/tg/Station 13

Note: I decided to make a new thread here, please go there instead.

metacide wrote: For The Most Up-To-Date Info, Check the SS13 Wiki, or GitWiki

MetaStation is a largely complete additional map available in the /tg/ code as an alternative to the default one. MetaStation was previously run on Badger, the second official /tg/ server, Basil, under NTStation code on Artyom, and on /vg/ using their own fork. It has been tested quite extensively and has been generally well received. Due to this play-testing, it is now largely bug free, and most feedback revolves around gameplay changes and balancing. Please give any feedback you may have in this thread, and rest assured that the map is regularly updated according to such feedback.

Most Recent Version: v40B (07/02/2015) (Download .zip):

[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/858120/Static/SS13/MetaStation/15-02-07%2018-10%20MetaStation.v40B%20Full%20-%20800.png[/img]
(Full-size map of the station, click for the full image)

MetaStation v40B Changelog:

• Fixed brig desk door controls not working
  Fixed missing version info on arrivals commemorative plaque
  Fixed rogue blast door west of HoP office
  Fixed metal-glass table in genetics - now all-glass
  Fixed incorrect helmet variant in the armory
  Added medical surplus storeroom and adjusted aspects of medical storage
  Added ClothesMate vendor to the dormitories
  Change bridge colour scheme to dark-tile base
  Various other minor adjustments and fixes

Other Images

[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/858120/Static/SS13/MetaStation/14-04-05%2014-27%20MSv39%20v39K%20Wires%20and%20Pipes%20-%20800.png[/img]
(Slightly outdated map of the station showing all of the underfloor wiring and piping)

[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/858120/Static/SS13/MetaStation/13-12-03%2012-43%20MSv38N%20Simplified%20Map%20-%20800.png[/img]
(Slightly outdated simplified map showing the general layout of the station)


(Size comparison image that Jordie made, BoxStation (tg.2.1.2) is black, MetaStation is green.)

Meta's Guide to Enthusiast Mapping
Written for those with any or no idea of how to use the map-maker. Wiki entry coming soon.

I have no idea how experienced anyone reading this is, so I'll start from the top and try to assume little. First, you need to get yourself a copy of all the files for editing. To do this, go here and click the ZIP button next to clone this in windows. You won't be able to push to the GitHub repo or anything, but that's complicated and something you can get round to later. Once the .zip downloads, extract it wherever.

So now you have your folder with the latest code in, and a zip backup to go back to if you break everything. In the master folder, you'll see "tgstation.dme". You want to open this with Dream Maker a program that'll be in your BYOND folder. Set Dream Maker as the default program for opening .dme files, if it isn't already. When you open it, you'll see a two tabs on the left: file, and object. In the file tab, open maps, and then open 'tgstation.2.1.2.dmm', or whatever the current map version is called. You'll then get something looking a bit like this:

[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/858120/Static/SS13/MetaStation/12-08-07%2020-34%20Dream%20Maker%20-%20800.png[/img]

Switch from the files tab to the objects tab, and you'll see area, mob, objects, and turf. These are the four primary 'layers' that you can see in the editor. You can toggle their visability and interactivity on and off using the layers dropdown. I'd advise copying this map, and renaming it to, say, teststation.dmm. Perhaps delete most or all of the default station, and build on the now-empty z-level, wherever you like. To build stuff, use the object tree on the left of the UI to select things, then click to place them. A handy tip is that control-clicking places an object on top of others, instead of replacing them. You can have multiple maps open at once - I usually have the default /tg/station map and mine open, and can then shamelessly copy-paste things far more easily. Also, finding stuff in the object tree can be tedious as hell - right click something you see and you can see its path in the tree - obj/structure/closet/etc. This will help you find things. From this point on, really, you can begin mapping proper.

