ONS-Mothership
Map Info
	File Name ons-mothership.zip Author robo422 Gametype UT2k4 Onslaught Date Added 09-07-2004 File Version 1.00 File Size 11.03 mb Player Count 24 - 3 Map Description None Review Rating 7 User Rating 7.5 Overall Rating 7
Review
Reviewer ArcadiaVincennes Awe Score:  2.5/3 Date 11-02-2004 Build Score:  2.5/3 Review Schema Cast Score:  2.0/3 User Point:  0 Overall Score:  7/10 ONS-Mothership (ut2004) A fantastically huge map with a fastastically audacious theme with a fantastic amount of nodes to take over. A map that truely challenges ONS strategies to commit to such a grand scale. ONS-Mothership stands out amoung the rest of the ONS map horde as one of the top players. Not without its faults it is certainly one of the few that belongs on everyone's hard drive. AWE - 2.5 From the scale of the map, even in just the bases and surrounding area, to the grandeur of the mothership embedded in the sand dunes, to the shear verticality of the gameplay, this is one map that certainly takes the sky as the limit. Next, add in the constant sandstorm, then mix in the projectors and emmitters, throw in a pinch of animated textures and static meshes and you've got massive ambiance to match a massive map. The music track used is stock, and is a little slow moving, but works overall considering the amount of time spent in the vehicles just traveling. The ambiant sounds left a little to be desired with smaller than I expected radii and volume and a somewhat sparse distribution throughout the map. The first time I played I didn't even notice them; but if you pay attention, they are there and do add to the ambiance. The lighting is a diffuse orangish from the reflection of light off the sand (I presume) and is a little suspect at times. At first the orange of the sand and the green of the mothership's effects I didn't think would mesh well together but they worked out very well. The two points that jump out at me is the purple lighting and projectors - they're nice, and they add to the map, but they clash a bit with the green/orange - although I am glad they're there to break it up a bit. Also, when poking around in the editor, I found some blue lights that didn't seem to have any effect on anything. Perhaps it was atmosphere for the paths along the terrain but I didn't recall seeing any blue in game. The terrain is textured well with the various layers blending into each other quite well. I would have preferred a little more variation in the landscape/texturing because at times it was difficult to tell exactly which sand dune you were behind but the mothership was almost always there for a frame of reference. However, I do understand that varying a desert can be a bit challenging. Overall an excellent job setting the mood. A few lighting changes and some more varied terrain really would have made the difference for me. If I could give it a 2.75 I would but it's not perfect so I can't give it a 3. Build - 2.5 From the rotations of all the associated mothership meshes to the construction of the bases, everything seems so be in good working order. The assimilation into the terrain of the mothership was very good although I would have expected to see some sort of impact trench, perhaps partially covered by sand. The broken-off pieces of mothership littering the terrain, sometimes aflame, were nice touches and fit well. Also they provided cover which was nice in such a barren landscape. The node points were 'new' construction. It seemed as if they were not constructed of mothership pieces which I would have suspected and some contained assault turrets to protect them from the opposite. In a map this size, the turrets really added to the gameplay especially since they are not at every node – it makes one think about which node to attack next. They were implemented well with interesting control monitors floating on platforms above the nodes accessible by jump pad. The bases, however, were really too large for their own good. In addition to the room needed for vehicles, weapon lockers, and powerups like kegs of health, there are ramps and Skarjj control panels; and lots of space to the outer walls. In fact the first time I played, I never actually saw the power core. I always spawned, tried to figure out where the vehicles were spawning and then drove off, or, when I was attacking, I was in the Leviathon pounding it from long range. Based on the storyline in the map description, and the fact that parts of the ship are still on fire, I can understand the bases being new construction. But if the two teams were really competing for whatever energy that was left in the mothership, I suspect the bases would have been setup more quickly and haphazardly. Wither with new construction, as they are, but sloppily or with other burnt-out remnants of the mothership. The collisions are set up well - I never got stuck on anything. But at the center node 1/2 way up the Mothership interior, two raptors will spawn and immediately