1.




Design Document for:




Project Haven

Fast-paced Strategical Team Deathmatch


Sometimes called HavenForts: Construct JetFists – The Chronicles of Wargasm (Episode 2, NeoForts)









Written by Mike -Az- TARET
and the Project Haven dev-team

Version # 1.02




I – Overview

        Haven is a multiplayer total conversion Source engine modification. The game focuses on fast-paced and intense combat with a twist, namely building.
        The players will be playing on large snake-like maps with a lot of open space where they can build bases, bunkers and other elements that will provide cover, usually already present on a map.


II – Objectives

        The game objective is as followed, every map will feature 5 linear control points, the middle 3 start off neutral and can be captured by either team. The last control point has a flag on it, which will server as to teleport allies to a different controlled control point. But it can also be stolen by the enemy team and capped at any control point under their governance. If the flag is stolen, the bereft team can no longer teleport.

        The flag takes the shape of any number of old tech hardware, such as photocopiers, computers, espresso machines and what not.


III – Building

        Building is done in a very easy and intuitive way, the player hold mouse 3 from which a radial menu comes up, on this menu he can easily select the piece he wants to spawn by hovering aver it with his mouse, finally placing it on the field by letting go of mouse 3.

        The building then shows up transparent, as if being projected like an hologram, but, but it will become solid and non-transparent when finished, the time of completion varies upon the location of the structure, if it is built in a controlled area, the progress will be fast, built in a neutral area, the progress will be default, and slow in enemy territory, the builder class can build fast regardless of the location.

        Building include: wall panels, gates, dispensers and turrets.

        Buildings come at a set cost, which varies for each individual building. The currency and primary resource is “Mass”, each player can store up to 100 Mass, except for the builder who can store up to 200.

        Mass is earned by achieving objectives, such as capturing the flag or a control point killing enemies or taking down their structures. Objectives will earn a fill Mass store for the achieving player and a 25% Mass bonus for their entire team. Control points generate Mass at a fixed rate.

        Unfreezing a friendly block (if you misplaced it) will cost you an equal amount of Mass points to the construction of the same block! This is to prevent griefing.


IV – Buildings

1. 2D blocks
1. 1x1
1. Simple, costs 2 Mass, 2500 HP
2. Dispenser, costs 20 Mass, 1000HP
1. 2x3
1. Simple, costs 6 Mass, 2500 HP
2. Gate, costs 30 Mass, 5000HP
1. 1x5
1. Simple, costs 5 Mass, 2500 HP
1. 1.5x4
1. Simple, costs 6 Mass, 2500 HP
1. 3D Blocks
1. 2x2x1
1. Ramp, costs 10 Mass, 1000 HP

        Dispensers blocks are blocks that recharges player's health and ammo slowly when they are using it ('use' key on the dispenser)
        Gate blocks are a simple 2x3 block with an energetic shield that allies can go through but enemies will be blocked.
        Ramp blocks are just a triangular block that player use to pass over enemies' walls or leave their own base.

        Buildings can be destroyed, captured or reclaimed:
1. Destroying is straight forward; you shoot the block until it dies. The building will shatter into pieces which can be picked up for Mass points. A destroyed building only drop 50% of it's original Mass value.
2. Capturing can be done only by the builder class and it takes complete control over an enemy structure.
3. Reclaiming can be done by the builder class and only on enemy blocks, completely returning a block to its opaque state until it vanishes, this results in a 50% Mass refund.


V – Classes

1. Capper Class
1. Role: Capturing points and the flag
2. Health: Low (100)
3. Speed: Fast (100)
4. Weapons:
1. Primary weapon: A pulse gun, that fires a pulse of air/energy/whatever you want to call it, that propels the scout in the opposite direction to which the gun was fired. It's basically a conc-jump without the concussion. Does slight push-back and some minimal damage to ennemies if they are hit by it. Only work on objects (blocks) and surfaces (walls, floor)
1. Damage: 5
2. Firing Delay: 0.5 second
3. Clip: 5
4. Reload time: One energy module every 1 second, shotgun style
5. Secondary Fire: None
6. Hitscan: No
1. Secondary weapon: Light harpoon/crossbow weapon. Medium reload speed, low ammo capacity. Knock-back.
1. Damage: 15
2. Firing Delay: 0 seconds
3. Clip: 1
4. Reload time: 1.5 seconds
5. Secondary Fire: None
6. Hitscan: No
1. Melee: Telescopic baton, the faster the scout is moving, the more damage it does
1. Damage: 10-25
2. Firing Delay: 1 second
3. Clip: N/A
4. Reload time: N/A
5. Secondary Fire: None
1. Movement:
1. Dash: Yes
2. Wall-Jump: Yes
1. Abilities:
1. Use primary gun to propel himself into the air.
2. Captures twice as fast as other classes.

