Did a bit more on fixing Estate tonight -
1 - wider bridges
2 - cut off some dead space
3 - stop the MCP! (going in the river)
4 - another bridge between the depot and the mainland
5 - lastly but not leastly, new location of transmit, replaces the strogg depot spawn
It prob needs a bit more work than that, not sure what to do about the long MCP stage that would be doable…
Suggestion: let the strogg not have their forward as default after the bridge is build. Make them spawn closer to the battle, like right across the river, instead of all the way in the back. Let the strogg not spawn right on top of their forward, but perhaps 10-15 yards further in the back. Add more huskys to the gdf spawn.
As for the last objective, I would really like to see the entire area truncated. It’s a very far and cumbersome run from their spawn to the point of interrest, for all parts.
More terrain. Give me something to play with (trickjumping), while in transit.
Spawning strogg across river? This would make the mcp stage even harder than now.
About the last obj - yeah, the area is too large. This was a good idea in the dawn of ETQW but nowadays the huge maps are rarely as populated as before. Even Andes gameplay was suffering from insufficient amount of players lately.
Come to think of it, if I were you, I would shift the hack obj to the place where now GDF spawn after mcp deployment is. I would shift the transmit objective to the place where now hack is. I would place the mcp deployment spot to where the tower near the capturable strogg spawn in the middle of the field with a fountain currently is. But this of course would mean major map changes and moving of all hack and transmit buildings (which is possible).
Let’s see what Chris will suggest.
As for more terrain and trickjumping - it imho makes little sense to implement now before the gameplay is polished. I am sure Vio can add those beauties and objects easily in one of the betas later.
Also I would change the lighting/skybox to something more sunny and cheerful, e.g. see sky + terrain foliage on comm link.
Will people stop doing this, its not even funny.
Violator is attempting map that is way different than my style of maps, my only attempt at this kind of map crashed and burned (Brinstar).
My suggestions would be to avoid long routes between objectives, no matter what type they are, eliminate strogg vehicle bias on the hack objective by actually having the hack totally indoors, similar to free city but with a ‘lobby’ buffer area so vehicles cant just shoot through the doors.
Keep first stage as it is, it’s fine.
As for the MCP, I support Ashogs suggestion of deploying it right after the tower/church thing - it’s a nice final chokepoint and the part after that is usually just chaos anyway. Even if you keep the GDF hack spawn as is, it doesn’t really matter if the MCP stops a bit before it IMO.
For the strogg spawn in the park it’s a bit distracting maybe and move action away from the mcp objective itself - which is ok for random combat fun but it’s spreading people out a lot. Maybe you could add a new spawn building closer to the tower but a bit backwards. Or let them spawn in the GDF hack spawn.
For the final transmit the new location looks much better, but I will miss the original transmit building. Maybe you could get room for it in the new location, if you move some trailers and warehouses a bit.
Well just some thoughts, will be nice with a new version no matter what you do 
btw remember to put the mega inside if you make a new pk4.
yeah the buildings were fun (both transmit and hack), it’s just that their locations were too spread.
If the hangar with the documents was located where now the mcp deployment emptiness is, then the transmit could be on the other side of the river. Then two current bridges could be used for carrying it on foot, as well as using dillos, platypuses and bikes. Small bumpers could be placed in front of the bridges to prohibit mcp to be driven aross the bridge, whereas dillos and bikes would still fit between the bumpers.
There is really a lot of space for these documents hangars there, they could be as well used during the hack obj to hide behind corners while attacking the hack place where now gdf spawn with trojan is. One could also make use of the white mansion left of the fountain for something useful, such as mcp deployment yard or gdf spawn for hack stage.
Some good suggestions to digest there Its a massive map and really hard to balance 
I’ve done these things though -
Added hills to the ‘fountain expanse’ to funnel gameplay to certain areas rather than the big flat sprawl it is now. Moved the strogg fountain spawn to the GDF hack spawn area as suggested.
I like scrupus’ suggestion for moving the transmit building and it actually fits very neatly into the space 8).
There is a problem with moving the MCP deploy in that there is a max range for firing the scud iirc but I’ve moved it back a bit. Should be a bit clearer where to go now with it (no more runaround :)).
Removed the annoying getting stuck between the hack and the building it smashes through. Added some more cover to the ‘courtyard’ area there.
Added a barrier to help stop cyclops spam on the hack obj.
As for the dreary weather - remember what country its set in ;).
Nice to have you again here Violator.
