/tg/Station 13

Hey there.

I'm making a station with the same concept as Cerestation but designed to be more realistic to what an actual station would function as.

In other words, departments are separated from each other and the center of the station is a designated common area (Nanotrasen Research shows that centralized common areas improve employee happiness and productiveness by 20%). The station will be more compact than Cere and also feature transit tubes (like to the AI satellite) as secondary forms of transportation.

Currently my roadmap for it is as follows:

[]Create a 1x1 pixel guideline for the map

[]Get feedback on the overall layout and tweak maint/rooms/etc.

[]Start the initial mapping process (and learn how to map)

[]Another round of feedback

[]Finish map and work out bugs

[]Testmergies

[]FIN?

A certain coder has also suggested that I make the station Multi-Z so that others are inspired to finish the multi-z support (Explosions, ladders, etc).

Insofar I have about 45% of the station laid out and I'll be updating this forum post as I go on. Right now I'm just looking for feedback or ideas on specific rooms/concepts you think would be interesting to include in this station!



Thanks for any feedback or ideas you have!
For reference, this is what metastation security looks like on a 1x1 pixel ratio:

add asteroids

Put cargo in the location of departure, departure in the location of medbay, and medbay in the location of cargo. Science and engineering should swap places and isolate the shit out of engineering due to sm exploding. Science controls AI upload. Medbay should be next to arrivals for when people arriving on a broken shuttle have problems due to someone blowing it up. Cargo is a group of shitters more then half the time so place them inside maint and away from everybody while still giving them room to head to departure.

To your point on moving medbay, I think it's important for medbay to be in a strategic spot to triage. It's likely that the most people to be injured would be security or people leaving the station, making it easy for medical to respond to those issues.

Science has never traditionally controlled AI Upload, that role has been usually given to Engineering and Command (For reasons of law uploading and telecomms maintenance. Engineering having easy access to command and science makes sense for the purposes of maintenance and sharing/utilization of gases.

The same goes for cargo and science, having cargo and science be close for the purposes of ores makes sense, and having cargo be close to both arrivals and departures would make sense from a realistic design perspective as centralizing the in/out of the station would make sense.

This might be unrelated entirely but I always thought it would be cool to have nearly all of maintenance besides rooms to get to the main station level under the station with all the pipes and wiring. It would make maintenance less of a secondary hallway and more of a maze of tunnels meant for, y'know, maintenance.

Do you mean as another z-level? I really like that idea. I felt kind of the same and since most of multi-z is supported it could work out really well (people with bombs would just have to wait until the code is added for their sweet sweet boomage). Having another z level where you can sneak around and under different departments sounds kind of neat to me.

Maint next to armory is a bad idea

wesoda25 wrote:Maint next to armory is a bad idea

I'm still debating it. My idea is to have a window into the Warden's office and also a camera, and that combined with the fact that Sec is already isolated *SHOULD* in theory counterbalance the fact that there is maintenance there, but I'm still uncertain. I feel like it's also kind of a trap to do without an EVA suit because you'd only have one form of escape (Back along the bridge) so if someone is going to blow into Armory, doing it through space would still be the best bet. I'd like to hear more people chime in on this one and see what they say about it. I may just remove the four tiles there and make it space, but I still don't know if that'd be the right move.

I've been working on this for a few hours and I've run into a predicament. I don't want to make the common area too long, but I also want to make sure that the passageways to engineering and science are not too close together.

Also, when it comes to cargo and departures, I want to make sure that those are semi-close but not close enough to be bombed or too isolated. Here's what I have now:
As you can see, I've added some escape shuttles and a medbay (I'll provide the labels later). I still have to add departures, cargo, science, and engineering. My initial thought is I expand the misc common areas out to the left a bit, make the engineering hallway go north, the science hallway go west, and cargo/departures sort of embedded in the spot where those two hallways to the south currently are and have it sort of loop around the main arrivals dock.