1. Assault Class
1. Role: Offensive Fragging, Gaining Ground
2. Health: Medium (175)
3. Speed: Medium (75)
4. Weapons
1. Primary weapon: Pulse Rifle. Medium accuracy, damage and reload time.
1. Damage: 4
2. Firing Delay: .1 second
3. Reload time: 1 second
4. Secondary Fire: None
5. Hitscan: Yes
1. Secondary weapon: Grenade launcher, just like TeamFortress 2's pipe bombs, they explode on implact with a player, otherwise they explode after 5 seconds. LMB fires short distance, RMB fires long distance.
1. Damage: Splash (1-50)
2. Firing Delay: 1.5 seconds
3. Clip: 4
4. Reload time: One grenade every second, shotgun style
5. Secondary Fire: Long distance shot
1. Melee: None
1. Movement
1. Dash: Yes
2. Wall-jump: No
1. Abilities: None

1. Builder Class
1. Role: Building shit, Defense
2. Health: Medium (150)
3. Speed: Medium (75)
4. Weapons
1. Primary weapon: Builder ranged weapon – Medium-Long range, hold down RMB to charge ammunition (small physics objects, depletes block points), fires like a shotgun. Fired blocks can be re-used by any builder class.
1. LMB: Shoot
2. RMB: Charge
3. Damage:
4. Firing Delay:
5. Clip: N/A
6. Reload time:
1. Secondary weapon: Leechray, lifesteal gun.
1. Damage: 6.66
2. Firing Delay: 0.2 seconds
3. Clip: N/A
4. Reload time: N/A
5. Secondary Fire: None
6. Hitscan: Yes
7. on hit enemy, regenerate 3 HP
1. Melee: None
1. Movement
1. Dash: No
2. Wall-jump: No
1. Abilities
1. Build twice as fast as other classes
2. Reclaim device: The player uses this device to reclaim any enemy structures adding the invested block points to his Mass pool. The structure displays the reverse building animation.
3. Capture device: The player uses this device to capture any enemy structures. The structure displays the transformation from one team to the other.

1. Tank Class
1. Role: Fragging, Holding ground
2. Health: High0 (250)
3. Speed: Slow (50)
4. Weapons
1. Primary weapon: Flak canon – Mini-gun that fires molten bits of metal. Approx half as fast as the TeamFortress2 mini-gun. Alternate fire resembling Unreal tournament's flak cannon secondary fire.
1. Damage:
1. LMB: 7.5
2. RMB: Splash (1 – 50)
1. Firing Delay: 0.75 seconds
2. Clip: 200
3. Reload time: 4 seconds
4. Secondary Fire: Ball of molten metal
5. Hitscan:
1. LMB: Yes
2. RMB: No
1. Secondary: None
2. Melee: Mace of Awesome – Slow attack, 0.25 second delay between letting go of the mouse button and doing the damage, releases a small lighting explosion on impact, cause splash damage to blocks, does +100% damage to blocks.
1. Damage: 100
2. Firing Delay: 3 seconds
3. Clip: N/A
4. Reload time: N/A
5. Secondary Dire: None
1. Movement
1. Dash: No
2. Wall-jump: No
1. Abilities: None

1. Marksman Class
1. Role: Killing the F**ing Tanks, Annoying the shit out of people
2. Health: Low (100)
3. Speed: Medium (85)
4. Weapons
1. Primary weapon: Rifle
1. Damage: 95
2. Firing Delay: 1.25 seconds
3. Clip: 10
4. Reload time: 2 seconds
5. Secondary Fire: Iron Sight (Slight Zoom, slows movement to 60, No accuracy drop while moving)
6. Hitscan: Yes
1. Secondary weapon: Pistol
1. Damage: 7
2. Firing Delay: 0.25 seconds
3. Clip: 12
4. Reload time: 1.25 seconds
5. Secondary Fire: None
6. Hitscan: Yes
1. Melee: None
1. Movement
1. Dash: Yes
2. Wall-jump: No
1. Abilities: None

1. Rocketeer Class
1. Role: Fragging, Exploding shit
2. Health: High (200)
3. Speed: Slow-Medium (65)
4. Weapons
1. Primary weapon: Rocket Launcher
1. Damage: Splash (1-75)
2. Self Damage: 20% of the Damage if near
3. Firing Delay: 1 second
4. Clip: 5
5. Reload time: 1.25 seconds per rocket
6. Secondary Fire: None
7. Hitscan: No
1. Secondary weapon: Master-key pistol, double-barrel shotgun style
1. Damage: 1-50 in cone, shotgun style
2. Firing Delay: 0.5 seconds
3. Clip: 2
4. Reload time: 1 second per shell
5. LMB: fires 1 shell
6. RMB: fires both shell dealing twice as much damage.
7. Hitscan: Yes
1. Melee:
1. JetFist: Can launch his fist, he won't be able to use his rocket launcher until he get his fist back.
1. Movement
1. Dash: Yes
2. Wall-jump: No
1. Abilities: None

1. About special movements
1. Wall jump is the ability of jumping a bit higher then a normal jump, you gain +50% jump high (you can jump 1.5x4 blocs)
2. Dash

VI – Background Story[a]

        In AD 2101 war was beginning.
        Due to human radiation experiments, cats had developed a form of intelligence equal to man. However man refused to treat cats as their equal and an apartheid regime was put in place. The cats suffering the pain and humiliation of being second grade citizen as well as being used as “lolcats” to server in mindless human entertainments.

