53 replies to this topic

[Lynx7725]

Another topic came up which made me want to check whether I got my mental maps correct.

In case some don't know, the way the game is set up is that at the start of each round, the system will determine where to spawn the enemy. One consideration is that it tries not to spawn where players are -- there's a radius that if a player is within (not just LOS), the spawn point will be suppressed. 

This means, by spreading out sufficiently while mutually supporting, you can control where the enemy comes from and hence make them pay very badly for things. 

So here's my list of spawn points by map.

-----------------------------------------------

Ghost

• Building between Main Street and Central Pod, up on second storey, with the mobs jumping down. Marked with a Red UP oon GB's map.
• Main Street "car park". Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn point. Not marked on GB's map.
• Probable spawn in the building between Main Street and Central Pod. Marked on GB's map as Red 1.
• On the Alley corner with Back Street, second storey. Drops down both externally and internally to the building there to flank the usual sniper perch, via Landing Pad and Alley. Marked on GB's map as Red 4
• Further down the Back Street, second storey; mid way down the street itself. Mobs jump down from there. Marked on GB's map with a Red UP.
• Another one further down the Back Street, second storey; almost to the end of the street itself. Mobs jump down from there. Marked on GB's map with a Red UP.
• End of Back Street, in corner. Marked on GB's map as Red 3. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee spawn point.
• Central Pod near end of Back Street. Marked on GB's map as Red 2. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee spawn point.
• Landing Pad itself. Rare, as it's usually suppressed already. Could be just fast flankers through the buildings on the side. Marked on GB's map as Red 5

-----------------------------------------------

White

• Jumping up from the Landing Pad. Marked on GB's Map as Red 1
• In the Interior small room with the control panel at the far end. Hack point, usual Gold camp spot. Marked on GB's Map as Red 4
• Launch Ramp. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point. Marked on GB's Map as Red 3, but suspect a second spawn closer to the door. This is unusally big and looks to be a preferred spawn point.
• Lower Level, in an "alcove" directly opposite the doorway near the stairs. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point. North of Red 2 on GB's Map -- but possible to be two spawn points close to each other there
• Above the Upper Level sniper perch/ ammo point, jumping down. Not marked on GB's map. Infamously, Banshees can teleport there by mistake and get trapped there.
• Hallway, In the small room with the staircase down. Two spawn points here, one in the alcove directly facing the doorway up to the Upper Level, this is not marked on GB's map. And one in the corner away from the staircase leading down. Marked on GB's Map as Red 5.

-----------------------------------------------


Glacier

• Lower Basement (common, easily suppressed). Marked on GB's Map as Red 6. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point. This is unusually large for a spawn point, and is compounded because there is an alcove above that is also a spawn point. So expect a LOT of things to pour out of here.
• End of long corridor of Upper Basement, away from the stairs. Marked on GB's Map as Red 4. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• In the small room at the stairs end of Upper Basement. Marked on GB's Map as Red 5. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• In the Science Lab, small alcove near the doorway to the Balcony. Marked on GB's Map as Red 1 Be careful. An entire Atlas can fit in that alcove... Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• Balcony area itself, with troops climbing up. but rare to actually see Will happen once your team uses a different capping strategy. Marked on GB's Map as Red3
• In the Hub. Marked on GB's Map as Red 2

-----------------------------------------------

Dagger

• On the central, sunlit platform opposite the Array Control (common, best to leave unsuppressed as it's a sniper's paradise). Seems to be two there, one on each platform. Marked on GB's Map as Red 2. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• East Approach, corner above Pipeworks. Marked on GB's Map as Red 3. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• East Approach. Marked on GB's Map as Red 4.
• Junction of East Approach and Outlook, probably on the Dark Side but near the entrance to long tunnel of Array Control. Not marked on GB's Map.
• Darkside near the Array Control entrance there. Not marked on GB's Map. Be careful or your ass will be flanked and spanked!
• Darkside ramps, close to the down ramp into Pipeworks. Not marked on GB's Map.
• Under the Array Control central structure. Not marked on GB's Map.
• West Approach, VERY close to entrance to Array Control. Marked on GB's Map as Red 1. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• Possible second spawn further away on West Approach, near the ammo point. Not marked on GB's Map.