I also had a longer discussion with BeeSting involving multi-Z in discord, which would expand the maint to a z-level below the current one and act as another cool layer to what we already have along with expanding the station size massively (And fight club could get moved down there, too!)

*EDIT* I'm also uncertain on the medbay transit tube locations. I don't want it to be too close to the bridge (because bombs) but if I open up the medbay hallway to the public and put the transit tube past the solars, I'll have to move virology and probably move the medbay-exclusive hallway to the right side sacrificing the maint. Thoughts on that?

Here's an updated version of the first level with rooms labeled. I'll be posting the second level soon.

Since multiple people have told me I should make it multi-z and there are PRs in place to add the rest, I'm going to title it Zeta Station unless someone can think of something better.

Let me know what you think about the first level and what you think should be changed!!!



*EDIT* Something else I wanted to mention were the areas where there are 4-5 tile wide hallways. This will not be the case when I start adding things in on the mapping tool. My objective is to only have one or two areas that could be that big and have the rest be filled with things that only allow for 3 tile wide hallways max and preferably 2 tile wide hallways.

Same suggestion I made for Cere I will make for you. putting medbay in a far off location will make actually saving people hell, so consider adding medical stations with gear for patient stabilization. Basically a table with bandages, epinephrine, and roller beds with a medical tileset.

Transit tubes from medbay to departures should probably be a hallway, as having only one way to get critical patients into medbay or out to the escape shuttle is a gigantic issue. the transit tube to security from medbay is fine.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll add in some medical supplies, gurneys, and the like to some of the maintenance areas so doctors have supplies ready on hand (unless greytiders inevitably take them). I'll also add a hallway off that transit tube directly to departures and keep the medical route as well as probably add a secondary receiving area for medbay.

The second level is all laid out and feedback on this especially will be very important. Since this map is large and maintenance would be as well, balancing via the layout will be important but I'd also like to discuss the rooms I've placed and how they will add to the character of the station. If you think any rooms should be replaced, added, or removed, please let me know.

Thanks!

Maintenance checklist

<>hidden assistant bar
<>weird grimy observation deck
<>obvious changeling den
<>twisty bit with no purpose
<>fire closet rooms
<> ghetto hydroponics with weed seeds

Some quick layout updates from suggestions for you while I'm working on getting the turf laid out in Dream Maker:

1. Department bridges have been SHORTENED to MAXIMUM 11 tiles to make walking distance ~10 seconds shorter

2. The medbay bridge has been updated to make it
A. Shorter
B. Closer to the Triage area
C. Keep the Departures<->Medbay bridge shorter

3. Solars locations for sec and command have been updated to make them more effective more of the time.

4. Permabrig's ball has been shrunk and will now fit inside of a player's screen. A one-way disposals route has been added to make depositing permabrig prisoners easier.

Update photo of the layout of the first level with relevant changes. Also changed:

1. Transit tube rooms were made smaller. Likely to be changed to disposals tubes.

2. AI Sat now has a walkway around it, as suggested by an AI main. I am toying with the idea of re-adding some turrets but I'm not sure.

3. The arrivals receiving was tweaked to actually have more than one airlock between the shuttle and the station.

*EDIT* Updated the layout docs for you to reference

Mapper man asked me to post things I dislike here. There's a few things I like aswell such as the Mime getting his own room but as they don't warrant changing I won't bother listing them. I might edit the post as I see more things but for now:

