Station Map

[Okand37]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Not a lot, but as most people seemed warm to the idea of the waste disposal line running through the custodial storage room, I decided to move the janitor's office close to cargo and add the waste disposal line. The chasm will lead down to the second level underground to a small trash compactor room of sorts.

Upper Level:

Spoiler:

[Okand37]

It has been a productive few days, but I've managed to draft and create most of the engineering department's structure, which will be predominantly featured on the surface level. Some minor things still need to be finished (ie: the atmospheric airlock, maintenance doors, so on and so forth) but a majority of the layout is there. Atmospherics will have access to the engineering desk or "foyer" room to access the department protolathe. The line of delivery tiles behind the firelocks near the entrance will feature a set of shutters to seal the engineering department from being entered without using maintenance.

Upper Level (Engineering):

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Upper Level (Atmospherics):

Spoiler:

[Screemonster]

>Armory has a wall pressed up against main/the outside

Not ok. The rest looks good though.

The three main maps in rotation (box/meta/delta) all have an armory bordering space though.

Space requires special equipment to enter and not die to, the outside on planetstation has no such requirement (as far as I know).

As for the other stuff, I like the designs but the library/bar and hydro are EXTREMELY cramped. Imagine 3 botanists trying to work in that space, or 5 people bumbling around in the bar. Just not much room to move without running into someone.

Shadow has a point. One of the old Bay box-variant maps had the armory backed right up against a dead-end maintenance tunnel that went to one of the solars and basically nowhere else, and it was trivial to break into the armory as the janitor or some shit. Moving the maint tunnel a couple of tiles to the left and putting a single row of space tiles separating them at least made it take some effort to get in there.

[Okand37]

>Armory has a wall pressed up against main/the outside

Not ok. The rest looks good though.

The three main maps in rotation (box/meta/delta) all have an armory bordering space though.

Space requires special equipment to enter and not die to, the outside on planetstation has no such requirement (as far as I know).

As for the other stuff, I like the designs but the library/bar and hydro are EXTREMELY cramped. Imagine 3 botanists trying to work in that space, or 5 people bumbling around in the bar. Just not much room to move without running into someone.

Shadow has a point. One of the old Bay box-variant maps had the armory backed right up against a dead-end maintenance tunnel that went to one of the solars and basically nowhere else, and it was trivial to break into the armory as the janitor or some shit. Moving the maint tunnel a couple of tiles to the left and putting a single row of space tiles separating them at least made it take some effort to get in there.

It doesn't have its back to a maintenance tunnel or the outside at its back, it's filler space (see: map in progress) and is subject to change.

[PantherPusher]

What's the planet atmosphere like?

[Okand37]

What's the planet atmosphere like?

Best example is lavaland's atmosphere. You'll need oxygen if you want to be able to breath outside, but otherwise pressure won't be an issue. Not quite sure exactly how water will play out, but to my assumption it'll essentially be like space but it doesn't transfer its atmosphere to the surrounding land-I could be wrong, though.

[PantherPusher]

Best example is lavaland's atmosphere. You'll need oxygen if you want to be able to breath outside, but otherwise pressure won't be an issue. Not quite sure exactly how water will play out, but to my assumption it'll essentially be like space but it doesn't transfer its atmosphere to the surrounding land-I could be wrong, though.

Is the heat exchanger system for the engine built with an outdoor atmosphere that is not space in mind?

[Okand37]

Best example is lavaland's atmosphere. You'll need oxygen if you want to be able to breath outside, but otherwise pressure won't be an issue. Not quite sure exactly how water will play out, but to my assumption it'll essentially be like space but it doesn't transfer its atmosphere to the surrounding land-I could be wrong, though.

Is the heat exchanger system for the engine built with an outdoor atmosphere that is not space in mind?

The idea is that the water will function similarly to space in regards to temperature for the pipes, so the water will "cool" the pipes like space regularly would.

[Okand37]

As a bit of a footnote, I'd like to start off by saying that the map has been being worked on, and is actually nearing completion of the planning stage. The upper level, excusing a few instances of small unfinished closets, maintenance areas, and a few missing doors, is about ready to move onto the next stage. Power wiring, atmospheric piping, wall equipment, spawners, etc. will come as apart of this "next stage." Once the lower level is ready to move onto this completion stage as well, I might post a few more pictures. For now, here's a (poorly) cropped picture of the medical and science upper level areas. Virology and the morgue will be featured on the lower medical level, and science's xenobiology will be featured on the science lower level.

Upper Level (Medical):

Spoiler:

[SpaceInaba]

>heads of staff have a private office section
yessssSSSS

[letshavecake]

That cargo looks so comfy

[Armhulen]

Cmon, the geneticists should have to go into the jungle to get their monkeys.

[ShadowDimentio]

See about making the maint z-level randomized at roundstart so exploring is an actual thing that happens down there.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

The engine room looks really cramped. Is it not possible to make it 3 tiles wide instead of a 2-tile corridor of a room?

[Okand37]

As a note, the project is still receiving attention and the station is still being worked on. Although there aren't really any new major pictures to share, a majority of the upper level has been completed. This includes areas, powernet, piping, wall equipment, landmarks, and other important tidbits that were not previously on the map.

