TC Seaport

[Waffnuffly]

This is an interesting map, but has one major problem: the main bases are WAY too far away from the city, and holding the city is vital to winning the game. The two outposts are basically useless as they only have repair pads that nobody will need since they're both right outside the main bases, and holding 2/5 bases isn't enough to drain the enemy team's tickets.

I suggest cutting out the entire non-city southern half of the map and moving the main bases up, and using only three bases total: the two city sectors and the airfield. That OR adding at least one more base in the southern area, somewhere in the middle - possibly two more bases with mech hangars parallel to the airfield but further south. This would encourage more of the map to be used.

Right now, the only thing you have to do is lock down both city sectors and then the airfield and you're done. The airfield is easy to hold if you can spawn mechs at the mech hangars to the north since they're way closer than the main bases. Give people a reason to use the southern half of the map or it will remain unused, because right now it's useless.

I second the suggestion to add VTOL pads to the main bases, but no airfields. The only airfield should be the one in the center.

Also, the turrets at the mech hangars to the north are problematic if your team loses the sector when you spawn there. You basically can't leave the mechbays without being instantly killed since you can no longer build vehicles and the turrets will get you if you try to attack them in battle armor. While the remote mechbay concept is interesting, I think you either need to move the capture points much closer to the mechbays or remove the turrets so people who spawn there and try to build a vehicle but fail can still be useful. Otherwise, you have to die, wait for the respawn timer AGAIN, and then spawn aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the way down south at your useless main base.

[RDL_Vitos]

This is an interesting map, but has one major problem: the main bases are WAY too far away from the city, and holding the city is vital to winning the game. The two outposts are basically useless as they only have repair pads that nobody will need since they're both right outside the main bases, and holding 2/5 bases isn't enough to drain the enemy team's tickets.

I suggest cutting out the entire non-city southern half of the map and moving the main bases up, and using only three bases total: the two city sectors and the airfield. That OR adding at least one more base in the southern area, somewhere in the middle - possibly two more bases with mech hangars parallel to the airfield but further south. This would encourage more of the map to be used.

Right now, the only thing you have to do is lock down both city sectors and then the airfield and you're done. The airfield is easy to hold if you can spawn mechs at the mech hangars to the north since they're way closer than the main bases. Give people a reason to use the southern half of the map or it will remain unused, because right now it's useless.

I second the suggestion to add VTOL pads to the main bases, but no airfields. The only airfield should be the one in the center.

Also, the turrets at the mech hangars to the north are problematic if your team loses the sector when you spawn there. You basically can't leave the mechbays without being instantly killed since you can no longer build vehicles and the turrets will get you if you try to attack them in battle armor. While the remote mechbay concept is interesting, I think you either need to move the capture points much closer to the mechbays or remove the turrets so people who spawn there and try to build a vehicle but fail can still be useful. Otherwise, you have to die, wait for the respawn timer AGAIN, and then spawn aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the way down south at your useless main base.

Yes it can be a problem. An example in game - I have capture a city and I go to be repaired (all beaten and without ammo(in hollander(RAC)), and behind approaches the new opponent and I haven't reached at all repair as the base became capture by the enemy again and I was killed by turrets.

The offer: turrets to put (if it is possible) in a capture point. And to clean from factory.

[mechpriest]

Yeah, it would be nice if you could get into the city from the sea.

I mean, if the other team has managed to secure the city, then the opposing team has extremely hard time even getting into the city. (The city and the hills surrounding the city provide excellent cover and firing positions for the defenders, while the attackers have no choice but to advance through the open ground with no cover, while being further hindered by the enemy air superiority.)

However!

Once you manage to actually get into the city, then the fighting becomes actually really fun.

(And like it already has been mentioned in this thread, the outpost's outside the city are pointless unfortunately.)

[Ivaan]

Thanks for the advices again!

About the southern bases (harbor and generators):

I'm a little surprised that they are considered useless.
I've read somewhere that sometimes you can repair in the small mechbays. As I know, it's maybe a bug, players should only rearm and buy/sell assets in them.
But if they can repair also, why would anyone want to go repair at south, when you can do the same at north, which is closer and more useful?

