Raap

Perhaps the server can be configured so that when the server reaches 0 players, bot map(s) play by default on loop until more than 6 players enter the server. Edit: Actually, perhaps a different angle; game-wide scripts that detect the player quantity in a map and if it falls below a certain number, activate bots to emulate players, and de-activate when enough players join (bots would stop respawning on death). This would cut the need for separate bot maps.

If it is max8 compatible, sure, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to speed up the cleaning process.

Good stuff.

My 3DS has always generated mesh like this, and 3DS 8 doesn't have a one-click solution for it (unless I am overlooking it). It doesn't matter much since it actually helps me see where vertex light solve would go in W3D, and correct it as I go. Edit: The mesh in the previous images isn't done being optimized so keep that in mind.

A good middle ground might be to slightly raise the officer weapon damage to heavy vehicles (tanks). It might promote their usage a bit more as well.

It does feel like, development wise, Hostile Waters is rapidly approaching the scale of 3 maps in one... Reminds me of a certain map I never managed to finish... Rest assured, I'm seeing this one through. I can't mention it often enough however; I'm not doing updated naval buildings just because I feel like it, I do it because without it, the gameplay on the map would suffer a lot if using the normal buildings. The Allied naval yard has to be huge to fit the destroyer, but no space on it goes unused. Worth added explanation: The sub pen has 3 points of entry for infantry, so you'd think the naval yard is a bit open game for the Soviets... But do realize that the true entry points are the three staircases, as the command center/MCT is on the upper level. Naturally, both levels of the naval yard will be having plenty of infantry cover.

Well, I bet you could field a hundred players on this Allied naval yard, and still have room left to move; (Still a work in progress, and it might seem confusing, but a video at a near-completed state will make sense of the design.)

Both buildings do provide more infantry cover and strategic points of entry for naval transports to land, so despite the faction locked door topic, there is room for infantry play (also on the icebergs). Also, lets not forget both teams still got an island base as well.

The Allied naval yard is going to be unique in visual appearance while still retaining classic design elements (something I'm trying very hard, in order to not make the buildings look very out of place among the other buildings). I'm about half way done with the geometry of it - it's quite a beast. Unlike the sub pen, I had to make the naval yard from scratch as the original mesh was not in the state I needed it to be for what I had in mind.

Noted. Meanwhile, here is the naval yard at early development. I've redone most of the mesh from the original base model for better vertex lighting and texturing, but as you can see I was not kidding when I said the naval yard would be of similar scale to the sub pen; the destroyer is a freakin' huge model and it needs a lot of space to fit in!

Care to expound on your reasoning here? I'm one of these curious types see... Call it an experiment. I hope to see the naval buildings destroyed by naval. If it ends up feeling weird in play testing, I can change it to a normal door.

I'm not sure if that's in the right time frame for such a task. At times I felt progress was slow as I was getting lost fixing little things. Also I got a peculiar development method; nearly everything is done manually. Then of course there is also me battling the W3D engine on various fronts such as getting new aggregates to show up and such (which is still a hit and miss process for reasons I cannot seem to be able to comprehend). Anyhow, I will make a similar video for the Allied naval yard once it is "done".

The current plan is to have the game end shortly after the naval building is destroyed, similar to how seamist ends shortly after the radar dome is destroyed. In-game dialog will explain this. There are a few start-up vehicles that do not respawn, but both teams have two 4 credit/tick silo's to make sure credits aren't a big issue to those who defend their silo's... Which is harder to do than in most maps. (The original map had a single 10 credit/tick silo per team, due to limitations of how silo's worked back then.) Note that the advanced naval buildings, besides the obvious addition of defenses, also offer double the health of their regular counterparts, as well as a faction-locked MCT room. Edit: Since the video I have improved the visuals of the 'mini bridges' and the direct area near them. I now have to consider the sub pen 'done' otherwise the map itself will never be finished in time. The Allied naval yard will be more straight forward to finish up - believe me when I say it took me many hours to get the subs and their spawn areas to function exactly as I wanted them to, but Allied ships are much more straight forward to implement. When the map is done, I will publish the building files for anyone who cares to look at them, or even use them.

I've done more work on the Advanced Submarine Pen, so here is a quick video showing the layout and how the design deals with spawn camping and such.

The fact that the medic now has a unique weapon has done something I've never done before; It made me want to play a medic. So yes, I think the objective was to make the character more appealing. Makes me wonder if something similar can be done with other underused characters such as the thief, which is currently a one trick pony that, once done it's job, typically finds a quick end at the nearest flame tower, cliff, or lake.

