What is a heatmap?

According to Wikipedia, a heatmap is a "graphical representation of data where the values taken by a variable in a two-dimensional map are represented as colors". What this means is that the data we are using - in our case, Sentry Gun data from popular TF2 maps - is represented as a hot-to-cold color map, based on how often a person builds or gets a kill with a Sentrygun. Simply put, the more red or "hot" an area is, the more popular or attractive of a build or kill location it is.

What is the TF2 Sentrygun Heatmap Project?

This project is a data study based on Sentry Gun build and kill data from Team Fortress 2. This data is gathered in real-time from the participating server communities, which tracks basic Sentry information - locations built, locations where they get kills, and locations where they are destroyed. Originally I set this up because like any good Engineer, I am always looking for the most efficient way of defending a map. While I originally did this for my own benefit, an interesting side effect was finding out what areas in what maps are far more defensible than others.

For example, we all know that when Egypt was originally released as an Official Valve map, the first stage was nearly impossible to win as the Offensive team. When I saw this trend represented in my Heatmaps, I quickly forwarded the information to Valve and the creator of Egypt. Shortly thereafter, an updated version of Egypt was released with the first stage being modified to be more friendly to the Offensive team. A similar thing happened with Hoodoo and the second stage. My heatmaps were showing an extremely "hot" area near the 2nd cap on the 2nd stage where it was almost impossible to break a stalemate, and after a few weeks an update came out for this map as well with the area in question being changed. While I don't have any evidence or statement from either map author saying they updated their maps based on my heatmaps, I can still tell myself that they did!

What exactly are these maps I am looking at?

There are 3 types of maps that I have generated here:

• Build Maps - These are simple maps that show where a Sentry is built and how often. The "hotter" an area is, the more Sentry traffic it gets. These maps are useful for finding popular Sentry locations, though they may not accurately tell how "successful" a Sentry is.


• Kill Maps - Again these are simple maps that show where a Sentry gets kills at and how often. The "hotter" an area, the more Sentry kills are gained in that particular area. Keep in mind that the "heat" is from where the Sentry is located, not where the kill it gets is located. These maps are useful for finding high-kill areas, however this may only mean they are moderately successful. Building in these locations means you most likely will get some kills there.


• Kill-Placement Maps - These are more intuitive maps, using both build and kill data. The "hotter" an area is, the more a successful Sentry is built. Like the Kill Maps, it gets hot when a Sentry gets a kill, however it only does it once per Sentry. IE, a Sentry that gets 10 kills and a Sentry that gets 1 kill will show up the same here. This is useful for finding consistently successful Sentry locations.

Why are some maps so empty? Why don't you have my favorite map?

I am only able to gather the data from the game servers running the plugin needed for this project to run. When a map is empty, it means that map is not very popular on the communities that are participating in the project.

Good news though! You can help out by talking to your favorite community's admins and asking if they will participate in the project. Tell them to contact me and let me know they are interested!

You can read more information about the heatmaps here at my site.