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Dipping my toe in the water...


Max_Caine

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I generally like the maps and would be willing to include them in some form when they're ready, but I think they need polishing first:

- There are quite a number of misplaced props (so below for a list). I think you should give the level editor preview another try, because I found some of them really obvious once I opened the maps there.

- I think the dronestreet map should have redwall_fences around the basketball playfield. Both because the landing zone is IMO way too open and also because nobody would build a basketball playfield right next to a street without anything between them. Terror missions generally happen to have a rather rough start compared to normal GC missions, so I think the player should be given at least a little safety in the LZ (when I created the Restored Community Map Pack, that was something I edited in quite a number of its terror maps, eve though I otherwise left the vast majority of maps as they were).

- Have you tried what happens to friendly AIs if one starts a mission on the maps? You've placed all their spawn points right next to alien spawn points in an enclosed area, so I'd expect them to get slaughtered on the very first turn (without the player even seeing them, given they are quite far).

Misplaced props:

- dronestreet: in the park, a tree grows in the playfield, tables are partially on the walkway, trashbins next to the playfield and burger stand also seem one tile off; on the street, the traffic lights are misplaced and also probably the other way around (since it looks like a drive-on-the-right map)

- dronemart: traffic lights are inconsistent on both the way they face and whether an intersection uses them or not; the two bus stops in the street are either misplaced or incorrect direction; the group of those 4 electric boxes looks a bit weird, as their direction is random and so inconsistent (which is because of the prop submap, it'd make sense to copy the two props out of it into electricbox_LR/UD and use one consistent direction); also, purely visually, I think it'd look better if those cars around supermarkets stood on asphalt parking places or roads, the gray concrete somehow doesn't fit, but I don't know if there are suitable ground tiles

Otherwise, as I said, I like them, so I hope there will be more coming ;).

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Thank you for the critique, I will make those alterations. With regards to the friendly AI, yes, I have. The positioning of the friendly AI is deliberate. In testing I found that aliens would home in too quickly on the xenonauts, giving the player very little time to deploy. Putting a speed bump in the form of friendly AI meant that aliens had to spend time shooting them instead of moving onto the xenonauts, and clustering the friendly AI together meant they had half a chance of shooting back. As the player is not penalised for not saving friendly AI, and friendly AI doesn't help the player once the "zone" they are around has been cleared, I figured the best use for friendly AI was to hand the red shirts out, pat each one on the back and wish them godspeed.

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Okay, I've made changes based on llunak's suggestions, and made another map. I'm starting to stretch what I can do with the existing mapset and I haven't finished with town yet... so next step is going to be to introduce tiles from other tilesets. Once I'm comfortable doing that, the step after that will be to start making my own submaps and the acme of my art will culminate in linking those submaps together.

[ATTACH]6708[/ATTACH]

Maxmaps.zip

Maxmaps.zip

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