quick idea for zones usage

[Buster]

In my map DmSaberArena there's an open roof over the whole arena. There's also jump boots and lifts. Using the lifts with jump boots, it's possible to time your jump off the moving lift and get onto the roof. I wanted to prevent players from camping up there, so I made it seem like the air up there was toxic.

Link to the map: https://gatherstone.oldunreal.com/sb_ma ... rarena.zip

I zoned off the top part of the map with a sheet. I put in a slime zone info, set it to walk instead of swim and used no visual fog etc, so nothing seemed different to the players. But if you stayed up there, after a few seconds you'll start taking lots of damage and eventually disappear in a puff of blood spray.

It had the desired effect. A toxic air zone that killed you.

Back in 2004 I had a map idea that built on this 'toxic air zone.' The basic map layout was a base on an asteriod. Inside the base the air is fine, but outside the base you'd need a working suit and a supply of air. The need for the suit is easy enough. Just make the outside area a toxic air (slime) zone like in SaberArena. But as long as the suit is working you'll be ok, as if there's an infinite air supply.

I wanted to force players back into the base by making to seem as if there's a limited supply of air in the suit, so you'd need to grab a new tank. Making that so is also easy by just using a water zone (walk instead of swim, and a quicker rate to damage etc), which means players will need a tank refill to stay outside.

I wanted BOTH, a modified slime AND water zone, so player would need both a working suit and a supply of air. Damage the suit (toxic suit takes damage to 0), which makes it seem like you're space suit has a breech, and you die quick (like the slime zone). AND if you stay outside too long your suit runs out of air (like in a water zone and the SCUBA tank runs out), you'll die a bit slower but you will die.

I did a little test map over ten years ago, to try and have both zones affect the players. What I did was zone sheet off the entire (outside) area of the map only 24 units above the ground. I placed a second zone sheet 1024 units above that. I now have 3 zones. One from the ground to the knees, one from the knees to well over the head, and the last one up in the air (just in case somebody gets up there). I gave each section its own zone info, and set all three to walk (normal movement) only. The bottom zone was the slime, the middle the water, and the top one a killer.

It worked. If the suit got damaged to zero you were wiped out by the slime zone. You could only prolong your death very briefly by jumping lots, but not long enough to really make a difference. I set the slime zone to kill you pretty fast. But you're mostly in the water zone, and it seemed to also choke you out if you stayed too long without a SCUBA
tank. Have both zones set up like that seemed to work, at least with that test map.

I no longer have it, and haven't tried the idea again in over 13 years, but I thought somebody might like to give it a try and use it in a map. It does limit players in a DM match, but it may be a really nice touch when used in a SP level.