Dagger's fairly open but sometimes hard to see where the jokers are coming from. Most of the time my team manage to cap the Darkside ramp and Array Control central structure, so Dagger often becomes a slaughter field on the central platform and Pipeworks pit.

-----------------------------------------------

Giant

• Tunnel on Terminal end of map from where you start. (Common spawn and usually uncapped.) Marked on GB's Map as Red 3. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• Bunker area across from the sniper perch. Two there: the landing zone, Marked on GB's Map as Red 1. Known Atlas. Prime Banshee Spawn Point.
• One actually inside the Bunker proper. Marked on GB's Map as Red 2. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• Bunker: Climb up from behind the Landing Zone. There's a ledge below. Concurrent with Red 1 but is actually separate spawn.
• Climb up from the Control Room ammo point. There's a ledge below and spawn can get trapped there, so be aware -- you can either use powers or bounce a grenade off the side wall into the spawn area. Not marked on GB's Map.
• Room in the Connection area (downstairs). Not marked on GB's Map; odd, as this is usually the source of all the other odd mobs coming from the Control Room area.
• Drop down from the rails to Exterior, in front of Control Room area. The mobs actually spawn ON the rails themselves, and run along it until they decide to jump down. Typically, Cerberus. Marked on GB's Map as Red 4.
• Drop down from the rails on the Terminal area -- rare to see, not sure if it is outgrowth of the above.

-----------------------------------------------

Reactor



Reactor's a bit strange because it's easier to go sector by sector and describe all the spawns within. I'll start with the top of the Reactor, Sector E1.

• Sector E1. Top of the Reactor across from the stwo spawns very close to this area, one is the recessed area to the side of the doorway. Marked on GB's Map as Red 4 but looks to be two points there instead of one. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• Sector D1, within reach of the Sector E1's spawns, as a drop down point. Both Geth and Cerberus use this extensively. During hacks in that area this spawn is VERY active. Marked on GB's Map as Red 5 but looks to be too close to the ammo, it's actually on the big crate opposite; possible though to have a ground level spawn on Red 5 too though.
• Sector C1. One big spawn point. Appears to be preferred, a lot of troops spawn there. Not marked on GB's Map.
• Sector B1. Drop down from the ceiling near the generators. Not marked on GB's Map.
• Sector H1, Two spawn points. One in the stacks near the Reactor opening, Marked on GB's Map as Red 1. And a drop down spawn point just to one side of the lower reactor opening near the landing zone, this is not marked on GB's Map. The drop down spawn is VERY active in Hacks near this spawn.
• Overlook alcove, ALL of it. Usually hidden and uncapped. Marked on GB's Map as Red 3. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• Loading Bay. At your frickin' evac/ start point! Marked on GB's Map as Red 2, or thereabouts. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.

Reactor's usually a difficult map to suppress because its very cluttered. I suspect, given the small size of the map and the way mobs usually is able to sneak up, that there's one or more spawn points I hadn't caught yet think I got them all! 

-----------------------------------------------

Hydra

• Bottom corner near the Bunker/ Traffic Control. 2 spawns there, common to be uncapped. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• In the "Blue Ball" room. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• In the corridor outside the "Blue Ball" room, which leads down towards the "courtyard".
• Alcove oppposite the "Blue Ball" room. Leads into the long passageway and out around the flank/ back of the bunker/ landing zone.
• Junction on Catwalks leading to ramp down to "courtyard" and both sides of the "Blue Ball" room.
• At the landing zone.
• At the small platform off to one side of the landing zone.

I think I identified the general areas of the spawns. Hydra is surprisingly small, probably because of the open sightlines. The spawn areas particularly on the far corner of the map (opposite the starting point) may be heavily crowded with spawn points, it just look like one huge mob.

-----------------------------------------------

Condor

• Bottom tier: Near the landing zone. Known Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• Bottom tier: Near the Mid Tier bunker/ building. Possible Atlas/ Prime/ Banshee Spawn Point.
• Mid Tier: L pipes area. Possible two spawn points.
• Mid Tier: At the Evac Zone.
• Top Tier: Top of mountian, in "dead space" area.

Condor is a large map that has surprisingly few sightlines. I've spent enough time on Condor to have a rough sense of the area, but probably there' still some spawns I haven't figured out.

