A problem with Boxstation

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powerfulPlutonium
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A problem with Boxstation

Post by powerfulPlutonium » #454827

Really dunno where else to put this. The camera monitor in Bomb testing on boxstation (on Sybil at least) is facing the wrong way so you can only use it from space instead of from the actual room you're in.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by factoryman942 » #454840

bugs go on github https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation
map fuckups are bugs too, deep inside
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Denton » #454952

Yeah, putting them on github means that spergs like me can just filter by label:"Map Issue" and fix a bunch of them in one go. I'll open an issue for you so you don't have to make an account though.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Cobby » #455261

I HATE BOX MAINT I HATE BOX MAINT I HATE BOX MAINT
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Anuv » #455318

A problem with Boxstation: everything. Get rid of it. The game has moved beyond a point where it's worthwhile
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by PKPenguin321 » #455331

Anuv wrote:A problem with Boxstation: everything. Get rid of it. The game has moved beyond a point where it's worthwhile
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Denton » #455344

Anuv wrote:A problem with Boxstation: everything. Get rid of it. The game has moved beyond a point where it's worthwhile
Just boot up DM and fix whatever you don't like
The map has plenty of space for tweaking, it's not a complete mess like Omega or Birdboat
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Mickyan » #455501

PKPenguin321 wrote:
Anuv wrote:A problem with Boxstation: everything. Get rid of it. The game has moved beyond a point where it's worthwhile
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A problem with Boxstation: everything. Get rid of it. The game has moved beyond a point where it's worthwhile
Denton wrote:Just boot up DM and fix whatever you don't like
The map has plenty of space for tweaking, it's not a complete mess like Omega or Birdboat
Nobody wants to work on it though, not one of those who claim it's the best map have bothered to step up and fix the objective issues it has due to lack of maintenance
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by MMMiracles » #455516

neither have you lol
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Mickyan » #455520

why would I spend my time working on something I have not liked ever since metastation existed
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Steelpoint » #455600

List out exactly what are the issues with Boxstation that you see.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Steelpoint » #455704

I've made a PR that I hope will expand and improve some areas of Box, I really would appreciate any pointers on areas anyone thinks could do improving or changing.

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/41608
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Mickyan » #455714

Most departments and hallways severely lack detail with very few floor decals and decorations

Maintenance is barren and unbalanced in a mapping sense: certain sections are just corridors then elsewhere you have entire wings full of empty rooms. Other maps have a good balance of themed rooms and corridors placed in between departments, with a lot of interesting things to find.

Bar backroom doesn't have a ChemMaster

Very few emergency/fire closets, I dont think there's a single fire closet accessible without maint access

No maint/public autodrobe

These are just a few I can remember off the top of my head
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Steelpoint » #455716

I've expanded some extra fire and emergency closets around the main halls. I also put the HoochMaster in the bar back room.

Maintenance is going to be a big project so I'll have to dedicate some time to looking that over. Autodrobe as well.

Departmental detail will be a bit on and off for me, I don't want to go as overboard as meta does and I kinda like the slightly more spartan style of box. We'll see.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by confused rock » #455720

Tfw someone who doesn’t know how to make an isssue report tries to report a now fixed issue and it leads to this
A lot of those “”””objective issues”””” are personal preference, so it isn’t a surprise that box fans (aka people who think box is subjectively good) don’t fix those subjective issues. Since when do maps need a public autodrobe?
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Mickyan » #455725

You could say I fundamentally disagree that deliberately not adding things available in other maps somehow makes the map more unique and interesting
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by confused rock » #455728

You could say I fundamentally disagree that adding the exact same minor things that every other map has somehow makes the map more interesting

Makin me imagine a procedurally generated station that’s just pieces of metastatin rearranged in various configurations so medbay is on top and robotics is where xeno should be but every department has the exact same equipment
I wouldn’t waste my time with slippery slope analogies but I just realised how entirely possible that would be and I am now intersted in the idea
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by PKPenguin321 » #455732

Mickyan wrote:You could say I fundamentally disagree that deliberately not adding things available in other maps somehow makes the map more unique and interesting
Explain how you could think this
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Mickyan » #455736

PKPenguin321 wrote:
Mickyan wrote:You could say I fundamentally disagree that deliberately not adding things available in other maps somehow makes the map more unique and interesting
Explain how you could think this
You can get creative with the layout or have a gimmick like pubby's offstation chapel to make the map feel unique, being less varied than other maps is a very poor claim at being interesting without having something else to make up for it
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by John_Oxford » #455745