sink into their support meshes - a blatant error that should have been caught in beta. Fortunately I was able to get them out most of the time, although the times I didn't, I found I was stuck in the raptor and had to suicide. Other than that I was killed through terrain by a Goliath once but this was probably a game anomaly and not the fault of the map. Well-constructed, and well thought-out the build leaves little to be desired. Cast - 2 Despite the grandeur of the size and atmosphere, the gameplay in terms of rendering can be crushing. This is the first onslaught map I've played where it brought my FPSs down into the 20s and 30s. And near the end of one long battle, it started to actively consume my RAM. I don't have the beefiest machine on the market but it still screams along and although I do have my game settings on max, I was hit hard by this one. Rendered almost unplayable twice, and holding steady at FPSs well below retail consistently seriously put me jeopardy of my video card jumping out of my machine and throttling me. I understand that the scope of the project lead to lower-than-average FPS and to play comfortably I had to lower my settings but still I believe the optimization should have been better. The bots fared better than my video card but were still confused from time to time. There were a few hop-in hop-out parties around vehicles and there were a few times a bot would finish building a node and then run to the side of the node structure and stand and look around wistfully admiring the view. Overall they provided a good challenge and they did use the assault turrets well. But the default count of 24 - 32 almost seemed to little for this map; maybe 28 – 32 would have been better. On the default link setup I only saw my fellow teammates as they were either spawning at a node I had just spawned by, or if I decided to attack an enemy node that was already under attack by my own team. And I never saw more than 1 in a vehicle. Lastly, because the bases were so very large, I can’t see anyone going for the super pickups in the bases because they are so far removed from the vehicles and weapon lockers. Only in a base defense situation could I see myself putting in the time to cross the base to get to them. Put together the bots fight back well despite some glitches that could be ironed out and a higher default count. But the strain it but on my machine was heavy, and I can only feel the pain of those will lesser PCs working in software rendering mode. For the level’s gestalt, it's an excellently assembled, thought-out map with a truly Unreal theme. It plays well if you turn down your graphics and the sheer size both on land and in the air will challenge the most hardened ONS player if they can find enough players. A few aesthetic changes could be made, and a glaring collision mistake corrected. But this map, without a doubt, belongs in your maps folder - especially if you hold a large Lan party. But if you do, up the timeout limit otherwise the power cores will drain just as it gets interesting. And with all the air space available, this just screams for an ECE version.
Map Comments
)Hidra( 09-08-2004 12:28 AM MDT   not showed in unreal tournament 2k4 rating this map a 0 is very bad jujement .. i mena .. ur map are not so good ... like mine .. and this map seems to be a lot of work ... can u at least give this map a 2-3 for work? NikolaCox : http://download.beyondunreal.com/get.php/1/nalicity/ut2k4ons/ons-mothership.zip NikolaCox 09-08-2004 03:19 PM MDT Rating: 8   It looks great!!!Very small number of FPS on this map vith 64mb graphic card. :) theepiphany 09-08-2004 03:08 PM MDT Rating: 9.5   MASSIVE is the first word i find to describe this map. The next word would be hard. For me, this is what i call an onslaught map on an epic scale. No short spammy game here. Author did an excellent job on visuals and gameplay. I also experienced good framerates which is pretty impressive due to the amount of emitters and the shear size of this map. Its clear that the author spent a lot of time on this map to make sure that it played well. I also loved the welcomed change of the author using some AS elements in the map, such as turrets. My only dislike about this map, was that the bots played like idiots. They wouldn't use vehilces on certain node locations, they were pulling the old "hop in and hop right back out of the vehicles" game. But in my opinion, this map really isn't meant for single player. This is a massive online team player map. Oh yeah one other thing, Note to author, some of the raptors are stuck inside meshes when they spawn in. Final Verdict: EXCELLENT ONS map and a definite download for all ONS fans. I will be looking forward to the updated version when you take care of a few errors that escaped you upon release. I give this map a 9.5 because i dont care about stupid bots, but i was irked that i couldn't get in those stuck raptors. Great Job MJW 09-07-2004 05:53 PM MDT Rating: 