-----------------------------------------------

Jade

• "Stairwell" on far end opposite of spawn area, left side. This is actually a decent spawn point to leave uncapped, as the enemy are boxed in by the architecture initially. If you got a capper on the right side spawn (below), he can get over there and mess with the tightly packed jokers very quickly.. a frag grenade in there will be.. useful. Have seen an Atlas there, but not sure if it's an Atlas spawn point.
• Open area on far end opposite of spawn area, right side.
• Upper tier midway down the right side of the spawn area; jump down from above. Be careful, spawns can get stuck there.
• Probable: in the "trench" below the spawn area.

Jade, despite its open look, is actually a very small map because it's basically one closed ring. There should be at least 3 to 4 more spawn points, so I'll keep looking.

-----------------------------------------------

Goddess

Reserved for Goddess data.

-----------------------------------------------

Do let me know if you've seen some other spawn. I'll try to keep this updated. 

The key thing is this -- a team can split up and suppressed some bad spawn points. Doing so channels the enemy into known paths and makes it easier to set up a firezone/ beaten ground to slaughter them. That's why sometimes you see people winging out during the break on their own, and that's why as an infiltrator I usually swing around to go where my team isn't -- because while they cluster together, it means certain spawn points are uncapped and open, and some of those points are very nasty indeed.

References

Good grief I hate the half-baked forum software on this.

Link to post on Game/ Wave/ Spawn mechanics:

http://social.biowar.../index/10037557
Link

Grimy Bunyip's thread on speed runs, with links to maps.

http://social.biowar.../index/12242213
Link

Edit History

01 June 2012: Updated Hydra with one more spawn point, updated Jade with tentatives.

30 May 2012: Link to Grimy Bunyip's thread with maps. Added the maps to the above. Reworked description to match in-game zone names and take advantage of GB's work.

26 Apr 2012: Updated on spawn points, including incomplete Hydra and Condor points. Included post on Game/ Wave/ Spawn mechanics.

Edited by Lynx7725, 01 June 2012 - 04:26 AM.

[kingtrouble]

Nicely done. Pretty sure that's most of the spawn points. Also might want to point out that on gold spawn points can be activated even if it was inactive at the start of the map.

[Lynx7725]

Thanks. Testimonial to the usage of this forums that a mere 30 minutes after the post is created, it've already dropped off the front page...

Wrt the mid-round spawn activation, I don't think it's a gold-only thing. On rounds with a mission, it seems to be endless spawning, so any point that is uncapped can end up being used. Since for most of these missions (4-point cap, hacking) the team tends to be concentrated together, spawn suppression is minimum and they can come from anywhere.

[Lynx7725]

Updated White with a new spawn point opposite the doorway visible from the upper platform. Noticed this last night when a friggin' Atlas popped there. It's not too different from the rest though in terms of tactical approach, it's just that spawning Engineers can sneak in turrets opposite the doorway and lock you down.

Also, Dagger's 2 sunlit platforms seem to be one massive spawn point. I saw Geths popping in on both platform at the same time. Not sure if they can independently spawn.

[Lynx7725]

On request from adamjmorgan, a little bit more on the map spawns and suppression. The first post is more about general system behaviour, to serve as a primer for more in depth discussion. Please remember that I mostly game in Bronze, so things can differ in Silver and Gold. 

In general, the issue of which spawn point to suppress depends on a number of factors, but IMO the key one is team composition. If you have mostly snipers, you will suppress close-in spawns. If you have mostly shotgunners, you would want the close-in spawns to open up. As a team, you should manage the spawn points to maximize the carnage inflicted. 

The behaviour of the game is that at the start of each Wave, the game checks which spawn point is open; just by being physically near a spawn, a player will suppress the spawn points. The game prefers to spawn where no players are, and generally maps are sufficiently big and have enough spawn points that this can be done, but IIRC the game won't hesitate to spawn things on top of you if it has no choice.

Also, during the game, especially in Objective Waves, there can be secondary spawns that reinforces the initial wave. Normally this isn't a big issue, but Objective Waves has endless spawning, so cap those objective quickly before you get overwhelmed.

The decision to spawn is done very quickly; once the wave number banner appears, you can start moving to engage already. 

