1 - Ladders leading from ground floor to balcony above.
2 - Chutes leading from ground floor into basement (one way, obviously).
3 - Teleporters leading from underground side passages of red & blue bases to basement (and vice versa).
What's Not There Yet
I obviously haven't worked on the basement yet or finalised what the layout will be. It won't be a simple room like the ones above, since it essentially can lead from one flag room to the other. It'll be pretty large, have a lot of obstacles in it and will be chock full of visual goodies, since it's completely portalled off from the rest of bsp apart from the small chutes leading in from above.
The right hand side of the main room hasn't been worked on yet. There will be an altar of sorts and more obstacles to hide behind, as well as a large statue in the middle of the room holding the rocket launcher. There'll also be one huge stained glass window at the far end.
Map Overview
Most of the action will take place in the main central room, with a variety of options for getting across. If you're on the ground floor, there's more cover and it's easy to position yourself to view what's happening on the balconies without leaving yourself open on too many sides. The rocket launcher in the centre is a tempting and powerful weapon on this map, but if you go for it, pretty much everyone in the room will know about it.
The balcony above has shallow alcoves to hide from people approaching ahead, but only the pillars can provide cover against people from across the room. You also have a pretty good view of what's happening on the floor below, but anyone directly below you is, of course, totally invisible. You can jump over the railing to get below or simply use the ladder. The height of balcony has been accurately measured, so if you just jump off you will take damage. But if you take care and drop from the railing, land on something or time the crouch-landing right, you'll be OK. The length of the room is also specific to the gameplay, since you can just throw a grenade right across it from up here if you get the angle good.
The layout is very simple, but has a lot of options that encourage good teamplay and communication. Lost the flag but don't know where it is? Cover the stairwells, send someone through the teleporter, jump off the balcony to cover the base entrance, get someone down that chute...
Uh Oh
There's no way in hell I'm putting the FRG in this map. Just imagine standing on the balcony raining death down on anyone below or firing easily across the width of the room to catch anyone in a wide radius of death. Nuh uh.
I'm thinking of replacing it with a new weapon. Maybe something that fires a slow moving, but exceedingly powerful projectile. That glows. With dynamic lights. That show off the bump and specular maps. Oh yes.
thinks like this are time-consuming and often quite difficult.
