Part 13: Hainan Resort
Hainan ResortLet's kick back and enjoy a cool drink and relax poolside at the lovely Hainan Resort. Only replace kicking back with shooting anyone in sight, a cool drink with a loaded LMG and poolside with the tallest roof in sight. I really like the design of Hainan. At the start of the map it feels like a little resort area that got vacated quickly once it was apparent there would be a battle there. I always imagine the ship wreck at D was the entire point behind the battle there, it contained something both sides wanted and so here we are.
My elaborate fan fiction aside, there are few servers that aren't "Two Map Rotation, 500% tickets 24/7" that don't run Hainan on PC. It lets you participate in all three fronts the game offers; Air, Ground and Sea while not making any one of the three useless because of the other fronts being overpowered (maybe, more on that in a bit). Each team starts off with a couple Light Armored Vehicles, a scout chopper, stealth and attack jets, a couple jeeps and jetskis and a fast attack craft. I'll constantly call that last one a Battle Boat or Murder Boat, and we'll discuss it in more depth next time. In addition to the spawn vehicles the C point yields a Mobile Anti Aircraft tank and a Mobile Artillery Platform (Rocket Truck).
So here's the map. I mention early in the video that like Siege of Shanghai there is a tall building at the center of the level that people gravitate towards. At first glance that hotel looks like a trap; you can't parachute off to more distant points, there isn't a flag on the roof and there isn't much space to maneuver between teammates. The first couple times I played the map I was upbraiding my teammates for getting on the roof and never leaving while a few of us went around and captured points. It took me a couple rounds before I noticed that I wasn't getting shot by helicopters or jets anywhere near as much as I should have been when my team controlled the roof. And then I noticed I was getting a lot of help on vehicles from the roof and that once in a while there would be a really effective sniper taking out infantry for me.
The Siege of Shanghai C point is all about parachuting to other points and being ineffective against infantry and vehicles due to how tall the building is compared to the people on the ground. The Hainan Resort roof is perfectly placed and at a good height for engineers and recons to do a ton of damage to units on the ground and air. The roof is about control on this map. Scout choppers getting too close will get shot down by a hail of missiles. This is probably only getting worse as the AA mines start showing up in greater numbers. AA mines are a new piece of equipment that basically track and fire homing missiles at air vehicles that get too close, dealing 30 points of damage and causing a temporary disable. I played a game on the map trying to fly the scout chopper and it just wasn't viable with the number or lock ons I was getting just getting near the hotel.
One of the bigger boons to being on the hotel roof is that at any time you can jump off and grab C. This nets your team two vehicles, the Mobile AA gun and the Rocket truck. The MAA is great for mowing down infantry as well as helicopters, so go nuts. The Rocket Truck is generally brought to a safe area and used to mortar enemy units. It's pretty great.
The other points are a bit different. A and B are copy/paste buildings, with A being a double connected by a skybridge. You can knock down the B building pretty easily and give people capping the point less space to hide, and I would actually recommend that move because when standing the B building can be a chore to clear out. The A buildings can also be collapsed, but it is a bit more rare. Interestingly, both A and B are on the edges of some waterways. This gives teams a chance to capture from boats and jet skis, or to bring a boat right up and start firing on the point. E and D are in a similar situation, with E's flag being out in the water among a set of bungalows and wooden bridges. It's a pretty great point for infantry as the bridges and buildings give good cover and the raised nature of the structures gives a second level of travel in and out. D is located inside the hull of a shipwrecked cargo boat. You can capture it from the outside if you really want to, and it is a pretty interesting strategy to wait on the edge of the broken section of the boat sticking into the sea to cap the point over and over without people realizing where you are.
There's two levolution events on the map. The first is centered on the hotel. You can collapse either wing by shooting out a few support walls. This reduces the ability of people on the roof to move around and get angles on things, and is a smart idea to engage the levolution if you aren't able to take the roof from the other team. The second one is a bit of an Easter Egg that allows you to cause an explosion on the second half of the cargo ship out at sea. The effect sends crates flying around the map that can kill players if they are struck. For a few weeks after it was discovered people would spend all match trying to trigger it. Why they couldn't just do it in an empty server is anyone's guess, but they got really upset when you told them you wouldn't help.
Finally, a note about the waterways on the map: you can place antivehicle mines near most of the bridges and get kills on boats. Hilarious stuff a lot of the time and highly suggested if you like to make people angry. Tell them you are a bridge troll and they have to pay the troll toll.