[Idea] hlw_picking_up_the_pieces

[Vaun]

Hi guys. I came up with an idea but dont know how to map, so i was wondering if anyone else could make it.

The story: The combine (player) is sending a small detatchment to city 17 recover a vital piece of machinery that could help get the other citadels back up and running. Theres small groups of rebels that are attempting tho stop you, as well as the antlions and surviving zombies.

The combines initially though the city would be completely deserted, so you start with a low level of resources. You start on the outskirts of the city, making your way twar the center, and the burnt out shell of the citadel (since its pretty much destroyed it can just be a small bit of it near the side of the map opposite the start). Once the combine reach the citadel, they must hold the area while a dropship comes to recover the "unit" (an apc in this case). If the unit is destroyed the combine lose, but if it survives, regardless of how many combine survive, and it escapes in the dropship, the combine win.

If anyone can get this to work, it would be very helpful.

Ok, heres the current information:

Campaign name: Picking up the Pieces
It (so far) has 3 chapters:

Return To City 17:
It starts a while after the failure of the super portal to open. Commander unit SWORD-190-0651 (dunno how combines are actually named) is tasked with a special mission, to recover a core activator matrix that would hopefully get the other citadels back online. You (Commander Sword) are tasked to recover the matrix from the burnt out hulk of the citadel, in the ruins of city 17. Your to lead detatchment F-09 on a fairly simple assignment, and should be rather low key, with risks calculated to be more than likely structural decay dangers and the occasional paracite... You accept this mission and all other charges facillitated within you jurisdiction. Good luck, Commander.

Point Defence:
Well it seems the risks were underestimated by our tacticians. Continue to hold the matrix while we attempt an air rescue squadron. Any local air power will redirect to attempt to cover you and the matrix. Current situation is untennable, and time is of the essence, move to the nearest fortified location and attempt to hold position untill rescue arrives. Warning: a large concentration of antlions is incomming. Tactical information: a small research facillity was abandoned due to a massive rebel raid, and the adjacent paracite artillary station is off line after the carcinogen agents damaged containment systems, releasing the various paracites throughout the facillity, clear it to regain functionalllity. Hold the research facillity, it is calculated as the best defencive area. Good luck, and prepare for unforseen consequences.

Staph Infection:
Warning: All incomming units, be advised, carcinogen agents under the advisorship of subject: Barney Calhoun. Commander, advise using the Auxiliary landing site and recapturing primary landing sections, as well as anti-aircraft batteries before the arival of reinforcements and the Core Activator Matrix. Caution, the carcinogens have overrun communications stations, recommend retaking the comms hub to warn incomming allied antigens, and buy time to amputate cancerous anti-aircraft batteries. Remaining security antigens will follow your commands, several heavier antigen production units have been overrun by carcinogens, current available resources are under your command, retake other modules to increase production capabillities. Time is of the essence, Commander.

[world_of_halflife]

Long name you got there...

Hmm... will some pieces of the citadel be able to fall on you?

[Vaun]

Maby, some chunks of the citadel would fall down on parts of the city, and could be used as bridges or something. Also, i was thinking of renaming it hlw_return_to_c17

[chewyiskickass]

how about just hlw_return or hlw_c17return? Make it as short as possible

[Neo Prophet]

hlw_return sounds the logical option, also, if it was me doing the map making, id would have liked to use some of the maps from ep 1, if not for time saving reasons, also to add a little wave of nostalgia when ur playing as a combine patrol walking near the footsteps of your own freeman at a previous time, not implying that a big deal should be made out of this event, just for some of the map to still exist, even if its part of an ep1 map you could never get to in ep1 but could see anyway, just a thought

[Vaun]

Using hl2:ep1 maps and such would probably work, but it would need a good bit of redesign, i mean there has to be a part of the expanding wall knocked over and a crater where the item is kept. Also, those names are pretty bland, and i think it would be best to keep it as hlw_return_to_c17. Anyone can map for this, maby make it its own little storyline, a few special combine characters even, like an "out of the ordinary" type unit, like how the rebels have gordon, barney, and alyx.

