Spring RTS Engine

Just thought I'd post a sneek peek at my new map. Its 32x32... Its called King of the Rock... I need to sort out some height map probs but then its done!! (terains to rought to build on...)



aGorm

--:: EDIT::--

[veryloudvoice] ITS DONE!![/veryloudvoice]

Yep its done... I just need Gnome to get his FTP workin so I can upload it... (Gnome: I just tryed the same way as teh last time but it didny work...)

Her are some super picys!

Mini Map:


The Rock...


A base starting point...

can you spot the comander (hes that small dot...)

And Trying to take the hill!!




Please bare in mind thsi is not a KING OF THE HILL conversion. Nor a remake. Its a little different but with the same concepts.

Hope you all enjoy

http://www.fileuniverse.com/?page=showitem&ID=1027

aGorm

A bit difficult to make out at the moment. Could you post a minimap?

One thing I did notice, and this isn't just you, but something which many other map makers have succumbed too, is that there is a large abundance of Geothermal points.

In TA, geothermal points, like metal patches, should be very carefully placed by the map maker in order to direct the flow of battle.
Geothermal points are important in TA because they are the most cost-effective source of energy.
For this reason, they shouldn't be placed ad-hoc around the map, because that is not what they are there for. Every energy choice in TA is a decision which contains some risk, and follows your strategic line. Wind? Solar? Tidal? Geothermal? Fusion? (my our robots are environmentally aware...)

Geothermal should have two inherent risks, as I see it:
The first is that the enemy knows exactly where it is. The second is that they are usually put in contested positions, so that if a player wants to get at that cheap energy, he is going to have to fight for it, and protect it.

Consider the geothermal placement on The Cold Place, where they are right on the front lines between starting positions, or in Red Triangle, where it is bang in the middle of the map.

So basically for geothermal placement:
There should be less geothermals, to emphasise their importance,
And they should be placed in more strategic missions around the map.

In that single shot you have posted, I can see a number of geothermal smoke vents, and that is just a single screen span.

It was late . Ill post up the mini map when i have redone the heightm map tonight.

Was the coment on Geothermal after spoting the four plums of smoke in teh distance??

Ill just say that they are actully there for a reason... Thats the Hill in the middle with all the metal and geo spots... The idea is that everyone starts round the outside and has to try and take the hill.

Luckly you cant just walk stright to the hill with your COM in the begining, as if you tryed it youd find everyone one else was already send attacking units and planes there by the time you had walked.

The idea behind it may sound familier...

aGorm

:D king of the hill was my fav map BY FAR :D hope this maps good! i haven't dled a new map for over a week! i can't wait!

i loved playing King Of The Hill

looking forward to this one!

is the hill accessable from all sides, or are there four earth-ramps like in the original?

Ha, Will this become King of the Crater after a battle or what

aGorm wrote:Just thought I'd post a sneek peek at my new map. Its 32x32... Its called King of the Rock... I need to sort out some height map probs but then its done!! (terains to rought to build on...)



aGorm

And when reading the topic title I was thinking something in the lines of "cool, someone made a picture of Elvis into a map!"

Hahahah, yhe... sorry haven't uploaded it yet btw, havin a few probs...

See, my old maps were 10 meg and 16x16 this is 32x32 and is currently 100 meg. Im trying to addin some repeating textureing to get the size down. Without making it look crap...

aGorm

100 mgs fine by me :) even my 56k will do it overnight :)

you can do a full version.
and a ligth one.
so we can test the limits of our systems.
and for eyecandy purposes. :)

100 megs is too big for a map. Seriously.

You think I dont know that?!?

Anyway... as it stands its now less than 100 meg... im gonna replace some more textures with tiled ones to bring the size down more...

You have to bare in mind this is a 32 x 32 map... thats four times the area of my 16x16 maps which are abut 10 meg compressed.

So with luck this wont be more than 40 meg max.

Would 40 meg be acceptable to most for a map this size? I dont know if I can get it any smaller...

aGorm

It wasn't directed at you, aGorm.

aGorm wrote:...
Would 40 meg be acceptable to most for a map this size? I dont know if I can get it any smaller...
...

As long as it is a good quality map, 40Mb is acceptable.
But any bigger and the download times starts to be an annoyance.

call me a fool but i've got a 56kb connection (SHUT THE FUCK UP!) and i use this groovy firefox browser (muchos thankos alantai!) which has this amazing plugin which lets me stop downloads and start them at a later date :D but hasn't anyone heard of overnight downloading? i do it oftten just leave it on! all i want is this groovy map! more land to claim

What compression tool you using aGorm? I'd think that zipping it up wouldnt be that effective compared to other comrpession tools, besides I'd wait for more details on the new map format first.

We really do need some new compression tools. Particularly once some one starts redoing the epic class maps.

*is in fear of the nine hundred meg epic map*

This is the problem...

I personly am fed up of downloding somthing and then spending the same time again finding the dam unpacker. I have zip (obviosly... it comes with XP) and Winrar, and thats it. Im not going to go and find some other program because i frankly cant be bothered.

i hear amazing things about 7zip, but not everyone has 7zip
I know Ace and Stf are better than Zips... but not everyone has winace or stuffit.
Rar's arnt that much better than zip for me to realy bother.

Zip is currently realy the only one you can garenty people will be able to open, because whatever they have will be able to open a zip!

However... Someones working on HPI 3, which would come with built in 7zip (as i understand it...) so when that happens and maps become packed into HPI's it will all be fine. Till then Live with my ZIPs!

Its currently just under 40meg ziped... but i need to rebuild it, I stupidly did teh metal map upsidedown (DOH!) so all teh geos are on steep hills insted of on top...

Expect it tomoz...

aGorm

Oneday Alantai was looking through program files
"I think I'll take a look at the winrar folder just for a peek"
So Alantai looks in there and finds a folder for plugins. Much to Alantais amusement, Alantai investigates!
"Ah bog standard, zip format rar format" said Alantai, but thn Alantai saw soemthing astonishing and gasped!
"7zip?! This is winrar tho! The forum says winrar opens only rar and zip files!"
Alantai digged deeper and found winrar can open numerous other formats.
"well I dont believe it, I didnt know it could do all of that too!"
And alantai waves his axe wildly with joy, a cow jumps over the moon, and the dish ran away with the spoon!

Put simply in English, Winrar can compress zip and rar files, and it can decompress zip, rar, 7z, ace, iso (not that they're actually compressed...) and a few other formats I forget off the top of my head. Even rar has a bit of an advantage over zip...