Map Name: Operation Tempest
Terrain Type: Coastal/Mountain/Jungle/Swamp
Factions: USMC vs ARF/A.U-U.A
Size: 4km x 4km
Map Region: Mid-West Africa Coast - Island Chain
Assets:
ARF - Tanks, Helicopters, Attack Helicopters, Gun Truck Anti-Air, APC's and Light vehicles
Marines - AAV's, Jets (Harriers), Attack Helicopters, Tanks (maybe), APC's and Light vehicles
BRIEFING:
The African Union has quickly taken form as a fully capable conventional force at the height of the global conflict. In an effort to draw imminent re-enforcements away from the Middle-Eastern theatre against Commonwealth and NATO Forces, United States Marines prepare fleets to assault the mid-western coast of Africa. A diversionary attack further north has drawn the vast majority of African Union forces away from a key landing area, containing abandoned cold war era bases and valuable facilities and military installations.
United States Marines will take designated beach-heads via forced landing, destroying immediate defenses and A.U. units, and then establishing a position for further assaults. Positions to be taken will be selected based on intelligence of enemy movements, thus the assault cannot be specifically planned until landings begin. Aircraft support ranging from AV-B8 Harriers and AH-1 Super Cobras will be available, while heavy armoured support will be available once a suitable beachhead has been secured. Beaches will need to be secured initially by ground infantry supported by AAVP7-A1 Landing Vehicles as quickly as possible before A.U. Heavy support is able to arrive.
African Union Forces are expected to be equipped with armoured support, infantry divisions and Attack Helicopters. Anti-Aircraft units will most likely be limited to conventional gun-trucks as most heavy anti-air units have been diverted further north.
Marines will rely on speed and co-ordination to succeed, while the African Union will rely on an iron-fisted defensive doctrine, utilizing their own environment to the best of their ability. Both factions will require the utmost amount of teamwork for any chance of victory. Operation Tempest is underway gentleman.
The general idea about the map:
Operation Tempest is basically everything I wanted to see in PR combined into one. As it is my first real map I've learned a lot over the past 6 months and I'm learning every day. The map starts off with the United States Marines performing a full scale beach assault. The difference being there will be no helicopters involved in the initial landing, rather the Marines will utilize 4 AAVP7A1's to assault the designated landing location head on.
There will be by the time I am done, 16 possible flags on the map. I hope to incorporate a new game mode as the traditional AASv3 will have a very low chance of success in terms of balance.
There are at any one time 4 flags. There are four possible landing locations, each very unique in their layout and fighting style. Inland, the fighting will mainly be confined to the narrow jungle valleys that run through the mountain ranges. After a lot of testing, this was the only viable way for me to have a 4km Jungle map.
The area itself is entirely fictional. While I have used references of coastal areas, the map is filled with abandoned Cold War era defenses and facilities which have long since been reclaimed by the jungle. These include a mining facility, a nuclear facility, a mountain fortress, processing plant and many other areas. On the southern side of the map is the only place of civilization. One of the first landing locations is a seaside village, which then leads up to a large coffee plantation.
The asset layout is open to change but I have had it planned from the start. The Marines will always have a Harrier available as their heavy asset. They will start off with 4 AAVP7A1's, 2 of which do not respawn. More heavy assets are dependent on which coastal landing point is chosen at random. For instance, the village flag might be chosen, and after its capture the Marines will receive 2 M1A1 Abrams. A different landing location, such as the island group, will reward the Marines with a Cobra, and another location might reward them with a second Harrier.
The ARF/UAF will receive 2 T72's, 2 Mi-24 Hinds, 2 Mi-8 Cows, 2 BTR-60s and light transport. The heavy assets will spawn after 25 minutes (will be explained shortly)
Anyway, this revolves around a new type of AAS that has been seen before but still needed work. My plan is to have the flags unable to be recaptured after their loss. This will balance out the fact that the Marines will be up against tremendous odds of success, having to literally land against a huge fighting force.
New Game Mode Proposal: Siege Mode.
As I thought it would be way too difficult for the Marines to have to both move up and defend simultaneously, I would like to propose a new game mode for use in this map and others that might work better with it.
Siege mode is in essence, one team defending, and one team assaulting. At any one time the majority of players will be concentrated in a single area. The mode is still open for random layouts, but rather has the attacking team taking positions in sequence.
To shake things up, once a flag has been captured, there is a 10 minute period where it is re-capturable while the next flag is uncapturable. The opposing team can both set up defenses and make an attempt to recapture the flag, or do either with all available forces.
The defending team will have no ticket loss, but lose 100 tickets for each flag completely lost. (Has a maximum of 400 tickets.)
The attacking team will start off with roughly 300 tickets, and gains 150 for taking a flag completely. This will hopefully balance out the nature of one team defending (and obviously have the upper hand).
Of course, this is just speculation. I am not a coder and I'm not sure how difficult it would be to incorporate it, but at the very least I would opt for having the flags not being able to be recaptured after loss.
Now, before I am crucified because the terrain is too sharp, I am attempting to use the Terrain.con fix and I will be trying to find out exactly why it isn't working on a dedicated server. So, I won't be throwing in the towel just yet with the terrain, but I am ready to smooth the hell out of it, with many of the hand made areas being pre-smoothed just in case.
I hope to see this map through to completion in the next few months, and I am very confident in doing so. Performance is my number one priority and I have spent a very, very long time seeing what works and what doesn't. Overall I think this will be a unique map within PR (as all maps should be
) and a whole lot of fun, hopefully with full scale beach landings. I will be doing server testing soon to make sure it runs ok with a full server and I'm constantly changing things as I go, often deleting days worth of work if I'm not happy with it. Most of all, it is still a very heavy WIP. Feel free to give feedback as positive or negative as you please, I will try and answer every question in due time and make fixes. Screenshots of the map:
Thanks to: R-CON Rudd, For helping me get it in game
And of course, R-DEV Ghostdance for his brilliant Jungle statics.
Oh, and also to R-DEV Motherdear, the AAVP7A1 Model convinced me to make a map with it in it
Enjoy