PKPenguin321 wrote:
Anuv wrote:A problem with Boxstation: everything. Get rid of it. The game has moved beyond a point where it's worthwhile
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i logged on to double quote this by the way.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by John_Oxford » #455748

Mickyan wrote:Most departments and hallways severely lack detail with very few floor decals and decorations

Maintenance is barren and unbalanced in a mapping sense: certain sections are just corridors then elsewhere you have entire wings full of empty rooms. Other maps have a good balance of themed rooms and corridors placed in between departments, with a lot of interesting things to find.

Bar backroom doesn't have a ChemMaster

Very few emergency/fire closets, I dont think there's a single fire closet accessible without maint access

No maint/public autodrobe

These are just a few I can remember off the top of my head
1. "its not pretty enough or cluttered with non functional objects for me" is not a valid argument to remove a station that's been in circulation for years
2. there are themed rooms, this is also a non-issue.
3. this is easily fixable
4. theres literally four accessible in the main hallway loop. with two in auxillary hallways
5. not only is this a non issue, but it's also easily fixable.

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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by JStheguy » #455754

confused rock wrote:You could say I fundamentally disagree that adding the exact same minor things that every other map has somehow makes the map more interesting

Makin me imagine a procedurally generated station that’s just pieces of metastatin rearranged in various configurations so medbay is on top and robotics is where xeno should be but every department has the exact same equipment
I wouldn’t waste my time with slippery slope analogies but I just realised how entirely possible that would be and I am now intersted in the idea
Honestly yeah, let's just make a procgen system that staples together modular bits that match the equipment provided by their metastation equivalents. It'd be like having infinite maps, all equally balanced and requiring no effort on anyone's part to make. Absolutely nothing is wrong with this plan, shut up, I am a genius.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by confused rock » #455755

if oxford is making a short post, I have to do his job. on account of "not adding features of meta and delta doesn't increase map variety"
First off, let's say that box not having the same things like the autolathes and autodrobes and automatic secbots in the armory decreases the variety of the map. In that case, ok, box has less variety. However, adding those things drastically decreases the variety of map choice. Read this section, or just this shitty analogy summary. Let's say tf2 only has two classes, demomanand pyro. Someone thinks that the pyro's detonator is too boring, since you can only detonate the flare in midair. so he changes it so that the pyro's flares stick to walls and can be detonated later. It made demoman fun, so it should work for pyro. While this makes pyro deeper and more varied, it makes the classes on a whole less varied. Pyro who sets up sticky traps using the detonator is just an awkward demoman. If you want to detonate sticky traps, just play demoman. don't make pyro into something demoman already is.
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Box's minimal drab design is distinct from metastation, and the polar opposite of the ridiculous excess and luxury of Deltastation. If we add everything that it lacks but meta has (especially to the extent of things like bar lacking a chemmaster, which it could always create or borrow if it needs) then box is no longer minimal and drab. then it's just drab. We had a map that was just drab. it was called asteroidstation. we removed it. If you were to remove all the rooms in maint and free luxury shit on deltastation, what would you get? excess. We had a map that was just excess. it was called dreamstation. we removed it. Meta is snug as a bug in a rug as "kinda big luxury" and everyone likes "kinda big luxury" because they get their free insulated gloves in maint and because it looks pretty, and want to make maps like that, so people like the free stuff in maint and how pretty it looks, and so it's big enough for any pop, but not too big for a low pop.

Box, Delta, and Pubby are distinct from meta in their own ways. I must admit I do not have that much experience with pubby, and I absolutely loathe deltastation.
Deltastation is much larger, and does everything meta did, but to a further extent. more free stuff in maint, more abandoned rooms that now could basically replace a department, and much more spare supplies for a large station (example being that the brig medbay on delta has a nanomed vendor and has several space cleaners) If we took these aspects out of deltastation, it would just be "That map where chemistry has windoors on the wrong side and the maint hallways are too wide". Let's say metastation is the baselike for stations. People play delta very similarly to metastation, which is fine, since deltastation is designed to be functional for larger populations. The equipped rooms in maint may be an attempt to keep projects easier in the chaotic environment that highpop could be.

So, ignoring minor quirks, deltastation functions similarly to metastation, but made to accommodate higher populations more easily.

