This might just be rambling but I’m going to say everything I think makes a good CM Distress map.
The #1 maps are LV 624 and Solaris Rizz by popular vote.
The Runner ups are Chance’s Slop, and Hybrisa.
The sleeper good maps are Fiorina and Kutjevo.
The bad maps are New Varadero, Shiva, and Trijent.
I forgot about Soro. Eugh… we’ll get to it…
The things that make a map good in order of importance:
- The amount of the map that is regularly used (More map used = better)
- The size of the “Siege” area used (FOB and Hive
- The amount of directions xenos can attack Marines at each conflict zone.
LV Has about 11 “Major interest points.”
The Red ones are vital for marines, the Blue ones are vital for xenos, and the yellow ones enhance marines. Pink ones are important for both teams.
Everything is well spread out. The important comms points for both teams are on the far edges of the map, basically as far as you can get from the “main” conflict zone.
With enhancements for marines close to points of interest, but also just a little further away, it allows more use of the map by marines, and therefore xenos to engage in combat.
It encourages more “use of the map.”
This is a “static map”
The flow of this map may be “marine dictated.”
Solaris has 15 “Major interest points.”
The FOB’s are quite large, but the “boomerang” I drew is one example of xenos’ interests.
Because most of the map is “destructable” seemingly “marine sided” it is a two edged sword.
Marines can eliminate some really good chokes, but the removal of walls creates “highways” for xenos to swiftly rotate and strike the marines from opposite sides.
Though the “important” locations for both teams are more in the middle, and the FOBs are on the edges, it pulls marines out into the map, instead of around the map. Either way, it encourages use of the map.
This is a “dynamic map”
The flow of this map may be “xeno dictated.”
FOB Sieges on LV and Solaris are quite large
Rough estimation shows LV’s FOB Sieges are about 10% of the map each.
Rough estimation on Solaris Rizz is 16% of the map each.
If you play 2 rounds on LV and JUST experience FOB sieges, you have played 20% of the map alone. 1/3rd of Solaris.
LV and Solaris encourage use of the map in different ways.
LV stretches the marines out into the buffer edges. This allows a lot of back liner play, and interesting “no man’s land” conflict."
Solaris diffuses marines in to the middle. This allows a lot of xeno rotation, and encourages big fights to happen all over the map.
Is the static map or dynamic map more interesting?
Well on the one hand, the movement of the marines is the interesting part with LV; the destruction of the map, and the xenos movements is the interesting part of Solaris.
Tier 2 maps
We can get nitty gritty into “well this angle that angle.” I think this is less important than the overall layout of the maps.
Let’s talk about Chance’s and Prosper.
Visually, these are the two coolest maps. Maybe it has something to do with the dark pallette, or the feeling you’re on a night time planet.The vibe is strong, but not as important as layout hence why 624 and Solaris are more popular. Chance’s is REALLY close.
Something that makes these maps interesting is that they “don’t need” supply closets. These maps for a com tech are “destruction build” maps. There is so much metal to scavenge on this map, that it’s possible to deploy without metal, and end the op with extra metal. I almost dread hybrisa because of how much metal there is.
I forgot the name of the guy that made chance’s with the gundam picture but I asked him why he made his choices when he made Chance’s.
He sent this picture.
This was before some rework that “concentrated the fun.”
The biggest change was removing some chokes that felt like “filler” and this NW courtyard that IF UTILIZED PROPERLY could make THE BEST flanks, but organizing those requires a lot of players to listen and follow through.
I forgot to mark sensors on previous maps, but only remembered it on this map because it feels like there’s almost nothing to enhance marines.
There’s only about 11 interest zones on Chance’s Claim in my opinion.
The design intentionally guides marines to only use the west side of the map with the FOB that “has power” making the east FOB objectively worse for not having power.
The map is good because of the destructible walls permitting dynamic xenos movement, and wide FOB defense area.
Anyone that played a SW FOB siege knows there’s a lot of places to attack and defend.
SE FOB is an interesting shake up; because the map is so predictable, the map isn’t designed for the use of the east side of the map. The map is just weird and doesn’t work at all & that’s why it works. It’s just so bizarre, it is one of the only maps where marines can execute a “real” flank on the xenos when landing.
It is both a pro and a con for Chance’s claim to only use 40~50% of the map most of the time.
What doesn’t make sense and may be considered a “bad layout” is what makes Chance’s claim so good.
There are no “Marine enhancements” of supplies, power generators, medbay is too far and clunky to reasonably make use of. It’s just a good long fight to/from reactors, with some spice of wacky layouts on the east side of the map.
However, you do use the entire west side of the map. The fights go all the way from SW FOB IN to hydro, bar grill, and A block. That’s how big FOB sieges are. You get a lot of gameplay out of your gameplay and straight into the action.
Hybris Prospera another really cool map has major layout problems.