4   This map ran well in instant action - (Map default bots, Radeon 9800XT, P4 2.8G 800FSB 1MB cache), although it occasionally dropped down to 20 FPS. It's worth the occasional slowdown though. The hulking mass of the mothership looms slowly from within the sandstorm as you speed past on your manta - it's a sight to behold! There were some severe technical issues, however, when I ran this map on my dedicated LAN server. I set it up just like every other ONS map I do, yet the turrets went totally berserk. They always attacked the blue team - even if the node wasn't powered, even if the blue team had already claimed the node! There's nothing quite as frustrating as being vaporized by your own link turret as soon as you spawn. Also, when the power core was destroyed, the map would not stop playing. Instead, it would count down to round two, then shut down the server! LOL! I was using the spider steroid and ripper2k4 mutators, perhaps that wigged it out? Although I used the same muts on instant action and had no problems... Unless these issues are addressed, I have to give this map a 4. It's an amazing feat of technical design and creativity, but it doesn't function. Any thoughts? -MJW Hourences 09-07-2004 07:15 PM MDT   the idea and theme are really great and its awesome to see the ship like this but some things coulda been better it complete eats my ram away to the point where it really starts to go slow, but ok 'could live with that the green light with orange worked pretty well to my suprise but the purple definalty not, its really out of place, white or light blue would prolly work better, at some spots the light was also really bright the bases are really random pillar and wall like and dont fit the big ship, should have used something else for them, like a big black crater with a big engine part in the bottom and a base inside and around the engine part inside this big black smoking crater for example, got to design it and create it, and not just take it from another map like the big ship :) Desperado#2 09-08-2004 10:46 AM MDT Rating: 10   I enjoyed seeing this map and saw this when it was being made. I have to agree with Hourences with all points. He makes my life easy here lol :) Overall it was an intresting feel to the Mothership theme. I really enojyed flying with the raptor inside the mothership also. I think the scaling is almost spot on. Somethings that really killed it. -Wierd lighting -Backface meshes can be seen -slow down low fps -base design is really messy Keep it up though I can see you have some neat ideas. Edit// Very sorry for the "0" I must have used my mouse wheel or something and went to "0". Ill give a "10" for my stupidity. I would rate this closer to "6.5" though I intended not to give a score on it just a few comments. anarkist 09-08-2004 05:22 AM MDT Rating: 6.5   Hey desp did you mean to give that 0 or was it accidental? This is pretty darned huge. Yeah it has performance problems but I got all the betas and I still find it pretty fun and certainly an original take on ONS. Fuzzy Logic 09-08-2004 06:01 AM MDT Rating: 9   Enormous map. Excellent though. Looks great, spectacular even. Plays good too - I didn't notice any performance problems. You needs a few more than the default No of bots though (9) as they spread a bit thin. Manticore 09-10-2004 08:45 PM MDT Rating: 8.5   In my opinion this is ONS at its best; large scale and complex. However this map may crush low end and/or minimum RAM systems.... Draco 09-16-2004 06:28 PM MDT Rating: 10   A realy huge map. But i like it. SilverHairDevil 09-19-2004 07:47 PM MDT Rating: 6.5   Omyjesus this is a sweet lookin map, and is absolutely GINORMOUS!!!! However the Fps is crap...i would take out those turrets and a few emitters, this was a great idea, but it's only fun to spectate bots, because it's just too lagged out. MajorM 09-23-2004 09:38 AM MDT Rating: 8   Nice, huge map! And the map has something funny: Search for a black hole under the ramp at the small end of the mothership. Jump down (you won´t survive without god-mode) and walk through the long passage. At the end of the passage, there is a room with three holo-projectors (or something like that). Stay in this room for a moment (about a minute or two) and then you can drive a toilet-go-kart. This is NO joke! Try it! T0mbr41d3r 09-27-2004 10:07 AM MDT Rating: 7   This map looks amazing and it should after waiting 30 minutes for the map to load. It has so many details, not an inch of the map has been left untouched. Thus guy really knew what he wanted to make, but....and its a very big butt....it is just too big, you get lost if you make a minor fault in steering. Also the autoguns are way too effective, you need to attack from the air, thats the only way of getting inside the enemy base. My conclusion, well build only next time do it without the autoguns. VERY ORIGINAL!!! skaarjseeker 10-05-2004 02:43 PM MDT Rating: 8.5   Very original, but 1 problem, play