New Map Characteristics: What would you Specify?

[Randy1]

If you were writing the specification for a new AH3 map, what single characteristic would guide you in the map design.

Mine would be no Starts, HQ or City making downtime's fixed.

[caldera]

Bases closer together
No mountains over 5k between front line bases
No fields over 5k
Towns 5 miles or more from bases
No tank town at center of map
Tons of narrow, intersecting canyons

[Shuffler]

Cleavage

[Becinhu]

Cleavage

+1


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[Kanth]

Arresting cable on all WW1 fields.

[TequilaChaser]

Arresting cable on all WW1 fields.

wasn't there a WWI DOS PC game that had those, I do believe....trying to remember, had like 4 different WWI flight games on floppy drives ????


edit: hmm, nope, I was thinking of something that involved  crane/hoist that had the ability to lower/pick up float planes as well as catch a very small few WWI type planes had M-2-M playability


TC

[DmonSlyr]

Bases closer together
No mountains over 5k between front line bases
No fields over 5k
Towns 5 miles or more from bases
No tank town at center of map
Tons of narrow, intersecting canyons

Pretty much hit the nail on the head. 17 mile bases would create much faster and lower fights and be easier to defend against hoards. Lower mountains would not create as many alt monkeys. Canyon fights are cool here and there, but they are crazy to get out of during a furball and are mostly death traps. A few here and there aren't bad. Instead of TT and furball islands, I think there should be a center base in some maps with a 8K alt, and make it a king of the hill type of idea. CVs are really great for action. Would definitely like to see more CV fights. Start from the middle of the map and go out. Symmetry is important on a lot of maps, it also makes it easier to make. I really liked the streams of bases like Festers map had.

The maps work great when all activities of the game can be utilized on each area of the map tank bases inbetween fighter bases do this really well.

[Kanth]

wasn't there a WWI DOS PC game that had those, I do believe....trying to remember, had like 4 different WWI flight games on floppy drives ????


TC

Oh I dunno, the only other one I've flown is Dawn of Aces.

[Greebo]

If you want an MA map to be accepted it would have to follow HTC's guidelines and a map with no strats would not be acceptable. Best you could do is move the strats as far from the front lines as possible, cover them with clouds, surround them with flak bases and set the nearby Me 163 base at a high alt. Minimum allowed airfield distance is about 19 miles IIRC. I'd imagine towns would have to be near enough to be obviously associated with a particular field but 5 miles ought to be OK.

I like MA maps to have a limited field choice with no more that 3-4 nearby enemy bases per front line, some choice but not so much that the action gets diluted. Also a few bases that have a strategic advantage that makes them more important than other bases; say lots of spawns from them or they guard a strat or a port or they cover the only pass through a mountain range. If I submitted another map it wouldn't have a tank town or fighter town as they make for one dimensional game play.

[popeye]

Place fields and towns well outside the range of fleet puffy ack.

As Caldera suggested, move the town away from the field.  Locate spawn points to make it quicker to defend or attack a town with GVs than with aircraft.  Let the aircraft fight for air superiority over and around the town.

[caldera]

Pretty much hit the nail on the head. 17 mile bases would create much faster and lower fights and be easier to defend against hoards. Lower mountains would not create as many alt monkeys. Canyon fights are cool here and there, but they are crazy to get out of during a furball and are mostly death traps. A few here and there aren't bad. Instead of TT and furball islands, I think there should be a center base in some maps with a 8K alt, and make it a king of the hill type of idea. CVs are really great for action. Would definitely like to see more CV fights. Start from the middle of the map and go out. Symmetry is important on a lot of maps, it also makes it easier to make. I really liked the streams of bases like Festers map had.

The maps work great when all activities of the game can be utilized on each area of the map tank bases inbetween fighter bases do this really well.

I don't know dude, "Cleavage" was a much better answer.

[JunkyII]

I think airfields that are in a string via gv spawns with one of 2 V bases interwebbing them make for good combat for both offense and defense operations. Why I think I liked ozkansas so much and still do because the islands bases were connected well then you needed good missions or a CV to take an initial foot hold onto an island...another base thats out of rotation which had the bases connect in a U shape was fun...think it was mesa?

Also I like maps with a tank/Fighter town(ozkansas and ndisles center areas are awesome....crater used to be but yep those spawns are screwed now)

I dislike...but it's very much a common thing in Aces High these days is using CVs as a mobile flak battery(main reason I don't like Buzzsaw)...Not sure a way a map creator can get the most out of CVs while limiting the ability of a side to do this but thats definately a big hit on my list.

[JimmyC]

closer bases

[8thJinx]

Regarding CV's, imho the funnest use of CV's is in long bodies of water spanning the entire country landmass, but only a sector or two wide.  Such as the map that had the 85 spawn (can't remember the name of that map) and Port 86 at the far east side of the map.  I would up the port count along those "long lakes" to 2 or 3.  And I like the chain-of-base format that narrows the front, so you get a lot of players fighting on a few fronts, instead of 30 bases to go after at once.  And I like the gv-gv-air-gv-gv chains.  They were fun fights on Fester.

Also regarding terrain features, the 85 spawn area and the 135-136 gv base areas were epic. 

[Kanth]

I really do like it when a CV attacks or parks off a field, that is some of the most fun quick action gameplay that we have in the maps.
Nice low altitude fights. So more of that for Melee.