Saw on your Youtube page that you was among many other games. But seens old ETQW Pal still appeal to your creative desires!
Yeah, I took a break from mapping for a while but am getting back into it as are a few others which is good to see :). Hopefully get a new version (gamma 1, theres been enough betas :)) of estate ready for the next nirvana plus another surprise maybe
This got launched onto the world yesterday - any feedback (apart from the anansi bridge trick ;))?
If there was a way of keeping that trick in without messing up the rest of your objectives I would say leave it in, be pretty awesome if someone managed to pull it off during a real game.
As pointed out on the server, all your trees on the second stage no longer line up with your new terrain, not sure how you missed this? It also extends to the construct tower near the second bridge.
Your LOD groups are bit aggressive in places, Meltdown last stage kind of aggressive 
lots of noticeable pop ups and such on the houses.
The hack stage still remains a problem but the MCP stage feels playable now, although there was no progress bar on the HUD? Not sure if was related to the bridge trick or not though.
As suggested make the hack more inside so strogg vehicles don’t dominate, it’s all too easy to have a cyclops and dessy camping at the objective and a hog running around causing all sorts of chaos
Some outdoor area portal bugs on the warehouse also, seems there are some missing ambient lights in places so they are pitch black areas.
Also check your patch work, lots of unaligned stuff like the lights on the floor in warehouse and some of the curbs, looks like you have dragged the patch instead of moved the vertexes, when you drag a patch that has edges that aren’t 90 degree it distorts those edges, I’ll make a picture when at home to illustrate.
Also, just out of interest what resolution are your custom textures?
Lots of z-fighting with the destroyed bridge and the repaired one (and the construction model).
Many places where terrain doesn’t line up with buildings.
Missing textures(?) on hack building and MCP route.
Trigger_hurt here doesn’t get disabled properly on clients, so you get pain effect + sound but no damage.
Unneeded portals as Chris mentioned.
As for the actual gameplay:
I think you should make building the bridge a secondary objective if you’re going to allow the MCP to be driven without building it - it breaks the MCP objective HUD, map icon and so on otherwise.
Move hack building away from Strogg spawn and towards the river a bit to make it easier for GDF. MCP phase seems like an improvement but needs more testing I think before giving feedback.
I was drunk so I don’t remember the details
MCP stage was better but needs more testing. Hack is still too hard i think. Did we actually manage to get to transmit objective? i guess it was full hold on hack.
I still belive moving hack buildings closer to MCP deploy on the initial side of the river could make it more dynamic and easy. And transmit could be where hack is now. But that’s imho.
[QUOTE=.Chris.;373190]If there was a way of keeping that trick in without messing up the rest of your objectives I would say leave it in, be pretty awesome if someone managed to pull it off during a real game.
Heh it would, but not sure its possible. Increasing the gap of the destroyed bridge part should stop the MCP getting stuck in the water, but will stop the anansiness. I think it gets left on the edge of the MCP OOB mask as it is, increasing the mask any more will cause it to get destroyed when it gets too close to the bridge.
[QUOTE=.Chris.;373190]As pointed out on the server, all your trees on the second stage no longer line up with your new terrain, not sure how you missed this? It also extends to the construct tower near the second bridge.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, the ones on the hill, I quite liked the half-buried effect but it would be better if I fixed it 
This would take a while to fix and it was done for performance but I might have a look at it, I’ve got better at LODing since I made that map
The bridge trick will stop the mission getting activated for the 2nd MCP stage when the bridge is repaired as its never getting destroyed
The cyc is overpowered tbh (I was in it for a while) on that stage and should prob be removed. Moving the hack inside might work (stuck buried in the 2nd floor but in the centre perhaps), or make it the other side away from the strogg spawn (I don’t really want to lose the ‘corner smash’ as the shield gen comes down though if I can help it ;)). I added the ladder to the building in front of the hack + some barriers to restrict the strogg vehicles but it didn’t really do much.
I’ll have a look at that, it does slow down a bit there…
Cool - you are the patch meister :). I’ve started using blender for such things now, the curbs caused too-long-texture warnings when they were aligned hence the tiny gaps but they aren’t really tiny enuff… There’s also the horrible patches I used for the road corners in the GDF base because the terrain editor wouldn’t do them properly iirc.
[QUOTE=.Chris.;373190]
Also, just out of interest what resolution are your custom textures?[/QUOTE]
They’re generally 512x2048. I felt the pk3 was massive enough as it was without increasing the res any more 