Pubbystation is similar to delta in that it functions like a metastation but for a lower population. It has the ideas meta does- a maint bar (even with a piano!), though smaller for the lower population. it has a small 'rage cage' with windows for fights, it has openings to space outside the bridge to act as protection, It even has the unnecessary addition of a tesla like delta. (The supermatter was originally used as a lowpop engine, but that's not too relevant) It looks fancy and has its own quirks, too-the library, chapel, and garden are on its own little offshoot asteroid, as is the toxins test site. However, this only affects two of the jobs on the whole station, those two jobs being ones that don't travel to and from their office very often (librarian sticks to his office or fucks off to space, chaplain's only true home is the brig, if there's a cult.) For them, it's just a bit of travel time- and unless I'm missing something obvious, the chaplain is going to have to send corpses through the transit tube. that sounds incredibly inconvenient, and like one of the "objective issues" of inconvenience. of course, that doesn't come into play because chaplains never actually give bodies a proper burial. I do like this map's use of a public autolathe- a lowpop map is the one most likely to truly need one, and it being connected to cargo makes perfect sense, instead of there being two awkward autolathes.

So pubby has some quirky transit tubes and has significant differences from metastation, but the tubes don't seem to necessarily add much to the map, and only effect a few jobs. And some elements of metastation don't really need to be there-on lowpop, are people really going to be making a second bar so often that there needs to be one pre-built and fully equipped with a piano?

Boxstation is only a bit smaller than metastation. It'd be metastation 2, or more rather, metastation would be boxstation 2, if you gave it everything meta had, like a public autolathe and fancy flooring. Box is perfect for variety- by seeing the plain halls of box, you see how much effort actually went into metastation. On meta, every hall has dozens of oxygen closets, when you don't really need them-you had an emergency box in your backpack all along. on box, that box is your best friend, and someone snorting their emergency tank the whole plasma flood might have a rude awakening when they realise it's running dry and over the past 20 minutes they did nothing to rectify this (though oxygen tanks use very little air so that isn't often) on meta, they'd just snag the nearest closet. on box, they might have to stop and think, or better yet, avoid getting into that situation in the first place by appreciating the scarce o2 lockers that DO exist. If you want a map that's medium pop and has all of the features of metastation, just play metastation. don't change boxstation. (if you need those small things so badly you can't play the game without them, that's your problem.) Of course, that isn't too much of a reason to have a whole map, just to contrast another. good thing that's only my first point, I Guess.
READ BELOW HERE IF ANYTHING
Second off, yes, not adding things that other maps have not only increases the map variety in general, but increases the variety of boxstation. Less is more. Let's look at the autolathe, and one aspect of it: improvised weaponry. Read it, or just read this example to summarize it: Let's say the soldier gets a new rocket launcher in tf2. it does triple the damage of other launchers, with no downside. This technically adds more variety to the soldier. In practice, the soldier is now far less varied, since any rocket launcher besides the new one is at a massive disadvantage.
Spoiler:
Stunprods only fit on your back. Spears do 18 damage. a molotov or a single shot shotgun take a bit of effort for something so precise. Baseball bats could catch people by surprise, but they are a bit bulky, and you have to know what you're doing to use them properly. A pneumatic cannon is a lot of work, but there is payoff to such a powerful single shot. If you try to break into tech storage and get away with it, sec will probably not like to see that flash, and they definitely won't be scared by it, but you can scare off a borg. then you get into ieds and so on. so many options!

And then we merely look at some autolathe made-weapons.

