DM-INF-DesertTactics2-dawn

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TITLE: DM-INF-DesertTactics2-dawn
AUTHOR: Zirb, zirb@hotmail.com, http://www.zirbaction.go.to
WHAT?: Team Deathmatch for Infiltration (2.86 and higher).
GAME: Infiltration (2.86 and higher). <http://www.planetunreal.com/infiltration>, a mod to Unreal Tournament. <http://www.unrealtournament.com>.
VERSION/STATE: Completed, release date 2002-06-09
NOTE: This quite dark dawn map have a bright daytime sister map called DM-INF-DesertTactics2-day. Don't miss it! If you have problems with dark screen gamma, as portable computers often have, the day version will make this map easier to play.
KNOWN BUGS: None, it's perfect! ;)
CONSTRUCTION: Editor used UnrealEd 2.0, TerraEdit, Photoshop, Virtual PC 3.0 on a PowerMac G4/450mhz .
PERFORMANCE: This map is quite heavy but should run ok on a mid-range-performance machine, at least if you turn down detail level to medium. (The map is developed and playable on a PowerMac G4/450mhz with quite crappy ATI 16mb graphics card = mid-performance at best.) Performance increasing tip: Turning of ”Decals” and ”Dynamic lighting” do A LOT to speed up fps even if it's a bit sad to not hear the footstep sounds in the sand!
INSTALLATION: Inside the folder ”MapFiles” you find all map related files:
- DM-INF-DesertTactics2-dawn goes to Unreal Tournament/Infiltration/Maps.
- DesertTacticsPak1.utx goes to Unreal Tournament/Infiltration/Textures.
- McGrasses.u and WSPlam_Pack1.u goes to Unreal Tournament/Infiltration/System.
- ZirbSound1.uax goes to Unreal Tournament/Infiltration/Sounds
RECOMMENDED MUTATORS: Pathetico's INFArena and Khutan's RandomTeamSpawn! You find them in ”Extras” together with more info. Also see my thougt about them in the gaming advice-file.
PLOT; MAP LOCATION/SITUATION: A war hit desert area somewhere. The team with the tanks have been in the area for a while, with the goal to stop an invading enemy the to pass through the area and the route that leads further to the north direction. They have put up a camo tent, digging some holes in the sand, and placed mines (a bit irrational since they are stressed!) all over the area. When reinforcement's in the shape of tanks arrived to the area it all started: Their activities was spotted by air forces from ”the other side” and they attacked immediately with air to ground missiles and bombs. The tanks was only quite lightly damaged, no real direct hits, but they where not possible to use anymore. The tanks was abandoned because of the great risk that they could be attacked again as sitting ducks. You will find craters in the map that was created during the air-raid, less than half an hour ago and you will also find ruins but they where in the environment before what's now happening (The ruins are probably quite old since it grows palm trees inside some of them.).
The air strike side thought thier air-raid cleared the area quite effective and thought it will be enough to send in a Hummer patrol that was nearby to finish it off. It could happen they will get harder resistance than they expected... They arrive to the area and soon the combat is raging!
HISTORY BEHIND THIS MAP: This map is development of my first map DM-INF-DesertTactics that I never really released but it sort of ”leaked” out a bit anyway. Never the less, the version for UnrealTournament, DM-DesertTactics was released and was since day one, one of the top-downloads on Fileplanet.com for UnrealTournament-related files and still are to this date. This is fun and perhaps says something about the fun value in basic structure of the map. Example on new stuff in this totally reworked map: mountains with sniper caves, lot's of mines, new more realistic craters you don't need to jump up from, all textures are new, ruins and walls are moved here and there, small trenches in some locations, vegetation and grass in some areas, tanks, sort of roads into the area from ”outside” the map, new botpahing that should make the bot work. Above that you got some great mutators, don't miss to test them!

BOT COMBAT FLOW RANDOMIZING: When constructing this map I first had problems with camping bots not moving at all. Then I found a way that transformed all bots to Quake style rushing idiots that created extremely fast but in my opinion quite uninteresting combat game flow. I wished to explore if it was possible to create more interesting gaming against bots. Now I think I have found a solution even if there still is some sort of compromising. Description: Both team have the player starts placed in special formations: One main group and one small group of two player starts clearly separated from the big main group. The main group has a pathing that create a quite slow movement against the action, while the group of two have a faster route and the make contact quite fast and then the chaos is on. Since there seem to be random factor where bots will spawn the small player start groups vary their number of bots between 0 to max to bots. This adds some random factor to the game flow. More factors that add randomness is that the big groups have pathings that let the vary the ways they will take and sometimes the big group and the small group see each other and then stick together. Even if this works quite well I strongly recommend you to test the mutator ”Random Team Spawn” (by Khutan) that bring new life to any map, each round become unique since you don't know where the enemy start.

CREDITS: Big credits to everybody in the Infiltration community who have helped me through the learning process when creating this map; Spooger, fist_mlrs, FiringAimlessly, Michael Giese, Will ”Islington” Sherriff, Xpect84Nova (beta tester), Matt Chan (beta tester), to mention a few (Dont get mad at me if i have missed YOU!) Credit to Chris Condon (Raekwon), author of DM-INF-Sicily since I borrowed a camoflage tent from that map. Credit to John ”McMuffin” Yerkes for him to allow me to borrow the gras from his map ”DM-INF-MiddleOfNowhere”. Credit to Islington for the palm trees. Credit to Pathetico for him letting me distribute his weapon mutator ”INFArena” and to Khutan for him letting me distribute his mutator ”RandomTeamSpawn”. Also credit to my girlfriend who put up with the sight of my back for quite many hours!

/ Zirb

http://www.zirbaction.go.to

zirb@hotmail.com

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