Part 21: Operation Dawnbreaker

Operation Dawnbreaker

With this video we've finally seen every single base game map. This is actually something I recorded before I even started the LP and then kept around thinking I would give the map a couple more shots before I just made a video. The problem with that idea is that on the PC Dawnbreaker is kind of rare. In the time since I started the LP I've played it three times, twice it glitched out or I got disconnected and the other time I couldn't do anything right and kept slamming into the sides of buildings in a series of helicopters, so not my brightest hour and not totally interesting to watch. I go over why I'm not a huge fan of Dawnbreaker in the video, and those reasons are pretty true for a lot of players, apparently.

In summary: The map design just isn't good. Rooftops for snipers and constant point harassment, narrow streets for tanks to attempt to traverse with few path options, tall buildings making jets kind of pointless and helicopters with almost no competition outside of other helicopters as the MAA has terrible sightlines no matter where it is. Dawnbreaker can make for some intense building to building fighting, but more often than not you're constantly killing the same guy dropping off the same building that you can't get to the top of thanks to someone mining the elevator door.



Here's the layout of the map. The largest two paths are on the very edges inside the city, they have few obstacles keeping tanks from just driving down them, but there are location on the inland road that give a good deal of protection to myriad engineers just waiting to blow you to hell and back. The main road has some serious debris scattered about and can get blocked off partially around the C point if someone brings down the bridge. I spend a lot of my time on this map on foot to avoid these issues, which is a good plan as there are a number of paths you can take advantage of through buildings and what that tanks just can't reach. It's rare to actually run into a tank that is a threat in this map as they're often blind due to the number of streets and head on confrontations they'll end up with as enemy tanks are funneled in down the same streets.



And here's the marked up version of the map. Orange blobs indicate elevators, green areas are popular rooftops to hang out on, Red lines are the best routes to points from rooftops and yellow dots and lines indicate levolution triggers. On this map there are a few. Bollards (pillar things) are featured on both parking garages (one between A and B, the is the building between C and E) make a comeback. You can collapse the bridge at C as previously mentioned to change how that area plays a bit and there is a gas main near the B flag that you can blow up and open up a little underground tunnel and cause some vehicles that aren't paying attention to get trapped. There are also fuse boxes (like on Operation Locker) that you can shoot to cause buildings to go dark. Of the three urban maps (SoS, Floodzone and this one), Dawnbreaker is the least susceptible to sniper spam. the sightlines are almost all terrible, so more people who get on roofs are actually there to attempt to take points or get into kind of cheap locations. Those are some of the areas marked in green, where you can jump off the top of the roof, but land in a pretty decent spot.