Thanks for the replies, keep them coming please. First off, I'd like to reiterate that this was more or less a whimsical project to refamiliarize myself with the SDK after an unavoidable 3 year hiatus.
To clarify a bit in case anyone has not looked at the map in-game:
Since the map is a valley setting, I added the fog, some clouds and rain to kind of set the mood a bit for the environment. The fog thickness was set by distance between the bases to slightly occlude vision for snipers but I'm not opposed to thinning the fog if needed.
In response:
For the optimizations, as with any large wide open space, the optimization choices are quite limited. However, during testing with many testers on largely varying hardware (Including one who can't play on several official maps with more than 8 people without severe problems), everyone claimed to have great performance throughout the map during play tests. I've tried to do what I could (Although, there are a couple more things I have planned that should help a little), I hope is adequate for a full server. I knew it could be a problem on the front end, but couldn't resist laying it out this way (even if only for the initial release) because we all liked the concept before I started creating it.
I was using the nucleus bottom model for the cap point base and later decided to add the top to illustrate when the point unlocks and add a bit of occlusion from the battlements. As far as it being embedded in rock, for all I know it could have been found that way during excavation (If it's totally stupid, it takes 2 seconds to remove in the next release). If there are some constructive ideas for alternatives, please post them.
If the name "hole" is taken, please provide reference. I have looked again and cannot find a map with that name.
As for the vent, it's not in the objective area and has no real point related to gameplay. However if you duck into the smaller vent at the end, it does lead to another area that you probably don't want to enter (Hence all the warnings along the way). There is more to the air ducts, but the rest are closed off ( They're just something I was playing around with with CTF in mind).
As for the fog color choices, I used the recommended colors from the skybox list for the light_env and matched those colors in the fog controller (except for slightly darkening the red side as it was entirely too bright).
In detail :
The primary fog color is set to the ideal ambience color and the secondary fog color is set to the ideal brightness color (but slightly darkened) of the light_env's recommended settings for the pl_thundermountain variant of the sky_alpinestorm_01 skybox.
Thanks again for the comments.