Prairie (CP) 7.0.0

Ello, some gameplay tweaks have been made! Every cap for BLU now adds 1:30 instead of 2:30, and now there's another medium health pack near the point. Some optimization's been done to remove the hint brush across the map, and some brushes have been made into func detail. Hopefully, that'll restore the performance.

Eyo, some quality of life stuff for this beta! More and more players/testers seem to be growing on the idea, so that's always good.

• Made the health at the far ends of the map full instead of medium to encourage players to roam that direction.
• Spawn for BLU is tighter again, as it makes it easier for Medics to group up with their team without running into RED roamers.
• The player clip ceiling went POOF, so I unPOOF'd it. Don't bother ask how it POOF'd in the first place.
• Fixed some brush issues with map geometry.
• Added player clip for the roof above the RED cubby so it's smooth to get back to the platform connecting to the ladder bridges.
• Smoothed out a bit of the back-wall in the RED cubby.
• Tied RED respawn uber to the case-logic instead of a general relay for every capture, so now RED should be vulnerable to their post-loss killing.

Alright, a quick beta bump-up today. Map seems to be in a decent state, so here comes some gameplay tweaking!

• Capping is now at 15 Scout-seconds (x2), so a (x1) should 22.5 seconds, give or take. Harmonic values are so fun...
• The point, once BLU caps it, is now locked for 15 seconds to match the cap speed. Originally, cap time and lock time were 9 seconds respectively.
• When the round starts, and when the point is captured, RED respawns as always... this time, they spawn in with a 15 second uber to send BLU packing so they can reclaim their turf.
• Some player clipping and additional block-bullet brushwork has been done to better block sightlines into RED spawn, and to make walking around walls near the RED silo smoother.
• For the time being, the giant horizontal hint brush over the map is gone, which slightly helps compile time. If more people notice a bit of lag as a result, I'll most likely add it back.
• Because I'm a dumbo and forgot to mention it previously, I think, lit oil drums are scattered around the map for Huntsman Snipers to take advantage of. Especially for BLU, given how scattered things can become, this should serve useful for those who'd normally rely on a Pyro.

A lot has changed between versions of Prairie! New cubbies, new vantage points, some gamemode reworks... all da works!

• Red spawn no longer has a direct line of sight down to the point; to accommodate this change, and to keep spawns consistent, more resupply cabinets have been added down to the middle level of RED's silo tower to make a trip less lengthy. RED spawn should also be more protected, generally speaking. Very few peeky gaps in the planks should exist now thanks to the use of func_breakables and block-bullet brushes.
• The entire point below RED spawn has been reworked to switch up flank routes for BLU, adding some small health and ammo along the way. RED now has a secure cubby protected from BLU spawn, so Engineers can momentarily rejoice before being targeted. A full ammo kit has been provided in a cubby by the cliffside.
• To account for the sudden changes in regard to approaching the point, BLU has been given access to the top of the little red cubby via the roof. They can't do a thing about anyone hiding down there, but they can shoot down at anyone within reach protecting the point in an effort to add some verticality. It should protect RED's spawn, thanks to careful plank placements for the peeky gaps. They'll still, of course, have to eventually come down due to a lack of health, some heavy spam, or to actually capture the point. Any RED player can easily come around to that side in spawn and shutdown any obnoxious BLU, as well, so watch it.
• More brushwork has been done to cut sightlines and ideally further increase performance, although complaints about that have been minimal to none, so we'll see. A giant horizontal hint brush across halfway up into the skybox and some world-brush wood walls/no-draws should be a good start, and we'll see how it plays out. Player clips have been added to the walls around the map, so moving alongside them should prove to be smoother than before.
• BLU now spawns in other areas of their spawn, partially to cut down on walk time, but to also encourage using the flanks along the side of the RED silo, which are much more important in this iteration.
• Originally BLU would gain 45 seconds for each capture, but if it was overtime or nearing it, they'd have to get three back-to-back caps which is nigh impossible. Instead, BLU will get 2 minutes and 30 seconds back to give them a bit of a breather. Two back-to-back caps will now fully restore their round time, more or less, giving them more time to break through RED's adapting defense. If this in combination with other changes proves to be overkill in favor of BLU, it can be dialed back to a minute and 30 seconds, eventually back to 45 seconds if it comes down to it.

Alright, so based on some feedback, I doubled down on decreasing the length of the rounds... hopefully. Cap time's gone from 12 to 9 (Scout time of x2), and the number of captures required for BLU to win the round is now three compared to the previous five. Spawn waves have been tweaked accordingly, as well. Rounds shouldn't take more than eight minutes with 15 sec setup, 6 minutes of round time, and one-and-a-half minutes of added time for BLU capping twice.

RED now has access to their spawn via ladder-ramps in the tower, and speaking of which, the entirety of the upper tower is now spawn protected, keeping RED more secure than ever before. More fencing has been added in the tower to make it much more difficult to snipe into the tower. RED has some additional wiggle room to leave and drop down from spawn, as well. If taking some fall damage really is an issue, I can provide lumps of hay that could in theory prevent the fall damage. Then again, I opened the middle hole up again, and if I'm not mistaken, that should prevent fall damage... plus the exit leading out to the cliffside, y'know.

Quick story: heard about the repetition of the map, and quite frankly, I can't/won't be changing the map layout, as it's meant to be a battlefield where you should try and coordinate with your team to push certain directions, or whatever you see fit. It's a playground for you to DM, with a challenging objective to boot. It's really up to you.

Anyway, I privately tried Prairie with Mannpower logic... y'know, powerups and the like. Y'know Mannpower doesn't seem to get any attention when the Valve Developer site has no information on the logic entity for Hammer, and no amount of digging could help me eliminate the glaring issue of grapple hooks and domination-punishment built into the gamemode by default... not without doing server cvars, and y'know, sv_pure, etc etc- generally, it was goofy at first, but it got really, really, REALLY chaotic, too chaotic. Worse than a Scream Fortress mash of spells and enemies. I may reserve the Mannpower idea for some alternative Prairie, not counting a possible Scream Fortress version, but that's a big maybe.

So yeah, enjoy this tame version of Prairie, lol. I'll get around to updating the showcase images soon enough!

Legit the only thing I forgot was a tiny file name swap for the menu photos, that's it. This beta should be alright for testing standards now!

A quick lil' patch that blocks off the big drop-down hole in the silo, touched up some nav mesh, and fixed the back window on the silo floor below RED spawn.

Eyo, the last test went fairly well! Based on feedback, I gave more incentive to take the flanks at the cliffsides. There's more health, ammo, and cover to work with for both RED and BLU, and there's some resupply signs lining BLU spawns as they wrap around the silo.

Additionally, the capture time for the point has gone from 18 to 12, with these values being measured in Scout time (x2). If this doesn't shorten the rounds so they aren't drawn out, I'll lower the capture count from 5 to 3, that sorta thing.