Azure Rampart, a handmade map

[zwzsg]

On this desolate region of this alien planet, there's nothing but endless expense of ammoniac swamps. The only piece of dry land for miles around is a sturdy fortress called the "Azure Rampart", built three hundreds years ago by a now wiped-out colony. The Core has decided to establish a base here to control the area. The Arm got wind of it and will try to secure it first

Download from Fileuniverse (1.5MB)





The whole map is metallic, save the water, but extraction radius and metal values are set so you cannot just build row and and row of extractors on start position. With ten extractors, you entirely cover the starting tower, and it produces only +10M, so hopefully you'll need to go in the middle and won't be tempted to porc. (I'm not sure, how much is ten in TA? Should I lower the values so one really has to move? Should I up considering in TA a good metal patch gives +2 not +1?). In case it's not clear, the red bumps contains much more metal, but I don't know if it can be felt with the large extraction radiuses.

Since the Azure Rampart it is the only height of the area, wind is quite strong. I hope it's strong enough so that solar aren't ever built, but not ridiculously strong. I also hope it doesn't affect ballistic shots too much.

The water is supposed to be impassable. Theorically you could move your comm down there, but then it's not supposed to be able to build anything. I you manage to use the water for whatever use, tell me, cause it's not supposed to be used for anything.

Sometimes I feel like the map is too large and that the comm has to walk for a while just to take the tour of the starting tower, sometimes I feel like it's cramped and anything in the way could create a jam.

I'm not perfectly happy with the texturing, that blue looks too artificial. But if I turn it grey, it looks ugly and like a metal map. And it's supposed to take place on an alien planet. Do you think it's ok, or shall I try to change it?

Most of the time the pathfinding is clever and use the brown flat paths. But, sometimes, one unit goes on the cliff. If you see one doing that, just imaging it's roping down, but that the rope is too thin to be seen, ok?

The crenels are made so nearly all units can fire in the openings, and none can over in the hight parts. Save high trajectory and starburst missiles and things like that obviously. Anyway, seeing how the map is set, I doubt the crenels will play any role save for eyecandy. I lowered gravity in an attempt to have more long range straight shots.

I've reduced the map deformation, but if it is still too deformable, tell me. With screenshots and explanations of what you did, cause I'm sure a hundred roachs could deform anything.

I'd like the game to be a ground war, with units battling in middle, taking the long way to attack by the other side, with the paths full of craters and charred wrecks, but still passable and with the wall still straight. If you do some online game on it, I'd be interested to hear how it went and to see screenshots, because basically I have no idea on how a game there could go.


Download Azure Rampart from Fileuniverse (1.5MB)

[AF]

All the maps for spring seem to be centred around a single plane of height, for once I'd like to see someone create a highland area or maybe soemthign like the above where the tower thgins outstretching thigns rise up above or go down below the central plane.

Nobody is using the height as effectively as they could!

[SinbadEV]

Havn't "played" it yes, but loading it up, it's very sweet... will have to try it out... though It's safe to say I'll still be using planes...

[PauloMorfeo]

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I'm not perfectly happy with the texturing, that blue looks too artificial. But if I turn it grey, it looks ugly and like a metal map. And it's supposed to take place on an alien planet.
...

I really like the general enviroment. That blue rock i really beautyfull and makes it feel like it is a special type of shiny rock that is really hard. And it would have to be hard to endure the high wind and water.

I can also look at it like an artificial arena for a fight, instead of a fight taking place in a real place. Reminds me of Unreal Tournament.

About the metal, the map is suposed to be made of rock and as such it would not hold much metal in it... Mining would be hard as mexxes would have to dig deep to reach metal.
In fact, the map could have no metal at all, leading to an extremely diferent strategy. We would have to rely on metal making. But that's probably not what you had in mind.

About the quantity of metal, maybe it should be not too high. If high, the metal will mostly end up in those «bridges». The more metal there is, the more jamms there will be due to more buildings, more units and more craters.

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The crenels are made so nearly all units can fire in the openings, and none can over in the hight parts. Save high trajectory and starburst missiles and things like that obviously.
...

Even in low traj, units like BB will be able to fire over if they're not placed right next to it, i bet...

Azure... In Unreal Tournament there's one map named like that, no?
I foresee great battle here!

[smoth]

All the maps for spring seem to be centred around a single plane of height, for once I'd like to see someone create a highland area or maybe soemthign like the above where the tower thgins outstretching thigns rise up above or go down below the central plane.

Nobody is using the height as effectively as they could!

I did that in my pool is open map. Z, has created something rather interesting thought. I have 2 maps that are not 'Flat' by any definition. Z's map is great though BECAUSE it is flat which means that we will have ease of construction on it. Something that I am sure is altogether rare.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Is there any way to make those side rocks look less stretched? It looks a bit strange...

Otherwise, cool map!

[zwzsg]

I could try to counter-strecth the texture in the perpendicular direction. But finding the exact position of the edge on the texture map would be very hard, and stretching always in the perpendicular direction on round part would be nightmarish. And anyway, the pixel repartition would still be anisotropic, and that could sill show. Unless I use a completly uniform single color texture. Well, in fact no, even with a solid color, the spring engine add some noise and stretch it.

I could also make the walls less vertical.

I guess we'll have to deal with the strangeness, for now. Just keep the camera inside the rampart and it shoudn't show too much.

[Redfish]

It's a shame spring doesn't allow for textures on vertical slopes. Or at least doesn't correct for them.

[zwzsg]

I don't know about Unreal, but in Quake1 there's a level called Azure Fortress with the same kind of blue rock. It tooks me several minutes to consciouly remember it. And then I checked and saw the Quake map is called Azure Agony. The Azure Fortress is actually the E3M4 Heretic map, which is strange because I never played the full version of Heretic. Unless I was in fact influenced by the title of the third Lanfeust, "Castel Or-Azur".

The way spring engine works, you simply can't have well textured vertical faces. Despite what the C command and what that map look suggest, spring isn't a First Person Shooter. It would most probably require rewriting large part of the engine to have true 3D.

[SinbadEV]

ALL we would need is for the ability to create 3D features and put them in the game... interactable ones... like the bridge units... and then for high vert you would be able to put a vertically oriented "screen" that would go on top of stuff that needed it...

see, the black is the texmap on the heightmap, and the green is the 3D object (probably pretty low poly count) that makes a nice clean vertical cliff, maybe even with overhang... units would have to be able to fall or learn to avoid ledges they couldn't handle to make it work good... or maybe the ability to make a higher resolution texture to certain spots on the map would work too...