Your Opinion on Big Red

[Feweh]

We're approaching the ending of Big Red testing, it's pretty stable but there are some obvious issues.
I've noticed a lot of people, especially in the last couple of tests opt out to even play and be very vocal about it in deadchat.

In your opinion, with a -brief explanation- what needs changing, fixing or adding to Big Red?

[Artouris]

The lag honestly.

My opinion on how to fix it is to just do unsimulared turfs. Make a modifier for the turf that says it has toxic air. And that during the brearing cycle/tick it checks if your on this tile if game mode big red is on and if you have a gas mask. If not take auffication damage.

Now simply state that the colony buildings themselves are overpressurized or the outside pressure is just a bit lower than human 101 kpa pressure. That way you don't have to wear the mask inside but you do outside.

I'll add on to this a bit later when I get out of class.

[TopHatPenguin]

Lz two is a death trap for marines and might need to be moved to another location.

Also the lag as well, and I doubt it's due to the players as we've had seriously high amounts of players on LV and it's never been as bad as Big red.(At least it feels that way.)

[Casany]

BTW, the lag isn't caused by what you think. It's mainly caused by the sheer amount of players, at times reaching 170. We could slightly reduce it but we can't do anything about the players

[TopHatPenguin]

BTW, the lag isn't caused by what you think. It's mainly caused by the sheer amount of players, at times reaching 170. We could slightly reduce it but we can't do anything about the players

If that's the case which I'm sceptical about we're going to need a player lock or just something, because the lag is really becoming a problem on that map.

[Egorkor]

WO and ice colony had 170 players too, and I haven't seen people bitching that much about the lag. I havne't played big red that much too and in the one round I have played it I haven't lagged at all. It was 60 player-pop or something, go figure.
Otherwise the map is too big, the outside parts of it and the caves too, which can lead to painfully long drawn out rounds should the aliens go full turtling mode / last alien meme mode unless admins intervene, which rarely happens.

[Feweh]

We've realized that the lag is actually related to the Atmos, since there is a active atmos on Big Red and not on Lazarus.

[Sailor Dave]

Yeah, the lag is the biggest issue for me. That, and the map is pretty confusing to navigate for xenos and possibly also marines. That isn't really helped by the changes to the map every test, but that's to be expected. I also think that the outside area is too big. I don't think anyone is taking advantage of the big space in the way it was probably intended. It could probably be cut down by 25% or maybe even 40-50%.

[Renomaki]

I think the lag is also in part due to the atmos calculations that are constantly taking place on Big Red, since it has so many tiles to deal with and constant change. It puts a lot of pressure on the server I think.

Only downside is we risk removing the gimmick that makes Big Red an interesting map, so we can't just remove it entirely. Maybe there is another way to make it work without causing issues?

[Artouris]

I think the lag is also in part due to the atmos calculations that are constantly taking place on Big Red, since it has so many tiles to deal with and constant change. It puts a lot of pressure on the server I think.

Only downside is we risk removing the gimmick that makes Big Red an interesting map, so we can't just remove it entirely. Maybe there is another way to make it work without causing issues?

My opinion on how to fix it is to just do unsimulated turfs. Make a modifier for the turf that says it has toxic air. And that during the beathing cycle/tick it checks if your on this tile if game mode big red is on and if you have a gas mask. If not take suffication damage.

Now simply state that the colony buildings themselves are overpressurized or the outside pressure is just a bit lower than human 101 kpa pressure. That way you don't have to wear the mask inside but you do outside.

Seriously, the above explanation also works because its also done in real life. Virus/biological research places have underpressurized rooms, and i know certain tanks that have NBC protection actually overpressurize the inside of the tank. Among others.

Also the map in my opinion is better than LV-624, but could be cut down in size a bit mainly because there's no landmarks out in the flat desert tiles of where the fuck you are. LZ2 is like almost in the middle of god knows where. I would say bringing them closer to each other or something would be a better idea. Most of the time you don't go outside as a marine. If anything some of the lay out doesn't make sense but that can be fixed by moving some of the modules around. It honestly depends on what you guys consider Big Red to be LOCATED. Because location matters on planets and bases are tailored to the planet they are set in. If they're not tailor made, then you're never going to see windows on those buildings or those really long cramp hallways. Its almost as if the people who designed the base hate comfort (which is a MAJOR concern in space/space exploration because cabin fever and the like are REALLY BAD).