You can select areas to copy/paste/delete, or enter add or fill mode when placing objects. Basically just click around all the menus and you'll work out how they work, more or less. Options>Zoom allows you to zoom out to 50% to see more stuff. Use layers to select which of area, objects and turf you want to edit. If you actually want to be able to see anything, I'd deselect area, and tick 'only show selectable layers'.

The first step, then, is to be able to create your first few rooms. Select a turf (floor) from the generic simulated floors. These will start with the right make-up and pressure of air on them, which is how you'll want it. Surround these floors with walls, and hey presto you have a room. Try sticking some tables in there, perhaps a vending machine or two. One you've made your room you'll want to put lights in. To get these to work, however, they need power.

So now we get to the basics of making a functioning room. First of all, you'll need to re-enable the area layer. Pick some area from the object tree, and cover your room in it. You can rename this area if you want, we'll do that later. Make sure the area isn't used anywhere else on the map. Each area should have one APC or Area Power Controller in it. Copy one in from the default map.

To rename an area or APC, you need to right click it, and select EDIT. This will give you a menu showing you all of its changeable variables. Name is what you'll want to change. You'll see a hell of a lot of other things you can change, too. Any that aren't defaults are in BOLD. The menu will look something like this:



As you can see, cell type and dir are both in bold. Cell type defines how much power the APC can hold, you'll want to set this nice and high as you don't have any sort of generator yet - 10,000 ought to do. Dir defines the direction the APC is in with regards to the cell it occupies. Basically, 1 means it is above the cell you place it in, 2 is below, 4 is to the right and 8 to the left:



Note that with APCs, dir is the only variable controlling their position. Other objects have their positions defined by pixel_x and pixel_y - this changes where APCs appear in the editor, but once ingame they snap to whatever the dir variable says. Other things, like signs on walls, will only take notice of the pixel variables and not necessarily dir. In a normal power system, you'd connect the APC up to all the others and the station's generator via SMES cells, but we'll do that later. For now you have a basic room that is powered and starts with enough air to breathe happily. You can put an air canister in if you think you'll consume all the oxygen, or somesuch.

Important Note: There are nudge_x and nudge_y variables in the editor, as well as various z-axis variables. Don't ever change these, they're not used in SS13 and break things.

To be able to actually spawn into a room, you'll want to place spawners. You'll see these as the big red X symbols on the default map, for each role. There are also blue Xs for xeno spawn locations and the spawns for all latecomers on the arrival shuttle. Stick in a spawn_late somewhere in your room for now.

To actually play your map and be able to screw around in it as an admin, you'll have to compile it. First, make sure the file tree (on the left like the object tree, click the file tab) is open, and go to maps. Make sure the only one ticked is your own. Then click Build>Compile from the top, and wait for it to finish. This will give you a something like "tgstation.dmb" in the folder containing bot, code, config, maps, etc. Whilst here, quickly go into config, and open 'admins.txt'. Replace everything in there with:

"<yourbyondname> - Game Master", filling in your BYOND name.

This will make you an admin, which is very helpful for tinkering ingame. Now to actually boot up a server so you can run your map! Find 'Dream Daemon' (has a big green icon) in your BYOND folder, and click the 'File' dropdown at the bottom. Select your "tgstation.dmb". Select a port if you want, put security on safe, and visibility to invisible, for now. Click start to start the server, which will take a little while. You can then connect to it through BYOND by putting in either your external IP, shown in Dream Daemon, if that port is correctly forwarded. Otherwise use your internal IP, 192.168.x.x, where x is whatever. If you don't know this, ask and I can help. Once in, go to the admin tab and click 'start game'. By joining after the start, you'll spawn at the late spawn you made, and, being an admin, will be able to make stuff, delete stuff, and other handy admin things (like causing massive explosions).

From there on, you can make whatever you like, really. Copying the default map and working out how everything works isn't too hard and is fairly rewarding. You could just tweak the default one for a bit if you like. The first thing I made was a small shuttle - you can see this at the bottom. Just tweak it and add stuff and you'll work out how almost everything works fairly easily. For explanations of wiring, piping, and atmos, ask away on here. I'll add an atmos guide later on, as well as a power generation and wiring guide. If you're a good engineer in-game, it'll help a lot as a mapper.

