I like 'Skyrates 2.3 - Hurricane' best. While the current layout was interesting to explore, it only leaves you one 'optimal' way of influence running when you don't do combats: bounce back and forth between the northwest and the core. 2.3 left you a lot more choices.

I agree with Thorne.

I'd like to see a new layout suggested. Possibly a combination of this round's and last round's maps.

Just for fun, I'm throwing my old suggestion in here:
http://skyrates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5687&highlight=

So this round's map is super convenient for me since I'm only logging in twice a day now. I pick up three missions in the SE core, take them up to the NW core, log back in, pick up three missions, etc. But I miss the Hurricane map. It felt much riskier and the trading was more fun.

yeah... I kindof like where Lomondra was going before she started Thread Hijacking! ...maybe a central newbie ring, with five spiraling arms out, fac/caps at the ends, and then maybe 1 or 2 far flung as usual. Might have to create a few extra skylands Also, you should put one skyland so far out it is unreachable, just to tempt and frustrate us (but especially bloO!). And then you can offer a special fuel mod during a competition to get out there. Just thinkin of the future.


Thorne

Why not come up with three maps and have three hurricanes in a round?

I'll say this to people who started this round:
- 2.3 had some problems both with influence stagnation and inevitable World Wars because of the on-the-nose layout.
- The Tortuga Wheel, or Doughnut Round or whatever, was much, much better than it looks and the concept could be adapted for 5 factions. But I think the crescent/arcs concept of 2.4 takes a lot of the good parts of that round and improved on it. The capital corridor concept was to get away from the excesses of the spheres of influence of 2.3. I feel it went too far, though.

i really like hurricane.
haven't played the other maps though.

My only fear with this (and it is more or less what I was getting at, too) is, like 2.3, it's a little too obvious where the lines of control are. So, maybe a little messier version of that idea?

Or, even better, if you go with the pre-planned hurricane idea, start with this, then once we are all fat and happy, mix 'em up, so that skylands once in "pure" fractional areas have to start living cheek by jowl with sworn enemies. (Course, the existence of this post might ruin the suprise. So, if you like it, devs, just reply that it is a horrible idea, and too much work).

What if each factional "arm" of the star only has 4 skylands in it (20 total), 8 skylands in the core (28 total) and 2 skylands at a distance (a la Uur/Grotto - 30 total). This leaves 8 skylands to distribute... unfortunately you have 5 areas in between faction "arms" to fill. If you put two in each, you'd have to create two more skylands. Also if you wanted to put a skyland really far out, as per my suggestion, you'd have to create three. (Skylands that would need to be created are in Orange).

Okay, everybody shield your eyes at the awesomeness of MSPaint and my artistic skills... haha...



So really each faction would have their own 4 to protect, plus any of the 4 between them and the neighboring factions (2 on each side) and then of course any of the ones you could grab from the core and from Uur/Grotto (total of 10 uncontested skylands not associated with factions at all).

Dunno.. maybe that solves the issues you were thinking of. I recall that in 2.3 the faction areas had around 7-8 skylands each, which did make things really cut and dry in terms of who felt what skylands were theirs, without leaving much room for ambiguity. Four is the number we're using this round and it's working out really well... we don't feel like the faction is under attack unless those four skylands come under attack, and there's still plenty of room to run and compete.


Thorne

I like it. Range/distance and platforms could be used to make the 4 seems like easier hops from each other and from the two in between than from the other arms.

But I hope the devs can still take the concept and make the process of discovery surprising. Like bending the arcs every which way, etc.

And I'd love to see the hurricane blow through even such an elegant setup, and set the map back to black for all of us, halfway through the round.

that's nice, except FS and Indie's can't control skylands

While the idea is nice, I don't think the skylands would arrange themselves like that. Also, factions whose capitals are opposite each other on the map would run the most influence against each other. The way this is set up, Red Faction would be mainly against Purple and Green.

Nice idea, but let's see what else we can come up with. I'm personally thinking more about the realistic and natural layout end of things.

What do you mean hurricane? Did the skylands shift mid round last round?

The locations of the Skylands have changed with every game reset.
See http://skyrates.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ#Resets
and http://skyrates.wikia.com/wiki/Skytopia#Maps

Last round's map was workable, but I would like to see something orignal and unlike any prior round.

So, slightly off topic…
I want to see the barren next round. I want to see continent sized floating rocks with multiple fuel stops/ cities.

And the court lands, a chain of skylands that need max fuel efficiency and a max tier plane to just barely be able to fly between.

I'm surprised this thread made it to three pages without a single player mentioning the other important aspect of map layout, range. I don't know what were the max ranges in 2.1 and 2.2, and therefore have a really hard time commenting on the layout. In 2.3, however, the maximum range works out to be several times larger than the entire map itself. This very effectively reduced the amount of variety in the map planning, as even with a modest plane with a kit, one is able to fly from on side of the map to the center and onto the other side with pretty much a straight line. Therefore, influence strategy became radial, the general shape of the entire map, and hence popularizing the terms 'core' and 'rim'. This round, 2.4, we have a much much larger map compared to the maximum possible range. This creates a much more interesting landscape of influence running, with route planning getting a bigger share of the decision-making pie. The clustering of the NW and SE makes running between them more favorable than isolated arms in the NE and SW. Overall, I like variety, so 2.4 was more interesting.

On the factional capitals, I feel 2.4's approach could not be helped. Because of the difference in landscape, putting the capitals outside of the central area means forcing a particular faction to run in particular way. The obvious way around this is to create similar 'arms' for each faction, but that kills the entire landscape in terms of variety. So therefore, we have them in the central region as compromise.

I'd also like to tag on Suino Rosso's comments involving range, upgrades just were announced meaning we'll have some kingfishers and others with ridiculous range.

I think this leads towards a new map with more skylands and interesting fuel stops as well as the opportunity to have incredibly sparse areas.

Just my 2 cents.

-Victor

I think that we need something entirely new, as I feel that a game can do well when it looks and feels fundamentally different than its predecessor. I did like the 2.3 map in some ways, but Suino Rosso has already pointed out the problems associated with it.

I don't know what is the best way to go with making a new map, but I think that at the very least, it should take more than a modest plane with a kit to get to the outer places. At the same time, I don't think that higher planes with kits should cost hundreds of millions of "G squigglies". I think it would also be interesting to place some skylands in positions that would make influence in those areas much more different than it is now (I am not sure how to do this, though).

I am not going to try to go too far off with this, but it would be interesting if weather effects could be associated with given areas of the map or show up randomly in given areas (maybe some skylands could shift slightly over time as well due to weather effects). There could be varying effects, theoretically (shortened or delayed flight times, risks when approaching skylands during certain weather, etc.).

It's a good thing that you're not going into detail on it for a couple of reasons. Firstly because it's not much to do with influence. However, the other reason is that I actually agree with part of this and that's probably going to give people heart attacks. I think it's probably going to be easier to model weather conditions in one area and have them permanently there - having something that alters flight times / fuel consumption that changes over time could leave people stranded. On the other hand having weather conditions that alter the number / frequency / strength of pirate attacks over time doesn't leave people stranded (thick clouds = pirates harder to spot for example?)

If nothing else, I think it'd probably be best if all the faction capitals are the same distance (roughly) from the core. Having to fly an extra 10 hours early on because your capital is further is a bit rough.