Honestly, the major point is fix lag. Then perhaps we can look at the map and see whats wrong with it because nothing is enjoyable with lag and when your getting bent out of shape because of lag nothing else will look good ever.

EDIT: Fixed some of my words in the quote because holy shit phone is shit at spelling.

EDIT2: Also to give you a simple comparison of the lag comparison difference. We'd be reduced to the almost no lag LV-624 with at most (with my suggestion up there) having 1 to 2 motion sensors from pre-alpha terms of lag. Since even at most you'd be checking ~100 tiles every 5 ticks (breathing cycle) if you're going to suffocate or not from breathing. That's literally the same as the motion sensor from pre-alpha which scanned 10x10 tiles but had more conditions to check for.

[Scrat505]

Big Red has many two-square, restrictive hallways that are a nightmare to navigate a squad through, god help you if there's more than that. On both Ice Colony and LV, the hallways are much bigger and thusly you hardly hear complaints of it being cramped.

Besides that, Red is already a huge map, yet outside is mostly just darkness and dirt with nothing out there. For the lag this huge map generates, a surprisingly large amount of it has nothing in it.

[Simo94]

the map doesnt have a purpose, if its about fighting in an open area then no that doesnt work, marines cant operate outside, and if its about indoor fighting then its way to small at times and why does an indoor fighting map need to be so big?
imo make Big Red about fighting inside and cut most of the unused map outside and also make some of the 2tile wide tunnel 3 or 4tiles wide with obstacles maybe

[Aeleto]

This map is too much in xeno favour, I'd rather have prison map back or something else over it.

[LarryOrtega]

Big red it´s a very funny to play as xeno, i play it the first time and was very funny to scout the caverns for find a way out, but the bugs f*cked the game at the hangar killing all the marines, the second time i played it, i played it as a doctor and i go Field surgery, and guess what, no anesthesic tanks, so i operate the marines with full consciousness and was very bloody and painfull. The map it´s great, yes a little big, yes very laggy, but the bugs really f*ck everything.

[Neray]

Still plenty of mapping issues and those 2 new buildings looked like they were added 10 minutes before test. Otherwise, map itself is lovely.

Personally I would like to see southern biodome empty when marines first arrive. It's a very atmospheric place and seeing it melted to bare walls and filled with weeds makes me cry. And perhaps make corners of main hangar a bit stronger, in 4 places it's just 1 wall that holds aliens away.

[Bigchilly]

"The Whole planet becomes a fireball when a engineer fucks up a fuel tank."

-God

[Gentlefood]

I am not a huge fan of the 1-tile wide tunnels underground. I feel like a minimum of two tiles would be best.

[Surrealistik]

Get rid of the atmos gimmicks; more trouble than they're worth in terms of lag.

Expand tunnels to 3 wides.

[BobaFett07]

I'm of likings it


I really think it is cool, but there is one problem in my opinion, the sulaco is still the same that makes it feel like a second mission not a gamemode or something new, if it is a second mission, make us know about xenos not like be pros and start welding vents, but being like if we had a first encounter

[Eenkogneeto]

My biggest issue with Big red beside the atmos-lag is the overabundance of difficult to smash windows, If it becomes a regular map it will need to be changed lest the marines build FOBs entirely out of glass.
I also strongly dislike how much corner shooting is embraced in its design but It's whatever.
Besides that, A tad too big all around, Its very difficult to FIND things.
Also melting or exploding random surface pipes fucks atmos super hard

[LordLoko]

My problem with Big red is the outside area. It's too big, more focus should go in shortening the areas between the indoor areas and make the indoors BIGGER.

LZ2 should have direct access to the biodome or it's just a deathtrap.

[Youbar]

The Aliens franchise has always focused on long, cramped hallways, and small rooms, which give a sense of isolation and claustrophobia. Just take Alien: Isolation map design as an example.

Big Red, just like the Ice Colony, just like Lazarus Landing, does not obey these principles. Instead, it does the opposite, and greatly expands the amount of open space and area to cover, and then inserts an atmospherics gimmick in to further punish marines for going outside the main complax. This results in long, laggy, drawn-out rounds, where neither side can break the stalemate, a problem that is made worse with the increased population as a result of hosting the map.