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New Map: The Vault -- Comments Requested Options
kobayashimaru
Posted: Sunday, August 31, 2014 12:28:01 AM
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Neat! this variant lends itself much more readily to Fallout (brother vini minis are sweet for that, as are ExManus and Hasslefree)
If all those solid .75point black lines are walls... I'd still hate to have not brought grenades or missiles/aoe weaponry to this map: there's so many choke points, its perfect!

One lifeform's "The Vault" one day might be what the republic might consider... illegal torture/racketeering holding facility on other days of the space calendar, (spoken by Space Borat) BigGrin
after all... we are talking hutts here... throw the hutts down the well heh. dang if that song aint catchy.
This is part of an evil crimelords hangout, and if black sun and jabba are anything to go by, its sure to be a massive sprawling facility with some illegitimate street speeder racing and excessive recreational stimpak useage (see the alternate version of VI, cantina/palace scene variant was to have showcased more flour taking and stims rofl), not to mention the live entertainment... im talking reeks, gundarks and rancors here, get your mind outta the space gutter.

I'm curious to see the hangar facilities map and the fortified entrances map/s that this hutt lord is bound to have for their hideout.
I do like me some extensive hangar facilities. Somewhere to park the parties' cruiser/bucket of bolts is always appreciated, and moreoften than not is when the fun starts.
Jedicartographer
Posted: Tuesday, September 2, 2014 3:15:33 AM
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The vault still doesn't quite work there either. :-/

If you really need the vault to only have one opening, i recommend placing it on the far east or west side of the map, in one of the lower cornders opening to the north or south, or rotating it 90 degrees and opening to the east or west.
kobayashimaru
Posted: Tuesday, September 2, 2014 4:33:05 AM
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@jedicartographer,
why would that be?
Rotating it to favor left or right would bias the board... unless the vault was still blown out, and there's already that map.
I will admit it is extremely tight and danger close: not enough room to swing a hutt in, though that said, I do like the map.
Good thing there's no chain lightning etc or Diablo II/III style lightning arcs...
I'm happier with the map now, as I successfully deployed a Force Wave with Apprentice-Redeemed, and went on to win the test match, very fun map. Swap squads and BlacknBlue seem to enjoy it, recon squads less so vs opportunist (thanks to those multi-walled sections that pack em in like sardines).
Once the players self-censure the number of grenades and missiles/aoe weapons they'll bring, the next thing that gets annoying is opportunist/cunning --- though opportunist/cunning is annoying for every map!

another fun scenario for this map is to use the hyperdrive reactor tile from Rebel Storm and put that in the vault as an objective for 'SW40K Kill Team, 3rd Edition".
6 Turns gotta get in there and blow up a vital computer/shield generator before reinforcements arrive so as a larger force can try their luck at an incursion.

I'm wondering what a landing platform ala Coruscant might look like in map form... something like from Jedi Power Battles/Jedi Academy/Bounty Hunter/Battlefront 1 Bespin... someplace with loads of potential to fall off or be shoved to an insta-death in a 'pit'.

What would a revwien village/ergesh swamp map look like? It'd be some hodgepodge between the smurfs, dagobah, Kashykk, the hanging gardens of babylon, etc...

Is there any decent raxus-prime/droid scrapyard maps out there?
What might one look like?
In a related vein... what would a droid foundry/clone facility map look like?
I've seen a few smugglers den-type maps over the years, and was fortunate enough to pick up and still have a couple maps.

So in terms of future map making projects/map ideas,
What might Dark Souls the game bring to us SWMinis players in terms of inspiration?
Besides the punishing difficulty, the vistas there in Dark Souls are something else. Especially the castles; Vjun much?

Is there a direction you'd be wanting to head in?
What terrain rules could be innovated to make the game more interesting?
FlyingArrow
Posted: Tuesday, September 2, 2014 10:31:32 AM
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Made a lot of changes in moving it to the right. The antechamber is quite a bit larger and the guest area is much larger. The fight in the scene this is supposed to capture actually takes place in the antechamber, so I wanted to stretch it so the antechamber gets part of gambit. Gambit is split so that both sides have gambit on their side, but the distance to reach the enemy isn't long, so gambit isn't really all that safe. The private apartments are more separated now, so they make sense as either a guest room in a Hutt palace or just an apartment that happens to be next door to a bank. I threw in some obstacles (statues?) in the Guest Area to break up really long lines of sight (e.g. shots would otherwise be possible from Security down into the bottom Meeting Room).

(No, that isn't a hole in the wall between the Loading Dock and Private Apartment. Just a glitch that I don't feel like fixing with a fresh upload.)

AndyHatton
Posted: Wednesday, September 3, 2014 6:00:46 AM
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I like moving the Vault to one side, it is cool in the middle but pushing it to one side makes sense thematically and for scenarios leads for a greater push to "break in."

Is the Vault side better for Commanders though? Not even the Vault itself but the rooms above it? The Left side has the Workstations for safety, its just the Loading Dock Area seems a lot safer. Gambit seems fair for both sides though I'm not 100% sure I figured it out correctly.
FlyingArrow
Posted: Wednesday, September 3, 2014 8:09:41 AM
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I like the latest version a lot better than any of the previous versions. The locations of the various areas make more sense and I like the layout better. I do think the vault side is the stronger side. The private apartments are about as safe as you can get for commanders, but the workstations are safe enough, too, so I don't think that's a big issue. I'm more concerned that the left side seems more vulnerable coming in through the Guest Area, even after throwing some things in for protection: a couple of statues and the service area (the nook with the left side's safe gambit square). The left side can approach more safely through the Meeting Room or Surveillance, but the vault side has the advantage advancing right through gambit. I haven't played on it, though, so that perception may be off.