If you've managed to get all the way to the end of this before I've added more, fine effort on your part. Have fun screwing around with stuff, and feel free to ask anything you like. I'll add more stuff here soon.

PTW, and to find the code bit.

Ok, I finally got round to updating the images in this. Thanks for posting it.

Will make a go of updating the actual map itself on both codebases sometime later this week, hopefully.

Dunno if it happens on tg as well, but on nt, the contraband weapon (stechkin/shotgun/whatever) spawns on top of the locker now, instead of inside it.

Edit: Also, the space suit (the suit itself, not the helmet) located in the toxin test range firing room thing, when you first remove it from the suit holder thing, it has no sprite, and continues to have no sprite, until you place it somewhere (although a few times even after that it was still invisible, I never carefully tested it). Not sure if it's only that space suit, but I've stolen that a few times now, and it always comes out with no sprite, really weird.

Edit2: Because of the changes to sec, making sec officers spawn with a baton and black gloves, someone removed batons from all sec lockers, and the sec gloves from the brig. This SOMEWHAT overlooks the fact that job change officers now don't have access to either.
The ideal solution would be to have the sec lockers in the brig have batons (not the secpost ones) and to put a couple of black/sec gloves into the sec wardrobes. Or something.

Do this, it's my one gripe with your map.

Mining and cargo would be closer to science, service would be right outside arrivals AND across from the library.

This would basically make your map more than perfect honestly. The rest of the layout is perfect, but mining being so far from science is really really bothersome and service being right outside the arrivals is something people have already discussed is an awesome idea (it works really well on cogstation).

I know swapping two whole sections of the map isn't easy, and would take forever, but it'd be totally worth it.

Yeah, HoP would be further from cargonia, but honestly, how often does the HoP actually go to cargo? Plus, if that's really an issue, you can make it like box where the HoP office is across the hall, underneath the captain office, where the gateway is currently.

if i had 10 million years i could not say no enough times to signify how much i do not want that change

What? Fuck no, that's a terrible idea. Service areas are fine where they are, since they're closer to more departments.

yeah dont do that

But why, cargo/mining is way too far from science and service should totally be in front of arrivals, what? Can I actually get some explanations as to why their current locations are somehow better when service is near fucking atmos/engineering/science for some reason when cargo is a much more industrial department and service isn't near the library/arrivals which would function way better as the 'civillian' section of the station and not the research/industrial part?

Tool storage/dorms/disposals could be swapped too, which would keep the locker rooms near service, keep the tool storage/disposals near supply..

because the service sector is a central point of the map where people always are
that central point should also be near all the major departments
cargo is fucking useless to everyone unless there's an emergency and moving mining to science wont do anything other than make the trip take 5 less seconds
its not about putting all the "similar" departments together, its about putting things where theyre most useful to people
and cargo is not useful to people
hence why it is far away from the bustling parts of the station

Yeah, if the service areas were put where cargo is currently, even less people will actually bother to go there. As it is, people only bother to even go to the bar/kitchen because it's so close to the department they work in.

Why would less people go to the department literally directly outside of arrivals again?

miggles wrote:its about putting things where theyre most useful to people

Cargo is useful to people, it's useful to science and engineering, which is why it should be next to them.

Library is in an absolutely horrid position on the map, and it being closer to service would make a lot more sense. Changing where service is wouldn't change anything about its 'popularity' or make people not want to go to service less, and it won't make people go to the kitchen less. That's a problem with the kitchen, food, and hunger system inherently, and has nothing to do with its map placement at all.