A cleaver or circular saw is 15 brute, very close to that of a spear. Why even use a spear now? you can hide that in a bag, no problem.
A spray can stuns quite a few kinds of people. I've won a fight I was sure I'd lose with a sec officer I bumped into in maint, just because I sprayed his face a bit. and if I wanted to fuck with sec because viva or because I'm a bad player, I could just spray their windows black. If I don't like the janitor, I ruin the hallway in seconds. This is too much power to go into the hands of any assistant.
Now the baseball bat is just a heavier and more reliable but less consistent spray can, now the prod is a bad trade- no space just so I can stun a few more kinds of people? if I had a spray can, they wouldn't be prepared.
By giving everyone free access to the autolathe, several interesting weak weapons are now near useless.
These aren't the only ways giving people more options in the public autolathe is less interesting. quick example:The janitor starts with only 3 cleaner grenades. While starting with infinite might be fun, this makes them feel more valuable, and gives chemistry a reason to make more- if you had infinite cleaner grenades, than chemistry wouldn't have a reason to make more, since there's a much easier way to get them. If you had infinite cleaner grenades, cargo would never order a crate with them. Now there is more variety in how you get your grenade, and people can't spam them willy nilly.
Now for the actual problems:
Spoiler:
I remember when large beakers felt valuable as chemist. I could always ask cargo for more, sure, but that would take time. It made me think of the botanist who brought me large beakers for mutagen as a friend, not a leech. It made me consider the possibility- "could I make this grenade with small beakers instead of large? would it be powerful enough?" sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. With public autolathes, I don't have to think about any of that. I don't have to think at all, really.
.357 speedloaders cost several tc in the uplink for a reason. Traitors coming to print 30 is a fucking joke at this point. If they at least had to break a window to get the speedloaders, that might actually draw attention to him, before he uses those 20 speedloaders to lowpop murderbone.
The multitool has no more value than any other tool on metastation, and is the baseline for hacking. no more fun risks when CUTTING wires, only temporary effects of pulsing them! however, hacking doesn't matter at all. on meta, the best way to break down a door is to build an rcd, which can be extremely easily filled with a slab of glass nowadays.
Making cargo in charge of autolathe orders makes it just one bit less one-dimensional.

Currently, detectives have no reason not to spend their roundstart by going up to the autolathe and fucking with their gun so it can shoot 357. It's just busywork, and they can change their gun back to normal if it doesn't work out.
This is what gets me the most, quick example: Let's say minecraft is a hardcore, challenging game. And let's say everyone in minecraft spawns in a barren village. If you spawn in a village, your house is going to be one of the village houses. there's just no question. In hardcore minecraft, resources are limited, so building a house is quite the undertaking. If hardcore minecraft DIDN'T start in a barren village, then it'd be interesting. Some people would build their own homes. Some people would go pillage and loot a regular village, and take it over. Some would find a way to turn that tiny tiny alcove into a fully equipped home.
Actual point:
Spoiler:
All the fancy stuff in maint stunts creativity. On metastation, let's say you're a cultist and need to make a base. you can go in abandoned surgery, or abandoned botany, or abandoned robotics... all kinds of spots that people can meta and you'd be salty at them. Let's say you're an assistant who wants to build a bar and a rage cage on deltastation. You don't even have to start. there's a maint bar on deltastation with a rage cage fully built and plenty of drinks. no need to even decorate. The maint bar in contrast is pitiful on box, you'd want to make your own thing. the small hideouts in maint on box are equally disgusting. If you're a cultist on box. You have less good options- leaving you with countless interesting, bad options. It could be difficult depending on the room, but you could convert or kill everyone who normally visits a room like viro or the janitor's office, and turn that into a base. or an entire department. Or maybe you'll bust down some walls and make some snaking segments of maint into one larger base and cover it up to look like it was always there.Or risk a very open, loud base in maint, trusting yourself with traps to ensure anyone who sees it won't escape alive! Or use that hardsuit and create a base out in space! you have so many options! so many more options than just "guys should we do maint bar or bar maint?"

Now that we can create buttons, we don't need to, since shops are all handled with the vacant commisary. Why make a shop anywhere else when there's one with shutters already made for you? No quaint shops in art storage, no ballsy assistants converting the hopline into his personal corgi meat stand, just the same. exact. design. for every. single. shop.
I could go on and on, but I don't have it in me. But if you want the amenities of metastation, wait for metastation.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by John_Oxford » #455902

confused rock wrote:if oxford is making a short post, I have to do his job. on account of "not adding features of meta and delta doesn't increase map variety"
First off, let's say that box not having the same things like the autolathes and autodrobes and automatic secbots in the armory decreases the variety of the map. In that case, ok, box has less variety. However, adding those things drastically decreases the variety of map choice. Read this section, or just this shitty analogy summary. Let's say tf2 only has two classes, demomanand pyro. Someone thinks that the pyro's detonator is too boring, since you can only detonate the flare in midair. so he changes it so that the pyro's flares stick to walls and can be detonated later. It made demoman fun, so it should work for pyro. While this makes pyro deeper and more varied, it makes the classes on a whole less varied. Pyro who sets up sticky traps using the detonator is just an awkward demoman. If you want to detonate sticky traps, just play demoman. don't make pyro into something demoman already is.
Spoiler:
Box's minimal drab design is distinct from metastation, and the polar opposite of the ridiculous excess and luxury of Deltastation. If we add everything that it lacks but meta has (especially to the extent of things like bar lacking a chemmaster, which it could always create or borrow if it needs) then box is no longer minimal and drab. then it's just drab. We had a map that was just drab. it was called asteroidstation. we removed it. If you were to remove all the rooms in maint and free luxury shit on deltastation, what would you get? excess. We had a map that was just excess. it was called dreamstation. we removed it. Meta is snug as a bug in a rug as "kinda big luxury" and everyone likes "kinda big luxury" because they get their free insulated gloves in maint and because it looks pretty, and want to make maps like that, so people like the free stuff in maint and how pretty it looks, and so it's big enough for any pop, but not too big for a low pop.

Box, Delta, and Pubby are distinct from meta in their own ways. I must admit I do not have that much experience with pubby, and I absolutely loathe deltastation.
Deltastation is much larger, and does everything meta did, but to a further extent. more free stuff in maint, more abandoned rooms that now could basically replace a department, and much more spare supplies for a large station (example being that the brig medbay on delta has a nanomed vendor and has several space cleaners) If we took these aspects out of deltastation, it would just be "That map where chemistry has windoors on the wrong side and the maint hallways are too wide". Let's say metastation is the baselike for stations. People play delta very similarly to metastation, which is fine, since deltastation is designed to be functional for larger populations. The equipped rooms in maint may be an attempt to keep projects easier in the chaotic environment that highpop could be.

So, ignoring minor quirks, deltastation functions similarly to metastation, but made to accommodate higher populations more easily.

Pubbystation is similar to delta in that it functions like a metastation but for a lower population. It has the ideas meta does- a maint bar (even with a piano!), though smaller for the lower population. it has a small 'rage cage' with windows for fights, it has openings to space outside the bridge to act as protection, It even has the unnecessary addition of a tesla like delta. (The supermatter was originally used as a lowpop engine, but that's not too relevant) It looks fancy and has its own quirks, too-the library, chapel, and garden are on its own little offshoot asteroid, as is the toxins test site. However, this only affects two of the jobs on the whole station, those two jobs being ones that don't travel to and from their office very often (librarian sticks to his office or fucks off to space, chaplain's only true home is the brig, if there's a cult.) For them, it's just a bit of travel time- and unless I'm missing something obvious, the chaplain is going to have to send corpses through the transit tube. that sounds incredibly inconvenient, and like one of the "objective issues" of inconvenience. of course, that doesn't come into play because chaplains never actually give bodies a proper burial. I do like this map's use of a public autolathe- a lowpop map is the one most likely to truly need one, and it being connected to cargo makes perfect sense, instead of there being two awkward autolathes.

So pubby has some quirky transit tubes and has significant differences from metastation, but the tubes don't seem to necessarily add much to the map, and only effect a few jobs. And some elements of metastation don't really need to be there-on lowpop, are people really going to be making a second bar so often that there needs to be one pre-built and fully equipped with a piano?

Boxstation is only a bit smaller than metastation. It'd be metastation 2, or more rather, metastation would be boxstation 2, if you gave it everything meta had, like a public autolathe and fancy flooring. Box is perfect for variety- by seeing the plain halls of box, you see how much effort actually went into metastation. On meta, every hall has dozens of oxygen closets, when you don't really need them-you had an emergency box in your backpack all along. on box, that box is your best friend, and someone snorting their emergency tank the whole plasma flood might have a rude awakening when they realise it's running dry and over the past 20 minutes they did nothing to rectify this (though oxygen tanks use very little air so that isn't often) on meta, they'd just snag the nearest closet. on box, they might have to stop and think, or better yet, avoid getting into that situation in the first place by appreciating the scarce o2 lockers that DO exist. If you want a map that's medium pop and has all of the features of metastation, just play metastation. don't change boxstation. (if you need those small things so badly you can't play the game without them, that's your problem.) Of course, that isn't too much of a reason to have a whole map, just to contrast another. good thing that's only my first point, I Guess.
READ BELOW HERE IF ANYTHING
Second off, yes, not adding things that other maps have not only increases the map variety in general, but increases the variety of boxstation. Less is more. Let's look at the autolathe, and one aspect of it: improvised weaponry. Read it, or just read this example to summarize it: Let's say the soldier gets a new rocket launcher in tf2. it does triple the damage of other launchers, with no downside. This technically adds more variety to the soldier. In practice, the soldier is now far less varied, since any rocket launcher besides the new one is at a massive disadvantage.
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Stunprods only fit on your back. Spears do 18 damage. a molotov or a single shot shotgun take a bit of effort for something so precise. Baseball bats could catch people by surprise, but they are a bit bulky, and you have to know what you're doing to use them properly. A pneumatic cannon is a lot of work, but there is payoff to such a powerful single shot. If you try to break into tech storage and get away with it, sec will probably not like to see that flash, and they definitely won't be scared by it, but you can scare off a borg. then you get into ieds and so on. so many options!