But let's say you cannot repair in mechbays.
So my idea was that, for example the defenders of the airfield have two options, when they are in bad shape:
1, they can go to north to sell their damaged mech, if they have enough cash for a new
2, or they can go south to repair only
Because of this, they would leave the airfield in smaller groups, and maybe more often, which leaves more options for the attackers.
And if some of them would use south to repair, there wouldn't be crowd at north, so the attackers at north don't have to fight a buch of repairing/rebuying defenders.
Also, if a team can capture both of the repair bases, the enemy cannot repair anymore (only in the main bases).

Well, that was the theory.
But maybe in practice, it's a failure.

Please don't get me wrong.
Of course, it's totally possible that you guys are right. It wouldn't be my first mistake regarding mapping.
Also possible, that you have played with non-repairing small mechbays. In that case, my novel above is not valid.


So, that's what I'll do:

As I said, there will be a third route out of the ocean at north. The water is deep enough, and the cliffs are high, so flankers can remain hidden from the eyes and radars hopefully, unless the defenders jump into the water.

I'll remove the turrets from the northern bases, and also extend the city capture zones.

Vtol pads at the main bases is good idea as well.

Also, I will decrease the ticket-weight of the airbase, it means less ticket bleeding.

For now, I don't change the layout (sixth base, moving bases etc.). It's an option, but first I'd like to see the effects of these smaller changes.
Then we will see.

Thanks again! 

<sub>Spam:
Right now.. I am working on a map with small town like structures, but today it has come to hold, because, placing the buildings and stuff is really difficult and boring work.

I made a mistake by the map size it is 4 by 4km (area is 3,6 by 3,6km.. so the borders are to close and flying would look ugly so i probably put that 3,6kmē into a 8 by 8 map...</sub>

I'm looking forward to play on it! Make copies please.. many copies 

[Waffnuffly]

Yeah, I've always been able to repair at the northern mech hangars, which I can see now is where the biggest problem comes from. However, even if the southern bases are designed for repairs, they are still too far from the action to be viable - it will almost always be faster and more effective to go sell a mech in a norther hangar rather than make the trip all the way down to the southern bases.

If you made it so that the northern mech hangars had dedicated repair pads like the southern bases, but ALSO gave the southern bases mech hangars and moved them further north, away from the main bases, then there might be some interesting gameplay to be had.

I'll definitely try the map once you make changes, though, especially if you make it impossible to repair at the northern hangars. The repair ability of those hangars is why leaving the city is never worthwhile, so if that gets fixed, then things will get more interesting.

[=KoS= Eldragon]

In each of the starting rounds I've played the first team to get to the airbase insta-captures it. The turrets then fire on the enemy team who are probably very near the airbase by this point. Since the start of the game is light mechs, the turrets absolutely ruin them. Has anyone else noticed this?

Perhaps the airfield turrets should probably be removed or downgraded. I'm of the opinion a strategically important point like the airbase should not have turrets. Makes the team that owns it work at defending it.


I agree that the south bases don't do much. Perhaps a tunnel that runs under the hill and opens up near those bases? Thus capturing one base gives you easy access to the other one. A whole new battlespace could open up as each team tries to prevent the enemy from running through the tunnel and into the other base.

[Straylight]

In each of the starting rounds I've played the first team to get to the airbase insta-captures it. The turrets then fire on the enemy team who are probably very near the airbase by this point. Since the start of the game is light mechs, the turrets absolutely ruin them. Has anyone else noticed this?

That's normal TC turret behavior. You don't notice it on the official maps as much because there's usually places in each ca(m)p zone where you can hide from the turrets, and because the turrets on those maps tend to point inward at the bases, rather than outward from them like it probably should be.

I wouldn't mind seeing the turrets not come online until the base is fully "captured" as a general truism for TC. It would make those opening moments much more interesting, and much less about trying to dodge the stupid sniper-turrets.

Perhaps the airfield turrets should probably be removed or downgraded. I'm of the opinion a strategically important point like the airbase should not have turrets. Makes the team that owns it work at defending it.

I say just remove them completely. They don't add anything useful to gameplay.

