"Spathi Basin" a PVP map : development log

[plusnine]

mostly just developing concept and components for a 3-point-capture based starmade pvp map. drafting what i hope will be an epic battle for mining rights on three asteroids:

they include:

- a 100-point scoring system that ends and resets the game
- one button game reset
- capture and scoring speed are programmable, allowing for desired game length or for team handicaps
- modular: the system can accomodate more capture points and/or teams
- can be skinned and used as "flags" or hidden entirely and used only as output devices.
- capture points have 5 gui output options - repeat the score and display capture point information in friendly respawn zones or on the walls of the game board!
- "doom 3" style gravity slingshot jump unit

more images behind the cut:
http://imgur.com/a/fF8T1

credits thus far:
- plusnine: concept, logic, design
- Caumen: design (7-segment displays)

 

[plusnine]

phase two complete:

finished up the aimable mining laser unit, which will be used for capture points, installed most all of the major components:

http://imgur.com/gallery/SrJa8/new

the barest bones of the level dimensions have been laid: 1 km x 750 m x 750 m - so it will be stretching the sector size on default server, you will want to be be sure to get this loaded right in the middle.

three of these mining lasers will be lighting up the sky in alternating team colors to display the overall capture status of the map to players and spectators alike.

the needed components are all laid out except for a pair of grav-tubes to move you between the two capture points on the ends to the center complex. speed travel from one mini-arena to defend or attack will be a big part play on this map. i should be able to bang those out soon and then i finalize the gravity catches for the jumpers and start to hammer out the the flooring, ground navigation and cover situations the level should provide in the allotted space.

 

[plusnine]

finishing off the design drafts and the final components needed for the map.

here's an in-progress victory display:
http://imgur.com/gallery/CXmX0/new

and a pasteable 2-way gravitube (rotate 180 degrees to make a reciever)
http://imgur.com/MmUNQCt

 

[plusnine]

with all of the needed components finished, i've started laying in some flooring and getting components off of their docks and into the actual station-map, which is allowing me to better start dealing with space and put some rough shaping in.

my radar is a lot less cluttered now, which is really nice for my work environment! the map is now fully navigable, jumping from the spawn point into any capture point and then taking the gravity tubes between. the capture points are hooked up to the mining lasers. i've also got the operator console started.

starting to shell the central capture point / build mode

speaking of spawn points, i've started drafting those, too.
players will spawn and then be forced down a hole to get into gravity, taking in the following view:

prototype spawn point

the score is displayed, along with the status of the three capture points.

every fifteen seconds, the elevator in this room will raise up to take players to the grav jump points. this functions as a sort of group "respawn timer", so you may be grouped up with other recently killed players on your on the elevator and the two (or more) of you can jump down the grav together to cap a together. like many pvp scenarios, death cost could be measured in lost time resulting in enemy score.

game in progress with 2 capture points going to blue

lighting feedback on the capture points was made a breeze by template.

next up will be finalizing the spawns, installing those, and setting to work wiring the displays and scoreboards.

official scoreboard / victory display / operator station

 

[plusnine]

the game has reached a fully playable state.

- colored in the jump stations and removed leftover skeletal structures from symmetry mode

- repositioned the middle spawn's jump to accomodate the central capture point's new ring structures. these will house the victory display units. started drafting the finalized team-color gravity landing pad design.

- scrapped the old asteroid and put in a new gyroscopically rotating sphere. the final entity will be built on this gyroscope. something purple and crystaline / anomalous? need to draw to come up with something fun.

- closed the main flooring and most of the walls to the game could be playable by testers sooner rather than later.

- implemented three additional sync'd scoreboards, one at each capture point.

- implemented victory conditions: the game now ends when a team reaches 100, powering down all lasers and locking out controls.

- misc. thoughts: starting to notice starmade's schematic saving really not approving of docks going more than 2 or 3 mounted structures deep, so reconfigured a few things to involve fewer chain-docked entities. might need to reconsider the vortexes on the jumps if that's going to continue to be the case. perhaps this is structures killing nearby blocks by clipping through them on their initialization/onload rotation. that feature is getting to be more trouble than it's worth and i'm being more meticulous about turning off all activation modules for any given rotator' power, rotation degree AND speed control unless the game is actually running. this is all well and good, but present issues with chain docking unless i want to introduce more wireles, which i've been trying to keep to a minimum. at the moment the only wireless is to communicate to the lasers on when to fire, and it's pretty easy to hook up. i am considering a wireless relay docked entity to send the game-on signal to the spawn points. it would certainly be more attractive than running a loose logic wire across the jump chasm.

 

[Megacrafter127]

scrapped the old asteroid and put in a new gyroscopically rotating sphere

d'aww, I liked the old asteroid.

 

[Equilibrium21]

This is amazing, congrats!

 

[plusnine]

i promise it's coming back, just bigger, badder and purplier than it was before! the sphere is just a starter shell. =)

d'aww, I liked the old asteroid.

 

[Megacrafter127]

i promise it's coming back, just bigger, badder and purplier than it was before! the sphere is just a starter shell. =)

You said so, but...do you still have a template of the old asteroid?

 

[plusnine]

You said so, but...do you still have a template of the old asteroid?

oh yeah, it was always a placeholder. i have it in orbit around a larger 'roid near by base. =)

 

[plusnine]

deployment scheme drafting:

since the map is reaching a playable state, i'm looking into getting some servers interested in running some mock games to get feedback and decide where best to spend my next efforts. to that end, i've had to think about how to package up a large station with a metric crap-ton of docked entities.

i also realized i needed a connection from the center out to the spawn points (to tell them when to game on). i could have drawn a wire, but part of the appeal of the map is the empty chasm between the spawn and the central structures. i realized i could send a wireless ping through an intermediary ship that hooked back to the station.

then it hit me: i should save a ship (which saves wireless connections -- stations currently do not!) with all the wireless connections on that "relay" ship. then the relay could dock to the station and be easily wired across the map from a single location.

after some testing, i feel very confident i can deploy the map with about 10 minutes of setup time:

overhead view: the "components" ship save:
the three mining lasers, six gravity landing pads and two spawn point jumps. the horizontal line at the base is the wireless relay.
it takes a few minutes to dock all items to their ports, but it's faster than running all over the map making wireless connections to all those devices. i will be adding the two victory displays once they are finalized, but they are accounted for in the relay.

the wireless relay ship:
built like a PCI style "card", this ship comes pre-set to be able to control all wireless units on the map thus far.the only two connections remaining are the two top-left, which run into the two team spawn points.

the wireless relay ship, installed:
docking and installation is simple. the card fits in and you just move the wirelss connections provided to the blocks directly above. this makes installation a snap and you don't have to scour the map or run anywhere!

 

[plusnine]

took a week off to clear my brain's cobwebs out. will start back on the map this week. hopefully i've secured some good testing time on a server soon.

apropos of nothing and everything all at once, here's a fantastic screenshot of an early design document for the classic World of Warcraft "Arathi Basin" point-capture pvp map: