How should space content be handled?

[WJohnston]

This is a very frequently brought up topic in coderbus, and a controversial one at that. Many coders would rather see space content removed altogether, limiting the game to only the space station's z level and nowhere else to visit. Some believe that loot and exploration detract from interactions on the space station, lowering player count in favor of selfish solo adventures. Some think space is too much effort to even play with, as EVA is not very open to use and you can get lost for a very long time.

So I wanted to ask you guys how you think space exploration should be changed, improved, or removed. I'd like some long discussions here from the players on really why they go exploring in space, even after they've learned everything. I'd also like to hear some ideas on what we're doing wrong with it and its development right now, and if it can be simply fixed by just throwing higher quality ruins with better loot at you.

[Deitus]

i personally like the idea of having things on the station and then moving them to other areas like the other day where we had the crew with the "build a base and send it to lavaland" thing. though that could detract from the intended game mode which is what people are against. it'd be hard to find a good balance between interesting content and fucking over game modes.

[Luke Cox]

Many coders can go fuck themselves. How many people do you actually see fucking off into space each round? EVA only has four suits and none of the heads are going to part with theirs. Space content is a fun distraction for people who would ordinarily greytide to entertain themselves.

[WJohnston]

A lot of coders have brought up that, while greytiders who go braindead because they didn't get antag, or are going to ERP, or are going to be useless in the bar not even drinking, shouldn't INSTEAD be going into space. Some view that giving those people who would do nothing will only encourage this behavior.

I personally think that, if they DO get loot out while in space and bring it back to the station, then plenty of interactions can happen, and it could be pretty interesting.

[Luke Cox]

Again, four spacesuits in EVA. Medium pop is considered 30-50. Only four or so people are capable of exploring space, and even then you get one or two per round max. You are pants-on-head retarded if you think this is a problem. What the actual fuck is coderbus thinking? I swear to god coderbus just doesn't want to address actual issues with the game, so they just make up total non-issues like this and "solve" them so it looks like they're doing something.

[Man_Shroom]

My ideal space system is something that is admittedly not my own concept, and I merely saw it done on other servers.

There are only about 4 z-levels. The station, Centcomm, Mining, and the new Z-level: The Asteroid Field!

The asteroid field is very large (Exact number to be determined based on server performance but expect larger than 255x255) and is full of small meteors and asteroids, as you would expect. These asteroids may have minerals in them, they may have monsters in them, they may have rooms in them, they may have nothing in them. It's all procedurally generated. Within this asteroid field are large structures (these could be randomized in location and appearance or not, this post is merely an outline that can be tweaked), these are the ruins you might normally expect to find in space like the derelict, the clown shuttle, the DJ station, the abandoned shuttle, etc, etc. The asteroid field can be entered by EXITING the station z-level at any point. On the station z-level and want to get to the asteroid field? Head north, south, or any other direction and wham, you're there.

However, getting to the asteroid field is the easy part. Once you're there, getting back to the station is more difficult. Exiting the asteroid field's z-level will not take you back to the station. Leaving the asteroid field's z-level will only loop you to the opposite edge of the asteroid field. The only way to get back onto the station is through telescience, the teleporter, a shuttle(syndicate or the abandoned one) or (if they ever get added) space pods.

With this system of space, exploration can be performed without excess difficulty, bodies that have been spaced can be retrieved without too much fuss, yet space is still large enough and inhospitable enough that someone can hide out or hide corpse with some careful planning and foresight. Additionally, it is not preposterously empty and largely a waste of space (get it? ha ha)
For those concerned that the loot of space ruins would be too easily gotten and used aboard the station, please keep in mind that there is not a tremendous amount of powerful loot in space at the moment anyway. The most dangerous thing out there is most likely a mere traitor softsuit, laser gun, and police baton, along with some bananium. You would still have to obtain the necessary survival equipment and venture out into space to locate this stuff.

VISUAL AID(S)

Spoiler:

[oranges]

I don't know who these "many coders" are but personally I think we've made good progress with the space ruins system, the obvious next step is the pods system present on multiple other servers. This would give a limited number of slots (probably around 4) for fulltime space exploration (I'd make it a full seperate job/department rather than place it under an existing one)

Then it's simply a matter of scaling out the space ruins, as we don't have enough yet.

[Incoming]

I've never heard anyone who suggested that space should be gutted. If https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/issues/19276 was fixed space would be a lot less frustrating to explore.

[Man_Shroom]

I've never heard anyone who suggested that space should be gutted. Is this a bait topic?

Nah there was a big argument in coderbus just now and so WJ posted this. Some think space is good as is, some think it's too empty/distant, some think it's too easily accessible and lures players off station. Lots of contradicting opinions on the same subject.

[oranges]

I read the backlog and none of the people speaking were coders.

[onleavedontatme]

It was Miauw (quit/hasn't played in a long time), MrPerson (quit/hasn't played in a long time), and Urist (quit/hasn't played since 2013)

Freaking out that "many coders/coderbus wants to remove space!" is dumb.

[J_Madison]

stop adding more space content. you'll get away missions 2.0. not to mention the audience to space content will be very small.

[Luke Cox]

stop adding more space content. you'll get away missions 2.0. not to mention the audience to space content will be very small.

Away missions were vastly different because anyone could just waltz though the gateway without any EVA gear.

[J_Madison]

Armour, medkit, and weapons become EVA, tools, and GPS.

It's not any different. Even when mobs could attack critted people, everyone stil raided away missions.

[Luke Cox]

Except for the fact that is physically impossible for more than 4 people to do it per round unless you devote half the round to getting more spacesuits.

[Cheimon]

I don't feel like space content should be a big focus. Like Luke says, it's such a niche concern that it seems mad to encourage it.

The game is more fun when players interact with each other. Space content seems to be the opposite of that.

[Incomptinence]

I like space content.

Guy goes off on his own sure you think he doesn't interact with anyone but he loops back with a laser gun and an emp grenade or what not to mess with things.

Like a good miner already does honestly, this isn't a game ending concept unless you want it to be.

[Super Aggro Crag]

Delicately.

[cocothegogo]

if you remove space, you may as well call it station 13

[Lumbermancer]

Some believe that loot and exploration detract from interactions on the space station, lowering player count in favor of selfish solo adventures.

.

I said the same thing about lava planet. And now look, we even have scoreboards.

[onleavedontatme]

Except for the fact that is physically impossible for more than 4 people to do it per round unless you devote half the round to getting more spacesuits.

8 EVA suits in escape pods (red alert only)

4 EVA suits

2 Engineering Rigs

2 Security Rigs

1 Atmos Rig

1 CE Rig

1 HoS Rig

1 captain space suit

(And we used to have 3 mining rigs, 2 nasa voidsuits, and 2 medical rigs easily accessible).

Plus cargo can order swat suits and eva suits.

Obviously this is going to an extreme, since it's unlikely everyone with access to a suit would want to go into space, but there are definitely more than just four.

[Saegrimr]

Don't forget the RD's suit, and any plasmameme is already spaceworthy.

[Luke Cox]

Except for the fact that is physically impossible for more than 4 people to do it per round unless you devote half the round to getting more spacesuits.

8 EVA suits in escape pods (red alert only)

4 EVA suits

2 Engineering Rigs

2 Security Rigs

1 Atmos Rig

1 CE Rig

1 HoS Rig

1 captain space suit

(And we used to have 3 mining rigs, 2 nasa voidsuits, and 2 medical rigs easily accessible).

Plus cargo can order swat suits and eva suits.

Obviously this is going to an extreme, since it's unlikely everyone with access to a suit would want to go into space, but there are definitely more than just four.

4 easily accessible to the general crew. Heads and mining will give up suits over their dead bodies, fucking off with engineering hardsuits is a good way to get lynched, and the medical/nasa suits are considerably harder to get now. Plasmamen are fairly uncommon. Again, can any of you honestly say that more than one person fucks off into space on average? Honestly, we should just legitimize space exploration by making it a proper job.

[TechnoAlchemist]

Getting lynched over taking engineering hardsuits is a meme and does not happen in this day and age

[callanrockslol]

Getting lynched over taking engineering hardsuits is a meme and does not happen in this day and age

[Luke Cox]

I guess I'm a meme CE then

[DemonFiren]

No, Luke, you're just a meme.

[Luke Cox]

As long as I am a quality meme

[Cobby]

Can we bring back getting SOME gear from Nuke OPs NPCs since we no longer have the gateway mission meme? Fighting them in the Space Pirate section is such a pain when you can't regain ammo unless you bring all of armory with you.

[Helios]

When I was playing Regularly, Space was a way to not get instantly raided when playing a cult, or something that could be messed around with.
I'd often take the white ship as a cultist, or Wizard, giving me a way to not get immediately lynched on 80 pop rounds. This can be a problem sometimes, as a single yell can get everyone with a gun running at you.

Another thing is, getting spaced isn't as permanent if that is changed. This results in a nerf of antagonists who can't gib people

[paprika]

Space content is bad. Content should be station focused.

[WJohnston]

Space content is bad. Content should be station focused.

I'd like some long discussions here from the players on really why they go exploring in space, even after they've learned everything.

