Asteroid Station Trial

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 3:30 am #92838

Been getting a high volume of players on Sybil lately, an extended trial of Asteroid would be a good idea, as the general consensus seems to indicate that Box is too small for >50 players.

Marflow · Post by **Marflow** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 4:25 am #92848

I always loved Asteroid Station though I think some of the discontent came from some buggy elements it had back in the day.

Post by **PKPenguin321** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 4:41 am #92849

Why even bother with sybil? We would just get riots, and saying box isn't fit for a large number of players is honestly just ignorant.
Put it on basil again. We get like 30 players there mid-day anyways, so it's still a pretty good testing group size.

ThatSlyFox · Post by **ThatSlyFox** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:02 am #92855

I was under the impression that asteroid station is no longer being maintained. If thats that case I doubt anybody would pick it back up.

Shame too, asteroid station was so good.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:23 am #92860

ThatSlyFox wrote:I was under the impression that asteroid station is no longer being maintained. If thats that case I doubt anybody would pick it back up.

Shame too, asteroid station was so good.

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/9758

Anyways, keep this shit off Sybil. Put it on Basil.

ThatSlyFox · Post by **ThatSlyFox** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 6:50 am #92869

Oh asteroid is being maintained. Literally no reason to put it on basil which has 20 people max and this map seems to be pretty good for 50+.

SHOVE IT DOWN SYBIL'S THROAT!

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 7:04 am #92870

A good map will draw people to it, you shouldn't have to thrust it upon anybody. Leave muh box alone.

Also who said Box was too small for 50? It might be too small for 100, but 50? We have over 50 round start job slots.

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 7:13 am #92871

ThatSlyFox wrote:
SHOVE IT DOWN SYBIL'S THROAT!

This.

Box is old, it's been old for a long time.

All of the Sybil polls were well in favor of Asteroid.

Make the change, see what happens.

Not-Dorsidarf · Thu Jun 04, 2015 7:15 am

Stop putting the new maps on basil. We like JUST got done with the last roulette, damnit.

Stop getting all "muh sybil/box bffs" about it. The fact is, sybil has a higher pop, and pretty much always will have a higher pop (unless you put box on basil and meta on sybil, in which case everyone goes there). This makes is better for testing a station specifically designed for sybil-level populations of 70+ than basil which struggles to hit 20 at peak. And Ass, unlike eff3, didn't even boost average basil pop that much. Like, by 5 players maximum.

If you want cool maps to actually exist, you have to accept that sometimes the cool maps for sybil have to come to sybil.

And damnit, I really want to see how well it copes with the zany craziness you get on sybil, rather than the boring rote efficiency you get when a bunch of people sign into an empty roster as the one job they play constantly interacting with the same people as they have for the last three months.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 7:25 am #92875

The singularity gets loose so often on highpop

This would be such a nightmare

Not-Dorsidarf · Thu Jun 04, 2015 7:29 am

Then maybe, just maybe *gasp* engineers will look after it for a change instead of fucking off to build a maint fort?

Also we all love dat singulo

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 7:36 am #92877

That is all pretty reliant on the notion that people who play box would still want to play on asteroid. I know at least personally I'd probably just duck out until box came back. I fully admit that that sort of behavior is pretty selfish, but that's not really gonna change my desire to play a station I'm comfortable with already.

Anyway I'm not gonna say anything more about this right now cause it's really late and I don't wanna say anything dumb.

Edit: full disclosure this is a current image of asteroidstation as it potentially exists today https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/ass ... 4b5e10.png (so many extra hallway loops)

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 7:42 am #92878

I swear we have this annual cycle of Asteroid Station being revived and then dying again.

If we want to change the map you'll have to convince the majority of the playerbase to consider swapping out, the best way to do this is to do the old idea of putting the new map on rotation for a short duration then have a in game vote on it.

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 9:14 am #92890

Steelpoint wrote:I swear we have this annual cycle of Asteroid Station being revived and then dying again.

If we want to change the map you'll have to convince the majority of the playerbase to consider swapping out, the best way to do this is to do the old idea of putting the new map on rotation for a short duration then have a in game vote on it.

There's no need to convince anybody, throw it on Sybil, and take polls over the course of a week. We'll lose a couple reactionary autists, sure, but we're always gaining new people, and most of the older playerbase enjoys Asteroid.

Incoming wrote:That is all pretty reliant on the notion that people who play box would still want to play on asteroid. I know at least personally I'd probably just duck out until box came back. I fully admit that that sort of behavior is pretty selfish, but that's not really gonna change my desire to play a station I'm comfortable with already.

Anyway I'm not gonna say anything more about this right now cause it's really late and I don't wanna say anything dumb.

