E3 Resource Map + Resource Uses

[GreatMazinkaise]

Originally Posted by Craftyatom

Take your stupid tanks, I'll blow you up with my Mosquito!

But I'm on your side! (Prowler?)

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Craftyatom

Thanks for cleaning that up, I quite prefer your version
(I realized that the very bottom right orange is a triangle and the green extends one further, but that's my bad )

Oops, yeah. My bad as well. Was trying to figure it out based on a few different sources, but clearly that on green and orange hex area need to swap that one hexagon, since there are other zones on the map with an extra hexagon sticking out, but none that squiggle like I have that green one doing.

Maybe I'll fix it a little later.

[Craftyatom]

Originally Posted by GreatMazinkaise

But I'm on your side! (Prowler?)

Sorry, lost my head in the heat of the moment. I just want to pilot a mosquito so badly, I'd blow up just about anyone to get there.

[Vorgan]

Very useful post, thanks bud! This is making me see how the foothold mechanic will work well in PS2.

If the any empire is deprived of its access to resources and beaten back, they'll be totally unable to mount an offensive and will head to another continent. Their foothold will be pretty meaningless if they can't finance battles on that continent.

[Craftyatom]

Originally Posted by Vorgan

Their foothold will be pretty meaningless if they can't finance battles on that continent.

People over here are saying that resources are based on servers, not continents (because you can warp between them at any time), so as long as they control resources on at least one continent, they should be fine. Not to mention the small passive resource gains from fighting.

[Vorgan]

Originally Posted by Craftyatom

People over here are saying that resources are based on servers, not continents (because you can warp between them at any time), so as long as they control resources on at least one continent, they should be fine. Not to mention the small passive resource gains from fighting.

I was aware of the passive gains, but not that the resources were continent-wide. I guess that server-wide resources makes sense...I'm back to being a bit irked by footholds then, I suppose haha. Oh well. Beta will clarify how well it works.

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Oops, yeah. My bad as well. Was trying to figure it out based on a few different sources, but clearly that on green and orange hex area need to swap that one hexagon, since there are other zones on the map with an extra hexagon sticking out, but none that squiggle like I have that green one doing.

Maybe I'll fix it a little later.

I think the stray hex on the yellow triangle on the top right edge probably belongs to the 4-hex line next to it -- all the other 7-hex regions are perfect "circles" of hexes and contain full-fledged bases. Given that, and the fact that that's an area that doesn't give a good view of the hex lines in any of the shots I've seen of the map (including watching videos from various sources), I think it's a safe assumption to make.

When I get home, I'll compare the work you two guys did to the work I did when counting hexes and region sizes for the Scale of Map thread, see if there's anything else I estimated differently from you two.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by kaffis

I think the stray hex on the yellow triangle on the top right edge probably belongs to the 4-hex line next to it -- all the other 7-hex regions are perfect "circles" of hexes and contain full-fledged bases. Given that, and the fact that that's an area that doesn't give a good view of the hex lines in any of the shots I've seen of the map (including watching videos from various sources), I think it's a safe assumption to make.

When I get home, I'll compare the work you two guys did to the work I did when counting hexes and region sizes for the Scale of Map thread, see if there's anything else I estimated differently from you two.

It's pretty hard to call some of them. The little resource indicator symbol seems to be at the center of each hex zone, which leads me to think some of the shapes may be kind of wonky.

But there is certainly room for improvement, as we get better data. For now, I'm not going to fix mine, as I feel there are two many little errors where I don't want to fix some and miss others. I'll make another rendition when I feel more confident about where the lines are drawn. Even if we are given a perfect picture of the hexes, I'm still going to make one for my own use.

For now, I think we have a pretty clear picture of what the map currently looks like. A minor hexagon being misplace won't change the outlook too significantly. I'm working on some other map projects that I had wanted to do but lacked a proper grid to work from. They will include the errors, but again, hopefully they wont be too big a deal.

[Hamma]

Awesome map rundown there Xyntech!

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

While it's still an approximation, I did use the best information I could gather from multiple sources, including (mostly) Craftyatom's map, as well as some E3 footage and an older hex map screenshot I had used previously for other things. Some of it is speculation as well, but overall this should be pretty accurate to what the current layout is (layout subject to change).



Alloys (yellow) = Flash(10), Sunderer(150), Grenades(10)
Polymers (green) = Lightning(80), Mosquito(125), Reaver(125), Scythe(125)
Catalysts (orange) = Prowler(100), Magrider(100), Vanguard(100), Liberator(150)

Legend provided from Craftyatom's post on the first page, again all credit to him. I just wanted to provide an even cleaner version of concept.

Okay, just since this seems like as good a spot as any to refine this, and you've gone to more trouble highlighting the outlines than I did in my quick-and-dirty counting aid...

Okay, I'll just attach them here since it's quick and easier than trying to remember my photobucket account info, lol.

