Mapping

From NS community wiki

Mapping is the act of creating a map for a game. This page does not detail how to map, but it will detail how to map for Natural Selection specifically. The aspect that sets NS maps apart from other half-life mods, is the readyroom.

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Creating a NS Map

Readyroom

To create a readyroom, you place a room high above the rest of your map, so as to put it above the commander's perspective. It should not connect to the rest of the map in anyway. The readyroom must contain the following entities:

   * info_player_start
   * info_join_team
   * info_spectate
   * info_join_autoassign

The info_player_start entity is the location where a player starts upon connecting to a server or after the end of a game. A standard map contains 32 of these entities at least 128 units apart (otherwise 2 onos' from the winning team could end up stuck in each other). This entity does not need any of its properties set. The only property that can be changed is yaw, which determines which direction the player looks at. The info_join_team entity is a brush based entity. If a player in the readyroom walks through this brush, he joins the team the entity is set to. The only property that can be changed in this entity is which team it is set to, team one is currently the standard for marines and team two for aliens. The info_spectate and info_join_autoassign entities are, like the info_join_team entity, brush based. No properties need to be set.

Further entities that could be placed inside the readyroom (but anywhere else in the ns map would not matter either) are:

   *  info_mapinfo
   *  info_gameplay

The info_mapinfo defines the height and range of the commander view and the settings for the minimap. The info_gameplay entity defines what type each team is. This entity can be used to create marine vs marine or alien vs alien maps. If not used, team one will automatically be marine and team two will be alien.

the playing field

A standard ns_ map contains:

   * 3 team_hive entities, placed where you want the hives to be.
   * 1 team_command entity, where you want the command chair to be

Near each of these starting points, a total of 16 info_team_start entities should be placed (set to the correct team) and 1 func_resource. Spread strategically throughout the map should be several more func_resource entities. Most standard maps contain on average a total of 10 resource nodes.

To give a specific room a name, an info_location entity can be placed. This is a brush based entity and should cover the whole room that is to be given the name, Z-coördinate not being of importance. This entity should never overlap with another of its kind.

To make a combat map instead of a classic map, only place 1 team_hive location and no func_resource entities.