Reqieumthefallen's Hoth layout idea (and intro)

First Schlechtwetterfront, you are Ande right?
Second, design approved (by me, and everyone else it seems).
If you want, I can get a basic heightmap up for you, though I need the parts of the map marked with rough elavtions, for obvious reasons.

Schlechtwetterfront wrote:

No. As you said it's mechanics. The other one is visual design. Bombardment will either work, or not. It's not dependent on how exactly the map looks (unless of course it's too small). We can use it on other maps, too so it's not directly 'linked' to hoth.
Most people agreed roughly on my design. If you have some more suggestions do tell.
A lot of the 'blockout' is the terrain so someone needs to get working on that.

Yeah, the bombardment is a touchy subject, its either gonna break or make this map. I think that the Ion cannon should be another plus for the rebels who are defending and besides there would be a lot of defense stuff around the shield generator (the battle of Hoth in the movies has it set far behind the front lines of the Rebel forces). Overall it all resides in map design to make this work right.

Remember the Imps have those AT-AT's, who take a lot of firepower to take down. Also the AT-AT's have ong range, so they can start shooting at the generators from quite a distance. The main strat of the Imps should be to use AT-AT to tank, and quick strikes with AT-ST and heavy's to take out the shield defenses\keep Rebels occupied.
Then switch over to troopers and techs to grab the ion controls.
It needs coordination, but this is a war sim after all.

Lephenix wrote:

I think we should finish the layout, start blocking out the level and the terrain before going into bombardment mechanics.

The layout itself will shift throughout testing. Deciding what mechanics to work on is more pressing in the present as they'll be what the programmers will have to work on when the map's initial layout is done. Making the actual physical 3D map shouldn't be too hard -- the one indie game I'm in charge of has several base maps ready for testing way before it's even gotten a coder to implement the unique mechanics. It's the matter of the game mechanics and features that need to be planned ahead of time since they'll take more time to make. The map itself should be adjusted easily enough when needed.

We should aim to make the layout as solid as possible so we don't have to change it a lot later. Especially with maps where we can't use a lot of modular assets or terrain doing big changes will need many new/adjusted assets.
Sceluk, yes I'm Ande/schlechtwetterfront/ben t.

Reqieum has got the gist of it right.
Terrain layout should be well defined, so no need for massive changes.
Corridors and rooms should be modular so we can easily switch around the internal base layouts.
Bombardment final design will come with testing. Its gonna be LUA\flowgraph so easy to implement. in fact, I'll see if i can get a basic FG bombardment going on.
Ande, if you can give me your base map terrain layout with rough height values (hill, valleys, mtns, etc), I can create a quick heightmap (with erosion and stuff) which you can refine in sandbox later.
However, the current layout of the level is pretty similar to yours, so maybe you can continue working on it from there.

Which resolution should it be in? 4k? 8k? I can get one done this weekend maybe.

4k???? just 1 or 2 is enough i think, i'll be using it as a reference, not to import.

I just read that another Star Wars game was cancelled before his official announcement : Star Wars Battlefront Online. Here's some screenshots from Hoth, maybe it could give you some ideas :
http://www.jeuxvideo.com/screenshots/news/images/00063025/005.htm

BwNoein wrote:

I just read that another Star Wars game was cancelled before his official announcement : Star Wars Battlefront Online. Here's some screenshots from Hoth, maybe it could give you some ideas :
http://www.jeuxvideo.com/screenshots/news/images/00063025/005.htm

I remember hearing about this a while ago. Slant Six, same developer who made Resident Evil: Raccoon City, was behind this project. LA cancelled it after they missed their 2010 deadline. I think the imperial landing shuttle could work as a good reference for the bombardment command post.

@sceluk: I think someone else should do the basic terrain. I'm not suited for that task.
I'd need some time to get used to the editor and generally to creating terrains, I'd like to use that time for coding tho. Most likely I won't have to do any terrains in the future either so it'd be best if someone of our env guys does that.

No, no. I mean like a sketch of your plan with like: Hill 500m. Mtn. 1000m. Trench, , entrance, door, passage, etc.
Like the one you posted back there but with a bit more detail, esp regards the terrain. I didn't exactly get what was hill or not.

Ah, now I understand! I can't say that for sure tho. I can put in some very rough heights and clean it up a bit, yes.

Added layout.jpg to Concepts\Hoth. It's not cleaner, but more specific. And added some descriptions. Will that do?
It's basically an inverted heightmap. The brightest is the lowest, then you have the striped grey as very low hills (so that you can take cover by lying down in the valleys between those hills).
Then you have 2 other 'solid' grey colors the brighter for hills you can easily walk over (up to 7 meters in height I wrote on the layout). The darker one for 7 and up. The darkest color is the highest. It's not really important how high it is. Just make sure it's not possible to walk up there.
The white striped parts could be valleys. I'm not sure if that's needed or anything. That's why I didn't put it into the actual 'heightmap'.
The green lines are where trenches could be. The specific placement is not that important I think. How are we gonna do the trenches? Sculpt them into the terrain directly or use models and just indent/cut the terrain at those places?