Edit: full disclosure this is a current image of asteroidstation as it potentially exists today https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/ass ... 4b5e10.png (so many extra hallway loops)

Wow, it's actually nicer than I remember.

And the maint isn't bad at all, not compared to 'Efficiency'. It'll make for more varied playstyles and players will get more miles out of traitor and ling, which are extremely limited in terms of scope on Box.

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 3:57 pm #92931

Nuke ops better be equipped with pickaxes now

TheNightingale · Thu Jun 04, 2015 4:03 pm

Add a sonic jackhammer to the operative's special telecrystal list. For all your mining and breaching needs.

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 4:36 pm #92942

PKPenguin321 wrote:Why even bother with sybil? We would just get riots, and saying box isn't fit for a large number of players is honestly just ignorant.
Put it on basil again. We get like 30 players there mid-day anyways, so it's still a pretty good testing group size.

But that's a poor idea, as Basil is at best a 30 player server, and Asteroid was designed with larger populations in mind. It already had a few days of testing on Sybil a year ago, and the response was extremely favorable.

Also, as I mentioned in the Policy Discussion thread regarding max population cap, the Station and individual departments on Asteroid are large enough to warrant at least one addition to the base number of available jobs in Science, Medbay, and Engineering.

rockpecker · Post by **rockpecker** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:07 pm #92955

Steelpoint wrote:I swear we have this annual cycle of Asteroid Station being revived and then dying again.

Maybe we should embrace that. Run Asteroid for the month of July, every year.

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:16 pm #92957

That's one of the big intrinsic problems I see with asteroidstation, it can only practically be attacked on one side from space.

Nearly every nuke ops round will have them bursting through the bridge or c4ing the sole wall that separates the nuke disk spawn from space. If there's no captain at round start a sole nuke op could buy one c4, rush out to the shuttle, fly up to the captains office, bomb one tile, and swipe the disk. Hell they could probably get the bomb off in under 5 minutes including the timer on the bomb.

Likewise the asteroid limits attacks on (Malf) AIs to two sides, and the weak walls are very prone to bombs, especially on the east side solar, where it doesn't even have camera coverage to see it coming.

Blobs can also win without ever properly attacking the station just by eaten a bunch of asteroid tiles on the station z level. Even if we changed it not to count asteroid turf towards the victory they'd still gain a huge advantage just in stealth and preplaced resource nodes.

Somewhat claustrophobic maint shafts are also a big nerf to shadowlings and to a lesser extend most every antag. There's also a lot of disconnected maints that seem pointlessly small. Many only have one or two points of "public access" that really preclude their use as any sort of hiding place:

*Sci/Sec has only one point of access, from the courtroom. It's a huge dead end.
*Sec/Mining has one point of access, from the halls. Another dead end, literally a 1 tile wide hallway, a projectile death trap.
*Mining/Arrivals has three points of access, two to halls and one to aux tool storage (asstopia). This is one of the better ones.
*Arrivals/Cargo is a 2 tile hallway with one point of access, from the halls. Dead end unless you use the disposals area (which has R-Glass to protect the trash for some reason)
*Cargo/Comms is a 2/1 tile hallway with one point of access, from the halls. A dead end unless you have access to the airlocks and a space suit.
*AI/Bridge has two points of access, from the same hallway. The free door directly to the bridge and proximity to the AI upload makes me think that this area would be populated by a lot of antags even though someone could easily watch both points of access.
*Bridge/Holodeck is a 2 tile hallway with one point of access, from the boxing ring. Again easy bridge access makes me think this would primarily be the domain of traitors, even though it's a dead end where you could easily get shot up
*Library/Medbay/Chapel has 5 points of access, one from the library, one from the washing machines, and three from the halls. This is the only maint I'd class as being thematically similar to something on box, a lot of antags would probably default to hiding here, which of course means that with time it'd be subjected to terrible meta searching.
*Escape/Sci 1 has one point of access, from escape. It's a dead end.
*Escape/Sci 2 has one point of access, from escape. It has more "nooks" to hide antag activity in, but they're all hidden away at the end of a really shitty 1x1 winding corridor, a huge projectile choke point. It's also a dead end and should really be merged with the other Escape/Sci hall to create a slightly less terrible gestalt maint.
*The three central main shafts each have four points of access, but they are just adjacent hallways to proper ones that don't lead anywhere interesting, again very easy to shoot down. Probably ok for short term skulking, but you couldn't set up shop in any of these.
*The interior bar/hydro maint has one point of access, from the hallway. It's a dead end.
*The Eniginering maint nook has one point of access, from the hallway. It's a dead end.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:17 pm #92958

We just got metastation back not too long ago, please don't take it away again already

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:25 pm #92961

Incoming beat me to it.