Plus, it makes a lot more sense to have the service/civillian/dorms/locker rooms outside of arrivals than it does to have them on the other side of the map imo, right now everything is extremely jumbled and confusing rather than being sectioned off properly.

miggles wrote:and moving mining to science wont do anything other than make the trip take 5 less seconds

Which is why it's a good idea. You could attach mining and rnd and it'd be better for everyone in those departments while making shit more efficient. Even if this somehow made people go to service less, it's a much better alternative than cargo being a long distance away from engineering and science when those are the departments it's most useful to.

It's like you guys have no idea how gameplay flow works and just give a shit about muh bar RP when map placement has zero to do with that.

You literally cannot say cargo is not useful to science and engineering without making yourself look like a gigantic tool that has never played ss13.

Edit: Some random map WIPs show that other people do it as well:
- Brostation
- Allura's WIP

Like seriously, do you need any more evidence?

how in the fuck is cargo in any way even marginally useful to engineering?
when has an engineer ever been low on engineering materials?
there is a bucketload in engineering already. what are they going to buy? metal? glass? a new engine? what??
how does it make more sense to put service anywhere else than it is now? nobody is confused about the map. everyone knows where everything is and it all makes sense.
cargo is useful to science in 2 ways: mining, for minerals, and shotguns, for combat research. that's pretty much it. do you think cutting up the entire map is worth the 5 seconds you shave off walking to bring those 2 crates to science?
consider that way, way more people use the service sector than can even possibly be in the entirety of logistics. and then consider that fucking nobody plays cargo tech and at most there's usually 1, maybe 2 shaft miners. so.. 3 people MAX benefit from being closer to 2 departments that only use them every once in a while, while everyone else has to walk to the other side of the station instead to get to service.
service serves more people in one round than cargo will serve rnd and engineering combined in 5 rounds. anyone can come and enjoy some free food or a blunt or something to drink. every single person on the station. two (in reality 1) department(s) benefit from cargo on a normal round, and not even every round.

Doesn't R&D have its own mail tag anyways? You don't even need to drag the crate all the way to science.

Meh, seems counter intuitive to have service where it is right now instead of near library etc. Switching where it is would only make it further from science and engineering, but it'd still be closer to medbay so nothing really changes there.

Do you really not want to walk 5 seconds longer to get your ambrosia vulgaris? I'm pretty sure we know what's more important to the flow the game.

having it near library would be like box station's departure wing - fucking dead.
Having people need to move around a bit means they interact with each more, as opposed to just having everything super optimised so people only take 10 steps out of their department, with a big dead area.

Tedium for the sake of roleplay is just tedium. If people don't want to roleplay they fucking won't, to be honest.

yeah except they do which is why those areas are so busy
if people dont want to play CT or miner, they wont either, and then that entire space becomes useless

If mining/cargo was closer to science I'd play miner AND cargo tech more. Why do you think I'm suggesting this?

You're seriously holding out on a job for ten seconds of walking time once every 10 minutes?

toxins should have an analyzer in it's room, so if you're not a scientist you can scan canisters

Why would a not-scientist have a need to scan canisters other than being someone who's broken in and making bombs?
Assuming they're not a criminal they could just ask a scientist
Or become a scientist.

If someone job transfers into science they won't have the PDA cartridge.
Personally I think they should just put a blue toolbox in toxins and call it a day.

Or maybe they should put TWO toolboxes in research.

OH WAIT.

as334 wrote:If someone job transfers into science they won't have the PDA cartridge.
Personally I think they should just put a blue toolbox in toxins and call it a day.

There is certainly not a PDA cart dispenser in the same place you go to get a job transfer, or anything....

I recently had a very quick catchup to find out what has been preventing Metacide to do things with metastation and sadly to say Real life has caught a new prisoner for now.

Until Metacide can saw off that chain connected to the leg MetaStation is on Hiatus unless someone else takes over the mapping for it.