And then we merely look at some autolathe made-weapons.

A cleaver or circular saw is 15 brute, very close to that of a spear. Why even use a spear now? you can hide that in a bag, no problem.
A spray can stuns quite a few kinds of people. I've won a fight I was sure I'd lose with a sec officer I bumped into in maint, just because I sprayed his face a bit. and if I wanted to fuck with sec because viva or because I'm a bad player, I could just spray their windows black. If I don't like the janitor, I ruin the hallway in seconds. This is too much power to go into the hands of any assistant.
Now the baseball bat is just a heavier and more reliable but less consistent spray can, now the prod is a bad trade- no space just so I can stun a few more kinds of people? if I had a spray can, they wouldn't be prepared.
By giving everyone free access to the autolathe, several interesting weak weapons are now near useless.
These aren't the only ways giving people more options in the public autolathe is less interesting. quick example:The janitor starts with only 3 cleaner grenades. While starting with infinite might be fun, this makes them feel more valuable, and gives chemistry a reason to make more- if you had infinite cleaner grenades, than chemistry wouldn't have a reason to make more, since there's a much easier way to get them. If you had infinite cleaner grenades, cargo would never order a crate with them. Now there is more variety in how you get your grenade, and people can't spam them willy nilly.
Now for the actual problems:
Spoiler:
I remember when large beakers felt valuable as chemist. I could always ask cargo for more, sure, but that would take time. It made me think of the botanist who brought me large beakers for mutagen as a friend, not a leech. It made me consider the possibility- "could I make this grenade with small beakers instead of large? would it be powerful enough?" sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. With public autolathes, I don't have to think about any of that. I don't have to think at all, really.
.357 speedloaders cost several tc in the uplink for a reason. Traitors coming to print 30 is a fucking joke at this point. If they at least had to break a window to get the speedloaders, that might actually draw attention to him, before he uses those 20 speedloaders to lowpop murderbone.
The multitool has no more value than any other tool on metastation, and is the baseline for hacking. no more fun risks when CUTTING wires, only temporary effects of pulsing them! however, hacking doesn't matter at all. on meta, the best way to break down a door is to build an rcd, which can be extremely easily filled with a slab of glass nowadays.
Making cargo in charge of autolathe orders makes it just one bit less one-dimensional.

Currently, detectives have no reason not to spend their roundstart by going up to the autolathe and fucking with their gun so it can shoot 357. It's just busywork, and they can change their gun back to normal if it doesn't work out.
This is what gets me the most, quick example: Let's say minecraft is a hardcore, challenging game. And let's say everyone in minecraft spawns in a barren village. If you spawn in a village, your house is going to be one of the village houses. there's just no question. In hardcore minecraft, resources are limited, so building a house is quite the undertaking. If hardcore minecraft DIDN'T start in a barren village, then it'd be interesting. Some people would build their own homes. Some people would go pillage and loot a regular village, and take it over. Some would find a way to turn that tiny tiny alcove into a fully equipped home.
Actual point:
Spoiler:
All the fancy stuff in maint stunts creativity. On metastation, let's say you're a cultist and need to make a base. you can go in abandoned surgery, or abandoned botany, or abandoned robotics... all kinds of spots that people can meta and you'd be salty at them. Let's say you're an assistant who wants to build a bar and a rage cage on deltastation. You don't even have to start. there's a maint bar on deltastation with a rage cage fully built and plenty of drinks. no need to even decorate. The maint bar in contrast is pitiful on box, you'd want to make your own thing. the small hideouts in maint on box are equally disgusting. If you're a cultist on box. You have less good options- leaving you with countless interesting, bad options. It could be difficult depending on the room, but you could convert or kill everyone who normally visits a room like viro or the janitor's office, and turn that into a base. or an entire department. Or maybe you'll bust down some walls and make some snaking segments of maint into one larger base and cover it up to look like it was always there.Or risk a very open, loud base in maint, trusting yourself with traps to ensure anyone who sees it won't escape alive! Or use that hardsuit and create a base out in space! you have so many options! so many more options than just "guys should we do maint bar or bar maint?"

