LV-624 Map redo (crappy WIP)

[KingKire]

Just farting around in MS paint thinking of a reimangined LV-624. Ill mess around with it over the week, and hopefully have a nice full sprited preview by the end of the week. Im posting it here in case anyone wants to leave some feedback or maybe get inspired to do their own.

Essentially, same concept as our current map, but i made the river into a more "downward" flow instead of horizontal and divided the map on a 45* angle instead of a 90*

We have 4 nice subgroups of buildings for the marines to explore

LV-624 WIPer.png

SW:
We have the LZ 1 on the bottom end, which will be the main "spawn" point for the marine side. We have a storage dome, small bridge, and the Medical offices outside the LZ area. The storage area holds supplies on arrival via the main LZ, and the medical Hub allows for colonists to have medical care before being evac'd ( i moved it close to the LZ so it can recieve some interesting use, but im thinking of moving it a little farther out, possibly switched with the CL's North nexus office.

Next up, across the foot bridge we have the nexus entrance, a nice area and a good receiving point for main colonists. Connected to the nexus is the fitness center to the west and the CL's office to the north. The fitness center allows for an easy area for xeno to push the west area, while the CL's office can make for intersting "last stands" and survivor hold out points. Popping open the shutters also gives a nice view of the north jungle, although its quite heavily forested (havent colored in)

To the east of the nexus, we have the small cluster of Hydroponics farms (which take water off the river), the Secure storage vault, and the Science Lab, which were both recently added.

To the east of the LZ 1 area, we have the LZ 2 landing area.
In it, we have engineering, t-comms (which needs to be added near engineering somewhere), another storage area (holds mining equipment and such), Hydroelectric's, and the mining area. The mining area has some outside storage container areas, and several mine shafts dug westerly ( used to mine valuables)

All the way to the north of the map, we have two predator ruins, one in the middle of the jungle, and another hooked into the western mountains.

Finally, we have a nice small "research camp" at the north east end of the river head. Researchers hiked up the river and set up camp, sadly, its not the best area to make camp when xenos have several entrances that pour out through the area.

[TheMaskedMan2]

Looks neat, though I hear mapping is hard and time consuming but it's nice to think about.

This is the kind of makeover I think LV needs.

[Karmac]

In my personal opinion the only thing missing from LV is something for the marines to do while they wait for the 45 minute mark. That's literally the only issue I can think of with it.

[KingKire]

Okay round two

paints WIPER 1 png.png

So, ive decided to have a two step flow to this map symbolized by the two arrow icons:
-White arrows are the first flow, where the marines first arrive and theres no power. The main force arrives at lz1 near the mines, and the pod is set to the left of the map. Essentially, i want the marines to find that alot of the areas are locked down or blocked off, forcing them to move clockwise to find an entrance to the nexus.
-The cave mines are locked up. A large steel door and a few containers block off the mine entrance and without power or a decent amount of explosives, those doors arnt going to be opening up.

-around the LZ theres flat dirt and gravel ground where the miners laid out a small prep camp for work inside. To the north of the LZ is thick jungle, to the west theres a large river with a crossing to the engineering section of the colony. To the east of the LZ there is a storage depot for the ores gathered, and an entrance to the mines. The mines are locked tight, with large steel doors closed and a few containers blocking the way. The only way through is going to be with alot of c4 or with some power to get the doors opened.

-Crossing the stream, the marines are presented with the engineering and mining section of the colony. Theres a hydropumping station to get water into and out of the mines, as well as for the colony. Next to the hydropump station is the powerplant, butted up against a small river and dense jungle. Looking south, theres the machinists dome, where mining repairs its equipment, and the storage dome, for more heavy and long term equipment are stored up at.

-Going farther west, were given the main entrance to the south nexus, but its locked tight. only good explosives are gonna break through it.
-Continuing west, you begin to walk into the civilain domes of the nexus. Here you see LZ 2, a storage dome for holding general supplies for the nexus, The fitness and hydroponics domes, and medical. Theres a river and dense jungle that blocks farther north travel, but theres a way into the west nexus via broken doors.

-Going into the nexus, you see its very dark, and quite bad. To the south, you see a decent amount of carnage, against the south wall, alot of blood stains, some shotgun casings, and flipped baricades. The colonists seemed to try to flee through the southern nexus entrance, but the doors were left locked. Definitly a massacre and a last stand took place, but the bodys are all gone.

-To the north nexus you come into the recently added W-Y compond section, which holds the science dome, the internal affairs office, and the Secure storage area.

So once the marines do a trip around the colony and put in some power, theyre given two options. to continue north and go to the research camp in the river valley, or to go to the mines and see whats inside them that caused it to be locked up tight.

Some problems i've been having:
-I want the IA's office to be connected to the nexus somehow. I want it to be so the IA had locked down the nexus doors out of either W-Y loyalty or fear, and despite the colonists pleading/threating him to open the doors back up, the Corprate stooge kept it locked, which caused everyone to be massacred when the aliens finally broke through.
The problem is, im having trouble finding a place where the office is one of the last areas the marines visit, a "hole" for where the aliens broke into the nexus via the northern caves, and a place where the marines can walk inside into the nexus without blowing open doors or such.

