Several years ago, during an encounter with the swarm, the Omega-12 supply station has taken critical damage. The crew has been able to repair most of the damage, but the communication and navigation systems were lost. Since then the station has been floating around in space without orientation.
Map Info: Servers: EU, US Playable Size: 142x120 Bases: 10 Xel'naga Towers: 2 Titleset: Braxis Alpha/Titanis on highround Ulaan/Ulnar on lowground Lighting: New Folsom
Changelog:
Update (december, 29th): - Changed/moved Xel'Naga Towers and LoS blockers a little. This was mostly because alot of people seemed to be confusing the doodad above the tower with the actual tower. That doodad was removed. - Slightly enlarged Main size. - Moved the natural a bit closer to the ramp. - Moved the third base closer to the Natural and made it little easier to defend. - Reshaped and moved the 4th and 5th base accordingly to space out bases evenly. - Replaced the gold base with a regular blue mineral base. Also changed the choke in front of it a bit for aesthetic reasons. Update (july 3rd): + Show Spoiler +
Wow the terrain looks amazing just with the straight edge platforms! Looks great, don't know about the balance but I can't really see any big exploits :D
Nice map, the layout is simple, and the aesthetics are great! The straight edged platforms really make this map shine, and the tower placement is superb as well.
As far as balance goes, Zerg might be slightly underpowered because of how easy it is for the other races to fast expand and because the third seems rather difficult to expand to and defend, because of all of the routes into that area and the fact that it would be easier for your opponent to attack into it than the natural because it is closer.
@Antares I don't see it that way at all, the 3rd only has one entrance besides the path from the natural which will have a creep connection. All the bases going clockwise are about the same distance from the enemy natural, so zerg could easily get to 4 bases that are all a major commitment to attack if an opponent does an FE with a wall.
I also reiterate the straight edges love. Lefix you used corners so well to create so many subtle interesting places sprinkled throughout the main areas. I am seriously drooling over the proportions around this map.
The only thing I can find fault with is that the 5th is kind of boring, and doesn't fit the character of the last base available. I sort of want it to be gold to spice things up, or tucked into a pocket like the 12 and 6 bases on Matchpoint. This would make it appear "safer" but also a lot harder to get over there and defend if your opponents units got in there before you could cover it with your army from center.
Wow, that looks really nice! I love the way you used the straight lines. The decals on the ramps also make it look very man-made, which is good.
The open space vs. chokes is a really nice balance; there's enough room for surrounds in places, but there's also room for Protoss to exploit the force fields. I also like how there's so many options for unit pathing- this will greatly help map movement, including harass and run-bys.
The only real thing I'm concerned about is the expansion pattern. Right now, there is only one option for a 3rd - 4th- 5th base progression. One key to making a map have varied game play and cater to different styles depending on the Match Up is to allow different choices for expansions. It's nice for Zerg to be able to expand away from the opponent, but its also nice for Terran to expand aggressively.
To allow for more flexibility in the expo layout, a lot of maps add a mineral only or 1-gas expansion against the main. I think this would be a nice addition to this map, to allow Protoss and Terran to expand towards the opponent. Here's what I mean:
[edit] If you're going to do this, you should actually bring the main back a little bit, and extend it downwards. That would allow the 1-gas expo to have some more room, and make it less turtley.
i love this map! the straight lines look so cool against the rough organic rock. my one concern is it may be a little small, do you have any mapalyzer pics?
@prodiG: i feel honored to be the first person awarded with this
@monitor: i did just try your suggestion. i took out a chunk out of the main highground, and also moved the 2 ramps to the middle. but i wasn't able to create enough space there without it looking awkward/ruining the flow of the map. the only other option i can think of is further increasing the map size. but i might look into this option.
i also don't think a more straight forward expansion layout is neccessarilysuch a bad thing. some of the best maps out there are pretty straight forward in one way or another. it's nice to have a more dynamic map, and i usually try to do so, but i think it is not worth trying to force it if it seems to just not work with the maps concept. personally, i like the middle of the map as it is right now, and i'd hate to make any drastic changes to it also, test gamess have shown that quite a few players have been building hidden expos at the fifth base successfully
Two things from me: You can activate the XWT without going into the smoke. Not sure if you want that so either move the smoke out a square or two or move the XWT closer to the walls.
I also agree with Monitor, adding a base where he suggested could be a very good idea. I mean, come on, who doesn't like to have a choice where to expand to. :D Yes you could get a hidden expo someplace but if it gets scouted it'll be so far out of the way it'll be too tough to defend most likely.