(If someone else does take over the mapping please tell me and I would be willing to unlock this thread unless ya want to start a new thread of course)

Unlocked for now but nobody please bring this thread back in hype until at least Metacide has made another working copy of the map or talks about it please

i made a working copy of the map
http://puu.sh/frdar/f59f0103d2.zip

praise allura our lord and savior

Allura gestures!
Metastation shudders and begins to move!

Is metacide actually coming back? Getting pretty sick of box on badgerstation

just ask sos to run meta without metacide

I PMed him but never got a response. I don't think we will get off box station unless more people message him.

Wyzack wrote:I PMed him but never got a response. I don't think we will get off box station unless more people message him.

the joke is that he refuses to do it for some reason

Are we actually stuck with box station permanently now? Truly these are the end times.

The dark god metacide rouses from his sleep
The basillians are forced from their homeland as refugees to the Box.
Their refuges in assstation and eff3landia have been crumpled.
The Goons walk the land, corrupting all that they touch.

Truly, the end times have come.

IA IA METACIDE FTHAGEN RLYEH

Box is perfectly fine but metastation is better

However, if someone else maintains metastation, it will be shit, I prefer metacide, would rather have box if metacide isn't mapping since everyone else is really incompetent.

why do i even bother

You cannot escape.

fyi if you downloaded the map file already, if it ever becomes outdated just check back at the thread. im still maintaining it.

Thanks for keeping the map updated Allura - just downloaded the copy you linked earlier.

Going over it now to see what changes there are, see what I have in my old plans, perhaps add some things to it. Will post on here as I go, but I'll try and ensure everything is working as it should, then update the wiki, the online map image, and the thread here and such when I'm done.

Does anyone have any particular suggestions for changes at the moment?

Swap the inbound and outbound conveyors for the cargo shuttle, so that tunneling through a wall and plopping down a few conveyors is all that's needed for delivering crates from the shuttle straight to the mailing system.

That sounds like a great idea. I could perhaps just connect the two rooms with a purpose-built system allowing you to easily do that all the time - worth it, do you reckon?

How long have conveyors been build-able?

For a while now. I remember first hooking up Cargo to a conveyor system when Basil ran AssStation.

Always more stuff to discover on here, neat to hear.

A question for Allura - is there anything that has yet to be updated on this map which will need looking at?

I'm not terribly familiar with what has changed since I was last around, but it looks very up-to-date.

Again, thanks so much for working on it - lovely to see it compiling with 0 errors after all this time.

---------

Update: Have gone over the map, looks like it's very much up to date, fixed a few piping issues and station wall-map alignments, but other than that it seems pretty good to go. Now I'm just tweaking things and seeing what I might add.

ITS HAPPENING! Meta have you talked to scaredy about switching server 2 back to metastation? We are on boxstation now and it kills me to play there. The talk of the town recently has been the massive overhual to chemistry and subsequently medbay, but it is in a kind of state of flux as it still has some problems

Well here's a quick preview of the next version (v40A):

[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/858120/Static/SS13/MetaStation/15-02-04%2015-18%20MSv40A%20800.png[/img]

Hopefully I can get the wiki and such updated tonight, and get the map back in the repo for testing if and when people are happy to test it.

I'll drop a note with SoS sometime and see what they reckon.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT HE REALLY IS BACK
Immediate feedback: While you were gone I got SUPER into Eff 3 and Box maint. I think that maint could use a lot more twists and turns and non-linear paths and choices, like box, and also a lot more sick detailing, like Eff 3. On Eff 3 there's shit like tools and random stock parts and small things on the ground, that some people might no care about but others might. Real "one man's trash is another man's treasure" kind of shit. There's robot debris here and there and whatnot that really makes it feel like there was a previous shift and that the station was populated and it feels really good.

Made a pull-request, but I'm a bit rusty with TortoiseGit and might have screwed something up:

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/7549

And regarding maint, I'll see what I can do. I did intend to expand the area over the construction zone north of the shuttle - perhaps I can take a look at the rest of maint at the same time.

Updated the first post, now looking at the wiki.