Alright folks, my work on Hostile Waters has officially concluded. It's now up to Pushwall and the team to decide when the map goes live, and if they want to make any changes themselves or not - they are of course free to do so.
This map, and the custom buildings, took quite a bit longer to complete than my original estimation (these things happen). I hope you will enjoy the gameplay offered on this map when it finds itself in the standard map rotation.
Here is the change log for this version compared to the public test version. Keep in mind that additional changes could be made by the APB team if they so desired.
Gameplay
- Added crate powerups on the icebergs, using a custom Soviet themed loot table.
- Added infantry tunnel on the Refill Pad iceberg, as well as a wall for extra cover, which also provides some protection from the abandoned SAM Sites for Allied Longbows.
- Removed the Soviet Schock Trooper from the purchase list, as it had a too easy time wrecking both ships and aircraft alike from the icebergs.
- Removed and moved some base defenses on both teams to reduce the stalemate effect in larger player matches, as well as make early infantry rushes a little harder to pull off.
- Made the abandoned buildings harder to capture, by raising the amount of Engineer "ammo" required to capture them. (Service Depot/Refill Pad from 30 to 52, Silo's from 30 to 36.)
- Slightly raised fog density, to provide better cover for Allied ships attempting to flank the Soviet base.
- Made the free start-up Naval Transports spawn as spawners without re-spawn, rather than vehicle presets.
- Soviet Sub Pen - Expanded a blocker, preventing newly purchased subs from moving to the sides and being left in areas where they are hard to destroy, while still occupying the production spawn zone.
Visuals
- Redone the ice effect and textures.
- Soviet submarines clipping their camera through the icebergs will no longer be able to see through them.
- Separated underwater surface mesh in order to apply Underwater Dirt as material setting, for water splashy footsteps.
- Exported the mission accomplished/failed EVA messages with higher volume.
- Made cloud layer more dense, and added distant thunder storm.
- Corrected map-wide wind audio effects playing at too low volume.
- Iceberg ice material type changed to Glass.
- Re-textured iceberg rocks.
- Allied Naval Yard - Fixed window frames.
- Allied Naval Yard - Fixed a few extreme cases of vertex light solve uglyness on the upper platform exterior.
- Allied Naval Yard - Added missing edges to the upper area of the interior support beams.
- Allied Naval Yard - Fixed interior staircase pointy bits extending higher than the first floor.
- Allied Naval Yard - Newly purchased Naval Transports no longer bump into the edge of the platform while falling down.
- Soviet Sub Pen - Fixed light bleeding through the SAM platforms.
- Soviet Sub Pen - Re-textured barrel props like on the Naval Yard, to remove multi-materials.
- Island bases - Re-textured barrel props like on the Naval Yard, to remove multi-materials.
- Island bases - Corrected a texture seam in the Allied base.
- Added a new loading screen, with a modified background image from Vuxlort.
Thanks for your patience while I worked on this map.