Now that we can create buttons, we don't need to, since shops are all handled with the vacant commisary. Why make a shop anywhere else when there's one with shutters already made for you? No quaint shops in art storage, no ballsy assistants converting the hopline into his personal corgi meat stand, just the same. exact. design. for every. single. shop.
I could go on and on, but I don't have it in me. But if you want the amenities of metastation, wait for metastation.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by PKPenguin321 » #459040

Mickyan wrote:
PKPenguin321 wrote:
Mickyan wrote:You could say I fundamentally disagree that deliberately not adding things available in other maps somehow makes the map more unique and interesting
Explain how you could think this
You can get creative with the layout or have a gimmick like pubby's offstation chapel to make the map feel unique, being less varied than other maps is a very poor claim at being interesting without having something else to make up for it
you've stated an alternative but still haven't explained your initial point ("being less varied than other maps is a very poor claim at being interesting without having something else to make up for it"). having a lack of something can be precisely what makes something different or interesting. very curveball example here, but look at mario 64 no-A-press runs. they lack something compared to normal runs, but they're arguably the most unique/interesting runs of all exclusively because they have to be creative to work around what they lack.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Mickyan » #459049

It's not really comparable since the appeal of no A presses comes from the challenge whereas SS13 is about the complexity of different situations and how each round can play out

None of the things that are missing from boxstation change the way the round plays out in any meaningful way, they just make everything more dull once you've gotten over breaking into departments every round because that's all there is to do for variety

I think donutstation has many of the same problems but at least it has a gimmick with the shape and the engine going for it so for that reason alone I consider it better than box


I'll also say it's bizarre how many times I've heard people complain about the ragecage on delta because I have seen it used exactly never and have seen ragecages being built in the delta bar dozens of times
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by PKPenguin321 » #459064

Mickyan wrote:It's not really comparable since the appeal of no A presses comes from the challenge whereas SS13 is about the complexity of different situations and how each round can play out

None of the things that are missing from boxstation change the way the round plays out in any meaningful way, they just make everything more dull once you've gotten over breaking into departments every round because that's all there is to do for variety
i disagree on both points. for your first one, i think plenty of the appeal of SS13 comes from the challenge. having appeal from challenge and having appeal from complexity aren't mutually exclusive and the game can benefit from both, so why cut one out?

as for the second, it can impact the round in more ways than just requiring break-ins. an obvious one is that if you want something from an autolathe you'll have to actually interact with a cargo tech (or break in like you said). break-ins themselves also aren't always just that. for example, since there isn't a public autolathe and cargo probably won't print you a saw (what with it being a deadly weapon), you'll sometimes have people break into the surgery room to steal the tools, which i've seen turn into majorly round-impacting moments (where surgery can't be done in a xeno round, where medical teams up with sec to hunt down the thief) that are more interesting than just "man prints saw."
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Steelpoint » #459122

Except there is a public autolathe on Boxstation now.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by PKPenguin321 » #459125

Steelpoint wrote:Except there is a public autolathe on Boxstation now.
im aware, it was just an example of how less content can make more interesting scenarios
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Anonmare » #459171

The head offices of the HoS, CMO and RD lack privacy shutters

Boxstation's armoury is kind of a joke to break into. If you must have windoors and no space-mounted motion cam, at least put armsky in to deter the greytide, at least a little, when no warden's on.

This part is more my own subjective tastes but, I'd like to see biohazard blast doors on science's xenobio and shutters on toxins for locking down research. In case of a fire, raid or xenobiology being too good at their jobs.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Lumbermancer » #459200

It's a map for lower pop, and it works very well.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Steelpoint » #459222

My PR's are addressing some concerns.

My recent PR is adding privacy shutters to the HoS's office, via the space seeing windows. I'm also intending to add privacy shutters to the CMO and RD's office.