Also, to clarify, this takes place a short time after the events of episode 2, maby a few weeks/months.

[Neo Prophet]

the thing with the rebel special characters is that the rebels are portrayed all as individuals, each with thier own story to tell, where as the combine are more mysterious, brutal, efficient and characterless, there is the occasional reference to the combines being individual at the start of hl2 in the trainstation, but on the whole the combine are more suited to characterless efficiency.
so maybe not characters as such, but particularly high ranking individuals perhaps, in which case a decent reskinning of a super soldier with maybe some slight model changes would fit the bill, like should pads, minor armour changes and the like, but nothing too drastic, after all the combine would consider the armour they already have to be very good at what its for, and a higher rank would appreciate that just as much as the next soldier.
hammer doesnt come with a model editor or a texture editor, so if any of you know where i could pick one up ill try and produce some of said characters.

[Neo Prophet]

also, i thought that "picking up the pieces" was a much better title, so while the map can be called whatever, the title displayed when the mission starts and under the map discription in game etc, should remain "picking up the pieces"
while it may be confusing have a map name hlw_return or something, hlw_pickingupthepieces realy is too long, but i dont think the title should be dropped all together

[Vaun]

Ok, so the ingame title and such for the map(s) will stay "Picking up the Pieces", the maps can just be abreviated hlw_putp_pt#.

Also, im in need of a mapping team, because my laptop doesnt like hammer and such, and my other computer is just plain slow, but since theyre updating the engine, i dont want to finally get something done then have to completely rework it.

[BiotecVirus]

Interested. Once My Bridge map has been completed or near compltion i can help. which should not be too far away from completion. Just needs the player limits and i still havent discovered how to get these added :S

[Vaun]

This is singleplayer, so it should be easier to figure out. Also, im making this into its own storyline/campaign.

It starts a while after the failure of the super portal to open. Commander unit SWORD-190-0651 (dunno how combines are actually named) is tasked with a special mission, to recover a core activator matrix that would hopefully get the other citadels back online. You (Commander Sword) are tasked to recover the matrix from the burnt out hulk of the citadel, in the ruins of city 17. Your to lead detatchment F-09 on a fairly simple assignment, and should be rather low key, with risks calculated to be more than likely structural decay dangers and the occasional paracite... You accept this mission and all other charges facillitated within you jurisdiction. Good luck, Commander.

Well hows that for a start? I'm currently working on a continuation (dont worry, no poorly written love stories, this IS the combine after all!) that involves the rebels damaging the dropship (like the 1 in ep2) and it crashing on a costal region near white forest.

Well it seems the risks were underestimated by our tacticians. Continue to hold the matrix while we attempt an air rescue squadron. Any local air power will redirect to attempt to cover you and the matrix. Current situation is untennable, and time is of the essence, move to the nearest fortified location and attempt to hold position untill rescue arrives. Warning: a large concentration of antlions is incomming. Tactical information: a small research facillity was abandoned due to a massive rebel raid, and the adjacent paracite artillary station is off line after the carcinogen agents damaged containment systems, releasing the various paracites throughout the facillity, clear it to regain functionalllity. Hold the research facillity, it is calculated as the best defencive area. Good luck, and prepare for unforseen consequences.

Now im working on pt.3

Part 3 has arived!

"Warning: All incomming units, be advised, carcinogen agents under the advisorship of subject: Barney Calhoun. Commander, advise using the Auxiliary landing site and recapturing primary landing sections, as well as anti-aircraft batteries before the arival of reinforcements and the Core Activator Matrix. Caution, the carcinogens have overrun communications stations, recommend retaking the comms hub to warn incomming allied antigens, and buy time to amputate cancerous anti-aircraft batteries. Remaining security antigens will follow your commands, several heavier antigen production units have been overrun by carcinogens, current available resources are under your command, retake other modules to increase production capabillities. Time is of the essence, Commander."

