pb_timebomb - Alpha 16

[Agent Wave]

EDIT May 17, 2009 Latest version: Alpha 16 http://www.ford23.com/download/pb_timebomb_a16_pr.bsp
EDIT May 16, 2009 Old version: Alpha 15 http://www.ford23.com/download/pb_timebomb_a15.bsp
EDIT May 10, 2009 Old version: Alpha 10 http://www.ford23.com/download/pb_timebomb_a10.bsp

Hello! Agent Wave here.

Over the past week or two I've been working on my first Dystopia map (a phistball map more accurately) named pb_timebomb. My clan, Secret Agent Clan, has been holding unofficial (and not overly competitive) phistball matches with WNx and GFH. I hope that this map will be put to use as a good standard map for these matches (we currently do Urbandome and Rooftop).

Timebomb is a straightforward phistball map. I tried to keep the field of play uncluttered while eliminating most 90 degree corners to keep the ball moving.

The map gets its name from the fact that the phistball itself is a timebomb. Upon spawning, the phistball begins ticking. If the phistball is in play too long it will explode, killing all players within a moderate radius. Upon explosion, the spawn doors will close for 10 seconds. This, in effect, produces a "power play" for the team with the least amount of phistball explosion casualties.

The aim of having the ball explode is to keep the game moving and to award teams who are organized (and play positions). While it may seem intuitive to run away from the ball as the bomb nears explosion, this also provides a high-risk window of opportunity for anyone with the balls (or stupidity) to actively pursue the ball. The ball currently glows an increasingly opaque red as it nears explosion.

I am currently on version alpha 9. I have been playtesting the map within my clan on our server and have found the map to be very playable. What remains is mostly texturing and other eyecandy. I intend to keep the map as alpha until I'm happy with what I've got. I am open to any constructive criticism that the community may have regarding the map and hope that it's an enjoyable phistball map. Keep in mind that the visual aspects need work.

Download pb_timebomb_a9.bsp: http://www.ford23.com/download/pb_timebomb_a9.bsp
Note: to start play, push both buttons on the center column within 5 seconds of each other.

[MarvintheParanoidAndroid]

You, sir, are a genius. Together we can save phistball!

I'll give it a play later, you should get someone to give you admin in the Dystopia Phistball Pickup Games group, and spam us with events when you're having a game.

[Agent Wave]

Thanks! I've joined the steamgroup. Who should I talk to about the administrator privs?

After I had made the last post I was able to scrounge together a 4v5 with some WNx guys/girls and my clan. Some comments I got almost immediately were:
Field of play seemed too empty
Air friction seemed weird (making bunnyhopping easier)
There needs to be more buildings

After playing a couple of rounds we found some playability issues:
"Goalpost" offers a corner for the ball to hang in
Spawn threshold also has corners
Time to ball explosion could possibly be shorter


Most people seemed to have fun and we played the map twice before putting the server back to normal rotation. In the end the comment about the field of play being too empty was retracted.

I'm not sure why the air friction seemed off...the map doesn't do anything to modify it (though people sometimes question the tickrate of our server because things feel a little "off"). The tickrate is 66 but we think there may be another setting somewhere that might be wrong.

I am going to try to get this map to fit in with official dys_ maps with regards to atmosphere and scenery. What I'm visualizing is that this arena is an outdoor park. Some ideas are to add more buildings, alleys, possibly a road with func_tracktrain'd vehicles, and maybe an aircraft or two moving in the sky. I will also be adding a soundscape. None of this should affect gameplay (unless it's overly distracting or hurts fps) so I am holding off on pushing ahead too far until more thorough playtests have been done.

I should be able to fix the playability issues today or tomorrow so be on the lookout for alpha 10. After talking with some people who played yesterday, I think I'm going to change the timebomb timer from a hardcoded 3 minutes to a randomized 1.5-3 minutes.

[MarvintheParanoidAndroid]

Thanks! I've joined the steamgroup. Who should I talk to about the administrator privs?

Turns out I can do it. So, done!

