag detection zone when the first CP is capped because by default the last point's flag detection zone starts disabled and doesn't ever get enabled.​
- Added a func_respawnflag brush to teleport the intel back to its original spawnpoint if someone jumps or gets pushed off the map with it
- Fixed teams not switching when RED won due to overtime (since gamemode prefab does not support that)
* This was fixed through a workaround of adding a game_forcerespawn that gets sent a ForceRespawnSwitchTeam output from RED's game_round_win with a delay of 10s to allow for the post-game to finish
* I tested this with bots and it seemed to work, but with real players it may be horribly broken (especially depending on the server commands, such as scramble rounds and other things). We will see.​
- Increased the base cap time of A to 12s
- Increased the base cap time of B to 10s
- Changed skybox to one that fits the environment lighting (egypt)
- Clipped off tops of columns which previously were not
- Added more rocks to the outside area between A and B to block long sightlines
- Added an arrow to hint to BLU that there are more entrances on the right side of B
- Added wood fences around cliffs to prevent pyros having free reign with airblast
- Trimmed the fat of BLU spawn (got rid of some useless space)
- Performed rudimentary optimization (areaportals, more func_details on complex geo that doesn't block vis, skybox brushes over buildings, etc)
- Improved lighting/visibility at B
- Added wood "patches" under all pickups (if people hate this I'll just use regular patches, I just hate dealing with overlays)
- Fixed cubemaps being weird (by removing the three that existed and relying on the default cubemaps until late alpha-early beta)
- Overhauled B, implementing some original ideas combined with feedback from 14bit from Microcontest #3
* Moved point off the high ground and onto the floor
* Pushed RED spawn back more and completely overhauled it
* Gave RED tiered/terraced high ground surrounding the point
* Gave BLU high ground that they can push onto and drop onto the point or spam out RED players
* Added sand piles for some added micro-height variation
* Added more cover on BLU's right-side route to provide cover to flanking players as well as block sightlines
* The idea behind this B point is that BLU must have sustained pressure from the high ground they get, while simultaneously pressuring up the left side to meet RED's high ground and get close to the point. The heightened cap time makes the point still fairly difficult for BLU to cap, as even with how far back RED spawns, they can still make it there to block point from their high ground directly above it.
* This point was never tested in its original capacity (the microcontest version) because BLU never made it to B in any tests, but I am confident this is an improvement. I am mainly concerned about sightlines and the amount of height variation vs. flat space on the ground, and would like to gather a good amount of feedback on this point as a whole.​
- Numerous other changes that weren't significant enough for me to remember what they were/write about them here

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