From the inside flap of The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance :

"Tassaa Bareesh, a matriarch in the Hutt crime cartel, is holding an auction that’s drawing attention from across the galaxy. ... None of [the] guests—invited or uninvited—have any intention of participating in the auction. Instead they plan to steal the prize, which is locked inside an impregnable vault..."
juice man
Posted: Wednesday, September 3, 2014 8:27:46 AM
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Location: Akron Ohio, just south of dantooine.
If this is for a scenario, it should be difficult to get at the Vault. Maybe the safe crackers could bring some sort of mobile cover. One with X hit points. Maybe they have smoke grenades or start closer to the vault?
FlyingArrow
Posted: Wednesday, September 3, 2014 9:01:15 AM
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juice man wrote:
If this is for a scenario, it should be difficult to get at the Vault. Maybe the safe crackers could bring some sort of mobile cover. One with X hit points. Maybe they have smoke grenades or start closer to the vault?


I'd like it to be a restricted-worthy layout, but also one that lends itself to a scenario involving cracking into a vault.
Jedicartographer
Posted: Thursday, September 4, 2014 2:45:33 AM
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yeah, i really like it now. I liked it before, but this is a really cool layout. You turned the vault into an effective starting place for forces, and thematically you kept a closed off vault intact for your scenario. Red squares are walls, yes? Gambit looks pretty interesting too.
FlyingArrow
Posted: Thursday, September 4, 2014 3:10:01 AM
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Thanks!

Yes, red and black are both walls. Red would be obstacles of some sort. Black would just be thick walls. Do the obstacles in the guest area make sense? Too many? Too few?
FlyingArrow
Posted: Wednesday, September 10, 2014 10:19:55 AM
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I made some more changes.

* I wanted the option to link this up with Jabba's Palace or the Capital City bank. It links to the bank on the north edge. (That part was already there.) It now links to Jabba's Palace on the left edge, or you could consider this a separate level. The stairs in the top, left corner can be the same as the stairs from Jabba's Palace.

* I enlarged the Meeting Room and Vault Office, mainly based on comparison to offices/rooms on other maps. These seemed too small.

* I thought the Guest Area was too wide open for shooters. I introduced fountains. The fountains have a large rock structure (the red square) and then a water area (yellow square) with a rock wall behind it. This breaks up the room some without consuming too many squares with red objects, so huges can still get through. I also made the Guest Area considerably larger by moving the turbolifts and refreshers.

* Armory and Surveillance moved slightly and there's now a door between them. This gives the left side a better chance to have a safe approach from the top. They can enter Surveillance and split into either room.

* I think the previous two changes make engagement possible on 3 different approaches: Meeting Room, Guest Area, or Surveillance/Vault Office. The north hallway and Security are also possible but seem less likely since the right side is too vulnerable in that approach.

* I needed another room name, so I moved the Machine Room and created a Break Room.


I like the layout but I'm not all that happy with a couple of the room names. Any suggestions for something other than Break Room? I'd like to rename Surveillance to another security-ish room if there is one that makes sense in a secure bank or a gangster's palace. Or I guess it could just be more workstations.

(EDIT: Slight image update.)
juice man
Posted: Wednesday, September 10, 2014 11:18:40 AM
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Supervisors station?

Managers Office?

Control Room?
FlyingArrow
Posted: Wednesday, September 10, 2014 12:22:10 PM
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juice man wrote:
Supervisors station?

Managers Office?

Control Room?


I had Manager's Office earlier, but Manager's Office already appears on the Capital City map that this might attach to, so I changed it to Vault Office.

Control Room doesn't seem quite right for this map. Supervisor's Station might work.
kobayashimaru
Posted: Wednesday, September 10, 2014 9:51:52 PM
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Alrighty!
This new map variant is upto 3 or 4 now? And we've seen it evolve tremendously.
The doors, when blown out on this new version, will really open up the lines of sight.
It would suck if you didn't have demolition charge or override though, and until you take out all the doors, I'd be wary of bunching up your units too close:
grenades and AoE weaponry will mess up your squad (less so once those doors are blown out).

The Vault is still as dicey as ever to try and invade! Its heavily fortified, and once you're past the doors, then its an AoE grudgematch: sorta like boomtube/noobtubes in FPS games, its whoevers left standing after a few rounds of nades being thrown in there. If there are any forceusers left, maybe the odd force power heh.
GOWK pre-errata survives comfortably though. BigGrin
I think the balance is there now, so this isn't too biased on either approach, and gambit is just the right mix of incentivised and punishing for how exposed it is... great! this to me is a 4.5/5 map, one for the ages!

To some technical concrit now,
if the line thicknesses could be increased .5pt higher, and if walls could have a magenta outline, that'd save a little confusion (particularly if you've had a few).
(if you're using Paint or Draw or Visio etc... this is achieved via bringing the thinner black line to the front, while the slightly larger magenta layer is sent to the back. The good news? you can ctrl A and ctrl c the existing black lines and then group them and reformat them, so as you don't have to redraw all of it to get the lines magenta-y... at least thats what the local gamer group wanted to pass on through me)

I think we'll all look forward to future maps you'll come up with!
What would a droid foundry look like to you?

Are you a fan of the terrain tile cards, and would you be making any new ones?
I think they're great! And terrain tiles help to spice stuff up or add objectives, I think the hyperdrive card from Rebelstorm is so warnout from overuse lol.
Thanks!
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