Lastly, the spawn points are not equal. Only certain spawn points will give you bosses and mid-tiers. Some maps have more, some maps less. Truth be told, if a boss is going to spawn there, it's going to spawn there. Just don't get caught at Ground Zero when they pop.

[kingtrouble]

For the secondary spawns. On gold there can be anywhere between 2 - 5 additional spawn waves. These spawn waves and as you said can spawn mobs in the general location. The rule of thumb is mainly, if you have the spawn within your sight, stuff isn't gonna spawn there for the time being.

[Lynx7725]

Let's start with a simple one -- White's good because it's small and easy to visualize. To recap, White has the following spawn points that I'm aware of:

White

• Jumping up from the landing pad.
• In the small room with the control panel at the far end.
• Just outside the small room, around the corner.
• In an "alcove" directly opposite the doorway visible from the upper platform.
• Above the sniper perch/ ammo point, jumping down to land on the upper platform.

(BTW, just found out about the last spawn last night. It's not that common to see it spawn because it's usually suppressed.)

Assuming a normal "Kill 'em All" Wave:

Usually, a team will deploy at least one sniper/ support class at the top of the ladder in front of the doorway. This usually suppresses #5; this spawn is not often used. #2 and #3 appears to be primary spawn points, which is where you usually want them to appear anyway, as the path they take naturally chokes them; if they go by the outside route, you usually already have a killer position above the ladder. If they go by the inside route, you can choke them on the stairs -- usually better to be from the doorway there since you can back into an ammo point. Carnage man, especially a Soldier with a big-assed MG there and a CSSpam to blast the jokers back into the room.

Take note that for #2, if you send a shotgunner/ soldier/ vanguard around the far end corner, you can stand between waves a bit off to one side, suppresing #3 and leaving #2 unsurpressed -- you want that because once the Wave begins you can walk towards the door and start killing. If you couple that with a killer up top and a choker on the far end, you're essentially squeeze-playing the mobs in a tiny confined space that grenades and AOE loves. Very effective and efficient. 

I find that #1 is usually unsuppressed and for a good reason -- leaving a team mate there to suppress it is tactically inflexible, and that spawn is usually for up to Nemesis only; I've never seen Guardians and up (including Atlases) spawn there. As such it's not dangerous per se, just be aware so that you can avoid getitng flanked.

#4 is the scary one. Usually, the Boss (Atlases) spawn at #3 and that gives a good working distance for Cobras and such to get in on the act. #4 however looks to be a backup spawn and I've personally witness an Atlas teleport in there. It's really close to the sniper perch, so quite scary... but not so bad, as there's no way for the Atlas to climb that ladder.  Still, if you have somebody there, it can end messily quickly. 

#5 is usually already suppressed by your killer up top. Normal waves won't spawn from here. It's during the Objective Waves, when your killer has moved on to support the capping/ hacking, and Extraction, when there's nobody there, that the spawn opens, and is usually restricted to Troopers and such only -- no bosses. This is one way how a hacking objective on the downstairs room can get flanked quickly, so you have to keep an eye out open on the back door. Sometimes a Trooper appears out of nowhere behind you? Could be this spawn. 

----------------------

So to sum -- if you have a good support compliment of big guns, leaving #2 and #3 open while keeping an eye on #1 is a good idea; the pathing either funnels them outside into the beaten zone of your fire position up top, or inside through a tight corridor. 

If you have more assaulty elements in your team, suppressing #3 and leaving #2 open gives you a lot of fun bottling the bad guys in the room for grenade fun. Just leave a suppression guy on top to block #5 and watch out for #4 and #1. Otherwise the rest can just hose the rooms down. 

In objective caps, keep an eye out for #1 and #5 as it can rain mooks into a flanking position. It's not terrible but you don't really need the hassle when the bosses are hitting you from the front. 

EDIT: Good grief this editor is a pain in the posterior.

Edited by Lynx7725, 23 March 2012 - 03:48 AM.

[Lynx7725]

kingtrouble wrote...

For the secondary spawns. On gold there can be anywhere between 2 - 5 additional spawn waves. These spawn waves and as you said can spawn mobs in the general location. The rule of thumb is mainly, if you have the spawn within your sight, stuff isn't gonna spawn there for the time being.

