A bot's main goal in life is to find interesting things and then kill you with them. (Blitz)

Well, this is going to be a slightly disorganized guide on the “rules” of item placement. I'll be the first to admit that depending on your map, these may or may not apply. The joy of item placement is that the rules don't always apply, depending on the context. BUT, hopefully I can offer some insight into how to get the ball rolling towards a really well playing map. The bottom line on weapon placement, and gameplay testing in general, is that you have to play the crap out of your level and taking notes as you play (like, “wow, i just ran out of shock ammo, maybe i need to put more in”). Reading a lot about what the community thinks about weapon placement definitely helps as well, as sometimes you can't think about item placement so clearly when you are battling godlike bots in your latest alpha.

I encourage feedback on this, and I'll continue add pertinent info the base of the article as I come across it or it is presented to me. This information has been gleaned from many community sources, both Unreal and Quake, and appropriate links are at the bottom of the document. Some of this is just from discussion boards and I may have left out authors. If I have left anyone out and you want to be credited, I apologize and will credit you, just lemme know. I'm not out to claim this stuff is my own, just trying to present in in a more unified way. Thanks.

Weapon Placement
First off: Study maps that are popular, especially in the competitive community! A competitive map won't scare off the casual player, but a casual player oriented map won't get played by the pro's in the community. Having weapons placed in the correct positions for competitive play benefits everyone.

The "pit" is an old standby of DM level design. It's the area where you put the powerful stuff... it's easy to enter and hard to exit, but the tradeoff is that the pickup that's in there may be worth it if you can escape with your skin intact.

In the past, it's a lot of times been the RL pit. DM-Asbestos is a good example, and there are others.

Rankin has four pits, if you look at it properly, one each for Flak, Rox, Shock and 100a. The Shock pit has become increasingly popular lately, since it's become clear that the shock rifle is the multipurpose winner in UT2k4. About the shock pit being popular in Rankin, I think it is mainly popular because of the flow around that area rather than it just being a popular weapon. A lot of the map is connected to it (compared to the mini/rox/link room for example), and there are also plenty of spawn points there. Of course the shock is popular, but I don’t think that’s the main reason people crowd up in that area of Rankin.

For weapons, the use of the pit is a no- brainer, really, since it singles out the whoregun and makes players work for the favored weapon. Putting defensive pickups into a pit is a little more troublesome, especially in a defense- oriented game like UT2k4, but if the rest of the map is balanced to accomodate such measures it seems to be worth it. Thanks to the 100a pit, Rankin is just that much trickier to lock down... which probably leads to more interesting matches. Another good example of an armor "pit" is Deck 16/17, where the shieldbelt or 100a (depending on version) is located in an extremely precarious position.

In short, whether or not a pit is a good choice for a map depends on the rest of the map. In DM-Asbestos IMO the RL pit is just plain useless as the game- dominating hitscan weapons are all located on the easily- defended upper level. In DM-Rankin, however, all of the pits seem to work well. Placement of said pits probably depends on a good combination of luck and foresight. (quoted from an atari forums post by Discord)

It's a good idea to keep similar weapons away from each other, so you make sure that shock and LG whores like myself have to traverse a long way in order to get both of them. This goes for the link/mini, flak/bio combos as well. Also, keeping the more powerful weapons away from the 100a is a good idea. Having the 50a nearby a powerful weapon can be done, but you have to make sure that it's quite risky. Now, of course, placing powerful weapons near big pickups isn’t always a bad thing. In TDM people expect to see killing sprees as an outcome of a LTG+Amp or Mini+Amp run. Controlling and using it in TDM can change the course of the game, it’s the main reason it’s the most fought over pickup. Put only a bio rifle nearby the amp and you effectively remove that aspect of the game.

If you use assault rifle weapon spawns you are wasting everyone's time, I don't really think (at least in competitive play) that there is a reason for that. If you run out of weapons to place and find that you are needing to place another weapon, consider another link (for TDM) OR re-think how you have placed powerups and health.

I think it's quite important to think about how weapons are used in particular areas, and to place them accordingly. If you have a long hallway, a minigun or link spawn would be appropriate in that area. Closed in, tight spaces certainly call for the flak cannon. As you run around your level, testing how the bots work, think about what weapon you would naturally use in specific areas and try to place them accordingly. You can apply this train of thought to ammo placement as well.

A side note on placement - Splash damage weapons also introduce the possibility for ceiling splash damage. This is often a way for the mapper to give as much or more power to the lower level players. The mapper must make sure to have the upper floor ceilings low enough for this to be effective if he wishes to implement this strategy. Slainchild informs me that splash damage is worthless in UT2004, especially on the rocket launcher. While I'm sure he's correct, I'm going to keep the splash damage mention in here because I think it's a very cool way of thinking about gameplay.

Ammo Placement
Don't place ammo by its respective weapon. Instead, you should place the ammo a little ways away to make the players traverse the map more.

