Bases

Bases

Introduction

The base structures provide a safe (mostly) place for players to be able to change their armour type, weapon loadout, and get any deployable items.

There is really no specific design for these, aside from the practical aspect of being able to accommodate the sizes of the armour types.They can span multiple levels, be underground, be small and practical, be vast, be a cave. Anything really :)

Players need to be able to get in and out fairly quickly. Some bases can also be attacked and sabotaged by the enemy.

Base Assets and Equipment

These are the components that are planned for the bases. All base equipment is destroyable. This puts them in a non-active state. The player has to repair them to become active again. Base equipment can also be linked to a power generator, which makes the equipment power down if the generator is destroyed.
Note: For first stage alot of this is not needed. Check the first stage page for details.

Absolute Essentials

The objects required to have a functional base.

Teamed Spawn Points
Self-explanatory. Already available in Crysis.
Flag Stand
A stand for the CTF Flag, which also marks the base on the radar.
Flag
The flag that will be used in CTF gametype.

Base Equipment

Base assets that can be used to enrich the experience. The larger and more complex the map, the more often you'll find these. That's not to be said that they cannot be used in smaller maps - in fact, you can achieve very interesting maps with these kind of things.

Inventory Stations
The stations that let you change your loadout, armor, and refill your ammo supply. Can be left out in theory, but in practice you'll want to always have at least one of these.
Resupply Stations
Stations that refill your health and ammo (but not energy!).
Deployable dispensers
Stations which give you a deployable asset (turret, mine, deployable inventory, etc). Form and function to be discussed, low priority for now.
Power Source
A generator which powers the base. If destroyed, all assigned base assets (usually all) will go offline and cannot be used until the generator is repaired. The power source can have various forms, such as an internal generator, a solar panel, wind turbine, etc. A base can have multiple power sources. The level designers need the ability to be able to configure these systems, should they decide that a power network is required or not. Refer to the relevant base item sections for details.
Catapults
A man-slinger, which gives the player a vertical and horizontal boost. Used to quick-start players on (usually) larger maps.
Force Fields
Devices that form a barrier for either both teams, only team 1, only team 2, or neither team. In any configuration it does not allow non-human objects (weapon projectiles etc) to pass. It also never allows players carrying the flag to pass.
Repair pack dispenser
Allows access to a repair pack, even when the inventory stations are destroyed or powered down. To be discussed if we want to use this system.

General Base Design Considerations

Lighting

Bases are normally artificially lit inside as you'd expect. I think we can employ some natural lighting effects on some bases though, but supplemented with artificial lighting. Through flowgraphing it should be very possible to link this to the state of the generators and the state of the flag. This means that we can make the lights go down when the power generator goes offline, and that we can have alarm lights and sounds going off when the flag is taken. These kind of things need to be experimented with.

Design theory

Note: Please check the general design guidelines in Mod Overview for the world, setting, and boundaries.

Now this is both an interesting and difficult aspect to sum up. Purely because we can really stretch our imaginations here.
The buildings that are used as bases, as well as other miscellaneous structures, can be hugely varied. From the obscure to the standard, from the beautiful to the grotesque, crashed space craft, to junkyard tents. Limits are the gameplay practicalities as listed above, but even then a building doesn't have to form the perfect base. Quite often the structures have been on the terrain for some time and just adapted by the fitting of the power and inventory systems.

They can be futuristic to ancient, half collapsed to brand spanking new, towering to the sky, or buried into a mountain side. Some design criteria aside from the more aesthetic, would be the location of the flag, which can either be inside, or on a platform: some location which makes the flag pretty easy to grab, but also to defend. Always make the flag the most important part of the base. Both through floorplan, as through artistic composition.

Ingress and exit points to a base should also be carefully considered in line with the armour types, especially the heavy due to it's vast size. This can be from one large opening though, to automated doors, to shielded doorways, to multiple doorways all over the building. For First Stage this is obviously not necessary, but keep this in mind if it's an asset that will likely be reused later on in development.

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