Castaway.tf

What is your favorite map and why is it tc_hydro?



Opinions on tc_hydro? If you're in the camp of hydro disrespecters - describe it's flaws
Also share any knowledge on the map you have you'd like

Hydro is a great map though I would say some areas are better than others.

Nota and I have talked about this before but to classify each of the four zones in a word:

• Dish: The radar dish
• Dam: The zone with the dam
• Power: The indoor electric plant with generators
• Bridge: The warehouse where the point is on a bridge

Then to rank the individual areas

1. Dish-Power: The cave is cool and I really enjoy this stage
2. Dam-Power: This is a classic and so many good rounds happen on it
3. Dam-Bridge: A fun connection, many a sudden death happens on this and it's well balanced
4. Dish-Bridge: Decent, I find that if teams are balanced this usually results in the Dish side losing
5. Power-Bridge: This seems to be a more rare connection for some reason, but it doesn't typically result in great games. Seems slightly biased against the team on bridge
6. Dam-Dish: The worst of the main stages, the two tunnels often times means one team goes one tunnel, another team goes the other tunnel, and the round is over with barely any fighting
7. Red Base: The better of the two bases. Worse than all other main stages due to how one sided it is, but you have somewhat of a chance if you can get a sentry down in time
8. Blue Base: Miserable for blue. Extremely hard to defend and usually comes down to luck

Overall a high tier map with a lot of variety

random wrote: Mon Feb 09, 2026 10:53 am Hydro is a great map though I would say some areas are better than others.

Nota and I have talked about this before but to classify each of the four zones in a word:

• Dish: The radar dish
• Dam: The zone with the dam
• Power: The indoor electric plant with generators
• Bridge: The warehouse where the point is on a bridge

Then to rank the individual areas

1. Dish-Power: The cave is cool and I really enjoy this stage
2. Dam-Power: This is a classic and so many good rounds happen on it
3. Dam-Bridge: A fun connection, many a sudden death happens on this and it's well balanced
4. Dish-Bridge: Decent, I find that if teams are balanced this usually results in the Dish side losing
5. Power-Bridge: This seems to be a more rare connection for some reason, but it doesn't typically result in great games. Seems slightly biased against the team on bridge
6. Dam-Dish: The worst of the main stages, the two tunnels often times means one team goes one tunnel, another team goes the other tunnel, and the round is over with barely any fighting
7. Red Base: The better of the two bases. Worse than all other main stages due to how one sided it is, but you have somewhat of a chance if you can get a sentry down in time
8. Blue Base: Miserable for blue. Extremely hard to defend and usually comes down to luck

Overall a high tier map with a lot of variety

That’s a perfect ranking. And the point about sudden death being quite fun makes me honestly wonder if you could experiment with lowering the round timers on tc_hydro. It could be a pretty dynamic thing with rolls in either direction.

I love me a good hydro game, I think most on Castaway do. The only issues are the last two base points. I have rarely seen either team defend those. It doesn't ruin the map though, because most of its gameplay is on the four points in the middle. The original developer team was onto something, it's a great concept for an FPS gamemode. A shame they never made any more maps with it. Probably the best or 2nd best launch map, depending on how much you like 5CP Granary.

My ranking of the Hydro submaps

1: Radar-Bridge - My personal favorite, it feels well balanced, the chokes require team effort to push through and the flanks are underrated
2: Radar-Power - some of the best back and forth stalemates happen on this part of the map, though it’s definitely easier to cap the Power Station IMO, it’s still one of the best, and the death pit is funny
3:Dam-Power - fighting on the cliffs is fun, this is my favorite stage in the mirrored version, idk why but it is
4:Dam-Bridge - Not great but it’s iconic and easy to remember, I definitely feel like this one stalemates the most
5:Bridge-Power - it’s just ok, I don’t know why they bothered with the vents, whoever controls power has complete control of the vents
6:Red Last - The Better of the two final points, it feels overall balanced, with blu team having an advantage but not a guarantee, the chokes and flanks are fun to both attack and defend, but it’s still a hydro last, and typically ends quickly if red team was already getting rolled
7:Dam-Radar - This part should’ve been removed or reworked into something entirely different, it feels forced and almost always ends in Dam getting captured, it’s not really fun for either side to attack or defend
8:Blu Last - Terrible, when I’m playing on red team I’d rather lose so I could defend on red last rather than attack on blu last, not that it’s fun for either team to play on blu last

Nota wrote: Thu Feb 12, 2026 9:59 am 3:Dam-Power - fighting on the cliffs is fun, this is my favorite stage in the mirrored version, idk why but it is

That's crazy because I had the same thought. Mirrored dam-power is awesome

Is it really true that they never made more TC maps because people didn't understand Hydro? TC and RD are such fun game modes that I always see people call confusing and I just don't understand why. Is Hydro TF2's version of the breakfast test and is actually a secret IQ test? Is Castaway the Mensa of TF2 servers?

I suspect it isn't true though. As far as I know, from what I've been told by some of my fellow Castaways and from the ancient Reddit posts and forum posts I've found (I didn't play TF2 in 2010 so I have to go off second-hand information), Hydro servers were regularly populated back in the day, and the most negative people say about it is it's "stalematey." I suspect this is another one of those things that newfag Redditors say because some YouTube video they saw said it. (e.g. "stuns don't belong in an FPS game" "random crits go against the design philosophy" and "X weapon I don't like is a get out of jail free card")

I know some of you are pre-Uber update Oldfag GODs who would remember this first-hand, so I'm curious.

Buchou wrote: Thu Feb 12, 2026 4:38 pm
I know some of you are pre-Uber update Oldfag GODs who would remember this first-hand, so I'm curious.

I couldn't tell you exactly when the wider community started spewing "hydro is a confusing and therefore bad map" but I could probably guess why. The playerbase might be a little too attached to their comfort zones. Casual has enforced the policy of only playing the same few maps, community consensus reached the idea that random = bad, and loadouts are generally more stale in the current vanilla game (excessive nerfs can probably be blamed for this). Hydro is an old map, a pseudo-randomized map, and it was rotting in casual's misc category for the longest time so even less people played and learned it. Combine all of this and you get a map that's often regarded as bad or outdated in the modern day.

Reworded thread's name and contents to be more broad and encourage to actually discuss and preserve knowledge on hydro.

Fun fact: I discovered yesterday that you can put teleporters on hydro behind some (perhaps all) doors, I didn't yet check uncompiled version but it's safe to assume respawnroom brushes have a slight gap with walls and door, which is interesting choice.
This makes it hard/impossible for enemy to get your teleporter entrance or enemy spies to use your teleporters.

Kvasorob wrote: Thu Feb 12, 2026 6:09 pm Reworded thread's name and contents to be more broad and encourage to actually discuss and preserve knowledge on hydro.

Fun fact: I discovered yesterday that you can put teleporters on hydro behind some (perhaps all) doors, I didn't yet check uncompiled version but it's safe to assume respawnroom brushes have a slight gap with walls and door, which is interesting choice.
This makes it hard/impossible for enemy to get your teleporter entrance or enemy spies to use your teleporters.

Big if true? Looks like I'm picking engineer next time we play Hydro.