Theres also not that much going on to the south west corner of the nexus, which means theres not much reason to walk through it, and the W-Y section of the nexus seems very sparse and boring, with only three buildings in it.

[KingKire]

Part 3

rescale you idiot 1.png

the cave system is looking okay, although i am worried it might be too tiny, or that it might be too favorable to marines. Im tempted to add an "elevator" shaft and make it a two layer map, but that would add complications and i want this map to be simple.

The east caves seem to look really nice, but the north caves look pretty ugly. I wanted to have some sort of large cavernous space, maybe with a small water pool and stalagmites/tites. I definitly like the look of the river going though the caves, causing marines to march in and out of these shallow rivers as they go deeper into the cave system, and i might work on making it a more dominant feature.

The mines look pretty good, im hoping that by putting the entrance in front of the rasputins guns, it can at least keep the aliens from running right through the mines and ambushing the marines, at least not without some dedicated effort.

Im still thinking on the nexus placement and the fact that the south west side of the map doesnt have much draw. Im hoping it acts as one of two "last stand" areas in the map. Definitly needs some work. Ill probably move the nexus farther south and see if it fixes anything.

*scaled up drawing, its ant sized for too long*

[Imperator_Titan]

This actually looks pretty decent although like TheMaskedMan2 said, it might be a little hard to map. Other than that, I personally love it.

[TheMaskedMan2]

I mean it's a lot of neat work but making some fancy mspaint stuff doesn't make maps, perhaps you should try figuring out how to map in byond? or apply for staff or something, I'm sure the devs have enough on their plate currently then to focus on your dream map.

I do REALLY like it though to be honest.

[Halinder]

Where would monkeys/farwa/stoks be spawned?

I can see the diagonal nature of the river (north side) being a problem for both marine defenses and hive walls. Defenses depend a lot on direction, and the hive walls would have to arc constantly, limiting the space and size for rooms.

Really like the idea of the river running into the edges of the caves, but not through the middle (because it would be a fucking slaughterhouse and also if the marines attack through the three-pronged river into NE caves, the tiny ayys could consistently flank them). Possibly style those caves leading into the NE caves to have floodgates, flavoring it as in the caves were flooded so the colonists had to artificially control water flow in order to go digging there? Another incentive to get power up.

Roads leading to the pods north and west of the nexus would be nice.

The cave design reminds me of the Halloween map. Take that as you will.

[KingKire]

I mean it's a lot of neat work but making some fancy mspaint stuff doesn't make maps, perhaps you should try figuring out how to map in byond? or apply for staff or something, I'm sure the devs have enough on their plate currently then to focus on your dream map.

I do REALLY like it though to be honest.

Actually the fun part about this map is that its on a 176x176 pixel base. I do the map in Paint.net first just to make sure the basic's all fit together (The big points of interests, the movement of players, big scenery stuff) before i move in and start laying the detailed sprites. Its real nice to work with several layers that i can just draw over and over on without disturbing the other layers. This isnt really a callout to have the developers come and make this a map, more a test of my skills to see if i can make somethin' cool. If it looks good enough at the end, ill submit it and see where it goes.


I havent put too much thought on the native animal spawns, i definitly wanted the northwest corner of the map to be dense jungle filled with pred ruins, so thats a good hotspot. Ill spread it out as time goes on.

I wanted to divide the caves into two parts so the marines could have a focus point if they decide and are able to clear out the caves. I think theres too many entrances and exits for marines to focus down on, and by putting alot of the entrances in one main focal point (the northeast riverhead) It would make the marines focus attention in one place. Essentially, 2 squads would go to the river head, and the other two squads would be flankers. I want enough routes where xenos can flank and really put the hurt on the isolated squads but also forces them to slowly give up hiding spaces. There will also be plenty of nice tunnel routes leading to each cave system, so smaller aliens will always have a chance to move about, while larger ones need to focus on keeping at least one exit route open.

I had thought about flood gates alot in this map, with a couple versions having the main rivers be fast flowing until power is restored to floodgates in the rivertop, which would close the gates and allow marines to cross a peaceful river.

Its also a big point that mines do have very poor water control which is why alot of mines need constant pumping to maintain a dry environment. Its one of the reasons i gave to having such a large pumping plant on the colony. (Another idea for it was to allow aliens to use the mine pump pipes to crawl into the colony grounds/sneak around the caves)

I dont want to lay roads down yet till i figure out where the domes are gonna finally rest, scince roads usually follow the building layouts.(vice versa as well, but ehh^^)

[TheMaskedMan2]

I do love the ideas, though I feel LV is such a staple at this point it will always be around, I can imagine this as like a "Big LV". Anyways I hope the devs actually consider this or at least look at it, curious what they think...

[LordLoko]

Well we can call it a different name.

LV-[INSERT NUMBER HERE]

[danmax67]

Im tempted to add an "elevator" shaft and make it a two layer map, but that would add complications and i want this map to be simple.

I think you should add the elevator shaft, that way we can re-enact that scene from Ayyliens where the muhreens get ambushed.

[Recounted]

The river should get a little bit thinner like it's almost a stream

[Varnasis]

I would love for this to be done, the current one gives me cancer and I think the diagram you have drawn makes it a lot more intricate.

+1

But as many said above mapping is hard so someone would need to spend a good minute doing this and making the map a lot more playable and fun.