All in all great map bud, you keep on making them better and better. :D
ps. your map description with the omega 12 & swarm stuff..........................i love you. Maybe I'm just a sucker for people that add a little story behind their map. Makes it feel more "real".
here is a rough new version with the requested changes. the ramp to ramp and nat2 nat distances are almost unchanged
the up and down ramps at the xel naga tower have moved towards the middle by 1 cliff square, which also chokes the middle of the map a little more
a alternate third base has been added towards the middle of the base, and closer to the new gold at the former 5th base
the cons: map size has increased to something like 144x120, which is pretty large for a 1v1 map. extending the main to the back has created more unused air space in the map corners. siege tanks can cover a huge area of the opponents base from the new third as well as hit the main mineral line from the natural. i might need to extend the map to the back even more which i would hate to do.
this my current favorite version, with a gold at the 5th base. this should encourage players to maybe skip an expansion or 2 and go straight for the gold.
the map just feels more solid and compact to me in this version, compared to the enlarged one. it doesn't cause as many problems either
this my current favorite version, with a gold at the 5th base. this should encourage players to maybe skip an expansion or 2 and go straight for the gold.
the map just feels more solid and compact to me in this version, compared to the enlarged one. it doesn't cause as many problems either
I agree, that expansion in your other version really doesn't fit. It messes up the flow of the map.
I think you should still try adding an expo in the way I had drawn it, because I believe it would help the map. Almost all of the maps I can think of have options for expanding- XelNaga Caverns has the gold or low ground third. Shakuras Plateau has a high ground 3rd or the low ground 3rd. Shattered Temple has the gold or the high ground third, or even the empty natural. The only good map I can think that doesn't have options for a third is Terminus- however, it has many options for a 4th base.
i've tried what you had drawn on the original version, but i thought there just wasn't enough space for it, the ramp would lead right into the mineral line and cc, without any space for armies to move past it. and i don't want to make the third closer than the natural either
Love the way expanding works on this map. The concept that all expos are close by but each additional one creates a new path you have to cover. I also like the proper use of a gold base, how you can take it early but effectively open every single vulnerability that having every expo would present. Plus, if I can shake off the delta quadrant nightmares it gives me, it is so beautifully put together aesthetically. I'll be rooting for this next MotM! ♥
visually, this map is really clean and simple. so good work on that. i dont like how far out the expansions go, since it would be hard to defend those, but i could be wrong since it has the potential to create interesting path routes for counters and such. id say this is my fav for motm7 gl!
Congrats on making it into ESL September map pool with this map! (link)
I never liked how standard this map is and how you can only really expand in one direction but anyway this is great news for the map making community and I will enjoy every match played on your map!
In this picture there is a complete wall-in, and if you tell the colo to move to the other side he will go through the main but if you manually move him across the cliff he can circumvent the wallin and move across the cliff.
is quite hard to distinguish from the lowground behind it. I just saw a Protoss pro (monchi) accidentally warp in some Zealots there and I didn't even realize it was a reaper stair until I played the map myself and looked further into it^^
In this picture there is a complete wall-in, and if you tell the colo to move to the other side he will go through the main but if you manually move him across the cliff he can circumvent the wallin and move across the cliff.
is quite hard to distinguish from the lowground behind it. I just saw a Protoss pro (monchi) accidentally warp in some Zealots there and I didn't even realize it was a reaper stair until I played the map myself and looked further into it^^
lefix has shown us (TPW Team) this bug, and we´ve talked about what to do with it. As it turns out it´s a general bug related to Braxis Alpha Cliffs (manmade), and not restricted to this map. You can find the same weird unit behaviour on Scrap Station. We can only hope Blizzard will notice this, cuz there´s really nothing we can do about it without changing pathing, which in turn, will mess up the cliffs for reapers and Colossi.
This map has been around for a while and played in various tournaments. As a candidate map for NASL Season 3, we have agreed on a few changes. The most noticable ones are the safer third base and the removed gold. But I also reshaped some other parts of the map. So anyway, I made a super cool gif animation to go with the changelog
Changelog: - Changed/moved Xel'Naga Towers and LoS blockers a little. This was mostly because alot of people seemed to be confusing the doodad above the tower with the actual tower. That doodad was removed. - Slightly enlarged Main size. - Moved the natural a bit closer to the ramp. - Moved the third base closer to the Natural and made it little easier to defend. - Reshaped and moved the 4th and 5th base accordingly to space out bases evenly. - Replaced the gold base with a regular blue mineral base. Also changed the choke in front of it a bit for aesthetic reasons.
On December 29 2011 19:36 lefix wrote: - Changed/moved Xel'Naga Towers and LoS blockers a little. This was mostly because alot of people seemed to be confusing the doodad above the tower with the actual tower. That doodad was removed.
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