I was wondering how big is to big for a beach map.
Currently I'm working on a beach map for dod source once its released.
Now at the moment the dimensions of what I've done are 13312.00 long by 10240.00 wide (all in hammer units). Now this is a pretty big beach area. The water only covers 3112.00 units of the entire beach, though I'm going to add little 'corridors' for landing craft to come into the beach carrying players upon the start of the round so the water will be alot longer in the end.

Now is the beach to big? I'm going to have advancing spawns seeing its this large will this help? and I've also got fog enabled to 4000 units to cut down on vis issues.

Anyway ideas would help me lots :)

it depends how much obstacles and such take up room. um. but really, the best way to find out is to playtest with the amount of people you plan on making it for. Charlie is good from 5vs5 and 16vs16. What are you aiming for? 10vs10 to 32vs32?

Yer aiming for at least a min of 10v10 on the map. The beach will have a resonable amount of obsticals but not an excessive amount.

well, before you release it, just make sure to do playtesting. unless u just wanna release a beta and make changes after that. no stopping you from updating the sucker afterwards. for now, just use your best judgement. compare it to other beach maps from other games as well. maybe that will help.

Originally posted by Neutrino
well, before you release it, just make sure to do playtesting. unless u just wanna release a beta and make changes after that. no stopping you from updating the sucker afterwards. for now, just use your best judgement. compare it to other beach maps from other games as well. maybe that will help.

Might do a playtest, but its hard organising one here in New Zealand. Though if I get one organised it will more likely be overseas whcih means my ping will be 200-400 :(

Originally posted by Sly Assassin
Might do a playtest, but its hard organising one here in New Zealand. Though if I get one organised it will more likely be overseas whcih means my ping will be 200-400 :(

You don't need to be involved in the playtest itself...just gather comments afterwards. It's not the optimum solution but given your distance from the US and Western Europe it might be the only way.

Originally posted by FuzzDad
You don't need to be involved in the playtest itself...just gather comments afterwards. It's not the optimum solution but given your distance from the US and Western Europe it might be the only way.

true, I have in the past just given a few copys out to people to get ideas, find bugs, errors etc in my maps with out actually play testing the map.
I may look into just getting it playtest in the states or Europe with out me :)

With this much water involved, do yourself a favor and stick with cheap water. The darn thing is really expensive resource wise otherwise. As far as obstacles are concerned, I would play around with custom models and fade in fade out variables. The other thing I'd do would be use a good deal of displacement brushes, but careful as they do not block vis

Have you thought of having mutliple smaller beach heads that would join after a slope? If done right (with say a cliff in between the two) you could save resources for the player.

Originally posted by Furyo
With this much water involved, do yourself a favor and stick with cheap water. The darn thing is really expensive resource wise otherwise. As far as obstacles are concerned, I would play around with custom models and fade in fade out variables. The other thing I'd do would be use a good deal of displacement brushes, but careful as they do not block vis

Have you thought of having mutliple smaller beach heads that would join after a slope? If done right (with say a cliff in between the two) you could save resources for the player.

Already using cheap water. I've used displacements for the entire beach. And I'm watching the vis carefully. Plus I'm also using fog to help cut down the vis.

I'd prefer one beach head instead of many.

Thanks for the ideas anyway.

I think its also important to create a map that all weapons are in someway usefull. Charlie uses tight tunnel sections and trenches for automatic weapons to be usefull in, and i guess thats key. A huge wide open map where you can only snipe is just not going to be fun for everybody. So look to encompass sub sections in the map that range in size and openess. It's difficult on a beach map, i know.

Originally posted by Darkwing
I think its also important to create a map that all weapons are in someway usefull. Charlie uses tight tunnel sections and trenches for automatic weapons to be usefull in, and i guess thats key. A huge wide open map where you can only snipe is just not going to be fun for everybody. So look to encompass sub sections in the map that range in size and openess. It's difficult on a beach map, i know.

I'm going to incorporate a trench system behind the bunkers along with narrow tunnels under ground and so forth to bring the SMG's fully into the map.
MG's, rifles and 1 sniper rifle per side will fill out the open area side of things.

I'm sure I can incompass all the weapons into the map with the right planning and layout. :)

also on the playtest topic, you dont need to play it. any map test ive had overseason ive just spectated and gathered information that way aswell as feedback from people playtesting.

for example, dod_cal_sherman2 playtest i believe elephant played check6 or something like that - in a clan match that is so speccing was my only real option. worked well.

Originally posted by Sly Assassin
I'm going to incorporate a trench system behind the bunkers along with narrow tunnels under ground and so forth to bring the SMG's fully into the map.
MG's, rifles and 1 sniper rifle per side will fill out the open area side of things.

I'm sure I can incompass all the weapons into the map with the right planning and layout. :)

Sounds like its going to work, know what to fix before it has to be fixed is the key :D 1 sniper rifle is quite little but I guess beach maps don't have to be a flat plane, But some people might be fooled by the beachmap name and think of sniper-rape.
On another note, I've always belived strongly in MG raping,its fun, looks good, and will sound like the heavens opened up and zaped the enemy. One sniper though will make eccessive mging easy on open areas.

:hamster:

Originally posted by Ca-Chicken-Soup
Sounds like its going to work, know what to fix before it has to be fixed is the key :D 1 sniper rifle is quite little but I guess beach maps don't have to be a flat plane, But some people might be fooled by the beachmap name and think of sniper-rape.
On another note, I've always belived strongly in MG raping,its fun, looks good, and will sound like the heavens opened up and zaped the enemy. One sniper though will make eccessive mging easy on open areas.

:hamster:

I'm after the MG raping for the open areas. In RL and on d-day MGs where one of the main weapons used in defending the beachhead. Sniper rifles may of been used I'm unsure on that but they weren't as effective as a good old mg42 :)

Plus with having the fog limited to 4000 units and the beach being big it will make people use mgs to spam into the fog and try to get some more kills. I want to run along the beach and have tracer fire whizzing past me from places I can't see at all :)

Originally posted by Sly Assassin
I want to run along the beach and have tracer fire whizzing past me from places I can't see at all :)

Oh yeah soooooo keen. I have a feeling you are going to recive a lot of support for this one.

Originally posted by Ca-Chicken-Soup
Oh yeah soooooo keen. I have a feeling you are going to recive a lot of support for this one.

Heh just need to find myself a modeler :) and hope like hell the guy who does textures for me comes back soon, I miss him in a non ghey way :(

Originally posted by Sly Assassin
Heh just need to find myself a modeler :) and hope like hell the guy who does textures for me comes back soon, I miss him in a non ghey way :(


........creepy :p

Originally posted by Watchtower
........creepy :p

YOU'RE BACK!!!!! /me sends love :p

How'd the shift go mate?