Map intent:
To be able to practice tier 2 & 3 of the standard matchmaking version of Invasion: Boneyard while having to play as little as possible of the first tier.
You think there's an easier way of doing this than messing about with the map?
Spoiler: show
TIER 1 MODIFICATIONS
Elite Weapons
Each Elite fire team gets two Needle Rifles (set to never respawn, I'll explain why below) at their new, isolated T1 spawn areas (see pics below). The three standard T1 needle rifles from the matchmaking version still spawn at their original locations, tho I don't remember if they spawn at tier 0, 1 or 2 (not sure when/if they should spawn, honestly... any suggestions?).
The reason I set the new NR's to never respawn is because if they have a respawn time, they'll obviously continue to spawn during the later tiers and could therefore boost player's ammo supplies. It might not seem like a huge deal, but it needs to be avoided IMO. If I were to "gate" them (make them disappear along with the rest of the stuff that gets deleted after T1), any players who picked them up will get their weapon ripped out of their hands by the guardians, and THAT definitely needs to be avoided. (:
Elite Spawns
I put the spawns for Alpha & Bravo teams as high up as possible mostly to stop any attempts at spawnkilling from the defenders. I'm afraid they might be positioned a little too closely to the territories tho. The options are limited here. Some slight tweaking of respawn times and territory capture times might be able to alleviate the issue tho.. but I'd rather it didn't come to that either (wouldn't be strictly compatible with the MM gametype).
(click pics to make huge)
Middle team
Right teleporter goes to Bravo team
Spoiler: show
Left teleporter goes to Alpha team
Spoiler: show
While the middle teleporter goes here:
Might need to split this into two teleporters (or just move it) to cut down on travel distances, one for middle stairs approach and another for lobby stairs approach, if not remove it altogether (unlikely). Also need to consider how campable this reciever node is...
Spartan Spawns
As you'll see in the pics below, the starting spawn points of the defending spartans are arbitrarily scattered across the bulkhead in this version of the map, rather than put beside their respective respawn areas. I'm not sure that's a good choice yet, but it might be worth trying out. From the start, the spartans need to be down, but not out... (yet). There still needs to be a fight before the Tier ends, obviously, but the aim is for it to last at most only two, three or maybe four spawn cycles (taking into account the much shorter travel distances between spawn and territory for the attackers).
Spoiler: show
Only other change I've made is fixing the broken hard kill zone in Ambush (the map is based on Boneyard V5 btw, which is the current version that is played in matchmaking).
Now, it's still an untested map (all I've done is made sure the teleporters work and that all the added stuff despawns after T1) and so is in need of some tweaking. The location of all the spawns, for one thing (both initial spawns and respawns), is gonna need some playtesting. Hopefully soon.
Thoughts, comments, suggestions? I'll take 'em.
Download Boneyard Express from Bungie.net