I agree that the south bases don't do much. Perhaps a tunnel that runs under the hill and opens up near those bases? Thus capturing one base gives you easy access to the other one. A whole new battlespace could open up as each team tries to prevent the enemy from running through the tunnel and into the other base.

Tunnels that lead from those repair bays to near the airfield would be more interesting. Because the airfield dominates the map both physically and strategically, you want to encourage action to focus there. One way of doing so is by adding to the number of possible approaches. Tunnels between the repair bays and the airfield also gives ground units a way to approach the airfield without exposing themselves.



As to the rest of the map:

The fighting in the city itself is quite fun, but as others have said, getting to the city takes entirely too long. Making the repair bays the main bases instead and then cutting off everything below Row F on the map would speed up play and improve playability with only relatively minor alterations to the map. All of that open space in the south is pretty, but useless.

I'm not sure how much I like the idea of tying cap zones to the control of bases that are remote from the cap zone itself. I get the concept, but the execution is confusing. The cap zones themselves are also not clearly marked, and actually finding them in the middle of a firefight is problematic.

A possible way to justify the base locations as they are would be to add a strategic point to the ridge above the pass in the middle of the map (southern part of the F4/F5 border) to give players a reason to move east-west through the map in that row and encourage flanking attacks against the repair bays (which suddenly become substantially more relevant) as well as against forces moving through the southwestern and southeastern parts of the map. The strategic point doesn't have to be anything at all really; a ring of those marker beacons and some cover would do. Because Clan has a shorter walk to that ridge, I'd give IS a more covered, easier approach to the point--the Clan will be able to draw in reinforcements faster, but they'll also have a harder time preventing IS forces from getting to the cap point intact.

There also really needs to be a second way to get off those docks. A ramp from the northern part of the main pier up in the northeastern part of E2 would be sufficient.

[Ivaan]

Hi!

There is a new version of the map, I tried to make it better based on your suggestions, thanks all who commented!

http://mwllmaps.com/?map=tc-seaport

V02 changes:

- Changed base layout (moved airfield to north, main bases are closer etc.)

- Added tunnels

- Added VTOL pads to the main bases

- Removed all turrets from capturable bases

- Added a third route out of the ocean

- Extended capture areas

- Other changes

Possible issues:
(TLL)KitLightning reported that vtols are spawning in the aero hangars instead of the vtol pads.
I rebuilt the airfield in V0.2, but I forgot to check this issue, so it might be a problem...
Sorry.


See you in combat!

[linkinfrost]

I'll go ahead and add this to the =KoS= Bulldog server rotation. Thanks Ivaan!

[Deathbane]

Im a big fan of your maps IVAAN.

I love your abuse of the extremity buildings models lol.

[XRayXI]

V02 better?

I am sorry that I see that your CRY is lost/gone. For sure I lost 1 Gb of cry's last year and I feel your hurt.

[cyofee]

I really like the map, but IMHO the terrain on the southern part of the map should to be a bit smoother. It's really hard to use hovers or tanks.

[Cherno]

Edit: Suggested changes have apparently been implemented in the new version 

[cyofee]

Having played v02, I am blown away by how great this map is. The tunnels open up some really interesting stuff.

Two small ideas: Indicate the exact position of repair bays more precisely on the minimap, and draw lines to show where exactly the tunnels are going.

[Ivaan]

I love your abuse of the extremity buildings models lol.

 

V02 better?

I am sorry that I see that your CRY is lost/gone. For sure I lost 1 Gb of cry's last year and I feel your hurt.

I hope it's better.

I have lost some cry files in the past, but not recently. So the cry files of all of my released maps are ok, I hope 
Maybe this message was not meant for me?

Have you lost 1gb of cry files?  So sorry 

Having played v02, I am blown away by how great this map is. The tunnels open up some really interesting stuff.

Two small ideas: Indicate the exact position of repair bays more precisely on the minimap, and draw lines to show where exactly the tunnels are going.

Thanks! 
Yeah, the minimap could  be improved. It's my fault, somehow I don't like to bother with the minimaps... (and loading screens  )
I will try to do something about it!

Thank you all for your feedbacks!

See you in combat!