In the mean time, here are some (poorly taken) pictures of the chapel and the upper-level bridge!

Upper Level (Bridge/Command Hall)

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Upper Level (Chapel)

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[Okand37]

After taking a look at the upper level of the science department, I've decided to start reworking some of the layout to bring the department closer together and to help it feel more natural in its organisation as opposed to forced. Starting with the entry area which includes the security post, the robotics lab, and research & development, here is a comparison of the old and new versions.

Science Foyer (Old)

Spoiler:

Science Foyer (New)

Spoiler:

[Armhulen]

I'm worried there's too much stuff here, should I be? @kor?

[Okand37]

Aside from some minor kinks to iron out and finish, most of the upper level area of the research/science department is finished/reorganized! To note, the rest of science (xenobiology, toxins, and circuitry) will be featured on the lower level of the station. The experimentor room was compacted a bit to fit with the rest of the theme and account for the change in the entryway.

Upper level (Science)

Spoiler:

[PKPenguin321]

fat necro but we have multi z in the code now, has anybody looked at how it might interact with the mapping for this?

[Screemonster]

If the brig doesn't have a walkway over the top for the warden to yeet people into the cells then it's a missed opportunity

[PKPenguin321]

throwback

[nullbear]

nice.

[Addust]

Will there be a White Ship or White Ship equivalent?

[Capsandi]

nice necro bro

[cacogen]

it's weird how the dream of a station on a planetary body was finally realised when they added ass to box and nobody batted an eyelid. we did have startoad's junglestation fork back in the day but after trying it out most people passed. the expectation vs. reality concept art pkpenguin posted does make you feel like this was going to be something special but any new map feels like that and then you play it and it's just more of the same

[Armhulen]

it's weird how the dream of a station on a planetary body was finally realised when they added ass to box and nobody batted an eyelid. we did have startoad's junglestation fork back in the day but after trying it out most people passed. the expectation vs. reality concept art pkpenguin posted does make you feel like this was going to be something special but any new map feels like that and then you play it and it's just more of the same

Well, I was headmin alongside Kor and as you'd expect from headminning up with the design lead we spent long evenings talking about planetstation. Icebox doesn't have anything that planetstation was intended to be, long story short. Planetstation was about many things, but one of the main ideas was the time crunch. Defend the crashed ship outpost. Divert power to ruins to access them and progress. Hold off periodic waves of tribals, which then ramped up as the boundaries were covered with a "creep area" of dark goop that enclosed the station. Fix the teleporter to leave, which requires a lot more power than you start with. And so on. The big idea was that everyone on the station actually had a part in the mission to escape, not just exist until something goes wrong as the traditional ss13 experience would serve.

[cacogen]

The dream of putting the station on a planet died so long ago that I've forgotten why we were hyped for it in the first place, to tell you the truth. I remember posting in a huge thread about it back in the day and I remember StarToad's humble attempt at bringing it to life, but the stuff you're describing doesn't really ring a bell, aside from the existence of tribals which sounds familiar (reminds me a bit of the colonists or whatever in Lifeweb too, except those weren't necessarily hostile).

But it does sound unusually engaging for an SS13 round, assuming you could get it to work. It sounds a bit like Colonial Marines, but those rounds can be sort of a mess and filled with pointless downtime instead of what you're describing which sounds very intentionally paced.

I think though that even if you could get it working so each round had the same kind of time-intensity curve people would eventually get bored of it and pine for the more open-ended SS13 experience. As its own gamemode or something specific to that map it might've worked though.

Generally speaking, I wish there was less tedium in rounds and more of the set piece moments the game sometimes produces. But death would have to be less consequential for that to happen.

[PKPenguin321]

it's weird how the dream of a station on a planetary body was finally realised when they added ass to box and nobody batted an eyelid. we did have startoad's junglestation fork back in the day but after trying it out most people passed. the expectation vs. reality concept art pkpenguin posted does make you feel like this was going to be something special but any new map feels like that and then you play it and it's just more of the same

icebox is cool, really cool in fact, but not even close to the original concept for planetstation. that shit was gonna be multi-multi-z, we're talking up and down z levels with a bunch of z levels (z level in the classic sense) adjacent to the station in every direction
it's a real shame it didn't shake out. i think the biggest thing aside from all the new mechanics to support it (which we pretty much have for all the big ones, like up-down-z levels) the largest hurdle would probably have been mapping. icebox is one classical z level in width and height, and having an up-down-z basically doubled the size of it and made it a lot trickier to map. imagine another z going up: that would triple it. now imagine on every vertical z you have 8 more z levels to make a 3x3x3 cube of z levels and you've got 9 box stations worth of mapping, with the vast majority of them not taking place on a station, meaning there isn't really an existing example or model to base them off of. it is reminiscent of designing a whole ass open world game.
but goddamn could you imagine? trekking out of the station as a traitor, cutting through the jungle, swimming over to the AI island. even just that implies so many cool things we could add. all kinds of alien jungle threats, machetes and shit to get through em, underwater gear like maybe a whole ass scuba suit and sharks and shit (hostile fish could be "regular carp" lol)
its fun to think about because its hard not to be creative with it. but actually making it is just a looooooot of shit you have to do. maybe some day