Redearth's Guide to Making an Infection Map

[redearth]

Redearth's guide to making an Infection map

TOC

Prolouge
Types
Armories
Actual Creation
Gametypes
Final Notes
Useful links

Prolouge: Hi. My name's Redearth. I'm a fairly new forger getting used to forge. I have a very bright mind, so I decided to make a guide. My friends attempt infection maps. Actually, what my friends make I see very often. And it is quite terrible. No thought goes into some infection maps. I want to see that fixed. So I've decided to make a guide. Please give me tips to add to it, as I will add them if they make sense.
Infection maps are made for relaxation. So they should not be taken to seriously when being made right? Wrong. Are minigame maps taken seriously when being made? Yes. Are they for hardcore gaming? No. Are they for relaxation? Yes. Infection could even be considered a minigame is some cases. So that's my reason for not thinking this is just a silly wall of text. Not only should infection map be taken seriously when made, but should be taken seriously when criticized. Don't not criticize an infection map because it's infection. Still say, "Hey isn't that too easy for zombies?". Now you may be saying, but you haven't posted an infection map Redearth. Ah, but I have seen them made, both good and bad. And I know how to make one, if I wish. It's just that my maps right now are just experiments on how things work. Forge schools are my serious help to Halo 3, and Sniperstand is an attempt at competition, which has taught me many things. If I get enough requests, I will make a decent Infection map as an example.

Types: Now you may say, "Types, isn't that a little vauge? What are types." By "types" I mean types of infection maps, not gametypes, but when you make an infection map, you need to know what feel your going for. Is it a standard infection map, go around and survive and human, hunt as zombie? Or is it something else. You could make it so that humans can't kill zombies other than assassinations, and need to hide. You could make something like fat kid, where humans have to run away, but can only do it by destroying obstacles. You could make the most popular type, have humans escape to a base, where they hold off zombies. Or try something new. Have a base behind zombie spawn, and human's on the front side of the zombie spawn. Experiment. You need to know what type of game your making before you make a map.


Armories: Now I know this should be included in making the Actual Creation section, but I see it done so often, and oftenly poorly, I should keep it a seperate section. So you want an armory in your map. I personaly am not a fan of making an armory. First of all, do not put an armory in a map if humans have unlimited ammo. It makes it near impossible to destroy. Second of all, put several entrances and exits in your armory. That way humans can't camp up points. Now for the most important part of an armory, the weapons. Whenever I see an armory made badly, I know it because it has every weapon in the game, at instant respawn, and 2 clips each. Well I'm exagerating, I really only see all the power weapons two clips each, most equipment, and everything at default respawn settings. Now this makes it impossible for zombies to finish the game, if there's no time limit. I say it's only ok if the zombies have 4x overshields, and 2000% protection. Then it's just a really impossible game. So a good idea for placing the weapons is to place about 5 - 10 standard weapons, with 2 clips each, which would be br's, magnums, plasma pistols and rifle, and for a mauler the standard 1 clip. Put maybe a total of 2 clips of ammo over all power weapons. That means no 2 clips add, put a one clip extra at max, as the current clip counts. And that doesn't mean three power weapons either. It limits your choices to one power weapon with 1 spare clip, or two power weapons, with no spare clips. Make all weapon's never respawn, so eventually humans have to leave to find a new armory. Now you might ask, why so little power weapons? Well think of it this way. A shotgun has 6 shots in one clip, with zombies standard reduced health, that's six kills. Give it two extra clips. Now it's 18 kills. Now add some more power weapons, like the sniper. See where I'm going? One last note about armories. Have a maximum of five on one map, and spread them about. Double my recomendations as a final holdout, or triple them if the map only has one armory. But my point is armories should be holdout points, not permanant housing. That's why zombies quit. Human's can't lose. Keep that in mind.

Actual Creation: Creating the map begins with what type am I doing. For now I'm going to go over what to do in standard infection. Later I'll update it to include thing on hide and seek, and other types I've included. All right. Let's work backwards. Normally people make their map, then place spawns. Well we're going to place spawns last too, but its going to be the first thing we talk about. For a starting spawn, you want human's and zombies to be fairly apart from each other. But not too far, so zombies have a chance to grab someone before humans manage to get to a place to hold out. Put them within each other sight's at first, but distant sight's. It also is a great way of creating chaos. Normally in a map chaos is bad, but in a zombie map, chaos is what kills humans. So even put them right next to each other, but seperated a distant by a wall, made of fences and shield doors. For respawns human's should respawn closer to zombie territory, as punishment for commiting suicide. But not too close, incase of a betrayal. Zombies should respawn closer to human's than they started, but not right next to them. Now onto which map to use. If you use the maps other than foundry, expect normally a larger party, pretty much always. For making maps on those maps, just remember my armory tip, and place weapons sparingly, in key positions around the map. Don't give the human's tanks, or hornets, or banshees. Everything else pretty much works out. Except mayber choppers. Just remember to give zombies 300% speed in cases like that, so they can actually attack the vehicles. For foundry, the party size depends on how you make the map. Now there are three styles of maps that can be made on foundry. Two are aesthetical. The first, non-aesthetics one, is jsut a standard made map, trying to look nice, but nothing special. The the first of the other two is the beautiful style. That means attempting to merge things seemlesly, placing objects that aren't need where they are there just because they look nice. This make chaos a little less though, because it doesn't have that creepy feel. So the third style is eerie. Now you may say, that's not aesthetics, that's just randomly placed junks. Because with an eerie style, you purposely make the walls a little crooked, purposly put walls fallen on the ground if you want, to make it look broken. When interlocking, don't go for that perfect clean match, make a little stick out. The reason this works, is it make it feel more like a haunted house style. In haunted houses, don't you expect some things to be crooked? But keep in mind when making this style, the look's can't interfere with the gameplay, by allowing people to get out of the map. But this has some advantages as well. Human's saw the wall was crooked, but didn't think much of it, until the zombie came through the crooked walls hole and digested one of your teamates. In other words you can use the style to create slightly hidden access points. On to our next topic, making the map. First of all, don't do the house idea. Two reasons. One it's a giant armory. Which tempts you to overpower humans, and two, it's been done a thousand times before. And I'm not exagerating the number. It's actually been done more times, probably. But my friends alone have made about 15 of them. Each. Don't get me wrong, it's a good idea, it's just been done. If you do do it though, make several houses, to give human's a confusion over the zombies. And follow my armory tips as well. So you'll ask me, what do you do. Well first of all, put cover. Not shield door cover, actual cover, like barriers. Create holdout points. These are areas with one or two normal weapons, where humans can fight zombies for a short amount of time. Picture an armory, but with less weapons. Infection can be just a game of territories, theoreticaly speaking. So you got cover, you got holdouts, and you wanna know what to do next. Place aesthetics. Is there a part of the map where you can see, but never get to, because of a fence wall? Go back there, and make it look nice. Spruce up the place. Then the final part in this guide, weapons. First you wanna ask, is my map open, slighlty covered, or pure cover. If it's open, place maulers for extra defence, and give humans weapons like br's carbines, and needlers. Make a power weapon the sniper. If it has some cover, but is still medium, place br's, carbines, and for a power weapon, put any of them, but spartan laser, sword, and grav hammer. Spartan laser just because of it being long ranged, and bad aims. Sword for it's uslessness against a zombie, and grav hammers just make it too easy to survive. If the map is totally covered, place short range weapons. Aka assault rifles, brute shot, and maulers. If the zombies have no shields, then also consider magnums. For a power weapon stick to shotty. Place the weapons sparingly. Don't crowd them in one spot, unless you want an armory.