Goodness, you ninja'ed this in. It's not actually about LOS, it's more distance/ radius from spawn.. otherwise, you won't see Cerberus Troopers drop in from above, as the developers usually put them to spawn on a passageway up top then drop down on their jet boots.

Problem with secondary spawn is that their timing is not known; for a start of Wave, you need to be in position before the announcement comes, otherwise you can end up running straight into a whole spawn (goodness know I've done it before.. just a little slow on the feet). So you need to develop a feel for the map, to know whether you can hoof it in time to get to suppress the spawn. If you think you can't, find a chokepoint in case the enemy do spawn where you wanted to go -- usually there's something. This is where Soldiers usually shines, because if they are fast enough they can suppress a spawn, if they aren't, they usually have the firepower and abilities to choke a spawn wave up. 

[MissMinaethiel]

Oh, good list, very useful =) On Dagger too, the enemies can spawn to the far right of the map next to the ramp leading into the building (POV is just looking to the entrance of the sniper nest right at the start of the game). I hardly ever see them spawn there though since everyone is huddling at the windows waiting to shoot the guys that spawn across the map.

[Irish Porkchopp]

MissMinaethiel wrote...

Oh, good list, very useful =) On Dagger too, the enemies can spawn to the far right of the map next to the ramp leading into the building (POV is just looking to the entrance of the sniper nest right at the start of the game). I hardly ever see them spawn there though since everyone is huddling at the windows waiting to shoot the guys that spawn across the map.

I just want to back this up as I've seen it as well- Bosses will spawn there too.  Also on Dagger there is a spawn to the far left when looking out the sniper perch on the sunlit side behind crates.  

This is a great list- it helps to know how this works.

[Lynx7725]

Hi guys. This is still alive. Updated for the spawn points you guys pointed out, plus Condor and Hydra. Also, will be updating this with some behavior I've gotten info on by looking inside the coalesc.bin file.

[paincanbefun]

nice

[Lord Deshwitat]

Hmm, I have had enemies spawning right behind me and some on my head, so they can spawn even if you are there. Happend to me a numerous of times now. But this is a good thread never the less=)

[Lynx7725]

 Back. As mentioned, I was digging around Coalesc.bin and found a few interesting things. A few caveat first:

• Currently this is a first-look kind of review. So inaccuracies are guaranteed. See? I even guarantee errors. 
• Coalesc.bin is, to my limited understanding, a set of parameters for the Unreal engine underlying the ME3 game (both SP and MP). So in that sense there's a lot of garbage involved, and some of the parameters in there may not be used for MP (or at all). At the current moment, please take the following as best guesses.
• The Coalesc.bin file I was looking at is the original release, not the patched version. Thus, I'm missing some info.

=======================================

We first need to have a basic understanding of the game/ wave/ spawning behaviour. The following are what I can infer from last night, prowling the parameters.

The current MP game mode is internally referred to as horde mode. It is parameterized into 11 waves, with 3 waves spec'ed as "special waves" with percentage credit payout (or so it seems). Why this is important is, as any IT developer would know, is that it implies the system can be modified to have different modes, and even within horde mode, different kinds of horde mode.

Each game has a parameter that governs what is known as a Wave Budget. This is a range, not absolute, so some waves will be bigger, some smaller. The budget stays within the same range for all waves. Wave Budget changes only with difficulty, with higher difficulties with significantly higher budgets.

Each game has a map. Each map has some spawn points -- the exact nature of spawn points I do not know as I was looking into only one file, and don't have the rest. Significantly, there may be some "preferred" spawn points as designed. These have more weight in the spawning process, which we will talk about later.

Each spawn point have a global parameter that restricts the number of spawns that can happen. At current, it looks like each spawn point can spawn at most 5 enemies. There is a global variable that hints at 8 maximum mob, but that is unknown to be in exactly what context -- is it 8 mob spawns at one time through the map, or 8 total active, visible to players? This is a hardware constraint as some systems/ console may not be able to take the load of rendering so many mobs. This almost certainly means that waves are spawn across multiple points, and rarely only at one point. 