• I strongly dislike that EVA/Teleport are very much out of sight in the hallway where they're placed, especially with the easy maintenance access to both. There's nothing in that hallway that's commonly used and the rooms across from them are maintenance rooms and there's no reason to travel through it either, really. Flipping the bar and the connecting maintenance rooms would make them watched too closely, in my opinion, so I would suggest putting the HOPs office there, maybe switching it with the gateway which is mostly irrelevant except as a source of medical supplies, a recharger or some materials.
• Armory bordering maint. I agree that the armory should be breachable but this makes it too easy. There should be a modicum of effort involved. I'd (roughly) flip Warden and the Gear Room, and Evidence and the armory. This still allows people to access regular sec gear through maint similiar to Meta and potentially some juicy items from the evidence lockup.
• Interrogation should be closer to the main hallway, maybe even outside (in what's currently space between Detective and Receiving, maybe? The receiving room and HoS office both could have mirrored windows to look inwards with an intercom in the room set to a private frequency with intercoms in the wardens office/hos office to listen in aswell, would be cozy I think.)
• Perma should not lead into the gear room without the warden even noticing that prisoners have escaped into the hallway. Smashing a window and eating a warm donk-pocket or two should allow a prisoner to spacewalk to safety without dying. I think that grey thing next to the curators office is an escape pod? There could be an external airlock without access restrictions next to it, similiar to the external airlock outside dorms on Pubby (it might have maint access requirements actually I'm not entirely sure I just know I can pass as assistant)
• I'm not sure how I like the prison cells being inaccessible for potential buddies to break out prisoners unless they have space gear and bring extra. I suppose the outside AI hallway transit tube leading straight into the brig hallway is to counter this which might be pretty cool but I'm not sure if that's too good for outsiders to gain a foothold into sec that the Warden can't really lock up (thinking about Rev/Cult for example where you'll be attacked from the main entrance, transit tube and maint all at once, potentially)
• On all maps, the engineering gear room aswell as Toxins are accessible through maintenance to give traitors access to gloves, tools and bombs. Neither is the case here. I don't have an immediate idea for how to fix this but you should look for solutions here.
• The chaplain, roboticists and the detective all have access to the morgue aside from medbay staff. This is in part due to their legitimate need to dispose of or access corpses aswell as an excuse to put the morgue bordering a public hallway to allow bad guys access to identity theft targets. As things are the morgue is basically inaccessible to anybody outside of medbay. That public room to the right of the stasis/emergency room would make a good morgue location.
• AI shouldn't have exterior defense turrets. Interior turrets, several mounted flashes and several foam dispensers are honestly good enough. What the AI does need is a private teleporter.

On that note, something more of a neutral suggestion and something I've always wanted to see and something that could be fun on this map, seeing as it looks to be pretty huge: An almost-finished maint teleporter (requiring only some machine parts and tools to make operational), maybe in the botched observatory, allowing baddies and shitters to teleport around for shenanigans until security shuts it down, or people to steal the parts and rebuild it elsewhere in private. Teleporters are strong mobility structures allowing immense freedom of movement but they require some amount of planning and setup (placing tracking beacons) to use. A clever cargo traitor, for example, could build the teleporter somewhere in cargo nobody ever goes like the warehouse, and mail tracking beacons to several remote places across the station and use it to get around. Since he's made friends with the miners (or is a miner), he can use a fulton beacon to travel back to cargo safe and sound.

Note: I'm using this for reference because it's the most recent one with labels, not the more recent one without labels: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/download/ ... mode=viewv

(Terra originally posted this to the NTR hut so that I could look at it. I'll be re-pasting my response here:)

Fantastic. This is the most detailed feedback I've gotten so far. Let me address your points one by one:

terranaut wrote:

• I strongly dislike that EVA/Teleport are very much out of sight in the hallway where they're placed, especially with the easy maintenance access to both. There's nothing in that hallway that's commonly used and the rooms across from them are maintenance rooms and there's no reason to travel through it either, really. Flipping the bar and the connecting maintenance rooms would make them watched too closely, in my opinion, so I would suggest putting the HOPs office there, maybe switching it with the gateway which is mostly irrelevant except as a source of medical supplies, a recharger or some materials.