Gametypes: This is a very vague section, but I do go into some detail. First of all, when making a gametype, think of the map, do humans have unlimited ammo or not? Will zombies need to jump high, to reach access points, or for a challenge do they need to stay low? Do the zombies need to go fast to catch the humans? Should zombies have camo or not? What shields should they have? Well first of all, unlimited ammo should only be used on maps where humans have little weapons, so they can just change them. For gravity and speed, remember, If the zombies can ambush the humans, that is a good thing. If a zombie can get to a spot a human can't that's good. If a human can get to a spot a zombie can't, then the human wins. In that case you could give a zombie a ranged weapon, but that would keep the zombies away from the humans, For camo, if it's in close quarters, why bother? It makes zombies impossible to die. But in an open field, zombies should at least have bad camo, to stay unnoticed for a second. For shields, it takes two factors. Can the zombies move fast? And how open is the area. If an area is open, give the zombies some shields, so they don't die instantly. But never go overshields. It makes the zombie a big glowing target, even with good camo. Increase invulnerability amounts, or make human guns weaker instead. But if a zombie can move very fast, make them weaker, so humans can still kill them before they reach you. If the zombie is slower than the humans, give the zombie a way to corner the humans, and much more shields. Then it's even ok to add overshields. Make the rest of the settings based on what we've said so far.

Final Notes: Infection is a great game, and needs to have better maps made for it. What I have stated, are just guidlines. This guide will be updated, to explain some actions reasons, and to add specific infection type games. If you post, please say which you like more, hide and seek, or fat kid. That will let me know which section to work on next. Thank you for your time, and for reading a wall.

Useful links:
Armory guide, is in depth. By Dimmest Bread
Bunkerzorz, well made infection map demonstrating several spects of the guide. By Sabre88.

[BlueHawk2000]

Finally someone knows how to competently make an infection map that isn't a pile of crap. I mean seriosly,the only thing my friends will play are things like those maps that have a bridge of radio towers over Sand Trap with platforms of crates at the top piled with weapon and turrets,and the humans run and jump as fast and high as the zomies while the zombies are set to no sheild and 10% damage resistance(instant kill),and worse still those weapons on the crates are all the power weapons able to be spawned on the map while the humans also have unlimited ammo and regenerating grenades. on top of all that the zombies,alpha or otherwise, don't have natural camo camo to pick up. and there is no time limit. Its gotten better since the release of free heroic maps but not much.

[DimmestBread]

This is a really nice guide that can provide amazing infection maps. I'm gonna link this in my guide to armouries so people can have help making the actual map.

[redearth]

Please do. And if anyone is having problems with the links at top, just scroll, some bugs come up every now and then.

[Tex]

*Added to the Forge Tutorial Master Index*

As for my opinion on this guide...I really have none, I didn't read it, I don't like infection maps personally, but hopefully this guide can help people make better infection maps.

[Legolastom]

Great guide, I made my infection map because I was sick of gametypes where Zombies die in one shot and only have one spawn point while the map is set on sandtrap and the humans have BRs.

[Snipers Stealth]

Wow, this is brilliant. You've covered everything I think, believe and say about infection. It's almost exactly what I'd say if I wrote this.
Good job!
Oh, and out of Fat Boy and Hide and Seek, i prefere Fat Boy, but I'm not a fan of either.

[GD27BlueDevil]

This is a very good well made thought out guide. Good job. I am sorry I will never use this but I'm sure a lot of people can!

[DracoStraybyrn]

This thread is good and win.

Also requesting example. =]

[XxVIPERxX666]

That's a good guide. Some infection maps I see have a pretty well made armory. So, when I walk inside I expect to see the weapons nicely set up against the wall or on weapon holders. No, what I see most of the time is weapons just thrown about the floor and it is impossible to pick up the weapon you want.