Each Wave -- we are going deeper now -- have a collection of enemies per race. What is not generally discussed on the forums is that each Wave have its own recipe of enemies that can spawn. In addition, each recipe can -- but not always do -- specify the minimum and maximum number of a specific mob per respawn (not Wave). In addition, especially in Bronze, each recipe can enforce a maximum number of mob per Wave. So, in certain waves, there can only ever be one Phantom (for example). In Gold, this restriction is often not there, very noticably for Banshees.

Obviously, the recipe changes based on each wave and difficulty. 

Each mob spawn has a cost that inferentially is deducted from the Wave Budget. For example, a Husk is 10 pts, a Cerberus Trooper 20, a Geth Trooper 25. This cost does not change over difficulty, but mob stats do. The implication is the that system will choose all the minimum from the recipe, deducting from the budget, and then randomly selects from the reciepe until it spends the budget. Then it would allocate these to the spawn point, maximizing to 5 per spawn and spreading the love around. 

Importantly, in Objective Waves, the Wave Budget may be as much as tripled. We often see it as endless swarms, but truth be told there is a time limit to Objective Waves anyway. so there might not be a need for a endless budget.

=======================================

How spawning/ spawn camping works is as follows.

Each spawn point has a factor associated with it. (I don't know specifically how this work, just guesswork.) It is nominally 100. For respawn to activate from this point, it appears it must have at least 90 points.

Factors that influence respawn:

• A "Designer factor", assuming is primary spawn point as indicated by the map team.
• How near a player is to the point. It looks to be that if you are within 30m of a point, you will influence it. How much? Unknown.
• Whether a player can see a point. It looks to be that if you are within 50m and can see a point, you'll influence it. Unknown how big an influence.

Thus, you can sit on a spawn point and look at another spawn point and you can cap both. Unfortunately... If the system rolls over 90 points anyway, it's likely it'll spawn whether you are there or not. If the system got no choice, it's likely to override and spawn anyway. This is particularly true for small maps and higher difficulties, so yeah, Gold sucks. 

=======================================

Note that we are dealing not with a bunch of humans shuffling paperwork but a computer processing at millions of instructions per second. All the above is shuffled and decided very quickly. so if you are out of position at the decision point, you'll have a bad influence on the decision. This is why bad spawn camping will result in very quick and odd spawn patterns.

Let me know if you have any questions. I'll try to reply based on memory -- I was sending the bin file and the reader to work but mail programs like to treat exe files as potential viruii, so I don't have the reference on hand.

[Tangster]

Lynx7725 wrote...

 Back. As mentioned, I was digging around Coalesc.bin and found a few interesting things. A few caveat first:

• Currently this is a first-look kind of review. So inaccuracies are guaranteed. See? I even guarantee errors. 
• Coalesc.bin is, to my limited understanding, a set of parameters for the Unreal engine underlying the ME3 game (both SP and MP). So in that sense there's a lot of garbage involved, and some of the parameters in there may not be used for MP (or at all). At the current moment, please take the following as best guesses.
• The Coalesc.bin file I was looking at is the original release, not the patched version. Thus, I'm missing some info.

=======================================

We first need to have a basic understanding of the game/ wave/ spawning behaviour. The following are what I can infer from last night, prowling the parameters.

The current MP game mode is internally referred to as horde mode. It is parameterized into 11 waves, with 3 waves spec'ed as "special waves" with percentage credit payout (or so it seems). Why this is important is, as any IT developer would know, is that it implies the system can be modified to have different modes, and even within horde mode, different kinds of horde mode.

Each game has a parameter that governs what is known as a Wave Budget. This is a range, not absolute, so some waves will be bigger, some smaller. The budget stays within the same range for all waves. Wave Budget changes only with difficulty, with higher difficulties with significantly higher budgets.

Each game has a map. Each map has some spawn points -- the exact nature of spawn points I do not know as I was looking into only one file, and don't have the rest. Significantly, there may be some "preferred" spawn points as designed. These have more weight in the spawning process, which we will talk about later.

Each spawn point have a global parameter that restricts the number of spawns that can happen. At current, it looks like each spawn point can spawn at most 5 enemies. There is a global variable that hints at 8 maximum mob, but that is unknown to be in exactly what context -- is it 8 mob spawns at one time through the map, or 8 total active, visible to players? This is a hardware constraint as some systems/ console may not be able to take the load of rendering so many mobs. This almost certainly means that waves are spawn across multiple points, and rarely only at one point. 