[Vaun]

If anyone is keeping tabs on this storyline, i typed up pt.3, and am wondering if there should/would be anymore parts, sent ideas if you have any.

[BiotecVirus]

Sounds very good :O + I would like a challenge if i were going to make this level

[Vaun]

It's 3 levels connected into a campaign. Level 1 is Return to City 17, part 2 is Point Defence (working title), and part 3 is Staph Infection (working title).

I just had an idea, instead of a map list, there would be a Campaign Manager, which is more like a division of the maps list, for example if you had this campaign, it would show up in the manager as Picking Up the Pieces, Custom Maps, Etc, Etc. All stand alone maps go into custom maps, and individual campaigns are kept together, instead of having to go through and find map after map after you finish one.

But anyway, back to the maps. Return to city 17 is a wrecked and ruined city, with several small alleyways and cracks for infantry to go through, and a few main streets that can be used by vehicles. Air power is semi hindered by the many hiding spots for infantry units, and i figure bridges could be destructable so as to hinder enemy vehicular power, even though this makes apcs unable to pass either, but striders could move over the gap with ease.

The second mission, Point Defence, Is a wooded are much like most of Ep.2, with a beach area to one side of the area, as well as a heavilly infested combine headcrab artillary facillity that can be used after the player keeps enemies away from it for a short time (like a controll point in tf2). Theres a pre-existing fortified area (with tall walls, gates, and a good sized area to build a small base in) to use while defending the Activator Matrix from the antlion onslaught.

Part 3, Staph Infection, is a large combine base with pre-existing areas that have been overrun by the rebels, as well as a few turrets that must be disabled before the activator matrix arives. A few areas of note would be the security stations (activating friendly turrets that attack rebels), a Comms Center, which adds time to the arival timer for the A.M., an armory, which lets you train smg and shotgun troops, A few ways to disable these turrets (which would be heavilly defended and have a fairly good level of hp) would be either a direct assault, disabling the power generator (capturing a few generators then destroying the junction box), or reactivate and hold all security stations, which would activate a lockdown, and the security systems would go on lockdown, disabling the power to the base, locking the rebel spawn structures out (but the doors can be shot through after a while), and makes all turrets stronger, allowing the external security to kill all the external rebels holding the gun platforms, basicly letting the internal security to kill everything not combine in the base and on the landing platforms.

Ill try to come up with a part 4, but dont expect anything too soon.

[Vaun]

For this campaign, there are a few specialty units that i intend to use. Heres a list:

Cmdr. SWORD- The combine "hero" unit, his stats are similar to Barney Calhouns. Armament: AR2, slightly higher damage, Energy core secondary. Spec Ab-Health regenerates over time, raises attack damage of units within a radius around him. To differentiate him from other combine elites, he would either have his armor colored black, or have a sword design on the back of his armor. Or if you really want to be creative, black with a white outline of a sword.

Ancient guardian (the greenish glowy antlion guard)- Pretty much a reskinned antguard with better stats, a bit slower, more hp, more damage, has an acid attack with medium range and better damage against vehicles, but cant move while using this attack, leaving it vulnerable. Pretty much a living tank.

Barney Calhoun- Same as cmdr sword, but on the human side and uses barneys model. Normal speed, slightly larger LOS.

Heros each get a picture of themselves for the little square on the HUD display thing in the squad.

Also, there could be other combine "hero" units.

One idea i had was Sgt. RAVEN- A CQB (the red/gray combines with the elite arm patch and orange eyes, who use shotguns) Who has a raven design on his armor, provided that they use the cqb combine model instead of the current nova prospect soldier for the combine shotgunner. He uses a shotgun (slight dmg increase), grenades, higher los, hp regen, increased speed. His special abillity: raises speed and defence of units withing a radius around him.

Any other ideas? post them here!