AS-Mothership, your story isn't the same as theirs, you play as human, bla, bla, bla, you win, the Mothership gets blown up 0_o, that's wrong with this map, :), not that that matters cuz it's a great map with good content and uhm... you inspired me to make a other Mothership Assault map, about playing, there was a real fight for once in my life, very big map, but playable, i was blown away by the visuals, very good, nice how you made the turning skaarj ship,bots work perfectly, the SE will be the thoughest to win i think, good job! EDIT: Completely Off Topic but, )Hidra(, liked this map more than some of yours robo422 10-05-2004 11:25 PM MDT   Desp- The weird lighting - I'm assuming you're talking about the orange/purple light? If not, what are you talking about? The backfaces - Where are they? I haven't noticed any. Everyone else - Thanks for the compliments. rocket_Magnet 11-03-2004 05:32 PM MST   very nice, still needs some fiddling with it, some the lighting is a bit irky, and this neeeeds an ece version for the love of god! SoH_Ghost3021 12-31-2004 12:59 AM MST Rating: 9.5   big and detailed, but some performance issues (maybe the gigantic sandstorm?), but overall a very fun map. :) is funner than alot of other ons map i see, keep it on your regular map rotation if u smart. oh yeah, funny easteregg to! ;) edit: um, slaskan, teh toilet car came with teh game, its a easter egg by origin! =P shaft8 11-06-2004 02:29 PM MST Rating: 8   Main draw back will be the FPS. And on this map it's a big one. Even on my P4 w/HT 3.6ghz, 2g ddr2 ram, and ATI x800 XT (256mg) video card, which is the top of the line video card along with nVidia's 6800 Ultra, at certain points frame rates can drop into the low 40's with the maximum visual settings which people now demand. And just to compare, with this computer no other map has ever brought the fps below 60 at any time. FPS usually stay anywhere from 80-100 depending on map. Not meant as bragging (which geeks always point out, sorry) but rather to show just how crippling this map can be and how this map can even affect today's highest end computers, which is something the author might want to consider. Could be hard to have large amounts of players on this map (which is really the only way to play it) while actually being able to enjoy the map due to a potentially unplayable loss in framerates at times on mid ranged computers and maybe even slightly higher end computers. Otherwise it is a good map minus the size of the two main bases and the purple lighting. It's almost errie seeing the crashed mothership appear through the fog in the distance which is a nice effect. utvet 11-07-2004 03:50 PM MST Rating: 3   I find this map wondeful to look at but not playable with the low fps..sorry but until its really tweaked out to the point of atleast 30 fps with my 9600 256ram 2 ghz..it stays a 3 slaskan 11-07-2004 06:53 PM MST   great map even though i cant play it on my computer i see u put alot o effoort in yo it ani loved thetoilet thing, but wasnt that a vehicle from scottyhotty's map smacktard raceway atleast theyre very similar bu i didnt see any credits in the readme. or maybe its the other way that he borrowed ure toilet thing, anyway great map :D sandorski 12-19-2004 07:41 PM MST Rating: 8   Massive and awesome! BmB23 05-05-2005 01:07 PM MDT Rating: 7   Well... actually the toilet thing is included with the game. HOLY SHIT!! I just downlaoded it and this is absolutely huge!! If it wasnt for my 256megs of RAM I would sure have had some fun botmatches in it. I can understand that such an enourmous map must require quite a bit but still I will give it a lower grade than else because of its laggyness and you need to find some epic slowpaced lonely music for that map! the current music is good but not good enough. T3KT0N 05-06-2005 03:39 PM MDT   Very ambitious. Lot of work. Some clever visual candy. BUT Does not play well at all on a public Xeon server. fps are so low people quit after 10 minutes. Sorry 5 out of 10 MooMasterCowman 08-14-2005 05:48 AM MDT Rating: 4.5   a so-so map. first of all...... why the hell are those turrets automated?!?!? ok, now that that's out of the way, I liked the idea behind the design, but it just tries to do too much. it's too big. In an 8v8 match (that's the team size I normaly use), you rarely find anyone to shoot at. Also, the framerate really dies when you get close to a control point. It's worst at the power cores though, and I think I can see why: all of those pulsing lights. I liked the idea, but it's just not all that playable with anything less than 16 players per team... but then the game slows down so much that it is still unplayable. Good try tho! Tresset 12-06-2005 04:31 PM MST Rating: 6   They are automated cowguy because that is their default script. To make it otherwise you would have to rewrite the script. Another otherwise good ONS ruined by bad fps. I will have to take away a few points, unfortunately. I love those turrets though.