RElim Chamber (400+ downloads)

MXD on RElim Chamber
Created by: TwiztedMatt1007
Works with any party size from 2-16 players.

(Click images for higher quality)
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9162808_Full-1.jpg
Not your typical game of Dodgeball... unless you played Elim Chamber that is.

Contents:

Introduction
Gameplay
Supported Gametypes
Improvements From Halo 3
Reach CRM & Purgatory
Center Divider
Other Stuff I Learned
FAQs
Map Overview
Action Shots
Special Thanks
Upcoming Teasers

Introduction:
RElim Chamber is a remake of my Halo 3 map Elim Chamber. For those of you who did not have a chance to play that Mini Game I will give you a break down of how to play and what makes it so nifty. So, the basic premise behind the gameplay of RElim Chamber is what is known in the Halo community as Dodgeball. Basically, you have plasma grenades, there are bad people on the other side of the field, use those plasma grenades to make the bad people go away. However, RElim Chamber puts an interesting and game changing twist on it all. I'll cover just what that twist is in the sections below. For those of you who may be thinking, "I am terrible at sticking people, this is not for me." You would be mistaken. I would highly recommend this for someone who is not very proficient at sticking as the game will help you improve that particular skill. I have never been very good at sticking people, since Halo 1 for that matter, but I still find this to be fun, fast paced, and fairly competitive. If all you want to do is understand how to play and just enjoy this mini game, the only required reading will be this Intro and Gameplay. Everything else is optional and just put here for those who want to know how I did what I did. If you have any questions, comments, or constructive criticism, feel free to leave it below and I will get back to you as soon as I can. That should give you a good basis for the game, lets move on to the meat and potatoes, shall we?

Gameplay:
Two things you need to know off the bat is everyone starts with Evade in all the gametypes and the center is divided with teleporters and a hard kill barrier for backup. I elaborate a lot on that in the later section named Center Divider if you want to know more. Now then, you are probably asking yourself just what is this twist that is suck a game changer? I like to call it a CRM or, for those of you who are not as fond of acronyms as I am, a Containment and Release Mechanism. I will go into great detail about this new CRM design in an even later section so, for now, here is what you need to know to play.

When a teammate of yours dies, they will be sent into a Purgatory at the back right of the enemy base. I put your teammates here so you can see your comrades queuing up to be returned to play while focusing on trying to stick those pesky baddies on the other team. You read that right, return your fellow stickers to play. This is where the CRM comes in. There is a glowing orange rectangle at the back of the enemy base that, if you land a grenade in you will be able to release 1-2 teammates. For those of you who learn better via seeing than reading, here is the adventures of one unfortunate fellow and his road to redemption.

This individual met his demise at such a young age. Only time will tell if a second chance will be given or will he be damned to spend the rest of the round in Purgatory?
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9162779_Full-1.jpg

Lucky for him, a teammate was paying attention and noticed this poor person sitting out of play. This is the glowing orange rectangle I was referring to earlier that you will need to get grenades into.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9162818_Full-1.jpg

The all forgiving grenade of salvation will then detonate, setting off the fusion coils of judgment.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9162770_Full-1.jpg

Removing the individual from Purgatory.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9162849_Full-1.jpg

This will allow the individual access to the innards of the CRM where an instantly respawning custom power up will be that grants the player 5 seconds of invulnerability. It will also turn the person gold, because gold is awesome!
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9162806_Full-1.jpg

The individual is turned invulnerable to prevent an instant trip back to Purgatory just as he or she has gotten out. Alas, the story of our traveler has come to a close as he has been allowed back into play... for now. Lets see how long that actually lasts this time.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9162799_Full-1.jpg

Now, there are a few other things you will need to know to play the game effectively. At the center dividing wall, two items will spawn for each team. On your right a Jet Pack will spawn in after about 15-20 seconds after game start. Each team is allowed one and only one. If a player dies, the Jet Pack will respawn after 30 seconds. On the left, an Overshield will spawn in after about 15-20 seconds after game starts and respawns every 30 seconds there after. Finally, in the middle, that spawns at start, is a Health Pack which respawns every 15 seconds.