This is not feedback. It tells us nothing on where to go or what to do with space content other than "it's bad and we shouldn't have it". WHY? What's bad? Why should things be station focused? Is there a compromise or workaround that could make space content work?

Currently most of our space content falls in one of two categories: Literally nothing to explore or do, or murder mobs + loot galore. I was wondering if there was a third option or maybe an in-between that would work.

[cocothegogo]

i explore space because i get to find sick loot like swat helms and fight stickmen in space

[Cobby]

i explore space because i get to find sick loot like swat helms and fight stickmen in space

The paper wizard seems like a cool boss. Too bad you gotta bring a bit of everything to fight him since you can't make a pseudo-arena like lavaland mobs.

Implying you even get there, that is.

[Remie Richards]

i explore space because i get to find sick loot like swat helms and fight stickmen in space

The paper wizard seems like a cool boss. Too bad you gotta bring a bit of everything to fight him since you can't make a pseudo-arena like lavaland mobs.

Implying you even get there, that is.

It's a nice boss yes (*strokes own ego*), MMMiracles did a good job with the themeing (Paper IS actually a really interesting theme)

[DemonFiren]

I believe the derelict should be a constant, appearing every round.
If only because it lets me spawn as drone and autism fort in peace, and because it's more or less established now.

[MrEousTranger]

Ok I just want to say that I love exploring space but some of the shit out there is just dumb

I went adventuring out into space after some people started fucking up the station and I found an asteroid
I thought that was cool but on the asteroid there was a fucking school bus filled with cheese and cherry bombs
Y?

[Luke Cox]

Ok I just want to say that I love exploring space but some of the shit out there is just dumb

I went adventuring out into space after some people started fucking up the station and I found an asteroid
I thought that was cool but on the asteroid there was a fucking school bus filled with cheese and cherry bombs
Y?

I'm in the same boat. I want less absurdity and more space-age ruins.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Well, ghost roles with not definite purpose as part of 'space content' are MIND NUMBINGLY boring and pretentiously self important.

Nobody visits the twin nexus hotel (unless they are antag with antag things to do like cults etc) or the bar because they are RP centric, and the few players willing to engage in arpee are usually the people playing as the 'staff hosts'. The rest of the space ruins are usually scoured through for loot, then admired for a second if it has any particularly cool design only for things like 'lore' to be completely ignored as they drag a crate full of the shit they stole back onto the white ship (/shove into a dufflebag as much as they can carry)

DJ station, and listening post are somewhat interesting because they are functioning self-entities (if completely decrepit from lack of new content) you could move them to lavaland and back and they'd still be totally functional.

The derelict requires too much work across the round to be useful and/or visited by people in a familiar and comfortable enviroment because of how badly torn to shit it is that may well take a 1+ hours by SKILLED engineers to fix and re-lay all the nessecary piping, room division and cabling to get it up to spec. Autism fortresses for drones who want to commit to the project yes but meh.

The white ship is the most interesting space ruin (figuratively a ruin, located in space) being able to move about between z levels, having a array of content and supplies to loot and USE in ship flight between places. You could comfortably seat a motley crew in there detached from the round, but its scarcity is a issue/balance topic of discussion. I might have a suggestion how to improve it.

Coderbus has inflated the game with too many RP ruins (all around) and slightly upset the balance of the server which is light RP (with lore if you want it) but purely functional. If there were more unique things out there in the ruins (besides loot, look at how the listening post has access to traitor chat for example, which is one of the reasons its a valuable place to visit) but at a nessecary distance away so it wouldn't be powergame as much as gradual progression then a DEDICATED space/gateway explorer role (redshirt assistants anyone?) would be viable.

Ghost roles without restrictions on physical moving space or limited by air is a difficult issue as seen by space hotel staff constantly kamikaize barging into the staff hotel sleepers and straight out of the teleportation door, antagonists/space roles like hotel staff having the choice to spawn but then retreat again (via the sleeping pod system seen on bay servers) after removing arbitary and non-white listed items (since on bay it deletes your character, but here i guess it could be configured to just save your characters state but force them to ghost out over a renewed spawn point)

If you're going to make antagonistic space mummies that burst out of sarcophagi (skeletons with bandages/necrons) that are naturally immune to space travel, they need to be enclosed rather than giving arpee restrictions unless they are set free deliberately such as by fiddly inept explorers doing something they shouldn't like opening the main seal of the central tomb complex.