Each Wave -- we are going deeper now -- have a collection of enemies per race. What is not generally discussed on the forums is that each Wave have its own recipe of enemies that can spawn. In addition, each recipe can -- but not always do -- specify the minimum and maximum number of a specific mob per respawn (not Wave). In addition, especially in Bronze, each recipe can enforce a maximum number of mob per Wave. So, in certain waves, there can only ever be one Phantom (for example). In Gold, this restriction is often not there, very noticably for Banshees.

Obviously, the recipe changes based on each wave and difficulty. 

Each mob spawn has a cost that inferentially is deducted from the Wave Budget. For example, a Husk is 10 pts, a Cerberus Trooper 20, a Geth Trooper 25. This cost does not change over difficulty, but mob stats do. The implication is the that system will choose all the minimum from the recipe, deducting from the budget, and then randomly selects from the reciepe until it spends the budget. Then it would allocate these to the spawn point, maximizing to 5 per spawn and spreading the love around. 

Importantly, in Objective Waves, the Wave Budget may be as much as tripled. We often see it as endless swarms, but truth be told there is a time limit to Objective Waves anyway. so there might not be a need for a endless budget.

=======================================

How spawning/ spawn camping works is as follows.

Each spawn point has a factor associated with it. (I don't know specifically how this work, just guesswork.) It is nominally 100. For respawn to activate from this point, it appears it must have at least 90 points.

Factors that influence respawn:

• A "Designer factor", assuming is primary spawn point as indicated by the map team.
• How near a player is to the point. It looks to be that if you are within 30m of a point, you will influence it. How much? Unknown.
• Whether a player can see a point. It looks to be that if you are within 50m and can see a point, you'll influence it. Unknown how big an influence.

Thus, you can sit on a spawn point and look at another spawn point and you can cap both. Unfortunately... If the system rolls over 90 points anyway, it's likely it'll spawn whether you are there or not. If the system got no choice, it's likely to override and spawn anyway. This is particularly true for small maps and higher difficulties, so yeah, Gold sucks. 

=======================================

Note that we are dealing not with a bunch of humans shuffling paperwork but a computer processing at millions of instructions per second. All the above is shuffled and decided very quickly. so if you are out of position at the decision point, you'll have a bad influence on the decision. This is why bad spawn camping will result in very quick and odd spawn patterns.

Let me know if you have any questions. I'll try to reply based on memory -- I was sending the bin file and the reader to work but mail programs like to treat exe files as potential viruii, so I don't have the reference on hand.

This seems to be correct, it's the same impression I got when I looked at how the spawns/waves worked.
I would add that on higher point waves, clearing the more "point expensive" enemies will result in the system spawning that wave again if it has sufficent points left instead of multiple groups of lower rank enemies.

This can be seen if a team takes out Atlases very rapidly in a wave while ignoring(and not killing) the other enemies and results in multiple Atlas spawns until the system can no longer "afford" to spawn them.

Similarly with Phantoms/Brutes/Ravagers/etc, the quicker you kill the enemy type currently spawned without dealing with the other enemies in the wave, the more likely they are to be respawned again that wave.

[john-in-france]

Thank you for the useful information.

I have noticed an interesting spawn issue involving cloaked infiltrators on White. This was in 3 different matches, with different opponents - one of each flavour. All times involved Quarian Infiltrators with Widow, she cloaked just before wave start...then they spawned right on top of her (multiple times in the game - she never learned better, le sigh) ...3 different people as infiltrators, same problem. My Geth Engineer was having trouble keeping them alive.

Does this happen to other infiltrators anyone?

[PluralAces]

In Hydra, there is a spawn and the end of the long hallway fro the blue ball room, we had an objective there on wave 10 gold yesterday, and 4 phantoms spawned there with some guardians...we were like  and then we  a little but then we clutched it and were like

[An D]

Very nice. There's some points you forgot to mention on Firebase Ghost.

1. The landing/extraction area. However, this spot will never force a spawn so games with snipers covering the pit (main street?) might not ever see something spawn here. "Heavies" can spawn here.

2. From the landing/extraction area facing the long brighter street are the front sections of the two adjacent buildings. These points are most noticeable when people start the extraction wave already in the circle.

