DO EET
Paper layout is down. I'd transfer it to mspaint right now if I thought I could get away with it at work...
Should have it by tonight, if not bug me on IRC and make sure I'm not just wasting all my time playing NS.
EDIT: SI DONE.
Before you scream WTF, let me explain a bit. Firstly, and most importantly, this is ONLY A BASIC LINE LAYOUT. It only shows paths from point A to point B. Obviously a map made like this would be marine ownage, as all those straight halls would be murder. Instead of straight halls, think of the route from MS to generator hive on ns_caged. Layout wise, it's a straight line, no paths deviate off of it. In game it's all twisty and turny and goes through various elevation changes and so forth.
A few things to explain. The little arrows indicate changes in elevation, as I had a few ideas that might be fun with that. The crossroads just outside of the right hive (with the hard to see number ONE next to it) is actually not totally a crossroads. The east west path goes OVER the north south path. You can jump from the top path to the bottom, but you can't get from bottom to top without wallwalk, blink, JP, etc. This keeps marines from insta-rushing that hive, as it's not a very long jaunt from MS.
The room at the bottom, with the TWO in it also needs a bit of explaining. It's a sort of a siege area for the lower hive, and a larger room. It's also a pretty strong choke point. What I see here is the middle area of the room being lower, while the paths on the side that lead into the hive are actually higher, and are also inaccessible from the floor. Either you'd have to go through the north path (which runs under this higher level {briefly, as level over level is bad}) and then loop back around to get to the upper area again, or we might consider having a broken part of the upper catwalk area fallen down and acting as a ramp. It would at least limit traffic to a certain area and make battles for this room more interesting. I see this as an area similar to cargo on tanith. Very hard to hold for either team, but also very strategically important.
I've sort of tried to indicate the higher and lower areas with the dotted line that goes meandering through the middle of the map, but I think it's only served to confuse things more. If it doesn't make much sense, just ignore it. The layout is the same, the elevation changes are just to make it more interesting and they can easily be changed later.
It's got ten nodes right now. I might like to reduce that to nine. If I did, I'd probably take the node out of the very middle, as it's pretty close to the lower choke point room and controlling both of those areas would indicate excellent map control, and may not need to be rewarded with another node.
At the moment this doesn't include ANY vent paths. I'd probably add in some to connect the hive areas together, and maybe one of those fun old-skool vents into marine start to annoy marines with. (But one that it's hard to spore or bile bomb from, that's just too stupid)
So. Comments on layout? I want to hear from EVERYONE here. You don't need mapping knowledge of any kind, just experience playing NS. Does this look balanced? Res too far? Any res look too easy to hold? Any hive look like it would be a death sentence to start in? Can you think of a strategy here that would be unbeatable? I've tried to make enough paths around that ninjas would always have some method to sneak a PG somewhere. WoL lovers, what would you lame up to control this map? Comms, where would you turret farm? HELP ME MAKE THIS PERFECT!!!
