Alrighty, I'm sure many of you are chomping at the bit to try out becoming a mapper for FS.  Now, while we are incredibly keen to hire on new mappers to expand our mod, we don't have much available free time to sort though people claiming to map just to get on the team, or ones that will only take a map though the first stage then have the team finish it off.

As such our requirement is simple: if you are interested in mapping then please complete one map using only our statics, character models, and vehicles, then send it in to us.  The only part we don't require is lightmapping as you don't have the samples to do that.  But take it as close as you can get it (if you can make your own statics and textures we more than encourage you to) before submitting it.

To help you in this quest though we do have several amazing resources.  Firstly and foremostly we have the guides on this forum written up by Unco and TY2D2.  These answer 99% of the problems you'll face.  Read them, you probably won't find better.

But in case you do want to look further, more info can be found at www.bfeditor.org/forums .  Just don't ask noob questions as they won't get answered (nor will they here).

Speaking of noob questions: to get it out of the way: to map you will need bf2  and the 1.3 version of the editor. 

Finally, you can always discuss mapmaking on here or our IRC chat channel of #first-strike on irc.quakenet.org .  Keep in mind though that most of the time we are probably busy making maps ourselves and thus may not answer immediately.  Nor will any dev answer a PM here or on IRC about mapping or modding how-to questions.

But ok!  you've decided to go for it and have read through the tutoriald.  but what to make ?  Our main recommendations are to try and stick to the fundamentals.  Use terrain extensively to make up for lack of statics.  Go for easier settings.  Remember that we wont produce statics for you so don't have a heavy list of "if I had these statics I could do this."   We may fix or make a couple but only if the entire rest of the map is done and only if it's release quality

But star wars is littered with planets and moons of every shape and size.  as such you should have no trouble coming up with a setting for your map.  Even if you can't find an exact planet but have a great idea do it anyway and we can always go back and write lore later.

note also that our vvehicle stocks are due to rise with R2.  currently you'll find medium tanks and small buggies for both sides but no 6man transports or heavy tanks.  Indeed, our spacecraft are also in need of atmospheric equivilents.  we will be expanding on this so if you can just fill in with similar or do without and make a note about it for later

as far as gamemodes are concerned keep it simple also.  Conquest is the easiest to do so make that.  you could try your hand at setting up a push map but consult us once your map is done and we'll tell you how.  Objectivemode is great but without coding knowledge they won't be easy for you.  However if you are adamant then set it all up otherwise with the intention that one team has to destroy one or more objects of the other team.  or both teams are destroying each others' resources.  But don't assume anything more scripted or complicated than that.

but anyway, that's about it.  we wish you luck if you take it on and we're definitely looking for new mappers.  So get your map built and we look forward to hearing from you

and may the force be with you and all that jazz

Fear the Woodzilla