        Soon in some cat slums, cats began to wear the name “lolcats” with pride, and it wasn't long until a full-blown global rebellion broke out. The king of the “lolcats”, Xerxes, a large and beautiful Persian, proved a strong leader with strategic instincts no man could best.

        Human suffering many humiliating defeats found its savior in Battle Robots, standard household helpers, Garbage disposal droids were all converted into battle ready models, with a wide variety of armaments.
        Soon after a combination of Neutron bombing and Robotic cat-slaughter, the cats were defeated and returned to their pet-like existence.

        It was however not the end, the massive radiation which enveloped the atmosphere, the result of neutron bombing, seemed to had made all sentient life infertile, plant life however flourished as never before.


        In AD 2201, all human life was extinct.
        Their robots however fitted with fusion batteries, did not succumb to radiations, they seemed to draw energy from it. Their AI instructed them to preserver the human culture, which is what they did admirably.
        Until one fine morning all went to hell, when two robots were trying equally hard to preserver a toaster. Both robots were the same model, however from different manufacturers, the Blue one from UK (United Kinetics) and the Red one from USA (United Super Androids).

        Robots from both companies started to eliminate all other robots until only they were left and since they learned how to work in their own old factories, the engines of war were churning harder than ever before.


VII – Environments and Ambiance

1. Overview
        Human life is extinct, due to radiations from the Neutron bombing. Since that robots and plants are the only living elements on Earth, environments should be industrial, mechanical, with a lot of vegetation outside.

1. Several locations
1. Factories
2. Sewers
3. metallurgy
4. Huge greenhouse with loads of plants.
5. Abandoned industrial places infested by plants

1. Features, elements
1. 5 control points
1. the 3 middle points are neutral
2. the points at each ends of the map are owned by each team and have a flag on it
3. large open areas so that people can build bases, bunkers, etc...

1. The Source engine features Source SDK, so players can create their own levels.

1. Sounds
1. Sound of different events
1. X team has captured the flag
2. X team has dropped the flag
3. X team won the match
4. Draw match
5. etc...

VIII – Game Models

1. Player models
This is a Team Deathmatch CTF gameplay, featuring classes, so we need a model for each classes featuring each team's colors (Red and Blue).
1.
2. The scout needs to look lighter than any other classes.
3. The Tank has a stronger armor, and needs to be larger also.
4. The Rocketeer has strong legs ( stabilizes himself while shooting rockets), needs to be large too.
5. The assault needs strong armor for his upper body.
6. The marksman needs to be weak, maybe light too.
7. The builder needs to look like a high-end robot, maybe without legs, hovering above ground.


1. Block models
1. 2x1
1. simple
2. with dispenser
1. 2x3
1. simple
2. with gate
1. 1.5x4
2. 1x5
3. ramp

1. Flag model
Any “old-tech” hardware
1. computer
2. espresso machine
3. TV
4. etc...

1. Props
Some props that can be used by mappers. To add details and ambiance in a level.


IX – Power to the community

        Power to the community, what is it? Most of the mod will be modifiable.
        On the game elements side, the materials and prop models we used will be included in the release. They will be available to any mappers, as long as they give credit to their creators. Custom content is greatly welcome, maps, new models, textures and even sound. The past versions of this mod lived because of the good custom maps made by the community, they refresh the game by using the same gameplay, or even exploring new ways of playing (a maze, random wall that disappear, also called gimmick maps).

        On the server side, variables like matches time limit, or Block Point regeneration rate will be changeable by servers admin. Being able to play on different configurations is fun and not boring. Competitive servers with default variables, Fun servers where you can build a lot of stuff, anything. Server owners do whatever they want with their servers.

        The only thing that won't be released is the source code, the only way to add features to the game is using server-side addons and plugins (MetaMod: Source, Sourcemod, ManiAdmin or Eventscripts).


X – Extra Stuff, What am I working on?

        I joined the dev team as mapper, I design and create levels for the mod.
I also helped our concept artists/modelers (same 2 people) by giving feedback and my opinions on their work.
I made the map layout example document (shown in the presentation), and a series of tutorials (how to set up SourceSDK to make maps for Project Haven, how to protect your maps from decompilers, etc...) for new mappers joining us and for the community when the mod gets released.

        Several maps I worked on from my mind, to the paper then in the game are:
1. ph_metallergy (shown in the presentation, waiting on props to finish it)
2. ph_devilfaze (not compiled yet)
3. ph_obsidian (not compiled yet)
4. az_fact (basic layout done)
5. az_oct (basic layout done)
6. az_perplex (basic layout done)

        I've also been working on several textures for me and other mappers, with or without bump and specular map. Different sets I made:
1. az_metal
2. az_concrete
3. a set of refracting glass panels
4. 6 sky-boxes (currently working on it)

        As a server owner, I am hosting a test server for the mod. It helps in play tests with the other developers. It is running linux so we can see if the mod working on linux servers as well as windows-based servers. We might release a couple of server-side plugins with the first release, but those are not decided yet.





[a]change this later —miketaret