Well, I stayed up late tonight working on my next map, and just thought I'd start a thread to post some screenshots of and such... I present the beginnings of Niflheim. (Note: This is far from finished, there will be retextures, changes in visibility etc.)

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This is just the central room. In the end there will be many rooms, connected by hallways and ramps. Free of the bouncing-issues that have plagued my previous works. I'll post more as it progresses... and I feel like.

why is everything norse-themed?

Wow, that looks neat!

The part of the map reminds me of that mission in AC0 where I had to pilot a jet inside a huge dam to blow up command centers

Heh, it's mostly just something to call it for the time being... it may wind up being the actual name of the map, but I haven't decided yet. I'm open to suggestions and ideas at the moment. I've got a rough idea what I'm going to do for the rest of the map, but nothing's final yet. I'm basing the basic concept as a sub-teranian weapons development facility. With each room serving a purpose: Electronics research, Weapon research, industrial facilities, testing facilities... etc.... Which should allow a variety of battlegrounds. Giving teams the choice of how they want to fight. I've only gotten to two rooms so far, and a myriad of tunnels.

Looks like a fairly original map for MW4

The map concept reminds me a lot of armored core, almost looks the part too. Just needs a night option with darker lighting and some spider bots heheh. Will we be able to get onto the surface?

Nice.

Only after you defeat glados

LOL, I like how original it is, and the use of sideways mounted buildings!

Let's call it "The Dam" or "The Death Star Mission"

Why not "The Valhalla Halls"? Since everytime you get killed, you will wake up again to keep fighting over and over again...lol

Well-said

By the way I like that Soylent Green avatar

Since we are talking about map ideas let me throw one out that been bouncing around in my head for a while but I am not sure how to make it a balanced map. A mission play that the death star trench run, just a big long corridor you can't jump out of with turrets in front and the defenders spawn behind.

Could be fun if done properly, you should try making it

Heh, I agree, old school armored core. (I have every AC game released in US)


Close.... you have to fight TWO Glados', and shoot a portal at the door right before the fight. (See: no)


Heh, Clever, I like that.... But, I thought I saw a map called Valhalla already?


Mmm... could be interesting.... Maybe I can put some buildings together to mock-up some X-wings and TIE Fighters too It's a neat-sounding idea, but It's not that appealing a project to me... And, actually, I was planning to have something sorta-similar on this map. A sort of firing range, with the excuse of being weapons testing. Just a big, loooooong corridor with a few targets spaced along it, maybe a wall or two, make it ideal sniper-territory for both teams. This would work really well, since it would help encourage tactics. Snipers could duke it out at range, while brawlers could hook arround through the tunnels and come up to the sniper-post the short-range way.... if you know what I mean... hard to esplain.

I´m glad that somebody know what Soylent Green is... lol.
You know, this one has a special flavour:
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Back on topic: A corridor full of turrets? Man, turrets are nasty when you have to deal with them in their firing range... such a map would be hell. I want it!

Doesn't, like, everyone know about soylent green? Or is this no longer the 70's?

*checks date*

Oh, crap. . .

A perfect map for ambush! sniping! bralw!

Nice idea. Snipers along the tunel and bralwlers getting stealth to their position.........
Missiles almost not working for their ballistic trayectory
Watch your back! will be the most heared on T.S.

Think about two shadowhawks (or shadowcats, but those don't look like AC's) with directionals and any other jumpjet enhancements going at eachother in an enclosed map like that. It would look and probably play somewhat like AC, which would be interesting. Maybe fast mecha fans would be attracted to MP4.

That's a great idea for a map Nice work. Can't wait to try it
Keep on the good work..those tunnels look awesome

More screenies time!

A very long tunnel. longest on the map so far.
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3rd room on the map, the manufacturing wing. In an effort to control the runaway building count on the map, I've replaced the ceilings with a different structure. Which, makes a significant difference. Team 1 spawns inside that building there in the corner. That's one thing that's always bothered me about maps, is that mechs just spawn in some random corner of a city, or a field, without anything that ties them into that place. Dropships, or in this case, a hanger, should be included if possible imho. I'm thinking of having Tm2 spawn in an elevator shaft.
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And, for those of you who wonder what it's like to produce a map, here's a small glimpse at the system. And, for those of you who are experienced, you can see what kind of system requirements the map will drag with it. Besides the in-game-ish cameraship, this is the primary interface for building a map.
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Nice to see someone placing spawns in logical places. I notice that the good thing about making an underground map is that you don't have to mess with skies.



Looks like you're playing minesweeper there

I do wish you could make some mission map versions for Sunder.... An underground base has lots of great possibilities. You could use a mission scenario like the EndorAssaultWNR map. It could have a series of objectives to attack the deeper you have to penetrate the base (the Rebel attack on an Imperial base with a shield generator). Or just the opposite, a prison breaks where you have to fight your way out with commandeered mechs disabling a tractor beam/comm/hq along the way (ala escape the Death Star).