Several gamemodes function exceptionally poorly on the map, but there's quite a bit of it that I just feel so eh on, like:
- Strip Brig
- The massive open bar space area
- depsec lockers on highpop
- Telecomms parts not being in tech storage but instead in telecomms (Which sounds minor but really agitates me, if I need the telecomms parts its probably because the main system is destroyed and some of the parts are now probably blown up as well)

Tunder wrote:And the maint isn't bad at all, not compared to 'Efficiency'. It'll make for more varied playstyles and players will get more miles out of traitor and ling, which are extremely limited in terms of scope on Box.

Maint is all just long projectile tunnels, as Incoming said. It really won't add much and just feels pretty skeletal; even Box maint is larger/has more rooms/has less pointless strip hallways with only 1 entry/exit point

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:56 pm #92970

The open bar is fucking awesome. Guarantees more visitors to the bar, anyway, and as such tends to give the barman more to do.

duncathan · Post by **duncathan** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 8:21 pm #93021

That atmos looks gross. I'm hoping I'm n missing something, but I can't even find an air to distro pump.

Not-Dorsidarf · Fri Jun 05, 2015 7:05 am

Wyzack wrote:We just got metastation back not too long ago, please don't take it away again already

I cried when allura rammed metastation down our throats and refused to update his other maps to force SoS to change it to meta

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Fri Jun 05, 2015 7:09 am #93241

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:
Wyzack wrote:We just got metastation back not too long ago, please don't take it away again already
I cried when allura rammed metastation down our throats and refused to update his other maps to force SoS to change it to meta

That's not what happened, though

They requested Eff3 be removed from Basil because they didn't want to update it anymore - We had an interim period of Mini (for one round, but its shit and/or broken) and then a while with Box. Metacide refurbished his station and we started using that instead.

metacide · Post by **metacide** » Fri Jun 05, 2015 8:56 am #93257

Perhaps give it a trial run on Basil first to weed out the most serious issues, then another on Sibyl?

Only ever got to try this once, would like to give it a go sometime.

Not-Dorsidarf · Sun Jul 30, 2023 1:33 am

Shit I was just about to mention that you +1ed it in the github thread.

Halp metacide metagaming admens ban pluz

Gun Hog · Post by **Gun Hog** » Fri Jun 05, 2015 12:12 pm #93284

Placing the map onto Basil is pointless - it barely has any population. Doing that is asymptotically close to not conducting the trial at all. If you want actual feedback and hope to convince people to play, it needs to be on Sybil. That is a risky proposition, however, as Box players are unreasonably loyal to that map, and will harbor bias against any map that is not Box. It may not be possible to achieve a sufficient, non-corrupted sample of feedback because of this. I still suggest that we try placing it on Sybil, to give Box a break for a while. Take note that this is very likely to cause a backlash from the community.

Celdur · Post by **Celdur** » Fri Jun 05, 2015 2:31 pm #93304

why not just do a map rotation? put on asteroid at peak hours for a few hours and then put it back on box. people can't really complain about muh box that way because it'll be there most of the day.

Not-Dorsidarf · Fri Jun 05, 2015 2:56 pm

Hang on a second...

Didn't MSO or someone make a system which allows the server to update literally between rounds? Sounds like with a bit of twiddling and some out-of-game tools, a genuine automatic map rotation could happen

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Fri Jun 05, 2015 3:59 pm #93331

Can we discuss DEPSEC aka HITLER aka SOMETHING THAT WE CAN'T HAVE IF THIS MAP IS GOING TO SYBIL

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 8:34 am #94130

Scones wrote:Can we discuss DEPSEC aka HITLER aka SOMETHING THAT WE CAN'T HAVE IF THIS MAP IS GOING TO SYBIL

I honestly think that Depsec deserves it's own thread, but in my experience, having regularly played Sec throughout the duration of the ill-fated departmental Sec run, it utterly dismantled Sec's effectiveness in that teamwork was limited, organization was abysmal, and it officers were tossed out into the deep to get taken out by antags for their gear as soon as they left their tiny office, or would immediately leave the game to offer their gear and ID to whomever felt like breaking a single window. I abandoned the job of HoS during that era because of how ineffective DepSec made the department, and it cost us a lot of dependable Sec regulars.

I love the idea in theory, but in application it doesn't fit /tg/ server culture and play style. Sec needs that minute of everyone in the brig to foster a sense of order and structure.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 9:29 pm #94241

Maybe you just played with shitty officers, man.

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 10:05 pm #94248

Scott wrote:Maybe you just played with shitty officers, man.

Yeah, I've been regular Sec for almost half a decade but I played with all shitty officers.