My primary issue with this is I want the HoP to be closer to the common areas by design, so putting the HoP in that secluded spot instead would make it harder to promote the idea that command has a public face in the common area. I also want the HoP to be able to watch and see if anybody takes that specific hallway. There aer two ways I could see to fix this:

1. Move the HoP up to where the executive maintenance currently connects and move the teleporter/EVA to where the HoP currently is. (I don't like this because it pushes the HoP further away.)
2. Move Eva/Teleporter to above the HoPline so it's closer and put the gateway rooms where teleporter/eva were. (This makes it so the hallway around the left side of the bar is empty, and it might be better to just remove that left hallway.)

terranaut wrote:

• Armory bordering maint. I agree that the armory should be breachable but this makes it too easy. There should be a modicum of effort involved. I'd (roughly) flip Warden and the Gear Room, and Evidence and the armory. This still allows people to access regular sec gear through maint similiar to Meta and potentially some juicy items from the evidence lockup.

What TheRespectedMan suggested here is that I keep maintenance there but add a 1-tile line of space between the maint and the armory with a window from the warden's office to see that space, making it harder for people to simply breach in and easier for sec to spot intrusions. I also plan to have a motion sensing camera in that maintenance. I like the idea of giving tiders the chance to get into the armory more than I like giving them evidence (Sec will just stop using evidence if it gets tided often, but they can't metagame the same thing for the armory).

I intend to have some sec gear (rechargers, handcuffs, etc.) in the second z-level of maint above security as extra guffins as well.

terranaut wrote:

• Interrogation should be closer to the main hallway, maybe even outside (in what's currently space between Detective and Receiving, maybe? The receiving room and HoS office both could have mirrored windows to look inwards with an intercom in the room set to a private frequency with intercoms in the wardens office/hos office to listen in aswell, would be cozy I think.)

I can definitely extend the HoS Office out a bit so that people can communicate with them if they are in. That's part of the reason I have the warden there, as the warden is primarily in charge of setting people to arrest and managing the records.

I want to keep interrogation where it is as it adds an interesting level of engagement when you combine the maint behind it. There are ladders to get down to the maint behind interrogation and I think the idea of trying to bust out criminals being interrogated/executed has a lot of risk/reward if it's kept there.

terranaut wrote:

• Perma should not lead into the gear room without the warden even noticing that prisoners have escaped into the hallway. Smashing a window and eating a warm donk-pocket or two should allow a prisoner to spacewalk to safety without dying. I think that grey thing next to the curators office is an escape pod? There could be an external airlock without access restrictions next to it, similiar to the external airlock outside dorms on Pubby (it might have maint access requirements actually I'm not entirely sure I just know I can pass as assistant)

Perma will have the typical button to seal it if things go wrong, and I like the idea of giving people escaping perma an extra opportunity to get gear. I think if you successfully escape perma by going back through sec instead of spacewalking or something else, it should create a more difficult scenario for security to handle. It means that officers will have to be diligent when it comes to using perma and make sure they take the necessary precautions to watch perma prisoners (which currently is more like drop off and forget).

terranaut wrote:

• I'm not sure how I like the prison cells being inaccessible for potential buddies to break out prisoners unless they have space gear and bring extra. I suppose the outside AI hallway transit tube leading straight into the brig hallway is to counter this which might be pretty cool but I'm not sure if that's too good for outsiders to gain a foothold into sec that the Warden can't really lock up (thinking about Rev/Cult for example where you'll be attacked from the main entrance, transit tube and maint all at once, potentially)

This one is the toughest for me. I want to have a map where things are changed up from meta. I think one of the main reasons that metastation is the only one that gets picked is because the layout of the other stations promotes the same type of gameplay or is just a meme (donut). I want prisoner extraction to be handled differently. If you want to break out a buddy, you will need a space suit and insulated gloves. However, security will have to be more diligent in escorting prisoners out as the exit is not right there and the armory *is*.

Regarding the tubes (Now changed to walk-in disposals) I want that to be a security vulnerability. If the Warden doesn't want random people showing up from that entryway, they will have to seal it. Conversely, if antags are mounting a multi-pronged assault on the brig, going all the way around to command to exploit the tubes may prove detrimental. Since maint has such a long hallway to go through, it makes assaulting security through that maint very risky (especially because the gear room is right outside that and officers are more likely to be in the gear room.)

terranaut wrote:

• On all maps, the engineering gear room aswell as Toxins are accessible through maintenance to give traitors access to gloves, tools and bombs. Neither is the case here. I don't have an immediate idea for how to fix this but you should look for solutions here.