Armoury wise, I'm adding a space mounted motion camera to the outside of the armoury, and armsky is being stationed inside.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Anuv » #459267

PKPenguin321 wrote:
Anuv wrote:A problem with Boxstation: everything. Get rid of it. The game has moved beyond a point where it's worthwhile
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Qbopper » #459682

i haven't played in months so take my opinion with a grain of salt but i really enjoyed how box was sparser, whereas meta hands everything to you on a plate, and i like it less as a result

on box it's an actual entertaining project to build something (as stated above re: a rage cage or whatever) or find a multitool or something (as an assistant) - like, for example, even just getting a toolbelt, you have to either be quick and/or lucky, barter with someone who has one, or break in somewhere that has a spare and take that one

the first option is, well, whatever - the second and third encourage player interaction, and even though it's over something as minor as a toolbelt, that can cascade into more as the round progresses (eg. you get caught breaking in to robotics to take the spare, the roboticist gets pissed with you, and now you have that 'relationship' with them for the round - maybe when things go bad they won't help you in a situation where you need someone watching your back)

comparing to meta, if i want a toolbelt, i just walk around maint for 30 seconds and pick up one because there are so many random spawns + guaranteed easy access ones

I'm not actually aware off the top of my head if you can make a toolbelt from an autolathe (because I preferred box and spent much more time there, where there was no public autolathe until now apparently) so if you can then well whoops but that kinda proves my point because now there's one less way for interesting situations to occur

i've never been very big on trying to kill antags and i turn them off in my prefs - most of my fun comes from building stupid shit and waiting for things to go wrong, and dealing with the results. most rounds on meta i usually just get bored because there's very little challenge or work required, and it feels like there are fewer good spaces in maint to build something the way i'd like (though that last point is subjective and even for me a little shaky reasoning). like, using the abandoned bar as an example, the box one is fun because you can actually put work into fixing it up and making it look nice, which is a project i've done before and always enjoy

tldr please stick to making actual fixes to box and not removing the one thing that makes it unique (this is all in reply to the "these are GLARING ISSUES" with box posts and not steelpoint who is a blessed human being)
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Durkel » #459687

This thread makes me sad. Box was made to be flimsy and cramped in order to spawn conflict with players. You'd actually have a reason to be upset if someone stole the metal or all the toolboxes as chances were you weren't getting a new one. Let us never forget the infamous insulated glove rush and the lesser famed toolbelt speed run.

Meta doesn't have this issue. It's open, spacious, there's numerous places to hide, copious resources, and just in general much more space to act as buffer for players. In a low pop round there's a good probability you can run through the main halls and not actually see anyone. This is a stark contrast where you're tripping over other players just trying to get to medical on box.

Box was designed to stir up as much shit as possible.
Meta was designed to be as smooth as possible.

Conflict is the heart and soul of ss13, not between antags and the crew but between the crew and themselves.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Qbopper » #459689

Durkel wrote:This thread makes me sad. Box was made to be flimsy and cramped in order to spawn conflict with players. You'd actually have a reason to be upset if someone stole the metal or all the toolboxes as chances were you weren't getting a new one. Let us never forget the infamous insulated glove rush and the lesser famed toolbelt speed run.

Meta doesn't have this issue. It's open, spacious, there's numerous places to hide, copious resources, and just in general much more space to act as buffer for players. In a low pop round there's a good probability you can run through the main halls and not actually see anyone. This is a stark contrast where you're tripping over other players just trying to get to medical on box.

Box was designed to stir up as much shit as possible.
Meta was designed to be as smooth as possible.

Conflict is the heart and soul of ss13, not between antags and the crew but between the crew and themselves.
this was a much better writeup than my post so yeah this
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by bandit » #460585

what tim ebow and quigley bopper said, the ongoing trend of handing everything to everyone with no player interaction is killing this game
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by JStheguy » #460716

You are obviously all wrong, if a map doesn't have 12 publicly accessible toolbelts, 3 public autolathes, 5 pairs of insuls per assistant right in tool storage, and a fully-functional backup copy of every department hidden in maint, it's a bad map and needs to be removed fucking yesterday.
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Re: A problem with Boxstation

Post by Kryson » #460961

Public autolathes are cancer. I remember when i had to break into cargo to build an improvised shotgun or obtain a saw. Or when you had to scavenge for multitools because the few roundstart ones had been taken.

REMOVE AUTOLATHE
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