Chemplant

CP Chemplant a14d

vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
Chemplant - Come on down and capture for fun.

This is a remake of an older map from scratch, which fixes some critical scaling issues.

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Known issues:
  • Lighting in last is dismal; going to open up more windows so it won't have to rely on fill lighting as much.
  • Signage is confusing. My guess is it's more the routes.
 

vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
Remembered this existed; going to try to finish this one and detail it.

Primary difference is the yard outside of B.
It's been a bit more than a year since it's been tested last, so that'll happen before any big changes.

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vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
The biggest change is arguably that Blue has a forward spawn that points them in the right direction now.

I completely remade the side/rear entrance to B so that it's an actual route and not just an open space you can walk through.

Finally, I made ammo more plentiful near engineers at A, and changed the way B's cover is laid out.

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vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
Mostly cleaned up feedback from the playtest.

Some staircases and ramps are skinnier. I've added lighting and opened/closed some sightlines. The entire map looks a bit brighter because I flipped it 180 degrees so the sun would match the skybox. Brush detail was added in some areas to draw players' eyes.

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vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
I've finally added idolon's oft-repeated suggestion of a sniper fort for Blue to fend off some of Red at last.

In addition, health is more difficult for engineers at A.

Additional small tweaks were made in response to general feedback from the test.

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vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
Currently, red has a weird height+sightline combination advantage straight out of spawn over B that's difficult to work with. I added a bit of cover in front that might make it safer to stand on the point and less desirable to hold up back next to the spawn doors.

I added and moved some geometry in the yard outside of B to give Blue some height to stand on since for the most part it's lower than Red's stuff.

I moved and pitched the open window at A down a bit and shrunk the room considerably to make it more difficult to camp while sniping Blue's forward. Assisting this is a larger/longer point A, which provides more shelter to the area underneath.

Hopefully setting up in the window room at A is still useful without encouraging too many Red Snipers to camp.

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vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
I started theming the red base. Tried applying some non-dev materials to the map, but they're still very temporary. Added cubemaps.

Clipped on and around traincars and their couplings to make traversing the trainyard easier. Generally made walking around smoother.

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vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
I've combined lclplant and chemplant into a beautiful 2-stage A/D butterfly. Dealing with the logic of them separately was getting frustrating.

Hot and New:
  • Some brush animations play between stages to unveil the next if you're lucky enough to be around when they happen.
  • The overall game logic should generally be less annoying and more correct.
  • lclplant B now takes a bit longer to cap.
  • Side route in lclplant A is easier to find now.
  • Cubemaps in lclplant's side of things to match chemplant
  • Compiled in both hdr and ldr this time (sorry)

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vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
Stage 2:
  • Adjusted availability of metal. Should be more common directly around last, and less common in the vicinity of first, except up in the balcony.
  • Balcony window has reverted to being more open. You can crouch to walk out of it now.
  • Added shoulder fins to the EVA.

Stage 1:
  • Removed the fencing around the left-side ceiling flank to A, added lighting, adjusted geometry, added clipping, added signage. If this doesn't help attackers specifically, I'm going to take the route out.
  • Underground space between A and B has another outlook for attackers, while a window that made them vulnerable has been removed. Combined with a more accessible flank to A, I expect blue to push further and quicker to B.
  • Shortened the max round time by about a minute. It's a small round, and if you're not able to capture last in five minutes, it's probably not happening.

Both stages:
  • Adjusted availability of health throughout the map.
  • Spectator cameras should be enabled correctly depending on the active round. Some of the cameras were moved so that they won't clip anymore.
  • Cleaned up brushwork
  • Removed bubbles :(
  • Every point takes slightly longer to capture.

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vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
  • Clipped off a bunch of nasty things
  • Removed Red's access to 1B's balcony
  • Materials
  • Adjusted health and metal some more
  • Deepened 1A's canal beneath the point so players can walk through without crouching
  • Some optimizations (detailing, nodrawing, lightmap scale)
  • Added to the skybox a bit
  • Added some supports to 1B so it feels more plausible

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Startacker!

WANT ME TO BE REAL? MAKE ME.
aa
Jun 15, 2013
647
1,197
Your map size at the current moment is ridiculously large, near 60 megabytes for an alpha map with only a custom skybox is way too large, and I have the feeling you have some serious issues going on in your map that would cause this size. You should really look into what's causing this, cause the map hasn't always been this tremendously large. Your map is also not repacked, and could be so much smaller (a test ran showed it could be around 17 megabytes instead, still quite beefy for an alpha map)
 

vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
Oof. Repacked the map so that it would be smaller.

Weirdly, simply recompiling and packing was already about 5MB smaller.


Further minor changes reflect my work in the meantime:
  • A couple of signs were added or changed to use less annoying assets
  • Clipping lines up better with angled brushes now

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vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
  • Added a dustbowl-style shared red/blue spawn in between the stages closer to 1B. The old spawn area is now blue's setup area for stage 2. Blue respawns quicker when attacking 2A to compensate for the increased walk distance.
  • Added cover around 1B and expanded the little engineer's hidey hole next to the point. Hopefully it'll feel more natural to defend around the point instead of trying to hang back and pick attackers off.
  • Fifth Angel appears.
  • Opened up the second story around 1A so that it's easier to understand the space. It may need to be relit; some sightlines may be more powerful now.
  • Increased access to metal on the upper floor of 1A to make defending the area easier for RED, as well as BLU so they can stage attacks on the next point.
  • Units 00 and 02 on standby.
  • Detailing: Changed position of skylights and windows to be more architecturally plausible. Began adjusting materials for detailing in the first stage. Skybox adjusted for a sense of place in the larger map.

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vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
Stage 1:
  • Remade the back end of 1A so that there are stairs and that the top floor doesn't overlook the connector to 1B.
  • Let there be light.
  • Connectors are in caves now. I think they might be better.
  • Sightlines at B tightened up.

Stage 2:
  • RED spawns facing the rightmost door when defending A, but is split between both doors after A is captured.
  • Health is less available in the flanks surrounding last. Previously, BLU would be pushed out of the building but immediately regain health and resume their onslaught.
Also a bunch of other changes; I started this alpha like two months ago and I've forgotten what I've changed exactly.

Didn't fix:
  • Left route to 1A is still in. Sorry phi.
  • Blue's stage 2 spawn may still have confusing respawn room bounds to some, pending a better realization of the surrounding architecture.
  • There might be problems with optimization now that I've changed the connectors and the space between stages.

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vanSulli

L2: Junior Member
Jul 31, 2015
55
27
Watching the last demo, I realized I overcompensated for Red's underperformance at 1B. This is update is a series of small tweaks so that I can get a better idea of how the point actually performs:

At 1B specifically:
  • The respawn time for RED was only 6 seconds(!?) I've moved this to 8 seconds, which is what it was originally.
  • Health and ammo for RED consisted of multiple full kits. I demoted these to a single full ammopack, a medium health, and a small health.
  • Health by the deathpit was useful, but not useful enough. I promoted this to a medium kit. Also, it's better-lit.
  • The balcony should be a bit more difficult to rocket- or skill-jump into.
  • The spawn fences and signage now only change at the beginning of the next round.
Back at 1A:
  • Finally closed the leftmost staircase for accessing the balcony. This is experimental; I may bring it back.

For 2B:
  • Nobuilded the alcove on the point because people were filling it with dispensers, which did nothing but prevent actual players from using it. It also looked weird.
  • Restored a small health kit in the staging area outside the point.

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