The last thing you and your team will need to know is that there is still a chance you can get stuck in the CRM. I believe I have fixed this issue via adding one way shield doors to the bottom of the mechanism but I still want to include this in the off chance this has not been fixed. If you get stuck, simply jump and you will get out. If you do not jump, a secondary fail safe will kick in after 10 seconds. Basically, you will be killed and sent back into Purgatory. The one way shield doors should cause you to be auto jumped however and force you through but, you should be aware just in case. If you have any questions, comments, or constructive criticism, feel free to leave it below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Supported Gametypes:

The map supports three custom gametypes:

MXD This is the primary gametype for RElim Chamber. It is territories based and goes into unlimited sudden death after one minute in case both teams are eliminated at the same time, the game will not drag on for longer than a minute. Game is best out of 5 rounds and everyone has evade. Works best with at least 4v4. I cannot say how hectic an 8v8 is as I have not gotten the opportunity to test with that large of a group. If you do get an 8v8, shoot me a link to a video of the game! I would love to see how it performs.

Dodgeball Tournament This is a secondary gametype. This works fine with 1v1 on up. It is set to unlimited score and is a 5 minute game. Everyone has evade and sticking someone will give you more points than if you simply kill them via splash damage. Once again, gold means invulnerable. Players get this by respawning. It also lasts for 5 seconds. If you want to play longer, you can increase the time accordingly. So, if you have too small of a group to play MXD, have uneven teams or you simply want to lob grenades at each other, this is the gametype for you. It does NOT use the Purgatories/CRMs.

Eliteball This is the final official gametype for RElim chamber. It is the same as Dodgeball Tournament except everyone is an elite.

Grifball Yeah, you read that right. Since I had the budget left to do so and I was not using assault, I added on a simple court for Grifball. It is not played in the same area as my dodgeball variants are but, it is fully supported. Why you ask? Because I could.

That is all you need to know to play! If you want to learn more continue reading. Remember, if you like this Mini Game, you can nominate it for a feature here or you can nominate it for the most recent Forge Hub Favorites here. Also, I would appreciate it if you would like it on Bungie.net if you do enjoy this mini game and rate this thread up at the top.

Improvements From Halo 3:

To be short and sweet about this, the grenades on the map are set to fixed so no more running around trying to find them because they got thrown about by explosions, the map is wider so you have room to breath, and the fail safes actually work in the CRMs! Also PSST used here to separate the play field is much better than the anti-cheating stuff I used back in Halo 3.

Reach CRM & Purgatory:

The CRM this time around is a LOT simpler and easier to duplicate for those of you who can think of your own use for it. If you do use it, the only thing I ask is that you shoot me a link to your map so I can check it out!

The way it works this time round is I have a row of eight fusion coils lined up .1 units apart from left to right of each other. All of them are fully capable of blocking the teleporter by themselves. So, since there are two CRMs on the map with eight coils a piece, that comes out to 16 fusion coils. The minimum number allowed on map at one point is 9. This way, each CRM will always have at least one coil in them to block a player from coming through. All of the coils are also set to respawn after one second so the ones that did not instantly respawn will reappear after a second.

Why so many fusion coils? I have a working theory as to the most effective way to have the CRM stay consistent. Basically, when a grenade explodes next to a coil, it can do one of two things. It can either instantly explode the coil or irritate it so it explodes shortly after the grenade goes off. So, I have so many coils in the CRMs to ensure that the coils that are not instantly destroyed will have a chance to get exploded and allow a player through. This is also why I have the minimum set to 9 instead of 16. I also have more than one in there because having only one can cause the CRM to be less consistant. Sometimes the single coil will respawn too quickly to allow someone through, sometimes it will respawn too slowly allowing more than two out.

The CRMs also have two teleporters inside each of them. The top one is set to 0 all the way around for its top, bottom, and radius. It is placed 1 full unit above the lower teleporter. The lower teleporter has two duties on this map. I'll cover what it does for the CRM here and what else it does later. Here it is, as I said, set 1 full unit below the top teleporter. Its set to box shape rather than a cylinder and its proportions are set to a Width of 3.6, Top of .2, Bottom of 0, and Length of .9. The reason for this size, once again, will be explained further in a later section.

