The [FGS] Clan

sorry for links, 'count not upload attachment errors'

http://www.moddb.com/members/mikak/imag ... -basilisk2 (this is now old and superseded, but it has the sky, and a general feel of the map-if you're going to check out the pics, click this one first, because the rest have horribad sky)

hullo guys and girls, i've been working on a little (little in scope rather than size) map for dxmp, more specifically for a bot battles gametype, essentially Poor's wonderfully fun ww2. it's still a work in progress and i'll take an optimistic assumption that it is at about the 75% mark and i have about 2 weeks of work to bring it to a ver.01 standard (mid dec). i'm off on holidays to new zealand today so i thought it would be a good idea to make the current build available to any unrealeder's that would be so kind to load it up and have a look. any feedback on the concept/execution would be most appreciated. apologies for not acknowledging any replies as i wont have internets until december

here is what it is: the basis of this map was first created as my templar preceptory (not sure on spelling, thought it was precepatory, it's a thing, look it up) map. which was an aborted 'euro tour' element of my singleplayer mod. this (player character's trip to Europe) has been scrapped completely and i am instead concentrating wholly on one location map set. i salvaged the brushwork, removed a large chunk of the detailing and aesthetics, made it as simplified as i could bear to look at in the editor and manipulated the layout into this, which i hope will create an open, interesting and fun playing ww2 bot battles map. hope is that this will be balanced for both nazi's and allies, and thus only by the intervention of players will map domination be achieved

location and setting: is south central Europe, *more unnessessary backstory:* agent pc (i named my playercharacter 'retired unatco agent pc') would go to unatco hq Europe in Geneva, get a mission based around a dam busting terrorist event ('sarcastic yay' terrain editor D:) this map never happened~ tho geneva is utilised as a cinematic. after preventing, assisting or ignoring the events at the dam, the player gets sent to check up on the links between the terrorists and a known terrorist financier; omg the illuminati (i know kind of same old conspiracy trope). and wtf combined unatco and Interpol raid against the templars begins just as you arrive. so it was located within a short blackhelicopter flight from Switzerland. (eastern France or southern Germany). idea is that the map is the suburb of the old fortified town. it has some medieval buildings, some later, and then a bit of brownfill redevelopment with 20th century buildings. the whole map basically revolves around the basilisk (yes that isn't a 'real life' thing; warhammer40k fanboy okay).

here's some pics of the current build; (again, sorry for terrible looking sky)
http://www.moddb.com/members/mikak/images/basilisk01 (top view of map)
http://www.moddb.com/members/mikak/images/basilisk02
http://www.moddb.com/members/mikak/images/basilisk03
http://www.moddb.com/members/mikak/images/basilisk04
http://www.moddb.com/members/mikak/images/basilisk05 (teh funnies obersevation by WCCC)
http://www.moddb.com/members/mikak/images/basilisk06
http://www.moddb.com/members/mikak/images/basilisk07 (maybe a self propelled artillery should go here)

here is what it still lacks: skybox: (deleted because i wanted to fix the viewable foreground buildings and their effect on the horizon, so at current it is an unlit red monstrosity)
movers: lots of movers not yet added and sounds/locked/movertime/encroachtype?-the bump out of the way thing not yet dealt with
lighting: still kind of early, want it to be fairly dark, but not so much as to require f12 light aug. some need their brightness toned down.
pickups: havn't begun adding medkits/lockpicks etc yet, need to finalize the layout so they are stragically placed
weps: gone with cataclysm's ww2 weps & grenade and will add LAW's when layout finalized
player spawns: got a bunch of now redundant spawns here and there, ignore those. the weapon boards are more indicative of where the spawns are.
bot spawns: probably at or near the playerspawns. will figure it out when bots are added
deco: still early, don't want to spam the map with loads of deco, will add minimal deco later
ammo crates: need to finalize the layout so the ammo crates are stragically located for maximum 'omg i need ammo!!!'
tanks: not sure on the collision radius of the tanks, so may need to widen the town gates to allow the tanks
panzer route: on the (at current ingame) north side of the map is an intended 'panzer route'. not yet implemented.
prefabs: have a shizer-ton of prefabs made for my mod that i rely on to make my maps flow and integrate together smoothly, and basically i am intending to utilise some of those to decorate the enterable buildings, ie. bookshelves, tables, cabinets, headstones for the graveyard etc. but since i use 'transform permanently' alot, this wrecks the texture alignment and scaling, also they can become over-used very easily, so i'll add them later
pathnodes: deleted all pathing because i keep changing stuff, easy to add at final

woahhhhhhh that makes it sound like my map is just a giant rectangular subtraction and a player start!

any ideas, suggestions, observations, critique, criticism, generally useful input much appreciated.

i realise the file size is rather large, and perhaps this doesn't have a change of becomming playable for dxmp, in which case i'll throw a few weeks extra into it and make a quick and nasty single player mission, might have an hour or 2 of playability to it. in any case i had fun, that's what games are all about to me

@ Poor, could i possibly have access to your ww2 vehicles and bots packages so i can test them in the map? away until december 1st, so no hurry

The map itself: still in .unr format because there should be no confusion, this is still unfinished.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/20l07a9c4ugyy ... 1.unr?dl=0

gg

Nice work bro

Good job

Thanks for the WW2 enthusiasm and input. It seems really impressive and my initial reaction is really positive. I like the sloped terrain, docks and varied streets. This is similar to the Italy map and would be a good replacement.

To be constructive, I would ask how many spawns, as all the WW2 maps have 4, although Landernau's are very close to each other.
I also wonder if the textures are old enough in places and if there should be damaged scenery, but I'll hold off until I see the map.