If you want to go with other themes, you may call it Zion from the Matrix. A single player mission could be to defend the core base from a hoard of attacking light mechs.

Ideas for rooms.

Large hanger bays of drop ships and overlords.
Hanger bays of tanks/assault vehicles
Engine rooms with lots of heat
Green houses with trees/plants under a transparent (glass/shield) overhead
Central Core generators/AI computer… Do a certain amount of damage and everything blows
Hanger bays of space fighters blow one and get a firecracker effect.
Weapons bays with turrets that can be raised though hull portholes.
Refinery rooms with lots of volatile fuel tanks
Magazine with lots of exploding arms storage.
Mech bays with stored mechs
Garrison berthing bays with lots of infantry/battle armor
(Star trek style Jeffery tubes) tunnels that only Small BA/infantry can use.
Weapon control rooms where if you take them you take control of the turrets in the room or other rooms.

Gee, you can go on all day thinking of fun things to try…

I only wish Mechwarrior had a monster type bad guy for a good bug hunt! Hmmm... Maybe a AI controling mechs...

Super Mario brothers map... w00t

Well thats what this one reminds me of, you just need some lava and floating moving platforms

Yeah, alot of my maps would be great for missionplay, Solar Orbit forr one, would be an amazing mission. Trying to take over the kearny-fuchida drive, or the bridge, would make a great capture-hold mission. And, there's a map I made for UK, that had a pretty impregnible fortress on it, that too would make for really interesting capture-hold. The only problem with making missions for me, is that I don't know how to write scripts, much-less incorporate them. I'd love to add some of these things to my maps, but, I just can't quite get my head arround the programming.

I actually thought about calling it Zion for a little while, but, I figured the matrix kind of faded from pop-culture by now, and most people wouldn't get the reference


Thought about it, putting a big door above it would be a must, otherwise a dropship would just be stupid below ground. I'm still tinkering with that idea, but probably not.
Hangar-bays full of vehicles really screw with the map-editor... for some reason, it just makes thigns REALLY unstable. I've done it before.
Can't localize heat-sink efficiencies, it's all or none unfortunately.
An Arboretum is a good idea, I hadn't thought of that. I'll see about that one.
Well, I have Geo-thermal generators in the central room, as well as a room dedicated to massive capacitors. But, the latter is impossible.
Again, hangars full of vehicles = unstable. And, if you're unfortunate enough to include a Shilone on the map and it gets destroyed, it crashes the game for all players... odd...
Apparently, it's possible to make moving objects, but only as far as the host is concerned, everyone else won't see it.
Fuel? Interesting, but doubtfull to be included.
Lots of mechs have the same effect as vehicles. Basically though, you are the mechs in this particular mission.
I thought about the Jeffries tubes for BA! But, it would be somewhat impractical for wiring the whole area together with them... maybe just a few BA-only accessable mech-bays or something, to give them a leg-up.
Possible, but, really, how many turrets would an underground facility poses?

Nice feel - definitely has some of the MW3 Underground mech factory vibes to it. As for the Norse themed name, well it could fit with Steiner or Ghost Bear.

Actually I'm planning to create some MW2 missionplay maps soon as finals end, you remember cold crescent?

Read through the map making tutorials on mechstorm, the things you're saying are completely possible, you only need to learn ABL scripting. For example it's possible to have a voice that says "double kill/triple kill/ultra kill" etc. on a map through scripts - would add a nice touch to arena maps. You could even throw in the original comments made by announcers in solaris. If you say, had a map that was supposed to be the interior of some alien spaceship, you could add teleporters in to move across different levels. Of course what you said with the starwars type objectives are possible as well, you only need to learn scripting. It kind of sucks that more people didn't get into it, as they can really advance gameplay.



I remember reading that it is possible to do so, you can specify a trigger and change the amount of heat produced by your weapons in a certain area on your map. It is also possible to reduce the radar range the same way, so for that capacitor room you could reduce all mechs radar by whatever amount you like, due to electromagnetic interference or something.

I've read through most of the MCM tutorial... it's mostly gibberish to me... unfortunately, I have a hard time learning by reading, I have to see it, then I can mimic it and expand upon that initial knowledge. But, I KNOW the teleporting script only works at the server-end, not the client end. I looked into it, because I wanted a functional elevator. Beyond that, the object becomes permiable as it moves, so, elevator would be a no-go.

Well, I don't know much about the localization parts... if somone with alot of skill wants to step-up and help me script some missions for some of my maps, I'll be happy to throw their mechs in with the credits I put in all my maps. Just send me a pm/email.