This one is super tough. I want science and engineering to share gases and that's why the toxins room is where it is. The gear room on meta is also directly attached to the engine room (which you would need tools to break into anyways), and I want to keep that theme. Antags have easy access to the secondary room via command hallway, and it will still only be one hacked door away from the gear room. Since departments are isolated, it adds some extra risk to tiding important things from them.

Also, you CAN get to toxins maint through regular maint by utilizing the second level.

What I MIGHT be able to do for the gear room is add a set of maintenance behind the gear room and add a ladder to get down there from the second z level.

terranaut wrote:

• The chaplain, roboticists and the detective all have access to the morgue aside from medbay staff. This is in part due to their legitimate need to dispose of or access corpses as well as an excuse to put the morgue bordering a public hallway to allow bad guys access to identity theft targets. As things are the morgue is basically inaccessible to anybody outside of medbay. That public room to the right of the stasis/emergency room would make a good morgue location.

I intend to have the morgue utilize disposal chutes to get bodies to the kitchen or chapel. It also means that I can give those three roles access to the main medical hallway and the maintenance between that hallway and the morgue, which may lead to interesting engagements. Lings will have to work harder to get their succ on for certain. I want people who need to use corpses to get them from catching people out of place.

terranaut wrote:

• AI shouldn't have exterior defense turrets. Interior turrets, several mounted flashes and several foam dispensers are honestly good enough. What the AI does need is a private teleporter.

[/list]

I talked to Hulk about this and the turrets were removed in place of an external walkway. I will have what you've stated above. The private teleporter will be between the upload and core, which will make your idea below even more appealing

terranaut wrote: On that note, something more of a neutral suggestion and something I've always wanted to see and something that could be fun on this map, seeing as it looks to be pretty huge: An almost-finished maint teleporter (requiring only some machine parts and tools to make operational), maybe in the botched observatory, allowing baddies and shitters to teleport around for shenanigans until security shuts it down, or people to steal the parts and rebuild it elsewhere in private. Teleporters are strong mobility structures allowing immense freedom of movement but they require some amount of planning and setup (placing tracking beacons) to use. A clever cargo traitor, for example, could build the teleporter somewhere in cargo nobody ever goes like the warehouse, and mail tracking beacons to several remote places across the station and use it to get around. Since he's made friends with the miners (or is a miner), he can use a fulton beacon to travel back to cargo safe and sound.

I like this idea and plan to implement it.

stick botany to the kitchen

Blurbo wrote:stick botany to the kitchen

What if I have a disposal chute that connects to the kitchen so you can just YEET all those veggies in there?

sounds good,i still think you should move it away from dorms in a small seperate location

The dorms is the public garden, botany is on the westish side of the station

I should mention that burying the commissary deep in maintenance defeats its entire purpose, I specifically made sure to map it in a high traffic area

Mickyan wrote:I should mention that burying the commissary deep in maintenance defeats its entire purpose, I specifically made sure to map it in a high traffic area

I don't intend for the large commissary to be where people trade. Instead, I have a kiosk set up right outside the dorms which I think will get a lot more traffic. People can easily lug any supplies or extra goodies down from the second floor. The larger space will be for "super secret trading" or whatever else people want to use it for. Having the second z-level is going to result in a lot of tinkering after people playtest to make sure that everything is in a good spot, so we'll see how the kiosk works out.

Do you think that there's a better spot I could put a larger trading post without moving too many things around? Perhaps in maintenance on the southwestern side?

I see, I didn't know what "kiosk" meant exactly but that's where I would have suggested putting the commissary, so that works

I think the location is fine with it being somewhat close to cargo and the trading dock

I just can't wait until we have real stairs because then it's going to get crazy