Depsec didn't work, at all. It broke Sec just as badly as Antagsec did.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 10:10 pm #94249

I've written a lot about depsec in other threads and on git, don't feel like repeating myself

It's bad, it's been proven to be bad, and the mapper (Pudl) has said at one point that it existed because there were not a lot of lockers in the Brig (True for Eff3, at least, where space constraints limited locker #)

allura · Post by **allura** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:32 am #94375

Asteroid is an awful map, and considering people who love it are the crowd of people who also love lizardpeople and think silicons are better than humans, the fanbase of it is a god damn SCREAMING minority. There is zero reason to trial run this map when it got a 3 month trial run on Basil and the results were definitive: the server dropped from 20-30 to 10-15 at peak times. The high numbers returned whenever Efficiency 3 ran.
I'm sorry, it's a terrible map. It's been constantly revived over and over and every time given massive amounts of criticism. A central singularity idea was performed and completely perfected by AngriestIBM on Donut 2. The philosophy/mindset of Jordie, Erro, CC, and HBL clearly will never be good enough to produce a good and functioning map, and instead any time this map runs we'll be stuck with a progressively falling apart map. Trust me, every update to Asteroid makes it worse. And worse. And worse. Please don't hook it back up to life support for any longer.
And, of course, since a headmin (Sticky) wants this map run on Sybil regardless, at least let us poll it. Please.

ThatSlyFox · Post by **ThatSlyFox** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 6:59 pm #94540

allura wrote:A central singularity idea was performed and completely perfected by AngriestIBM on Donut 2.

Bring back donutstation!

But on a serious note we might as well try it for a week, instead of looking at the map from a picture and trying to find reasons not to. I don't see how having 10 people play on it(RIP basil) is going to help develop a map either.

allura · Post by **allura** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 8:50 pm #94568

There's zero reason to try it for a week, so it shouldn't be tried for a week. The map serves no purpose being in the codebase. We already have a map that's larger than Box, and that's Metastation. I can confidently say around 60% of our players like Metastation and would play it if it was put on Sybil, while less than 10% of our players would continue playing on Sybil if Asteroid was put there. Chances are, everyone would move to Basil to avoid Asteroid.
You don't need a 60 player server to prove a point. A 30 person server shooting down to a 10 person server is more tham enough proof that playing on a map as bad as Asteroid genuinely makes the game an unpleasant experience.
Another idea, if Asteroid is put on Sybil, put Box on Basil. That way we can see what map is preferred by how many people hopping to Basil.

Not-Dorsidarf · Tue Jun 09, 2015 8:55 pm

allura wrote:There's zero reason to try it for a week, so it shouldn't be tried for a week. The map serves no purpose being in the codebase. We already have a map that's larger than Box, and that's Metastation. I can confidently say around 60% of our players like Metastation and would play it if it was put on Sybil, while less than 10% of our players would continue playing on Sybil if Asteroid was put there. Chances are, everyone would move to Basil to avoid Asteroid.
You don't need a 60 player server to prove a point. A 30 person server shooting down to a 10 person server is more tham enough proof that playing on a map as bad as Asteroid genuinely makes the game an unpleasant experience.
Another idea, if Asteroid is put on Sybil, put Box on Basil. That way we can see what map is preferred by how many people hopping to Basil.

Most sybil players don't like metastation
Metastation is not larger than box.

We get that you're still immensely butthurt about Jordie and co strongarming assstation off you, but seriously

allura · Post by **allura** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:18 pm #94572

My single contribution to Asstation was before I knew Jordie or CC would pick it up, and I had no intent on adding anything else. I wasn't upset with the map being developed without my input, because at that very time I was working on Efficiency 3 and could care less for another map.
Metastation is larger than Box, and it, unlike Box, evenly distributes crowd attractng areas instead of putting everything on the right wing. That would make the map feel much, much less crowded, and with a bigger central hub there is a lot more walking room. Metastation makes efficient use of the space it's given and thus feels larger.
Also, Sybil players have never been subjected to any substantial period of time where they were forced to play Metastation. Absolutely any time Sybil is threatened with a map change people get incredible amounts of upset. Without any time to get used to a map, a Box purist will never move on because they refuse to understand anything outside of Box. It's sad too, since Box is a pretty shoddy map.

Tue Jun 09, 2015 11:03 pm

There are a lot of reasons for this station not to be ran, and many of those reasons have to do with gamemodes that can only happen in high-pop. Basil only has extended-traitor-changeling-traitorling and any given moment. You can't weed out issues with bigger gamemodes if they can't be ran.
It also has issues with high-pop, like the singularity being way too easy to release and way too devastating when released (as well as the aforementioned issues with modes like malf and nuke).
As much as I'd like to have this map be in some kind of rotation, there are too many issues as it stands that would keep it from being tested on a live server for any meaningful purpose (it would be fun for a few rounds on basil, but we wouldn't get any useful feedback from it). It needs some of the mentioned issues resolved before it can even be playtested.