I don't mean teleporting an object, I mean teleporting the mech. Like halo teleports: you walk into a defined area and teleport to another defined area. That's what I understood from it anyway.

I think there are a few guys at mechstorm who would be willing to help you out, dunno if they're still around though.

And, here is the progress I made today...

The shooting-range I was talking about... gives good defense to snipers who may choose to use it.
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Oooh... a hill.... fancy.....
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I don't really like how the slope cuts through the buildings...

You might want to make that hill a stepped like fashion, like this
____
===-\
===--\_____
=========-\______
That way you don't have to cut off a corner of the building.

Actually, I put it that way on purpose. It's how a real building on a slope would look... there isn't necessarily a defined division between above and below on tall buildings on a slope. The only real difference, is the windows that get cut in half, but it's minor enough that I don't care. It'll look better when the floor is re-textured.


Also, as a side-note, I've put alot of work into making the map so that it would truely feel you were underground... you won't walk into a room, and see sky beyond the draw-distance of the game. Going down a few of the longest tunnels, you'll just be able to see it if you look hard enough, but you wouldn't even notice unless you really looked for it.

I actually thought of "Zeon" from Mobile Suit Gundam since the base somewhat reminds me of Jaburo or Space Fortress Soloman.

the matrix has been in the pop-culture for tha last 50 years, it'll never get old.

But things like that bug me... however I'll be willing to overlook this if you inculde a small statue of me somewhere.

Hm... I'll think about it. (See: no)

I suggest changing some of the object textures to make it feel more like underground.

Yeah, that was always my plan. Definitely the floors, and other structures used to create everything. I'm thinking about the walls, but, I'm not sure what I'd want to do there.

you might be able to do moving platforms if you have an object that does not lose its solidarity as it moves and sticking a wall on top of it or something. maybe invert a drop ship and stick a bridge on the bottom to create an elevator.

Looks pretty cool. Reminds me of some of the missions in Dark Star 1.

Hopefully this map doesn't have the issues that other underground maps have had. Those being getting stuck to walls when you get hit and the same old issue of being able to jump through the top of the map or walk ways.

Dunno what darkstar1 is. But no, it doesn't have issues with being to jump through the top of the map/walkways. And, there's no reason you should get stuck to the walls, and, I have yet to do so on my testing... but, I've never seen this phenomenon myself, so I can't say what causes it, or how it happens...

Looks quite creative, I'm looking forward to it. Just try not to put too many narrow corridors or areas that are hard to navigate through. Room is good for 'mechs.

And I'm really not liking the sliced windows. Or civilian buildings in an underground facility in the first place. Seems unorthodox for a 'mech facility. =(

Eh, I'm keeping the obviously civilian buildings out of the map. But.... with the limited supply of buildings, I have to throw some in there. So, I'm going with the uglyiest, blocky-est buildings there are. People still need barracks. And a facility this large would require a good deal of personel. Besides, even military instilations have offices.

And, there is alot of room to maneuver in the map. The tunnels kind of restrict your movement, but MOST of them are very short. Either way, with just a little bit of common sense and tactics, you won't get caught in a huge disadvantage. That's kind of the idea of the map. There are alot of places where I have designed in huge terrain advantages (Shooting range, Long tunnel, brawler-areas) But, they all have a way to bypass the advantage for the resourcefull.

teleporting

u can only teleport player 1

u cant teleport turrets

u can teleport mechs

u can teleport veh's

u can only teleport buildings on singleplayer or only visible to player 1

<if u need any information about the editor or scripting id be happy to help

net_rdr@yahoo.com

all i know is that teleporting caused desyncs for me.

I'm pretty sure teleporting hasn't worked since Vengeance. If you look even at the single player campaign, Microsoft generally had enemies "spawn" by having them shut down somewhere on the map and power up when some event happened.

true.

teleporting does work just only with those restrictions i stated. i have working samples of this.

infact the current mission im working on has a ambush script which triggers 1 in 5 times the map runs. then randomly picks 3 stars of mechs from 9 stars stored on the map then depending which difficulty u have chosen it will teleport them to random ambush locations.

also on the same map it picks random objectives to complete eg bases 1&4 2&4 3&4. then it will teleport off the veh's that arnt needed at extra bases and based on the level of the map it will also teleport on mechs to the right bases chosen it will also randomly choose which base mechs to use from a bunsh of stored mechs on the map.

this all creating a pve coop map which u can run with 4 different levels of difficulty with random abushes random objectives and random defensive forces, meaning a map that u can run many many times and be different every time

a semi-dynamic map. not bad.

Oh, gods. I can't imagine what that looks like in the maped... placing those things in just perfect order and alignment has go to be migraine inducing.

Heh, well, right now it's carpal-tunnel inducing Work has been haulted, on accounto f using a keyboard and my mouse is just killing my right hand... I'll get back to it in about a week.