The height of the lower teleporter is set to what it is to ensure that a player will have the highest chance to get through as when a player goes through a teleporter, there is a short period of time a player must wait before being able to go through another. This is where a failure can come in so, to minimize the chance of that, I set it to as low as I could and still have enough height to maintain proper operation.

There are two fail safes with this CRM should it fail to allow a player out. I believe this failure comes in due to network latency as I have not had an issue with getting stuck in it on a single 360. To take care of this, I added a one way shield door to the bottom of the CRM with the orange side facing up to automatically cause the player to jump when they hit it which should force a player through. That is also why the height is set to what it is for the lower teleporter. So a player could simply jump to get out. If for whatever reason this does not work and the player forgets to jump to get out, he or she is taken out of the play space while in the CRM and will be killed after 10 seconds so no more getting stuck and being forced to wait till the round ends.

The Purgatory is still rather simple. I have one teleporter at the bottom of the two tall respawn areas. The height needs to be lowered on it however so when a player spawns high up and falls onto the teleporter, they will not simply go into the CRM. It can and does happen if the height is not adjusted properly. Mine is set to .5. If it is any higher a player falling onto the Purgatory teleporter will be teleported on top of the fusion coils and die shortly there after.

Center Divider:

Now then, I assume you would like to know how I keep the players on their own sides of the field. Well, its quite simple. It is a two pronged approach. The first and primary means for keeping players where they belong is something I call PSST (yes, I do really love my acronyms. Don't judge me!) PSST stands for Play Space Separation Technique. Basically, I have two teleporters, one on either side of the field for each respective team, placed 1.7 units apart. The dimensions of the teleporters are set to a box with a Width of .7, Top of 0 (because I have them upside down), and the Bottom and Length are both max.

When a player tries to go through the center of the place space, they will first be picked up by the teleporter on their side.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9167180_Full-1.jpg

Then teleported out of the play space into a tall shaft set up behind the CRMs at each base.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9167160_Full-1.jpg

Then finally back into play using the same receiver node as their respective CRM does.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9167186_Full-1.jpg

Now, I told you I would explain why the lower teleporter in the CRM is so large, this is why. It is set up to encompass the entire floor of the CRM area and the area used for the PSST system. Confusing I know but I can't think of a more simply way to explain it. The shaft for PSST is very tall as well. The reason for this is because when a player goes through a teleporter, their left/right and front/back position is changed however, their height does not change. So, to ensure a player does not end up where he or she should not be, I had to make it a really big shaft. It is also separate from the CRM area so that if a player jumps through the middle, they do not get the custom power up and become invulnerable. This would be a game breaking exploit.

I also set up PSST so that when someone goes through the dividing teleporters, their forward momentum is carried through to the receiver node. Aka, I made it so a player continues going forward instead of running strait into a wall. That way the teleporter gets unblocked quicker so the system can handle more people going through it at once.

Once again, the bottom has one way shield doors set up so that if a player does not get teleporterd back into play, they will be ideally automatically jumped and forced through. If not, he or she can still jump to get out or wait for sweet death. The upper one way shield door is there to stop someone with a jet pack from attempting to block the teleporter and allow teammates to cross the center and also to cushion the fall of anyone who was really high up. Because, in slayer, when you go out of play, you are not invulnerable and fall damage sucks.

The reason I do not have the player get teleported right to the receiver node on their side of the field is all it takes for someone to block that is to stand on it. This way, if someone chooses to try and block the teleporter, all they will be doing is sentencing their teammates to a quick death and a tour of my Purgatory/CRM system.

The second part to the PSST system is I simply have a hard kill zone in the center in case, for whatever reason, the teleporter fails. Always good to have a back up plan. I originally only had this in place but, it was breakable because hard kill barriers are not instant. If a player moves fast enough through one, they will not be killed and can end up on the other side. Plus, a couple of my friends found it hard to not jump into the middle and the teleporters were a much less severe punishment than the kill barrier alone. That being said, it takes time to get through this so, if you are the last one alive on your team, jumping into the middle is a good way to lose the round for your team.