(Taking a space mummy sarcophagus back to the station would be TOP KEK, especially if you could use it to convert corpses into new 'mummy charges' in which to reset the 'pod', allowing the station staff to slowly convert into the undead)

Though i would admit, i REALLY do like stealing the detectives hat as the RD to compliment by beige suit, with my 'whip' (my extendable baton) to commit my fantasy of indiana joneseying across the lavaland scape when i have time and dedicating myself to maintaining a museum full of 'artifacts' (mini-meteor that fell on mexico killing the dinosaurs etc, bone armour/helmets etc, the hat of the man who invented gunpowder Cuba.n.Pe'te) im sure im not the only person to have such fantasies on the server

More derelict things that aren't so much 'broken' as much as 'run down' (requiring tools to lever open doors, optical mesons to look for loose walls and room structure etc, and minor puzzles such as assembling a machine to fix the mechanism for the door/stand on a pressure plate or replace it with something of equal weight) would be welcome.
I for one would be welcoming a 'space temple of doom' with indestructable/advanced welder tough walls to stop the triviality of people flying/digging behind the ruin and cutting out a pathway to the final chamber, with enough light arpee to keep it non straightfoward but also packed with items not usually seen.

[Dagdammit]

I definitely have rounds where I think "I just wanna go out and explore space". The idea of going out and restoring derelicts? Or improbably finding some other useful-to-station thing you can proudly return home with (like syndicate comms access?) and possibly use to save the day? Or instead discovering some terrifying ship of horror you never should have gone out to? God, that all sounds so rad. (tricky dungeons with traps and monsters can stay in lavaland, no worries there.)

However, I almost never do it. I'd either have to be an asshole engineer who abandons his responsibilities, or try to talk HoP into making a "space explorer" job for me with EVA access. Then I either have to slooooooowly spacewalk or fire myself out the chapel mass driver, and in both cases more than half the time I just wind up arriving back at the station from some other angle.

https://www.tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewt ... f=9&t=7747 is a suggestion for an Explorer job role. It proposes lots of content, but all I actually want is access to something like the gear in EVA (jetpacks not required) and maybe some consumable one-use item that, when used in vacuum, sends me hurtling off in whatever 360-degree trajectory I specified.

[Saegrimr]

The hotel seems way too big, honestly. The only time i've seen the space bar used that isn't just "a spawn point to fuck with people on-station" was during meteors where everybody just idled in there until the shuttle could be called.

Also kinda sad that the derelict now sometimes just doesn't spawn.

[FantasticFwoosh]

The hotel seems way too big, honestly. The only time i've seen the space bar used that isn't just "a spawn point to fuck with people on-station" was during meteors where everybody just idled in there until the shuttle could be called.

Also kinda sad that the derelict now sometimes just doesn't spawn.

/vg's/ take on derelict is awful by itself thanks to shoehorning their features into it without properly updating their engineering, and that's reflective upon ours in tg since the actual derelict itself is unmaintainable because of room designation issues, unless drones spawned with CE level blueprints they cannot declare or make meaningful room improvements with APC's and air alarms that rely on those systems of room proximities for distributing space. A lot of the pre determined rooms just shoot off into space being broken.

I think personally the derelict needs to be redone and made more whole, atleast having a basic blueprint structural plan/legend to boundaries of the room rather than pre-legend mapping attempts leaving rooms scewered and open, with the open space exposure not actually belonging to a room meaning the room can never be complete to the desired spec. As to say you CAN rebuild the station as to how it was and that is a ideal goal for drones but the possibility to make new rooms is still open. Summarily look at all the outside structural work, it does not make sense if we stopped for a moment and considered a fixed working derelict for a roundstart map it'd be ugly and unfunctional as sin with plasteel wall outcrops and stupid criss crossy bridges going pointlessly to nowhere.

Also quality check, there has been a lot of bad space ruin replacements in random asteroids that haven't been turfed correctly and therefore have a frictionless turf surface, leading to floating and general unsuitability for exploring. Just because its sand doesn't mean it has friction and that is a novice mapper mistake for not properly testing their features.

[aranamor]

Quit ducking with features you don't use. Other people draw enjoymnent from them. Your job is to maintain an enjoyable game. Until you've assembled a crew with a spooky invisible man onboard the white ship, stocked it with munchies and equipment and flown off just in time to avoid the stationp tearing itself apart, you can't say that it somehow discourages roleplaying or cooperation.

[letshavecake]

Remove space
Everything already in space could be done better with lavaland-style random generation in a variety of land-based environments that are, if not easier, at least more interesting to explore than floating aimlessly through the empty void and going afk until you hit something, then doing it again immediately if you don't like what you bumped into, or if you slip

And that hotel is awful. Specifically, its pool room is probably the worst piece of pointless, self-important level design currently in the game, even worse than the beach dome or the wish granter ruin
But given that this thread hasn't been replied to in a couple months and all of the issues brought up here are still in the game, I doubt many people care about the quality of non-station content