Put ammo out of the path of players (not too much) so they have to make a choice if they are low on ammo. Do they pick up the weapon, OR pick up the nearby ammo? Everything acts as a sound cue in 1v1, so keep them ‘separate’. In TDM it doesn’t matter as much, since you are going to want to pick up anything and everything in your path.

Put ammos in packs of 2 or 3 to reduce the number of locations the players have to recall during a match. Also, place them preferably far away from the corresponding weapon (although one near-ish the weapon is fine) to force players into running the map more and to discourage camping. Usually, 3 ammo packs for any single weapon should be the limit.

Armor Placement
A few guidelines regarding the placement of armor. Armor is one of the most important items to control in a level, so much care is needed in adding armor to your level. The armor you choose and its placement in the level can dramatically affect your level's gameplay. The importance of different areas, the paths players will take, and the balance and controllability of the map can all rest on where you put the armor.

Spread the armor out as much as possible. You don't want players to be able to run the armors too easily.
The danger in grabbing an armor should match its respective armor. Meaning the 100a should be more dangerous to get than the 50a. Dangerous doesn't necessarily include world dangers like lava or the void. The danger can also be in relation to the other player. For example, if an armor is out in the open on a bottom floor, the player must expose himself to possible attacks from a number of angles.

There should be interesting architecture and sufficient verticality surrounding most armor locations. This is because the area of the armors will most likely be fought in the most, so the players need different angles and levels to attack from.

One thing that has been successful in the past is to put an armor (specifically the 100a) in an easily camp-able/defendable spot . What this will do is give the down player a chance to control the armor even with limited weaponry due to the chokepoints going to the armor. If done right, this results in some very interesting fights for control of the major armor. Note that the rule above about interesting space should be more important than ever if you are to use this method.

The 50a often serves as an armor for the down player, so place it accordingly. Often the 50a will be placed in a regrouping area out of the way.

Treat the MegaHealth as a kind of armor. It usually has slightly higher precedence than the 50a, but not quite as high as the 100a. Slainchild adds: "If you have a keg in your map, delete it."

The 50a is just as important as the 100a in 1v1 and is fought over more often, so take that into consideration.

Health Placement
DON'T USE TOO MUCH HEALTH. It's a common pitfall, and makes gameplay quite boring, as no one is ever truly running for their life, they're simply running from health pack to health pack with some combat in-between.

150-250h is usually the range of health per level, including vials. Larger levels require a bit more usually. Also, the amount greatly depends on whether you want players to have access to more health and less armor, or vice versa. Competitive focus will always be on the armours though. Someone with 199hp is much easier to kill than someone with 100hp & 100a in UT2004.

If there is a Megahealth in the level, less health is needed, but really, you should probably just delete it.

Put health into different types of groups to diversify gameplay. Usually, you'll want to limit it to just a few main areas in the level to group health in. Don't spread the health out too evenly, otherwise gameplay will dull since players will be picking up health every where they go. Place the larger groups of health in more dangerous and fought over areas, and place smaller amounts of health in "down" areas. Just don't make it a kamikaze run for the down player to heal up (quoted from GUI's post in an Atari thread)

Keep groups of health away from each other as well, you don't need two health packs just around the corner from a health pack and some adrenaline.

Minihealth (Vials)
These are often overlooked and just randomly placed in areas, but they can actually serve some quite useful purposes.

Use Adrenaline and Health Vials in different number from one location to the other to allow players recognize the position of their opponent based on whether he hears 3 or 4 Vials/pills being picked up. From 2 to 5 of these items in one location are the most common number. You can of course mix Vials and pills together to get more sound variations but don't make the thing too much complex otherwise players will simply get lost.

Vials can easily make an area more powerful and desirable, so think about that when you find certain areas not getting a decent amount of gameplay. Vials are important to the down player, as it gives him a chance to live from a Lightning gun attack, so think about placing them near playerstarts.

Remember that vials spawn immediately when the game starts, so players will rush towards vials and grab as many as possible before the armour spawns (in a 1v1). Having them all over one side of the map would be bad since only one player can pick them up...

Adrenaline
I usually place adrenaline in areas/hallways that are used to get to weapons or powerups. They help to guide the bots through these areas. If there were no pickups in certain corners of the maps, neither players nor bots would have any reason to go there. By adding pills, you increase the chances of players meeting in those areas. The also can be used in combination with vials to produce a specific sound, so when you hear your oppenent pick up a vial, then an adrenaline, then a vial, you know exactly where he is.

Adrenaline isn’t used in 1v1 so I wouldn’t worry too much about its placement. In TDM adrenaline pickups aren’t highly important either (kills give you adrenaline), but keep them evenly spread throughout the map.

Credits:
GUI's comments on placement are included.
Discord's comments are from an Atari discussion of flow.
Slainchild's general comments have been integrated into the document.
Some of this article is paraphrased from the links below.

Links:
Blitz' Pathing Guide
Competitive Map Theory
Placing Player Start Rules
Weapon Placement Rules
Map Flow Rules
Placement Rant 1
Placement Rant 2