I almost did a reverse map; but all the areas covered in red are basically never used.
Once marines get to Caverns northwest, there’s not much choice for xenos to attack; there’s basically two entrances and little reasonable choice for flanking. You have to tunnel to get north of marines, which makes the choices of attack “too much.” The middle section of the map that is mostly unused “could” also be used for a flank route, but again, to go from caverns northwest, all the way back, then be out in the open to try and flank is a massive effort requirement to get a flank on the marines’ front.
It’s quite a shame because so much xeno attrition needs to happen (usually) that most of the caves go unused because of the size of the conflict zone.
There’s 4 places to fight on west beach of LV alone
And at least 4 on east beach on lv
This gets a little nitty gritty but it’s parts of a wider picture, I just showed 2 conflict areas in a picture. two separate chokes with 2 entrances each.
There’s so much “more map” to this beach.
One firefight can take place over a large area. So much “more map” is used. There’s more directions xenos can come to marines from.
Yeah, sure, xenos CAN tunnel out, and come from hydro to beach, but realistically, that’s not going to happen & if it does, will it not be a waste of your life as a xeno?
LZ 1 in the NE corner seems like it had some work and is pretty good. There’s some rough edges but the FOB siege goes from the top of the map all the way down to WY Waste Disposal out into the eastern side of the hospital. LZ 2 is also pretty decent, but feels a little small and cramped.
Sleeper Maps
Kutjevo is probably in most people’s top 3, but not in enough people’s top 2 to get voted in enough. That’s what makes it a sleeper good map. With some love it could get up there in the ranks as there are some mid-late game marine major rough edges. This is a map that’s better when Xenos are winning.
This map is weird and is basically just a figure 8.
Marines and Xenos each have a lot of choice for defense, but the middle is quite constricted into a few places the xenos can defend well.
There’s almost no choice for marine flanks.
There’s 12 points of interest.
Either way you can see a lot of area for the FOB to be used and a lot of points to attack. This is quite a static map like LV with all the indestructable walls.
However, you use most of the map either going through medical or botany, you will end up in construction as a marine and all sides are usable by xenos for attack.
The SW LZ does provide little reason for marines to “go out” as the NW LZ has the medical surgery table for ground side abortions.
The drawbacks of this map is that stony fields is basically never used because on the rare chance a SW FOB is held, it’s safer to move straight into botany bridge and botany and forward.
Though the south LZ does have generators, it’s easier to hold either north comms, and beneficial to get the operating table than it is to try and hold the far comms location on the SW FOB.
The layout of this map dictates NW FOB usage and quite a “just go forward” plan similar to the west side of Chance’s claim. There’s no real need to go anywhere as bravo to get more metal; the power generators are in an FOB; and there’s no “big” flanks either team can utilize, until the FOB siege.
The FOB and surrounding areas for both LZ are amazing. They each use almost 20~% of the map.
Fiorina requires a lot from the players. Fiorina pretty much only works on 200 pop with a stacked CIC. (3 SO, & captain minimum.)
With only 9 points of interest this map feels barren, but like Chance’s and Hybrisa Prosper, this map has a LOT of metal. There’s constant scavenging the marines can do.
There’s no “good” or “obvious” places for xenos to hold, but that’s part of what makes this map so dynamic as a sleeper map.
Most commanders may say “go NE LZ and go straight west to the grass.” But it can split to going north into research and a research fallback, south into lower cellblock and transit, and FOB sieges can take place all the way out into Disco.
With South LZ/FOB you use the SW corner of the map as a route of movement. You use the entire west side of the map moving north.
Then, finally both LZs use Engineering ring; both comms “can” spawn there, plus generators is equadistant from both LZ just like on LV 624. It’s a secondary place to hold; but isn’t the FOB.
This is very close to LV 624, but without the obvious beach, caves, hydro. The entire marine side is LV 624 and the xeno side is as dynamic as the east side of Chance’s Claim. “Anything goes” & it’s so weird. It’s all spice, and I think this is why it’s a sleeper. You need enough people to like spicey to make it a hit.
“Bad Maps.”
Trijent…
ooooohhhhh boy…
Yes I know YOU like it but oh boy do I hate this map… this was the first map I was like “I am skipping this round” because it has major layout problems very similar to Hybrisa Prospera.
Here I marked the unused parts of the map.
It’s like 50% of the map can just be deleted. “But the map is technically a square so…”
The biggest draw to the map is the biggest repulsion.
The river literally cuts the map in half and with SE being the worst hive, no points of interest, and no LZ, you don’t use it at all.
“But one round I walked through there!”
There’s also a big dead zone between the two LZs.
Most of Trijent is rushing from SW LZ to bar to dam to cross the river,
or moving straight east from LZ 1.
It’s a shame because the LZs are mostly decent. SW LZ is a really awesome FOB to defend. Sieging is a bit miss with how open Loading bay is, but for the most part, what a cool place to fight!