Delta's balance just doesn't require special units... However that doesn't mean I won't include other things! The development focus has shifted away from custom units to two modified buildings and gameplay improvements around and on top of the icebergs, and be designed around core gameplay. However at this time I cannot go into specifics as everything is subject to change depending on what is possible or not possible to implement without requiring new script work. The cave unfortunately remains a dead end (ir is different, though). I was going to add an extra depth layer via an underground waterway, unfortunately this has been axed since Delta's naval implementation does not allow for such playable space below the water level. It is important to note that I am intentionally not making a big departure from the original map design, the only noticeable change here is entry points to the icebergs and the content on them, where previously this was empty space.

A better time to do it than now will not come, so yeah. It's taken me quite some time to get to this point, since I started off quite rusty - probably still am.

Here is a different angle. Unless I misunderstood the manual, the reason for a lack of panels is a built-in technician...? Better ask the technical folks for an exact answer of where the panels go...

Soviets have more ways of dealing with Longbows than Allies have ways of dealing with Hinds. Therefore the fact that Longbows have an edge in Air to Air gameplay is a good example of asymmetrical balance design at work. Besides, Hinds got a good way of a guaranteed kill on Longbows; Kite, longbow missiles time out while bullets do not.

Greetings, I've been requested to re-create the Hostile Waters map for many years now, so with Delta being released and re-introducing naval combat to the game, I suppose it's about time that I got to work on it... A brief piece of history: Hostile Waters was originally a .935 map featuring a naval and air-only gameplay. Both teams had their own little island, with in the middle a cluster of icebergs dividing them. This created some unique level gameplay where Soviet submarines could ambush Allied ships by hiding underneath the icebergs, but also putting them in a tight fighting space. The map had custom naval and air balance, as back in the earlier days of APB gameplay balance was further from where it is now. Hostile Waters also introduced two modified "game-breaker" units, high end units designed to break a potential stalemate; The Soviet "Nuclear Submarine", and Allied "Ion Destroyer". Needless to say these were a topic of love and hate by the players, and unfortunately server side donations made them easier to obtain than intended. I will go ahead and say that the "game-breaker" units will not return in this version of the map, since Delta's gameplay does not require them. (This is a work in progress!) The new Hostile Waters is remade from the ground up, which has taken me a little while since I haven't used any W3D tools or 3DS Max since I left the BlueHell Productions team in 2012. Also learning and implementing the new 'Delta-way' of doing things has taken some additional time so far, but my thanks goes to Generalcamo and Pushwall for answering my questions and providing me with Delta assets. The map will have a few more notable differences over its predecessor: - Advanced Naval Yard and Submarine Pen. * Named "Advanced" to highlight they are different from their normal counterparts. * Designed for Hostile Waters gameplay. * Anti-camp designs, Allied ships spawn behind a gate, Soviet submarines spawn inside and leave while submerged. * Repair zone clearly marked with a crane, no more guessing which side is the repair area. * Three defenses on the building roof(s). * Both buildings have at least one designed "naval transport landing area" for potential infantry attacks on the naval buildings. * Allied Advanced Naval Yard is of similar scale as the Sub Pen, for balance. * The game ends upon sub pen/naval yard destruction. - New Icebergs * A less eye-blinding "ice" effect! * The icebergs have two Naval Transport landing areas. * Infantry access to the icebergs adds a new dynamic; Infantry can now engage more in the gameplay of this map (Tech Level 4 infantry enabled). * Special map-unique secondary objective is on the icebergs (More info soon!). - Soviet Chinooks are disabled, in order to put the gameplay focus on naval transports for all infantry purposes. - Improved map plot (More info soon!). The map and both buildings are currently fairly well underway in development, and providing there are no unexpected surprises (and there always are), I expect to have a playable version "Soon". If anyone has any feedback on the original map, or concerns about this one, this would be the place to throw it at me...

Looks great! You need to fix the video link for the home page, though.

More importantly: Slenderkov shall be missed. He was so handsome.

Good work!

crappy handling sucks sliding on ice no acceleration painful and unfun to captain. Yeah I've heard this like a dozen times now. They will handle better in the next patch. I'm still not seeing a physics value relating specifically to backwards movement on VTOLs. Vertical acceleration, horizontal acceleration, other ones that affect all movement like mass/aerodrag, and that's it. Pretty sure if such a thing existed, people would have used it to make hacky "fixed wing" aircraft that can't move backwards, no? It doesn't exist for VTOL, when I mentioned it I was confused with a different implementation for "aircraft".

Which is amusing when you consider that; It does the latter quite well, though Hind weapon damage generally eats away at Destroyers (just about anything will since it is impossible to miss the ship). I kind of like the current naval dynamic, it adds value to air power... In fact, I don't think naval on its own without air power can be balanced right now without completely dumbing down the gameplay. I do like the fact that landing depth charges takes some player skill, and the reward is there; Nearly instantly kill any submarine. The problem in my opinion simply lies in too excessive 'drifting' caused by the poor ability to turn while moving of Allied ships (I lost ships due to not being able to come back out of a map border zone a few times already), as well as submarines going backwards too fast which makes them able to outrun Allied ships while still facing and firing at them.