The first two files are the ones I was actively working on. The first iteration shows the breakdown of the regions that I estimated. Now, I kind of screwed up, here, because I forgot to work on a separate layer for that step, and so I don't have the original screen-grab for that one, and my work there kind of gets in the way of clearly seeing the validity of the first step I did, which is shown in the second image -- here, I found a convenient brush size and just marked each individual hex. About two thirds were easy to pick out definitively, either because they were on the edge of the map, or because their borders were easily recognizeable. For the rest, I used the regularity of stacking hexagons to inform their placement. As such, I'm highly confident in my hex count. From there, I worked with that overlay to identify which hexes were paired together.

I used two other reference screen grabs, which I've included here as well just so we've all got the same stuff to look at if we want.

So, now.. Stepping back and looking at things, I think I might've been wrong about that Vanu region near their Sanc.. it pretty clearly does appear to be a non-round 7-hex region. Lame. So I'm conceding what I've got directly east of the Vanu foothold in favor of your orange and yellow territories, though I'd argue with the devs that that hex should be forfeited to either the orange or the green region adjacent to it.

However, I do have one you guys seem to have missed. It's a onesie yellow in the northwest corner of the map, just south of the 3-hex yellow on the top edge, that you've included as part of the orange 5-hex region.

In addition, my hex-counting seems to be short one; I conflated one of the green resource icons with unused hex space along the top edge of the map, and couldn't make sense of the two remaining hexes. You guys' identification there makes way more sense than what I was trying to come up with.

The orange and yellow 5-hexes you guys marked differ from my 4-hex and 6-hex parallelogram regions, but looking at them again, I think your divisions center the resources better, so I'll concede that, too.

Take another look near the TR foothold. You guys have 1 4-hex orange, 1 4-hex green, and a 3-hex green there that I divided differently. Double-checking my reference material, it looks like I've got one too many regions in that section, but I'm pretty sure I'm right in that the green icon is smack dab in the middle of that hex two west of the TR foothold's northwest corner. As such, I don't think that's a 4-hex region that you've got colored green, but either a 3-hex or a 1-hex, with the leftover green ones you've got to neighboring hexes.

All in all, though, the rest of the map checks out between my completely independent work and the job you two have played off each other to create. So I'd say that we're probably pretty well spot on aside from those discrepencies.

[Xyntech]

Cool, thanks. I'll take a look at it. I'm not sure when I'll get around to revising it, but I'll try to get it as close as possible when I do.

[kaffis]

Oh, definitely. I mean, hopefully, we'll be in beta before we get many more shots of the map to improve our data, so...

[Craftyatom]

Originally Posted by kaffis

Take another look near the TR foothold. You guys have 1 4-hex orange, 1 4-hex green, and a 3-hex green there that I divided differently. Double-checking my reference material, it looks like I've got one too many regions in that section, but I'm pretty sure I'm right in that the green icon is smack dab in the middle of that hex two west of the TR foothold's northwest corner. As such, I don't think that's a 4-hex region that you've got colored green, but either a 3-hex or a 1-hex, with the leftover green ones you've got to neighboring hexes.

I know that on Xyntech's map (and mine as well, I messed up in that area), the extra orange hex branching off from the nose-down orange triangle was supposed to be a part of the green parallelogram to its left in my original diagram.

As you can clearly see in the ipad demo, however, there are in fact 2 green markers, which I apparently did not take into consideration. Looking at the way they're displaced, I personally would split the clump in the old map into a nose-down triangle and a 2-wide line to the left, though that entire green clump could go a few different ways.

Originally Posted by kaffis

However, I do have one you guys seem to have missed. It's a onesie yellow in the northwest corner of the map, just south of the 3-hex yellow on the top edge, that you've included as part of the orange 5-hex region.

That onesie is hidden by the menu in the ipad demo, too high up for the higby-TB image I have, and just not clear in the others. It does seem like combining it into the orange is a bit odd though, so you're probably right there.

Originally Posted by kaffis

I'd argue with the devs that that hex should be forfeited to either the orange or the green region adjacent to it.

Agreed, that part is just ugly. Transferring that one hex would make a nice big yellow triangle

All in all, there are 2 things to be taken away from this thread:
1.) The outlines of territories need to be bold and one pure color. I would really like an easy-to-see map on release (though to be honest I am not in any place to make demands, what the ps2 team has created for us is AMAZING).
2.) Devs, pretty please can we have a territory map soon? Just post up a jpg with all the shapes on it, we don't need anything fancy. We'd fill in the resource colors and everything for you.

[CuddlyChud]

I think the devs mentioned somewhere that the Empires would use resources differently (i.e. VS might use Polymers for Tanks but TR use Alloys).

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by CuddlyChud

I think the devs mentioned somewhere that the Empires would use resources differently (i.e. VS might use Polymers for Tanks but TR use Alloys).

This is an impression I've gotten as well, and I kind of hope it's the case. It would multiply the strategic factor of each resource 3 fold. What can my empire use it for, and what can the two other empires use it for?