FYI I would discourage from adding the WW2 ammo actors, they lag the map and I would ask about zoning, is the map well zoned for bots etc. Gas on Landernau was a mistake. Also don't forget to remove any flamethrowers, just too easy on the bots. I would encourage adding a few default weps as well, like sawn-off, xbow and anything that could be WW2.

Don't forget there is smoke and samurai sword in DXRVultimate.u and also if there are second floor buildings, you can add the parachute packages. We have a WW2 moddb page, so I would put this up there too of course.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/deus-ex-ww2-war

I'll let Poor answer the pathnode question.

Downloaded, will have a look at it now, you might see a sudden burst in downloads, that was me 10 minutes ago failing almost 7 times due to crappy net

Edit: I can't load the map, or view it at least, i've had this problem before, not sure of the cause.

Protected or missing files. As the doctors say 'we need to see your log'

I have a number of suggestiosns.

You're a very very good mapper, your movers and brushwork are top notch, it's a shame it's such a huge complex map, otherwise it could flow better for Augs or 0-augs, i think some of the brush work could be simplified, perhaps.
My laptop is a simple core i3 but if i wanted to unlock my fps beyond 130 i can still manage 230-300 fps on Smuggler quite easily, around the window area of your map it dropped to 9 fps, considering that, it would simply be unplayable if coupled with high ping too.

But there are ways to remedy that, without sacrificing much of the maps atmosphere and playability.

One thing you can begin with, which maybe you are saving till later? i don't konw...

Is to zone the almighty heck out of the map so you don't have to draw as many polygons, when walking around.


Reduce the amount of round corners and edges and multiple complex brushes in close proximity, this should really help a lot.

Use ZoneInfo actors for each area you want to zone off, as suggested above, make sure they're all the same, for the general outside area, at least, and set the brightness to a small positive value, such as 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, or 16 so no area is 100% black and un-navigable.

Set certain decoration actors to be un-pushable, invincible, and perhaps un-highlightable, if you don't want them to be picked up, like the CrateUnbreakableSmall's the Ammo crates are on top of.

Add cabinets for pickup itemas that you might be placing in the map later.

The grassy polygons have some problems with solidity or cuts, can't figure it out, my usual experience with cuts is dying very suddenly when you walk through or past a complex brush!!

Not sure if the lightbulbs need to be static movers, i really don't know myself if using movers for that kind of decorating purpose is saving or eating performance, so i'm just not sure, maybe i will try that out on my own map hahah.

a Skybox might eat your fps even more, so you could possible make a mega simple one with some kind of custom gradient texture to make it look like a dawn or night sky of some type, which i could actually make for you if you want?

Overall, it's really good, best part is the awesome door movers and nurses!

EDIT:

IRT Chees, it was WW2Guns.u had to download it!

Good points Anax, as I said you will need to consider bots and vehicles and have a lot of zoning going on. Landernau has zone portals roughly every 512 units in the streets.

Movers theoretically are a good thing rather than a bad thing.

I also agree with the skybox comment, most of the WW2 maps don't have one.

I didn't realize the map was available, will take a look now EDIT: ok I have a few comments.

1. The map has the same problem as my first Paris map. The open space in the middle is too big and too laggy. Easily fixed by making the space smaller.
2. The map feels strange with no street clutter like ammo crates, debris, newspaper on floor or whatever human detail you add. Be careful not to build a perfect architectural model, we want an environment with signs of life. It doesn't have to messy like my maps or rubble, maybe when ammo and other things are placed it will be fine/enough
3. I do not understand the canal, bridge and two towers at the side of the map unless that is scenery and will be blocked off.
4. I really love the breakable glass.
5. When you start elevating on the map, i.e. go up in the tower, the fps is worse. I like the fact you can get on to the roofs in the map.
6. It's a great map for vehicles and bots, it just needs a lot of zoning and editing to make the fps better.
7. The atmosphere of the map is great, incredible, I feel it is scary and somewhere on the continent.
8. Nice wep racks

Overall this is a great map I think. A little bigger and it could be a Cozmo map too.

Doubleposting because I took a less-rushed look at the map and it is amazing. The church is fantastic. The map has 155 breakable glass windows! I think it's not so much a case of decoration, more some of the textures look quite modern? The map is huge, great for vehicles, but I was thinking it could carry on and be a RPG city as well.

If your map answers to these two criteria: map provides good performance for average player playing your map(1) and players can quickly find eachother(2) then it is playable map regardless of size.

The question obviously would be how you allow players to quickly engage in combat with their team mates on a very large/huge map.

It's probably smaller than WW2_Paris and it seemed from my playthrough to be a good vehicle map. With second floor buildings, towers and a lot of windows, shadow and cover inside, it seemed quite lethal like Landernau, a rifle map with dangerous open streets.

It's probably smaller than WW2_Paris and it seemed from my playthrough to be a good vehicle map. With second floor buildings, towers and a lot of windows, shadow and cover inside, it seemed quite lethal like Landernau, a rifle map with dangerous open streets.

Nice to see someone showing an interest in the ww2 mod. This map isn't flat which makes tank battles more interesting. Tanks are wider than they appear. WW2War_MJ12 is a good map for seeing how tanks fit and don't fit through certain areas.

I will sound like a complete a hole and complete t**t saying this. But say it to every person who maps I even say it to myself and spend weeks fixing it on a new map. YOUR BRUSH WORK IS OFF GRID KID. may look on grid but look REAL very CLOSE it's off grid. Thats going to kill FPS big time and BPS and so on. Love the map bro don't take it the wrong way. I could map 4 cubes nothing more and the fuckers will find a way to jump off the grid while mapping. open 2 UED'S copy the brush work to the other and go through it to alter the off grid brushwork with a right click to grid. I bet the MB size drops after you do it as well. Then rebuild Geom.

the worst is when a cubes edge randomly decides to jump half a unit when you resize it!