Ideas Thread

[Inkallim]

I'm not sure how useful this will be but seeing as many people seem to be of a mind to hold off map making till things are a little further along I thought it might be nice to bat around a few ideas, as specific or general as you'd like.

My first thoughts would be things like recreating real locations or scenes from movies.

Being able to play on your street, or an industrial area near where you live would be pretty fun I think.

[Gazz]

You don't have to hold off.
Go ahead and do it if you want it done!

In modding / mapping it's usually not very effective to ask if "someone" would do the work involved in implementing your bright idea. =P

[IceVamp]

But bouncing cool locations back and forth still doesn't hurt.

I'd like to see bigger industrial areas.. However I'm not sure how easy that will be. Making a bunch of 50x50 submaps would be quite a chore. But hey, we've got money for a dedicated mapper!

[Gauddlike]

Why would you make bigger submaps though?
That would just mean you had less variation.

I would suggest instead that you design several smaller submaps that fit in certain positions within a large level.
Each submap in position A1 would have the same entry/exit points to A2 and B1.
Then no matter which submaps are chosen for those positions they will fit together to give randomisation but not throw up any issues with doors opening onto walls etc.
Similar to the way base rooms fit together but you with less regularity in door positions.

I might actually give that a go to see if the concept works over the weekend if I get some time.

[IceVamp]

Yeah, I thought about that as well. But I was thinking that you had no way of knowing that you'd get pieces that matched. However if, on that map, there are only submaps that match I guess it's the better way.

[Gauddlike]

Yeah imagine you had a 20x20 factory that was built in four pieces.
Having a half dozen 5x5 options for each quarter (that only work in a single position) would increase the variability of that particular factory far more than a dozen 20x20 variations.
More work though, not such a big problem if you were doing large industrial complexes though as you would only need a couple of map variations to make the most of all those submap variations.

[IceVamp]

Yeah.. I'm picturing walkways and such between major facilities, and large indoor areas to search for aliens.

[Quartermaster]

Yeah imagine you had a 20x20 factory that was built in four pieces.
Having a half dozen 5x5 options for each quarter (that only work in a single position) would increase the variability of that particular factory far more than a dozen 20x20 variations.
More work though, not such a big problem if you were doing large industrial complexes though as you would only need a couple of map variations to make the most of all those submap variations.

Although not to same scale you are contemplating there is an instance of this in the submaps of the game already. Namely the barn and its attached fenced in area are meant to be stuck together since the fence runs straight into the side of the barn. I definitely like the idea though and would like to see a set of maps like the one you are talking about.

[The Land]

The difficulty with "real-life" locations is that they could end up in very different locations in-game, so they might have to be pretty generic places.

By the way, is there a way to view maps you've worked on - is there a way to force the game to load one so you can see what it's like?

[Gauddlike]

If you open up the levelsetup_quickbattle file in the assets folder you can edit it to make any map you choose appear when you play a quick battle.
Under <LevelSetup> add the tileset and name of your map to force the game to use it.
For example:
<Map tileset="Industrial" mapname="industrial_tst" />