Project Reality Forums

Name: Operation Lockdown
Location: Inspired by Mississippi State Penitentiary, Parchman Road, USA
Size: 2km
Factions : US Army/Marines vs OPFOR
Game Play Type : Mechanised infantry (US) versus entrenched motorised infantry (OPFOR)
Current Concept:
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Situation: Anti-American Groups in the US have facilitated the transport of OPFOR troops to America via civilian cargo ships, allowing for a small motorised group of soldiers to infiltrate America and seize the Mississippi State Penitentiary. This attack is not meant to be part of a invasion attempt but is rather meant to demotivate the American people and reduce the faith in the American armed forces. The local military forces have no choice but to force the OPFOR forces out as fast as possible, but the fight to take the prison back will be brutal as the sides engage in close quarter battle for every last cell in the prison.

Gameplay details: The US will get three APCs, three up-armoured Humvees and three light humvees. The OPFOR will just have a few light vehicles. The idea is that the OPFOR will be encouraged to entrench themselves in the prison as they cannot compete with the firepower of the US vehicles. The fighting is meant to center around the prison.

I was thinking of changing the map to have the US start in a town in the South-West corner and having three other control points: a train yard to the North-West, another town to the North-East and a farm to the South-East.

Where will I get a prison from? I am working for that. I have blender models of the buildings and I am getting 3ds max in order to convert the buildings to a format that the battlefield 2 engine can run. The actual prison will probably be completely different to the real one in terms of layout.

One thing that I have realised from reading up about the limitations of the battlefield 2 engine is that having proper barred gates for every cell would push the tri count way too high for the engine to handle it. I'm going to leave the cells without doors and only use proper prison gates for the entrances of each building.

Note 1: The MEC is the most logical choice as the OPFOR when you consider where the prison is but it depends on what faction has a suitable camo.

Note 2: I am open to moving the prison to another geographical location but I have two key things that I want to keep the same about the map wherever it is:1) it must be a battle between conventional armies and the map should be sparsely populated with buildings to keep the fighting centered on the prison.

The backstory is weak. In my opinion you should just use militia (simulating an insurrection of some sort) and compensate by giving them more tickets. You could also have MEC paratroopers with a high ticket count and some BMPs face off against a US armored unit. There are plenty of examples, and the truth is it isn't really important at your current stage. You can figure out most of this stuff as you go. Keep in mind that there are plenty of less complicated justifications for putting together a chokepoint-focused map like this.

As for the gameplay, even in its current conceptual stage, focusing on one tiny piece of the map seems like it will inevitably boil down to a repetitive, uninteresting experience. The terrain looks as if you could pull a good asset-focused game out of it- maybe use the russian apartment buildings and some walls to create a prison, making it inaccessible to heavy assets and allowing for a strong infantry focus in that area of the map.

Otherwise, good luck. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with this

Thanks for that feedback. I came up with that justification out of desperation because I felt that the devs would never welcome maps set during an invasion of the USA due to an invasion of America being seen as unrealistic. Not that my scenario was realistic. The paratrooping MEC forces sounds like a great idea. I wish that I thought of it.

I wanted to force the focus onto the prison because having the multiple prison buildings that I planned to put into the map seems like a waste if people can just steer clear of the prison and avoid a messy confrontation. Even modifying the apartment buildings seems wasteful if people can just ignore the prison entirely. Maybe I should just make this a skirmish map and offer my prison buildings to anyone who can make a AAS map using them. Or I could move the map setting to Stammheim Prison in Germany if a US invasion map will never be allowed into the mod.

Here is the area around the German prison, if you are interested:
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I think if you did some in-depth searches on the forums, you'd find that the devs would be fine with US maps. The only thing really holding mappers back are the lack of unique US statics. The real life 'geographic' location is irrelevant. Just focus on the mapping stuff and the location/backstory stuff will all come together itself.

O.Ortega wrote: if a US invasion map will never be allowed into the mod.

I don't find it strange to do a US invasion map, in fact there was a community map that was being worked on in New York (state not city).

I sought out a specific location to have something to put with my map concept (since I don't have a full map I needed a screenshot of the area that my map was based on). I also planned to use the topographical data of the chosen area for my map to save me time. Also I was going to use the geographical area to help me decide my factions. That is why I was concerned about the real world location of the map.

Reading over what makes a good PR map I see that 2km^2 maps tend to get rejected. I could expand my map further but I feel that even with the added control points the area doesn't have enough interesting stuff to offer over a 4km span. I'm going to just try and make the best map that I can for 2km^2 and maybe the devs will let it be in the mod.

Eh, depends on what you think is quality. For example Sbeneh, Nuijamaa, Dovre and Muttrah are a few that would suffer in terms of gameplay and quality, thus they are best as a 2km. Also this being your first map(?) its suggested you stick to 2km.

If my first map gets put into the mod I'll be amazed. Well I'll put my best into it and we will see what the devs and players think.

And yes it is my first map. I've only done prior practice of the non-PR-specific aspects of map making in the Battlefield 2 Editor.