The red striped area is the place where IMO players shouldn't be able to get to by just walking. I dunno if we should kill players if they stay up there tho.

Yellow is where the terrain has to be cut for entrances.

Good job mate!
I will try to give it a go, but unfortunately exams are coming up in a months time. If anyone wants to try their hand at it, you're more than welcome.

Hey so I love the layout you guys have with hoth, but I think the only thing that needs changed is there should be a hill that divides the snowspeeders from the battlefront, because in the movie they are flying towards the battle over the hill. And maybe the At-AT command post pushed back a little more. I don't know we'll see and we can change it later.
[img][/img]

Looks good, now we need a clean version of the layout. It's quite confusing with all those paint overs.

I like that layout there! I think you should have the shield generator where it is currently painted on the map so it is more in a defensive position against those AT-ATs (more they have to walk to get in range of it)

Yep, I agree with the shield gen. Rest looks good.
A cleaned up 'near-final' version would be excellent so I can put it in the GDD.
For now I will put in this one to show how how we progressed.

Here ya go, feel free to edit it guys. I'll upload the photoshop project as well, that way you creative peeps can work on it , or edit it if you think you have a good idea. I feel like we can always change the proportions and stuff later, the hardest part will vbe to get the general layout right. Cliffs and stuff seems like it would be easy to change later on.

I also thought of a really cool idea where once the shield is down, and Ion cannon command post is either destroyed or under Imperial control. There could be a script where about 8 seconds after control, the Star destroyers blow a huge hole in one of the sides of Echo Base and that's when the Rebel side hears the voice clip "Imperial troops have entered the base, Imperial troops have entered the base. Cshhhhhhk" Whaddya think?

We had decided that the Ion Cannon could be captured by both sides. If the Imperials have it and the Shield is down, they can bombard the outside area.
if the Rebels have it, they can use it to delay the cooldown of the Orbital Bombardment. The Imperials can still bombard as long as the shield is down, but very infrequently.
This helps to have a constant battle for control of the command post.
Lemme repost how it goes:

Main Gameplay flow:
The Ion Cannon is the counter to the Orbital Bombardment.
Step 1: Imps have to destroy the shield generator.
Optional Step: Imps capture the Ion Cannon controls.
Step 2: Use an overhead minimap back at the base to call in bombards on the map.

Notes:
1. Orbital Bombardment has a cooldown. Small area (relative to map). Useful for busting through heavy held positions. useless against units inside mountain base.
2. Can only be called from the main Imperial Command post.
3. Ion Cannon can be fired to reset the cooldown timer\add to it.
4. Ion Cannon also has a cooldown. Just a little bit more than the OB's, so it’s still possible to bombard every now and then (i.e: very rarely), its just harder with the Ion Cannon in the hands of the rebels.
5. (Optional). Shield generator can be repaired. Only if the rebels capture its associated CP and devote a bit of time to it.
6. Orbital Bombard is friendly fire. Unless they coordinate they're gonna get themselves killed. This might allow griefing, so we could make it impossible to shoot while there are a majority of Imperial troops in the area. Still allowed if there are like 3 Rebels:1 Imp. Reflects imperial callousness.

But I like your idea as well.
My idea was to have basically two game modes. normal CP's. and Event\Story based mode.

Story based follows the events of the films where the Rebels start with most CP's, Ion Cannon and Shields, and the Imperials have to capture the points.
I like your idea of blowing a hole into the base, (basically a 3rd entrance), when the imperials first destroy the shields. I'll put it in.

Alright, but I mean just like as like a little bonus, there would be a script in there that blows a hole in the doorway right above the bacta tanks allowing the troops to move in more rapidly, not only would it look cool, and we could show off the explosions and snow particles, but it would also coincide with canon on the whole Imperials have entered the base thing.

Maybe, two explosions one right above where the bacta tanks are, either blowing open the door or blowing a new entry way into the base. And an explosion right below the bacta tanks kind of near that doorway on the cliff, forming a slope that leads up to that door so the Imps can get inside the base quicker instead of either going all the way around through the hangar or up top by the ion cannon.

We can always change where the turrets and stuff are, also how big and small the bases are such as Echo Base. I kind of fell like Echo Base is a little too small, like it needs a couple more hallways in there.

Oh, yeah. I totally agree its a good idea man. I'm gonna put it in for sure. (last part of my post above).

The map's gonna be like 2048x2048 m with 1.5kmx1.5km playable

And ya, if you pop the .psd somewhere it'll be great.

Alright I posted them in the megacloud.

This is awesome, mind if I smarten it up a bit and maybe it could be part of the media release?