[Agent Wave]

I just uploaded and posted alpha 10 to my server. The link is at the top of my original post. I'll be trying to get a small group of people from my clan tonight to give it a playtest. If it looks good then I'll try to get a bigger test group sometime this week.

This version addresses the playability issues I mentioned in my last post.

Thank you for the admin privs Marvin. I'll see if any of my regular playtesters want to join the group.

[Agent Wave]

Alpha 15 is released! This version has been playtested with 5v5 and there were no major bugs so here it is!

Ball physics are changed so the ball rolls more and is hit further
You can now dribble! Hit alt-fire (e.g. right-click) near the ball to do this. It's useful for dribbling, passing, deflecting shots, and heading the ball
Spawn doors close for a short time after the ball explodes, they will re-open automatically after about 15 seconds
I have also fixed some other gameplay issues with the map


Outstanding things I plan to implement soon:
Make the field of play larger to compensate for higher ball mobility
Tune the dribbling
Damage will be dealt to offensive players who camp the opposing team's goalie box
Spawn thresholds will be raised up to allow for smooth ball movement

Download Alpha 15 here: http://www.ford23.com/download/pb_timebomb_a15.bsp

[Agent Wave]

Alpha 16 - the last alpha

I posted the link to download Alpha 16 in the original post. This alpha wraps up all of the gameplay features I plan on adding to the map. Beta releases will commence which will focus mainly on polishing the sounds and visuals of the map along with fixing any bugs that come up or tweaking things if need be.

Alpha 16 includes:
Timebomb with semi-random timer (constrained to about 2.5 minutes give or take 20 seconds)
Dribbling via alt-fire (right click near the ball and it will be pushed away from your body...works for dribbling, passing, body blocking, trapping, heading, etc)
Turrets to limit goalie abuse
No 90 degree corners
Modified phistball physics to make the ball travel further when hit
Spawns become a "penalty box" for players killed by ball explosions (~15 second timer on spawn door)

This map has been playtested a fair amount with up to 5v5. It should work fine with a few more people but I can't guarantee that it won't get too crowded. This map is geared towards a faster-paced phistball compared to the official phistball maps.

[MarvintheParanoidAndroid]

Out of interest, how did you make the "dribbling" work? I'm intrigued as to how it was done.

Still haven't had a chance to play this with other people, your phistball games are always at about 6am my time.

[Agent Wave]

Out of interest, how did you make the "dribbling" work? I'm intrigued as to how it was done.

Still haven't had a chance to play this with other people, your phistball games are always at about 6am my time.

I parented 6 phys_thrusters to the ball and 26 trigger multiples in a spherical-rubiks-cube-style. When the player gets near the ball, it activates a game_ui. The game_ui takes alt-fire inputs and activates the trigger_multiples. When the player touches an enabled trigger_multiple (with the game-ui enabled with alt-fire) it will enabled the proper thrusters to send it in the direction away from the player. There's some other logic in there to make it work but that's the basic principle.

There are some outstanding things I don't have a solution for currently like if 1 thruster is enabled by the trigger_multiples it exerts X force on the ball, 2 thrusters enabled is (2 * 0.707) * X force, and 3 thrusters is (3* 0.707) * X force. During play this hasn't stood out as an issue really because it makes the dribbling force seem a varied like it would normally be with a real ball. During the course of one dribble, multiple trigger_multiples might be triggered as the ball rolls away from you so, with the law of averages in play, perhaps the thrust force turns out to be closer than the calculations make it look.

Maybe we could try to get a group together sometime between 2PM-4PM PST on a weekend...that'd be 10PM-12PM your time, right? It's usually tough to find a group that early but perhaps if we schedule ahead of time it could be pulled off.

[Agent Wave]

I've taken a little bit of a break from the map as it's stable and I've got some real-life stuff going on but I'd like to point out that the map is on zeroflame's fastdl server and any admins who'd like to throw the map on their servers are more than welcome to

[sverek]

latest build link doesn't work for me

[Agent Wave]

Should work now.