SFDM 16 player dm tips

Some tips for making 16+ player deathmatch maps by Combinebobnt:

layout:
- make your map big
- make pathways and tunnels big and easy to walk through, obtuse angles are better than acute or right angles alot of the time, round out your corners
- your map can be pretty flat and you'll be fine, but still make sure to use some height variation
- try to always have 2 or more ways to get into important areas, or really any area in general (teleporters count as a way!)
- try not to have dead ends unless for bfgs/powerups/teleporters
- don't make your map ~too~ big, else the chaingun takes over everything and ssg+projectiles become useless, resulting in boring combat and a boring map
- don't make your map overly complex or nobody will have any idea where anything is and your map will suck
- some good wads to look at for size: lazarus (kinda small but works), ragnarok, greenwar, dynamite, udmx, 32in24-11

lighting and detail:
- don't make any important part of the map under brightness 160 really. 128 brightness should be like the minimum for your map, below that is frustrating for software players (half of zand + entire zdaemon and oda!)
- 0-64 brightness dm is stupid don't even bother with stuff like that
- Don't overdo color variety. if you do, any important places you mark with color will basically appear to not be marked at all
- don't make detail get in the way of gameplay and don't spend too much time on it anyway
- make important areas vibrant and pretty, make not so important areas not as pretty

weapon placement:

shotgun:
- kind of a silly weapon, don't use alot of these in your maps, its way more boring to use with 16 people than the ssg. Best for like 3 in a map and maybe a few spawns away from the action, thats it.

chaingun:
- sniper rifle. Make sure your map has some of these lain about. 3-4 is good
- chaingun has more dps than the shotgun too, it can be a decent weapon.
- you can try chaingun spawns if you want, although I spam the shotgun key when I spawn so don't make cg spawns if you don't want to.

super shotgun:
- should comprise most of your map
- SSG combat is much funner and less frustrating than SG combat with 16 players
- Although your map should contain a ton of ssgs, still make sure that you provide a few SGs and enough CGs to players. The CG still has its good sniper use.
- Don't make ssgless maps if you don't know what the hell you are doing.

rocket launcher:
- do not throw this weapon around like candy, it floods hallways with spam and denies whole parts of the map.
- rocket launcher spawns mess with people that dont use autoswitch (like me), I recommend not doing them. Plus it kinda sucks as a spawn weapon anyway
- This gives 10 rockets, thats 6 seconds of spam and 10+ potential kills, DO NOT PUT ALOT OF AMMO NEXT TO IT!!!!!!!!!!
- for the love of god do not spam this weapon

plasma rifle:
- on flat maps this is very deadly and spammy, on others with lots of stairs and height variation its mediocre
- your map should have like 1 of these max
- on a server without stupid dmflags, this gives 200 ammo, which is 17.5 seconds of spam. DO NOT PUT ALOT OF AMMO NEXT TO IT!!!!!!!!!!

bfg:
- A Bfg WILL change your map drastically, maybe even fucking the whole thing up
- If you put a bfg in your map, make sure it has plenty of cover for people to use against the bfg.
- on a server without stupid dmflags, this gives 200 ammo, which is 5 shots, which can get like 10 kills easy. DO NOT PUT ALOT OF AMMO NEXT TO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-DO NOT PUT ALOT OF AMMO NEXT TO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-DO NOT PUT ALOT OF AMMO NEXT TO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-DO NOT PUT ALOT OF AMMO NEXT TO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Obscure bfgs suck ass, because 1 dude will find it and exploit the fuck out of it while nobody else can find it and then your map sucks. Make HARD bfgs instead, ones that require difficulty in accessing.
- An alternative to a a hard bfg is the bfg right in plain sight in the center of the map. This makes the whole map based upon that bfg though, so watch out. Exec and lazarus maps like to do this.


Item placement:
- this is 16+ player dm, not duel, not 4 players, not 8 players, but 16+ players. Don't skimp on important stuff such as shells and clips and some health (stims!).

Bullets:
- Throw these around wherever the hell you want (keep it sane though). Nobody will complain about too many clips, but if there aren't enough, they will.

Shells:
- Always provide shells in your maps so that if you exhaust your 40 (and 40 from the sg), you can still fight. Maps with shells are always better than no shells.
- This doesn't mean spam shells all over the map though, I like to do clusters of shells on random walls and shellboxes in random corners.

Rockets:
- DO NOT SPAM ROCKET BOXES HOLY SHIT!!!!
- Your map should contain like 2 rocket boxes max
- Clusters of 2-3 rockets is what I do and it works really well. I usually have like 8 rocket pickups per map scattered all over.

Cells:
- DO NOT SPAM CELLS HOLY SHIT!!!! ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE A BFG!!!
- If your map doesnt have a bfg: only have like 1 cellpack, and put cells solo or in pairs of 2, have like 3-4 per map.
- If your map has a bfg: treat the cellpack like a super powerup, treat normal cells like a cellpack almost

Health:
- Place medikits distant from eachother and usually solo, although pairing 2 together works in hard to reach areas. Around 4 medikits is good for a map, although i usually do 3
- Stimpacks are easier to manage, you can plop solo stimpacks across your whole map, work with stimpack clusters, or do both and it should work fine. Just don't overdose. Around 12 of these is a good number.
- If your map has a bfg, make sure all health is far as fuck from that bfg and put less health in general, or that bfg guy will be unkillable and get 20 frags from one run.
- A berserk is like a step down from a soulsphere, since a soulsphere is like a megaarmor, treat this like between a green armor and a blue armor. btw don't use these for melee combat fuck that (gimmick map excluded)

Armor:
- Green Armor is good in areas near/close the center area. Put like 2 or 3 in your map and it will be fine. They are good for getting people to go in an area too like powerups/rocketboxes/cellpacks.
- Blue Armor and Soulspheres should be treated basically the same, although I like soulspheres more. You can either mess around with putting them in a center of a map, or make hard to access secrets with them. Those 2 things usually work.

Other Powerups:
- Megaspheres are just too powerful don't use them. Use blue armor and soulspheres instead.
- Invulnerability is a no-no in dm. Don't.
- Nobody likes partial invisibility, don't bother with that either.
- Your maps shouldn't be dark enough for light amp goggles.
- Rad suits might have a cool use, might want to expiriment with these and damaging floor secrets
- Computer maps are pointless, and if you need one, your map is too big and complex

Spawns:
- IF YOUR SPAWNS SUCK YOUR MAP SUCKS AND I WILL BE PISSED WHEN I PLAY IT
- If you don't know how to put weapons on spawns well, just do all ssg spawns and you'll be fine
- Spawns next to important areas/the center/high traffic areas should get ssgs. If they don't, people spawning there are fucked because their weapon sucks ass
- Spawns anywhere else is where you expiriment with the sg/cg. Basically the closer the spawn is to a heated area, the more it should have a ssg.
- I found that tiny spawns high up inside walls are wayyy better than corner spawns. Use these alongside a few corner spawns for the best spawns.
- Make sure your spawn is not easily campable, if it is, delete it.
- Good ways to reduce spawn campability is make em out of sight, hard to see, hard to shoot at, and put another spawn nearby so that the guy trying to camp will get blown up.
- Also make sure the spawns can't be camped in reverse, try not to make chaingun spawns super high up or anything, or else they turn into sniper posts. Giving the player a ssg works most of the time, as he won't hit anything up there.
- Make every spawn has a weapon availiable either on it, or within like 256 units. Otherwise that spawn likely sucks.