Swiftwater

Swiftwater
Basic Information
Developer(s):	Unknown
Map Info
Environment:	Alpine
Setting:	Daylight, sunny
Map Overview

Swiftwater is a community-created single-stage Payload map. The Alpine-styled map features 4 control points and encourages continuous pushing from BLU while trying to break RED's defenses.

As displayed on a film projected inside BLU's spawn, BLU has been bottling water to make a quick profit. However, RED has caught onto this tactic and is poisoning BLU's water reserves from within the RED base, under the guise of its Red Planet Chemicals operation. Thus, BLU's objective is to push the bomb cart to RED's base, where it detonates, destroying the base and ending their water poisoning plans.

Swiftwater was contributed to the Steam Workshop, and made an official map in the Meet Your Match Update. It is often used for competitive Highlander games.

Locations

Note: If you are having trouble with finding the locations listed here, you can scroll down to the Helpful overview section to see their exact position marked on the map.

Checkpoint 1

Cart start: The Cart starts on the left of BLU spawn in a small courtyard.

Ditch: As the cart starts moving forward it crosses a bridge over a ditch which cuts the area of the first checkpoint in two. The ditch begins at the mouth of a large, grated pipe slightly left of this bridge and continues to the right until it reaches a small shack. There the ditch takes a 90-degree turn left and continues until it reaches another large, grated pipe leading into the barn, carving out an L-shape in the area of checkpoint A. Tall fencing surrounds portions of the top of the ditch, and a log crosses the ditch roughly at its corner.

Shack: There is a small shack positioned at the corner of the ditch, directly in front of the right-most BLU spawn door. It is initially open only from the side opposite of BLU spawn, with a shuttered door blocking the near side, and has open windows overlooking the ditch.

Main House: Once the cart crosses over the bridge, it takes a sharp S-bend to the left. It then climbs a slight incline before making a turn to the right. After this turn, the cart goes by a large, two-story house which occupies a significant portion of this area, referred to as "Main House". Atop the house sits a Sniper's nest.

Front yard: The area in front of the Main House is called "The Front Yard". This yard is a common defensive spot for RED as there is a large fence with stairs attached which helps shield the Yard from BLU attacks while giving RED a vantage point.

Checkpoint A: After crossing the Front yard, the cart crosses a second bridge over the ditch. This bridge is the location of checkpoint A. Once captured, the shuttered shack door opens for BLU.

The start of the map.
The Front Yard, a common place for RED to set up defenses.
The view of the ditch.

Checkpoint 2

Tunnel: As the cart finishes crossing the checkpoint bridge it now enters a tunnel. In the tunnel, the cart makes some wild twists and turns around corners before finally exiting the tunnel facing the same direction it faced when it originally started out at the beginning of the round.

Catwalks: As the cart exits the tunnel it enters the "second area", another wide open area which contains the second checkpoint. The most prominent feature of this area is the Catwalks, tight wooden platforms hanging in the sky, connecting two main buildings of the second area: the Barn and the Sawmill

Sawmill: There is a large wooden building, right on the left of the first Red spawn.

Red spawn: The first Red spawn is positioned directly opposite of the tunnel exit, right across the second checkpoint.

Barn: A huge building on the right side of the second checkpoint and in a general middle position of the entire map. This building connects the first, second, and third checkpoints and the areas they reside in.

Second checkpoint: The second checkpoint is positioned on the left side of the Barn, right under one of the Catwalks.

These tunnels offer many flanking opportunities.
Showing more of the tunnels.

Checkpoint 3

Silos: Once the third checkpoint is captured, the cart starts rolling down a small incline, make an abrupt turn to the left and enter the area of the third checkpoint. In the middle of the now much more enclosed area are three tall silos springing up from the ground.

Checkpoint C: The checkpoint C is itself positioned in between the three silos on its left side and the Red Front Area on its right side.

Front Area: There is a large area in front of the second Red spawn which is commonly used as a defensive holdout.

The narrow path of the cart.
There are many sightlines onto the Payload track.

Checkpoint 4

Railway Building: As the cart passes over the checkpoint C, it goes through a chokepoint and find itself in a much more open field. As it enters this field, it makes a turn to the right, hugging the walls of the previous RED spawn which is on its right and passing by a small building called the "Railway Building" on its left.

Wall: After the cart climbs up an incline, it proceeds to make yet another turn, now to the left where it passes by a low, but long wall on its right.

Corner house: The cart peacefully cruises next to the aforementioned wall for some time. Once it reaches the wall's end, the cart makes a complete 180-degree turn in order to go around it, passing by yet another house called "The Corner House".

Checkpoint D: Once it passes the Corner House, the cart only needs to go a few more meters to reach the fourth checkpoint which sits just before a steep decline.

This part of the map is very open.
A small close-quarters section.

Checkpoint 5

Steep decline: After capturing checkpoint D, the cart now starts descending downwards.

Battlements: Once the cart completes its descend, it evens out on flat ground and past under the Battlements, a long building above it which stretches all the way from the topmost edge of the map, to the previous RED spawn.

Pit: Going under the battlements puts the cart just a few meters from the Pit, the final checkpoint, and consequently the cart's final destination.

Cliffs:Surrounding the Pit from three of its sides are the cliffs. High and steep elevated position which serve as the final obstacle to BLU.

Entrance into the final stretch.
The final checkpoint.

Helpful overview

1.Front Yard
2.Main House
3.Ditch
4.Shack
5.Tunnel
6.Sawmill
7.Catwalks
8.Front area
9.Silos
10.Railway Building
11.Corner house
12.Steep Decline
13.Battlements
14.Cliff
15.Barn
Unmarked area on point C: Wall

Blue/red diagonal lines: Blu/Red first spawn
Blue/red double diagonal lines: Blu/Red second spawn
Blue/red double diagonal lines w/ a circle: Blu/Red third spawn

Yellow circle: First checkpoint
Green circle: Second checkpoint
Black circle: Third checkpoint 
Pink circle: Fourth checkpoint
White circle: Last checkpoint and the Pit

Strategy

Main article: Community Swiftwater strategy

Update history

July 7, 2016 Patch #1 (Meet Your Match Update)

Swiftwater was added to the game.

January 16, 2017 Patch

Fixed using the wrong thumbnail images for pl_Swiftwater.

Changelog

This is the changelog of the map before it was added to the game.

Changelog:

Build 12 Changes
Bug fixes
Removed Rollback (from build 11)

Build 11 Changes
Stage 1 layout significantly changed
Added a CP before the final CP. More fighting takes place in courtyard now.
Reduced amount of time awarded for CPs.

Build 7 Changes
Tons of changes. Most important:
Blue Spawn remade - doors not stay open on map start
CP4 tweaked to give red an advantage again. Buildings in upper area have a Sniper vantage and a good shortcut behind blue.
Fixed getting stuck in red spawning areas.
Red can exit spawn anywhere after round starts.

Old Fixes
Fixed Engy exploit at CP2
New Red Spawn layout - more straightforward and should be less campable at cp3 and cp4. Shortened spawn times to compensate for slightly longer travel. (The changes should improve gameplay on insta spawn servers as well)
New spawn exit from CP2 to prevent camping.
Vastly increased frame rate.