Blast Pit

scottris · Post by **scottris** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:39 am

A small CTF level with a simple layout and good assortment of powerful weapons. I'm thinking 4 to 6 players idealy. Might even be fun with only 2.

The flag rooms should be pretty easy to defend. There's only one way in and it's a long narrow tunnel. Not barely-wider-than-a-homing-missile narrow, but narrow enough that getting past a well armed defence should be a challenge. There are however, no spawn points inside the flag rooms so once you eliminate the guards you'll have a clear path to the flag.

Ship selection is limited to the Magnum, and there is no AB Cooler. Now, before you all start pointing Mass Drivers at my head hear me out. This is a small level. Small. Tiny, even. I timed a flag run and even in an uncooled Mag I made it from one flag to the other in just under 11 seconds. Contrast that with Halcyon where the best I was able to do was approximately 20 seconds. You don't need a Phoenix to get around this level.

Beta release very soon...

Jon the Great · Post by **Jon the Great** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 1:38 am

Looks cool. Count me in for the Beta Test.

Diti · Post by **Diti** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 3:28 am

Jon the Great wrote:Looks cool. Count me in for the Beta Test.

me, too

Just leave me a message.

greetz, Diti

Testiculese · Post by **Testiculese** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 7:38 am

If you're going to restrict ships, how about just no feeni?

scottris · Post by **scottris** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 9:39 am

Because I'm using a SHIP line in the MSN file. AFAIK the MSN file doesn't have a way to disallow ships, only to say "use this ship".

However.. I suppose I could use a GAM file to replace the Phoenix with, say, the GL. The game would still think you're flying a ship called the Phoenix, but that shouldn't matter since ship names are never used in game. That could work.

I still like the idea of an all Magnum game. But I'll keep that in mind as an option.

scottris · Post by **scottris** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:11 pm

Continuing that thought...

I just took another test flight through the level and it is ideally sized for the Mag. In a GL it feels a bit cramped for my taste, but in the Magnum it's very comfortable. Not too cramped, yet small enough that the Magnum doesn't feel slow at all.

Sure, I could scale up the level, but that would just reduce the relative size of the ships, the weapons, and their effective hit/blast radiuses (radii?). And I really don't want that.

Keep in mind that speed is relative. The Magnum isn't "the slow ship" if everybody's flying it.

Furthermore, the Magnum has a thicker skin. This allows me to place more weapons in the level, without having to worry so much about players getting destroyed as soon as they spawn. My hope is that this balance, more weapons paired with stronger ships, will help to alleviate the problem where the less-skilled pilot is wasted by the "elite" before he can even get a shot off. Descent does have a very large skill range, and as such a great difference exists between the novice and experience pilot. While I've always liked this about the game, I recognize that getting killed over and over with no real hope of evening the score can be rather disheartening. Some players deal with this by avoiding confrontation, limiting their game to hit-and-run attacks. But I'd rather see a situation where a novice player can spawn, grab a few weapons, and do a bit of damage to his attacker before getting killed. I think even if you loose a fight, knowing you did *some* damage to your opponent, however minimal, is encouraging. Knowing that they can be hit, and maybe, eventually, you'll do enough damage to take them down.

That is what I'm hoping to see in this level. And I think the Magnum contributes to that objective. Although only time and play testing will tell for certain.

VonVulcan · Post by **VonVulcan** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 8:40 pm

Can I help?

scottris · Post by **scottris** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 5:37 pm

Blast Pit Released

First of all, I want to say Thank You to everybody who helped test this level. I appreciate the help and feedback I've received.

Now, the level is finished and ready to go! Get it here: http://scottris.net/d3/levels/blastpit.zip

Yes, I know there's no load screen. To those that care: I apologize. The thing is, on my computer I only see the load screens for 1, maybe 2 seconds at most. And they increase the file size up to 10x! Truth is, I'd rather keep the file size small than bloat it with a pic I barely get to see.

Edit: BTW, recommended player count is now 2 to 4. It was pretty much universally agreed that 6 was pushing it.

Edit2: Also, it now supports Team Hoard! (And Regular Hoard too.)

pipsqueak10 · Post by **pipsqueak10** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 7:38 pm

So who's hosting this baby?

Do_Checkor · Post by **Do_Checkor** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 4:57 am

I added the missing download-urls and repaired that onw that was in... posted on PD already and now running on Descentforum.NET 1

DigiJo · Post by **DigiJo** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 5:34 am

looks excellent and it is very well made, but in my opinion to small for a ctf. and there is only 1 (short) way base to base, makes gameplay a lil bit boring after a while. add a second tunnel to the base from the ceiling and it would rock.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 2:17 pm

I agree, it's a bit small.

BUT there is some awesome potential. With 8 people it gets really crazy, but a lot of fun!

the architecture reminds me of "Steel Vapor". Very very nice.

I know this was designed with a small group in mind. And it does work well for 2 person CTF.

Nice scott!

scottris · Post by **scottris** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 3:33 pm

Do_Checkor wrote:I added the missing download-urls and repaired that onw that was in... posted on PD already and now running on Descentforum.NET 1

Thank you! But um, what was wrong with the url that was in there? http://scottris.net/d3/levels/blastpit.zip works for me.

--

Yes, it was deliberately designed small. I am happy with the size. Although I do have some plans for an extended version designed to accomidate a larger group of players.

Do_Checkor · Post by **Do_Checkor** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 7:58 pm

when i checked, if there are the well known URLs inside, i found only one in there with a charactor in front of it. Maybe you can see it in your own version. I didn't check, if that URL would work for the autodownload system or not but I thought & think that it were entered accidentally.

However: Please check the topic about Download-URLs in this board, in the future please.

Regarding your level: Nice work man!