Edited by An D, 14 May 2012 - 05:19 PM.

[Yonderboy]

LOL this is the only thread I have been able to find that is comprehensive on spawn points. Shesh I have been dogged by players but unless they told me how the heck would I know I was sending the spawn to a different site?

Very informative I am tagging this for a later read so I can up my skills. Thanks!

[mattrufus]

Thank you for a very informative lesson. You broke it down and made it very understandable. Look forward to your updates

[Disciple888]

awesome thread should be stickied

[bahamutomega]

Lynx7725 wrote...

kingtrouble wrote...

For the secondary spawns. On gold there can be anywhere between 2 - 5 additional spawn waves. These spawn waves and as you said can spawn mobs in the general location. The rule of thumb is mainly, if you have the spawn within your sight, stuff isn't gonna spawn there for the time being.

Goodness, you ninja'ed this in. It's not actually about LOS, it's more distance/ radius from spawn.. otherwise, you won't see Cerberus Troopers drop in from above, as the developers usually put them to spawn on a passageway up top then drop down on their jet boots.

Problem with secondary spawn is that their timing is not known; for a start of Wave, you need to be in position before the announcement comes, otherwise you can end up running straight into a whole spawn (goodness know I've done it before.. just a little slow on the feet). So you need to develop a feel for the map, to know whether you can hoof it in time to get to suppress the spawn. If you think you can't, find a chokepoint in case the enemy do spawn where you wanted to go -- usually there's something. This is where Soldiers usually shines, because if they are fast enough they can suppress a spawn, if they aren't, they usually have the firepower and abilities to choke a spawn wave up. 

i've watched Reapers spawn on my screen - i was halfway across.  morning of 5/9/12, firebase condor, silver.  first wave.

i don't think it's a single player radius, tbh - i think it may have to be paired (or more).  i've have the first wave spawn on top of me (with a bunch of new characters, they broke off and returned to our spawn point, i stayed put.  woops).  i've seen pairs (being in one of the pairs) break up a spawn point.

[ka243]

I have a hard time visualizing these spawn points. Can someone make a map or is there one somewhere with the spawn points on it? Also yesterday some guy told me that if the whole team in white concentrates on the ammo box in the camping room, enemies will spawn there only making extraction easier as the enemies wont be spawning near the landing pad..., true? It seemed to work...

What effects which spawn poiNts are used in a given wave? Fixed or random????

[Tabibito02]

ka243:

Grimy Bunyip's "Speed Run Strategies":

http://social.biowar.../index/12242213

links to a good set of maps. Be aware that the strategies described are intended for reasonably skilled and coordinated *teams*.

[Lynx7725]

Good grief ninjas all over the place. xD

Tabibito02: Thanks for the link! Very useful. For this discussion.



ka243: Generally speaking, from what I dug up from files, a spawn point will uh, best way to describe it is "decrease in spawn probability" if a player is physically within a certain distance or has the spawn point under visual observation within a certain distance.

This is why bahamutomega can see spawns -- probably too far away to suppress. I've personally seen Geth spawning on the far corner in Hydra, so yes, I can attest to it too.

However, there is a catch -- if all spawns are being capped (somehow), the System will force a spawn anyway. There are what appears to be preferred spawn points, where the System will try to put forth units, but even an unpreferred spawn point can suddenly spawn if the dice rolls against you. That's why it's important to leave certain points uncapped, it's not to deny spawning, but to direct where the spawned mobs come from.

As for the strategy -- never seen it work, but it's not unwinnable especially if you are on lower difficulties. Each spawn point can only spawn 5 enemies at one go, so camping in the room just opens up ALL the spawn points.. depending where you are, you might cap 2 spawns in the Hallway near the ammo point at the bottom of the stairs. All that does is to move the spawns elsewhere, and then they'll head for you. Which might help, since anything spawning at the landing pad would move towards you.

But that area, hard to break out of -- two paths, one uphill through the Hallway, but you risk getting choked at the doorway by the spawn above the sniper perch in the Upper Level and things coming from the Landing Pad. Or along the bottom alley where you can get flanked/ cornered by both the Launch Ramp spawns and the Lower Level walkway spawns. Better positions to be had, really.