CTF-Sinkhole [Beta, Download, Pics]

[Wail of Suicide]

So a couple of things: I tried loading your map in UED and it just crashes it... any idea why? The reason I was trying to load it is b/c the map is good, but its not at all built for competitive pubs/pugs/match play. I understand you may have no inclination to do this (hence why I was going to edit it), but here, from a more competitive view is what is wrong with your map.

No idea why it'd be crashing, honestly.

And, yeah, I'll be happy to consider changes to the map.

1. Weapon lockers... argh. Especially since they're just 1 weapon lockers? Very difficult to visually tell which locker is what, hence why normal weapon pickups are used. I can see a flak cannon across a room, the locker... I know its a locker, no idea what weapon it has. There's no real good gameplay reason to do this that I can see.
2. Invis? Ugh Make that an amp.
3. Two shieldbelts? Ugh. Close off those rooms altogether. Two shieldbelts is really unbalanced, and those rooms just encourage hiding.
4. Remove shieldbelts as mentioned, but provide 2 50 armors for each side.
5. Make most ledges reachable by boot jump, many of them can't be jumped too.
6. Raise "invisible" ceilings so that you can jump from one ledge to another without hitting the blocking volume.

1. Lockers are used in lieu of weapon factories to allow people to "reload" their weapons at the weapon pickup. This is done because Epic decided to disallow weapon throwing with weaponstay on. Since weapon throwing was a crucial mechanic in past UT games, particularly for defense in CTF, I use custom lockers instead of weapon pickups. These custom lockers allow me to emulate the effect of weapon throw in that a defender can "reload" his weapon to the standard ammunition by picking up a fresh weapon at the locker.
2. Definitely possible. I mainly added the invisibility because it's underused.
3. You really think two shield belts is too much? I felt like this was a defense-heavy map, so providing shield belts would help offense.
5. I just checked this out in game, and all of the ledges are accessible by boot jump. For the high ledges in the central area you will either need to jump or trans on top of the curved walls that surround the water first. For flag runners that means taking the high route back into your base takes two boot jumps, but it's still possible.
6. I didn't notice any invisible ceilings myself. There are some stalagtites that hang down from the ceiling that you are probably bumping your head on. I'm somewhat open to removing them, but I haven't had a huge problem with them myself.
I am not sure what ledges you want to jump between either. The only jump that strikes me as feasible is from the high ledges in the central area to the curved walls around the water, and that jump is already possible. The only other possible one would be between the two same-side high ledges, and that's such a long distance it would only be doable with the trans anyway.

[danimal]

So a couple of things: I tried loading your map in UED and it just crashes it... any idea why? The reason I was trying to load it is b/c the map is good, but its not at all built for competitive pubs/pugs/match play. I understand you may have no inclination to do this (hence why I was going to edit it), but here, from a more competitive view is what is wrong with your map.

1. Weapon lockers... argh. Especially since they're just 1 weapon lockers? Very difficult to visually tell which locker is what, hence why normal weapon pickups are used. I can see a flak cannon across a room, the locker... I know its a locker, no idea what weapon it has. There's no real good gameplay reason to do this that I can see.
2. Invis? Ugh Make that an amp.
3. Two shieldbelts? Ugh. Close off those rooms altogether. Two shieldbelts is really unbalanced, and those rooms just encourage hiding.
4. Remove shieldbelts as mentioned, but provide 2 50 armors for each side.
5. Make most ledges reachable by boot jump, many of them can't be jumped too.
6. Raise "invisible" ceilings so that you can jump from one ledge to another without hitting the blocking volume.

Overall though, I think the adaptation of Sinkhole to CTF is a really good idea, it overall plays very well. It just needs some tweaks like that. Again, this is from a competitive play standpoint, I do realize that some like crazy reedeemer, invisible powerup, random stuff

Any idea why it crashes ued?

Danimal

[Larry L]

I likey. It reminds me of Utapau. (star wars planet)

[rozy]

This is a great idea, as I think sinkhole would play better as a CTF map... but personal I'd prefer it if you left the turrets and mantas, and made it VCTF instead. Or just made both versions available =)

Great map. Nice to see people coming with a nice outdoor theme.
I sent you a PM about this map for Instagib CTF.
Cheers.

[Harmatia]

This is a great idea, as I think sinkhole would play better as a CTF map... but personal I'd prefer it if you left the turrets and mantas, and made it VCTF instead. Or just made both versions available =)

[Wail of Suicide]

This is a conversion of WAR-Sinkhole into a CTF map. The purpose of this release is to work out any issues that might arise with the custom script I am using, and to get some feedback on the map's overall potential as a CTF map. Hopefully I will be able to get some playtesting done after Epic fixes redirects, and then move to a final version.

-Power cores have been replaced with flags.
-Power node in the center replaced with an invisibility powerup
-Turrets & Manta factories have been removed.
-This map uses my Configurable Weapon Lockers as weapon pickup bases.
-Damage Amplifier and Berserk pickups removed. Shield Belts moved to their locations.
-Added: Thigh Pads, Jump Boots. Separate weapon pick ups for each weapon.
-Additional Player Starts added in several locations.

DL: http://files.filefront.com/CTF+Sinkh.../fileinfo.html