The Metastation-Ministation Situation

[Cheridan]

...Gyration. Salutation.

So, the policy with Metastation that we had decided upon was that since Metacide was the sole maintainer of Metastation, maintainers could insta-merge any updates he had without the traditional 24hr review period that most updates have to. It was sort of "gated-off"; while he was ok with anyone who wanted to do a content update, most people avoided doing so, only updating the map if a code path change or some other update required it. All the previous statements also apply to Giacom's Ministation.

Giacom and Metacide have both unfortunately left the community, leading to a lot of issues with these maps, as they now cause each person to do the same map-effecting change across 3 different maps instead of it getting handled ASAP by a dedicated maintainer.

This leads to major issues, like:
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/issues/5706
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/issues/5710
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/issues/5649

We need to establish a clear solution here. Some people have proposed that we cease maintaining the maps, which takes some of the burden off but those maps will soon become outdated, derelict and unplayable. I don't think that's desirable, especially for ministation which is very popular with smaller downstream servers.
What I'd like is to once again have some dedicated map maintainers, who can keep up with the pace of updates done to the main Boxstation map.

If you have any comments or suggestions, or if you feel you're up to the task, please post.

[paprika]

Metastation was only good because metacide was updating it constantly. Since that isn't the case anymore, axe em both. They used to have active mappers but I can't be assed getting merge conflicts over stupid map shit when almost nobody plays metastation.

[Hibbles]

That seems to be the unfortunate conclusion; either, since the people who 'owned' the map left, make it subject to the same map committee process thing Boxstation is, or abandon kebab. Which is sad.

[allura]

i am an active maintainer of meta why dont you just ask

[Cheridan]

i am an active maintainer of meta why dont you just ask

That's what I'm doing, silly.

[paprika]

Allura didn't you ragequit and delete your github account though, I don't mind you making updates (like dark floor tiles on the bridge make it unique from box for example) but I'd really like to have metacide back since metastation is his baby. It's fine being like 'ok everyone work on it' but the whole reason metastation worked is because it had one dedicated guy behind it who was really passionate about mapping and community feedback.

Also multiple mappers is a pain in the ass.

[allura]

mind you that boxstation was too once made by a single guy, mostly
i didnt ragequit, i deleted my github account because i made a new one with a cooler username.
i don't think that metastation worked simply because of the philosophical idea behind it but more so because it is a good map.
multiple mappers is only a pain in the ass when one of them is hilariously incompetent

[Steelpoint]

Multiple mappers is fine, it when everyone has their own map PR up at the same time that it gets annoying.

Metastation simply needs more dedicated mappers to support it if it is to remain viable. Else we should consider swapping out to a more maintained map.

[Jalleo]

Cheridan I suggest ya ask MrStonedOne to email metacide about this only because metacide can respond about this but the truth as I know of is real life has pulled metacide away.
With mini-station I think the solution may be to contact them about it and see if they could bring their dev teams closer to ours for better maintanance if possible. They may even be able to bring some of their spark to it if their communities are long lasting.
The only other way to solve this is to help reduce the maintanance directly by coding a old idea I remember from a chat each z-level is its own file. This would mean technicially we can have more diferent space areas but praticially it means less overhead on each single file. (No more file path changing for the same derelict twice.)

[NikNakFlak]

I may know a guy who might be willing to maintain ministation.

[Aranclanos]

you can rename your github account, you didn't have to delete it. Your branches get screwed though

[riftan]

I've done some stuff with Ministation in the past for a side-server, I'd be willing to keep it up to date / implement the new features as they develop.

[JStheguy]

I'd be willing to maintain meta and/or mini.

[Cheridan]

Well, unless you guys want to determine who gets what in a thunderdome match or something, the best way is to be active in #coderbus and keep track of what changes are going to need updates and to make those PRs to fix Mini/Metastation. Get in and establish a routine, just like these guys did originally.

Cheridan I suggest ya ask MrStonedOne to email metacide about this only because metacide can respond about this but the truth as I know of is real life has pulled metacide away.
With mini-station I think the solution may be to contact them about it and see if they could bring their dev teams closer to ours for better maintanance if possible. They may even be able to bring some of their spark to it if their communities are long lasting.
The only other way to solve this is to help reduce the maintanance directly by coding a old idea I remember from a chat each z-level is its own file. This would mean technicially we can have more diferent space areas but praticially it means less overhead on each single file. (No more file path changing for the same derelict twice.)

Ministation's dev team is just Giacom, AFAIK. The mod used to be hosted on a separate branch of github, but was at one point merged into the main /tg/station code.

If someone wants to get in contact with Metacide and see if he wants to come back, they certainly should. I'm not in contact with him.

Separating z-levels into individual files is something BYOND supports natively and that we should do anyway. Absolutely, being able to edit a single "Mining Asteroid" map and uploading changes to just that is a ton better than our current method... where any changes to Boxstation mining asteroid have to be mirrored manually to Metastation's.

Thanks for your input.

[allura]

this isnt even a problem. tg has always been a multi person project and the only time that problems arise is whenever people have creative differences between what should happen to a map (e.g. ikky and steelpoint having the same pr up but with different creative visions)
if two people think that their creative vision of a map is better than someone elses, despite it being an open source project, they should just plain be barred from maintaining a map at all. there's no problem, just tell people who are big whiners to get out

[AssassinT90]

Damn. I loved metastation. It was an old friend that I'd occasionally visit when Basil had enough players to be interesting. Now that I've learned that Metacide is gone (yes, I know, I'm late), it feels like the word's lost some of its fantasy.

@MetaStation: I will never forget you, old buddy. From Charles with love.

[Phalanx300]

Ministation doesn't need to be maintained as much, the charm of mini was that it started with almost nothing. Though I gues the latest changes made it more of a minibox rather then a ministation.

[Luke Cox]

Speaking of Ministation, what kind of state is it in at the moment? Shouldn't it be the default map on Bagil given the lower population?

[TheNightingale]

Metastation is being actively maintained by Metacide (who comes in every now and then and asks for suggestions). It means we get all the new features.

[Scones]

Speaking of Ministation, what kind of state is it in at the moment? Shouldn't it be the default map on Bagil given the lower population?

It's unworkable and should be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. It may be "mini" but it works pretty horribly and makes really poor use of the small amount of space.

[Luke Cox]

Speaking of Ministation, what kind of state is it in at the moment? Shouldn't it be the default map on Bagil given the lower population?

It's unworkable and should be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. It may be "mini" but it works pretty horribly and makes really poor use of the small amount of space.

Is anybody working on this?

[oranges]

ministation isn't being worked on by anyone

Feel free to have a crack