Other Stuff I Learned:

Something little I learned is that, although the power ups (OS, Camo, and CPU) draw from the same pool, their minimums are separate. What I mean by this is, if you have 3 OSs on the map with 2 Camos on the map and the minimum set to 2, Both the Camos will respawn right away but, so long as there are two OS on the map, the 3rd OS picked up will respawn at its normal rate. This is how I made the OSs spawn in late in the game and the CPUs spawn in instantly. The minimum is set to 2 on map at all times. So, I have two CPUs on the map but, I have four OSs on the map so the two in play respawn normally.

FAQs:

Q: Why don't you increase the capture time in MXD so a final grenade throw before someone dies can save the day?

A: I tried this but in rare circumstances, if a team was wiped out before the game went into sudden death, the round could end and not give the winning team a point. So, I chose score system over last ditch attempt at being the hero.

Q: Why not use KOTH?

A: Unlimited sudden death does not work in KOTH and would require me to have a round timer ticking down. If both teams were killed off and the game was not sudden death based, everyone would have to wait for the round to end and that's no fun. With territories, unlimited sudden death kicks in after 1 minute so that way the party can play for however long it takes for a team to win and the round will end after 5 seconds should both teams die off.

Q: Wait, Grifball, why?!

A: Because I could and what isn't better with Grifball! :p

Q: Will there be a V2?

A: No. I am sticking to my one and done strategy. I have enough friends to help with testing that I do not need to put out multiple versions. I release my games when they are done and final.

Q: Why is there a floating column in the middle of the field?

A: Because it was the only way for me to get the territory flag out of the way. If I hadn't done that it would be sitting right in the way of everyone trying to look across to the other side so, I floated it.

Q: Why is the movement and jump hight different between MXD and Dodgeball Tournament?

A: The two gametypes have different penalties for death basically. In MXD it is a bit more severe of a punishment than Dodgeball Tournament. With MXD you end up sitting out until a teammate gets you back into play. With Dodgeball Tournament, you respawn after five seconds so I made it easier to be killed by splash damage in Dodgeball Tournament by lowering the jump height but increased the speed to make evade more useful. With MXD, you should use jump to avoid as much of the explosions as possible.

Map Overview:

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9164868_Full-1.jpg

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9164942_Full-1.jpg

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9164903_Full-1.jpg

Action Shots:

One down, three to go.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9162762_Full-1.jpg

Airborne!
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9162868_Full-1.jpg

I think we got him!
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff34/TwiztedMatt1007/RElim%20Chamber%20FInal/reach_9162761_Full-1.jpg

Special Thanks:

I just wanted to say thank you to all of my friends who helped me test this map. All the way from the broken initial versions to the final product. Without your guys and gals help, this map would not be as awesome as it is. Thanks again for your help and not strangling me every time I said, "Hey, I have a new build, lets test!"

Upcoming Teasers:

Keep Away: This game will be a class based semi competitive game. I won't go into much detail at this time but it is currently in the testing phase and should be out in the not too distant future. The map needs some performance modifications and I am not sure what will need to be changed with the gametype until further testing is done. Even in its early stages this mini game shows a lot of potential for strategy and good gameplay. You will be seeing this sooner than later.

Freeze Tag: This is something I am semi-working on. It is very complicated to build but dirt easy to play. It is based on a game my friend and I use to play back in Halo 2. If you look for Halo and Freeze Tag on youtube, you should find a video posted by a friend of mine named Zorplex showing some gameplay from back in the day. The scoring system is really complicated for mine however so, it is taking a lot of work and I question just how fun it will be in Reach so, I am taking my time getting this one done. It will be out, to quote from bungie, "When its done."

Yet Unnamed Projects: I also have yet other gametypes that I am kicking around, one that should work on the Freeze Tag maps as well if I get lucky, but they are a ways off in development. One is rather competitive others, not so much. Only time will tell if they are fun or just an interesting idea.