(TL:DR just go down to the solution)

While this isnt exactly the first time something like this has been suggested, I feel the need to repost it anyways since all the previous times are all really old and either way people will get pissed off so here I go. plus its idea is kinda different from theirs anyways. (note to map creators, the principles discussed here kinda apply to you as well)

Randomly Generated maps as everyone knows are hilly and vast, it suits the rifle very well as it gives them places to shoot from and easily prevent people from coming over. over time people asked for ben to add small aesthetics such as trees and whatnot to the map but it remained unchanged, regardless it still holds a small place in our hearts for being so nostalgic. fast forward a bit and custom maps were released, maps such as Bridge wars, Custom Assault, and Pinpoint offered a vastly different experience as it forced people to either hug the sides while moving slower through water, or use the small amount of land and be forced into a small location. in most cases, the maps still favored rifles as they were the only weapon to consider.

so let us fast forward again to .54 when SMG was released, it was immediately trusted into maps which in noway supported its style of gameplay, and because of that was immediately shunned as a crappy weapon (which it still somewhat is, but its faring better and is another topic entirely). Default maps being as vast, open, and somewhat hilly as they are barley allowed people to close in on rifle users, hell the same could be said for most maps. a majority of maps are flat(or are hilly but are like default in that the hills are often so tame that it doesn't matter) and offer so little cover in the form of trees and buildings and whatnot that the smg stood little chance.

Now that the shot gun is in the mix, its suffering the same problems that SMG had. however fortunately for it, people are starting to change the way they make maps so weapons all have a chance. maps such as Cord are starting to be released which have tunnels, cover in the form of trees, etc etc allowing for all the weapons to stand a chance against each other. but a problem still remains in that the Default map is still heavily maintains a rifle bias.

TL:DR ends here, its not long now. SOLUTION.
Make the randomly generated maps have things such as cave systems and trees. so it can be all hilly and whatnot as it is now, but also add trees in the "valleys", cave/tunnel systems going through and under the mountains, and stuff like that. doing this would allow the SMG and shotgun to be usable on default while not screwing over the rifle. People have already created map generators prior which can make forests and caves [separately](and Ben posted them in the news archives so he knows about them) so he can probably borrow elements from those to improve the current map generator.

So what do you say?

(TL:DR TL:DR) current map gen is stupidly rifle biased, fix it. also 90% of maps atm are also show rifle bias. fix that too map creators.

bump: Agreed!

yes.

This would help, i agree too.

mhm +1

Yes, but it's up to Ben he already has enough to do sadly 8(

true, but itd be nice if he did update it. i know what im asking for isnt exactly easy

I agree.

I as well.

I agrove.

Yay! New word!

I must totally agree! It would be REALLY COOL , if we could add our own custom VOX or kvx trees and buildings!!
Have so that the generator looks at the prefab folder for sequential file names, and pick from them randomly, so to add new stuff all we have to do is insert files in order... Tree1 tree2 tree3... whatever :)

Or even better if it chose from theme packs so you could do desert stuff, or forest stuff, or island stuff....

To really make it cool, have it choose player skins for the terrain... Desert cammo for desert maps, winter cammo for snow maps, navy cammo for whatever it is that the navy does...

anyway...

With Pyspades + Graphics magic +the heightmap importer, you can make your own as long as you use convex hulls.

Just set it up with a bunch of prefabricated walls and buildings bitmaps. and have graphics magic copy and paste them into place on the final bitmaps.

Here is a script to generate perlin noise for the terrain:
http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/perlin/index.php

most servers can already run this. If your server does ot have it just contact the admin and they can set it up for you.
Every linux distro supports this or grahics magik, so i am sure it would be very popular if someone made this.

The way pyspades can be started by the command line means that you can set up cron or windows scheduler to generate the new map, then task kill the server, then start the server.

The only thing this does not do is place trees. or hollow buildings.

It will still break up the land scape though, giving people landmarks and such.

Good idea.

You guys do know that a user named 'nothings' and/or 'stb' already did some things like this? He made the parking garage map among others more along the lines of what the OP mentions. He wrote a bunch of little programs. I wish somebody could make a front-end for these or he would conglomerate all these generators into one big mega-generator program. Check these out: http://silverspaceship.com/aosmap/

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