NW LZ is pretty close but needs a lot of detail work with admin I think, but is also again pretty cool and close to being a good FOB.
It plays a lot like West Chance’s claim which makes it a good simple map, but there’s no spice. Sure a commander can clean the water, but it doesn’t solve the problem of the entire SE side of the map being completely pointless to go to. Moving the filtration centre there won’t fix that issue.
New Varadero
I kinda like this map, but also kinda hate it.
It’s like eating ice cream that someone farted on.
It’s good ice cream, but… yknow… I want it but I also really don’t.
Red is unused, green Can’t be used. It’s just black parts of the picture or the ocean you can’t use.
NV is a one LZ map. The only time the other LZ is used is when a commander wants to do something different which is fine, but realistically… cmon…
This map is on the brink of being good I think.
The biggest problem with NV is the LZ’s. This map is a lot of spice which is one reason it’s so good. A small version of Fiorina. But no good places for xenos to hold.
Another big problem this map faces is because of its glaring flaws, it mostly gets played on lowpop, and with a lot of problems, this map is not good for lowpop.
Either the Marines can’t establish their FOB and there’s too many places for xenos to hide, or xenos don’t know what to hold, and marines waltz on through.
Due to the entire NE side of the map being unused, the entire “good LZ” needs a lot of Com tech work to make “defendable” which cannot happen on lowpop.
If the xenos can’t make a reasonable hold, the the xenos can’t siege the FOB, and xenos will be scattered too easily. The best places for xenos to fight are the caves and the FOB. The entire middle of the map has so much clutter and little “shit” that impede xenos like tables, it’s a frustrating race to melt all the stupid fucking garbage cans.
In summary, unless it’s mid pop (150 players) this map will suffer from not enough people to do “tedious” work to make this map fun and because the players are concentrated in the “tedious part” of the map, there’s no other real choices.
And yeah sure, a few commanders will land NE LZ and run down the beach, but that LZ sucks so hard that people don’t want to use it.
Plus weather.
Shiva’s Snowball
Snow.
Okay just kidding, but yeah… snow is a bit annoying.
This map only really has 3~4 places you fight which is the problem with Shiva. The snow is annoying, but IMO not the reason this map is bad.
Yellow is fighting areas.
The LZs are fighting areas, and the NW LZ is pretty okay. South LZ is not that great.
It’s a run to botany/bar, and once marines win that fight, you fight the hive in the SE.
Red areas are unused.
Everything else is basically walking to the areas of interest.
Take LV 624 again as an example. There is zero reason to go to Research and Fitness. But they have a lot of conflict there because of the surrounding points of interest.
They’re both really close to Robotics which is part of the FOB for SW LZ, and close to Medbay for abortions.
Realistically, you’re not going to northern shiva for any reason. There’s nothing there. It’s not on the way to hive, there’s no metal, no comms, nothing. It’s worthless, and if an operating table is there, it’s too far for marines to reasonably hold. It’s so far out, that it must only be used by synths after all clear for a last minute abortion from hive.
Shiva has no places to go but botany, hive, and LZ. Because of this, you just run through parts of the map. They’re technically “used” but they’re not “actually used.”
When’s the last time you went to the desert? If you did, was it to ride dirt bikes?
Well there’s no dirt bikes in CM. Forest, please add motorcycles to CM.
Soro Strata
Get ready to say opinion invalid because do you even know comms?
No I have no idea where comms is on this map besides the one pink square I highlighted.
This combines the problems of Trijent dam, Chance’s claim, and New Varadero into one map.
The only “good LZ” is the NW LZ. Though I think the FOB siege for the South LZ is a fun time, the weather on this map basically needs to be removed.
Trijent- This map basically doesn’t use the entire SW corner of the map because it’s the bad LZ and no reason to go there. Maybe a comms. You’re basically cut in half by indestructable walls that funnel you…
Chance’s- Just run east. From NW LZ, you can basically only go east to “north deck.” Sure you can go south LZ, but you’re still going to basically end up at north deck and that whole area.
NV- There is an objectively bad LZ. The NW LZ needs IMO a lot of com tech attention to make it a “good FOB.” There’s a ton of “dead” space. There’s no reason to use most of the map.
Would adding a tunnel from South FOB to Weeping lake make it better? Well it’s a completely different part of the map that could be used.
I didn’t call this a figure 8 map like Kutjevo because I think it’s a line. On Kutjevo you at the least move north and south sometimes. There’s a whole loop to fight around at hospital alone with scrubland as a conflict zone.
If this is TL;DR, sorry.
I might not be good at conveying my thoughts, but I think there are major problems with map designs.
I will probably add more map theory with “Choke-pocket, FOB design, no man’s lands” and more by studying the existing maps.
If you think I’m right or wrong, I’d like to know if I’m the only one who thinks this way or not.
