Away Mission Stuff (15+ USD for spritework)

[MMMiracles]

I've been re-making some of my older away missions (caves, snowdin) during my freetime, mostly making them more visually appealing and proper systems set up. I've got a lot of work done on Snowdin's surface side with some ideas on how to do the dungeon/caves part.

Just as an idea of the changes, here's a before and after of the main outpost where majority of people spawn in the mission:

Before:

Spoiler:

After:

Spoiler:

I hope to eventually finish these and get some playtime with them on the main servers for a month or two while they're still fresh and cheese tactics on how to bee-line for the best gear haven't been publicized yet. If not, I still enjoy working on these so it doesn't hurt to update them a bit for downstream servers to have.

SPRITEWORK REQUEST:
I've run into an issue with a lack of decent sprites for the underground segment. I'm in need of some cave-like structures with that icey-blue color you see in pictures of ice caves. Something like the images here are a good idea of the visuals I'm aiming for in this deeper segment.

Things Needed:

• Liquid plasma turf (something similar to how the lava turfs look but chilled plasma)
• Ice chasms (essentially current chasms but ice-themed)
• Generic ice-rock structures (stalagmites, ice chunks, ect)
• Overlay for iced-over airlocks (generic, external, and hatch airlocks)

Payment would be sent via Paypal, we can discuss a deal on how the exchange would work in PMs.

PR for Snowdin can be found here.

[Dax Dupont]

Away missions are disabled though because they derailed the rounds, will they be renabled? If so I would love to make some away areas that don't have loot and are just places to hang out and what not

[Alipheese]

They may be disabled by default but admins can still place map templates and manually set the gateway.

[Armhulen]

if they're revamped and all that i'd love trying them out for a tiny bit i'm a huge fan of snowdin but people know that

[D&B]

Rather than an abandoned shack in the middle of a snow map it just feels like a relocation of the deep storage base in a snow map.

Kinda loses the charm of the original design in my opinion.

[Dax Dupont]

I hope away missions will get readded with all the template fixes lately.
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/34486
I put this pr in to try and get the old derailing rounds argument fixed

[Armhulen]

I wish the loot people found was research points for rnd, that would be great incentive without having every crewmember hulking around like an asshole in syndicate tech

[MMMiracles]

Rather than an abandoned shack in the middle of a snow map it just feels like a relocation of the deep storage base in a snow map.

Kinda loses the charm of the original design in my opinion.

Eh, Deep Storage has a lot more gear in it and feels more like a bunker, this is meant to be more of an outpost for research. The 'abandoned shack' vibe is being turned into more of an 'abandoned arctic post' vibe, something more akin to The Thing. I was just sort of a shitty mapper back then so the visuals were more of a limitation than intended.

All of the major landmarks of the 'surface' section of the map are mostly done with some in-between fluff being thrown in for people who like to search every corner of the area. I've also added snow storms that periodically come and go similar to Lavaland's ash storms, giving people reason to chill out and maybe indulge in my shitty snowdin lore while waiting out the storm.

[MMMiracles]

I've got pretty much the entire top-side done and with work on the underground structures under-way. Ran into an issue with sprite assets on the underground segment, so I'm putting out a request for some paid work to get this rolling along again.

[MMMiracles]

I've done some stuff in making the underground section more random. The original version tries to subvert blatant loot spawns by turning individual items into loot spawns with lower-tier loot piles spawning in lesser areas with higher-tier piles further into the dangerous parts. This made some effort into not having a guaranteed 'x' item, but it still meant there was a few spots that you hit for the real good shit.

I've decided to say 'fuck it' and just turn the cavern section into what I could only call a slightly worse Spelunky. A pre-set grid with each box having a random cave/loot room/danger room/misc that'll get pulled from a list of pre-made rooms I'm making. There are of course some static areas where you start, but past that is just semi-random bits. All the indestructible ice walls were also changed into minable asteroid turf, so issues with rooms not connecting should be avoidable by just bringing mining tools.

[Jalleo]

You can probably make a child of the astroid rock to be a ice version if you want to make it look like ice still.