/tg/Station 13

Hey, I've been lurking for a while and I've been throwing together a rough map of a whole boxstation-sized station.

Instead of branching off four cardinal hallways I've based it around three large ovals that are connected via a few walkways. Features of the current mock up are three five-wide main halls down the center of each section (Was going to put transport tubes down them until I realized there are no vertical crosswalks), med and sec are in the center section, two mini sec and mini med rooms in the other two sections and a general theme of independent resources for each major sector. Maint is a more insular thing, wrapping around each department and around the outside of each main section with lots of interesting little greebles between the main sections (unfinished bridges, protruding rotundas, old airlocks). The redundancy in each section is designed to make a more resilient station to sabotage entirely (backup power and basic atmospherics are in each section seperately) but with it's own complexities and weak points (Telecoms exposed to space, only one or two main points of transport, maint is now often only an r-wall from sensitive areas).
In general what kind of big picture things do you look for in the design of a station?

SS13 is a vastly complex game to any newcomer, so what I look for is intuitiveness and simplicity of the design. It should be easy enough to give somebody simple directions IC to get them basically anywhere on station.

Which is why I really like box. The four cardinal directions, or "wings", make giving directions really easy to do.

Another important thing that some mappers seem to overlook is vulnerability, both in safety and security. SS13 works best when it doesn't take place on a perfectly sensible and secure station.

Easy hall traffic is something that you seem to have covered. The concept seems to work well, as long as all the departments are sized well. If you're going to have three separate areas, have plenty of walkways and of course maintenance access between them.

As for general feedback, the best things to do when mapping are the following:
1. A layout that makes sense and doesn't impede movement or crowds. BoxStation really suffers from this in places.
2. Plenty of resources laying around in their departments. A few insuls in engineering, a few medipens in medbay, things like that.
3. Easy public access to civilian jobs like Botany and the Maltese Falcon. I highly recommend putting an airlock between Botany and the Kitchen that both parties can use.
4. Variance - nobody likes a boring station.
5. Easy ways to get around for departments that roam a lot like janitor.
6. Ways to sabotage the station easily. While a few bombs might force a shuttle call anyway, creative and subtle sabotage is heavy in how easy it is, especially in maintenance.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

Departments grouped together in an efficient manner. Minimal time running between mining, science, robotics and chemistry, for instance.
Easily-patrolled open corridors, well-lit and with suficient camera and intercom coverage.
Maintenance that is reasonably easy to maneuver from destination to destination, but has labyrinthian tendencies down the side passages.
Spawning relevant items in departments. That includes stocking up Research with basic gear so they don't have to salvage all over the station. Backup light replacer for the janitor might also work.

As for specific locations.
Security: Prime concern is greytide proofing. Anti-breakout and nuke-op is secondary. Airlock-style access still spacious enough to allow for prisoner transfer. Holding cells in a location that is not too easy to shitler out of (as few windows as possible, as many as required.) Warden's and HoS' reasonably central so they can overview the brig without much trouble.
Engineering: Further away from the rest of the station. Never central location due to singularity. Atmospherics close to engineering, tanks exposed to space to allow for sabotage and alliums. And for the love of Sithis, leave space for suicidal CEs to build a supermatter engine. Keep gravity generator as medium- to high-security area near engineering and r-walled.
Medical: Straight corridors, easy to get to critical areas (cryo first, cloner next-door to cryo.) Isolated patient rooms for traitor action. Virology separated by walkway and airlock, running own atmos and waste. Placed near research due to chemistry.
Research: R&D and robotics close to each other, those close to chems (as above.) Ideally sharing an airlock. Toxins in non-central location, naturally near the hull due to launch site. Xenobiology isolated like virology, including own atmos so xenos cannot immediately traverse vents. Note: Minimise or electrify windows in xenobiology.
Supply: Mining and Cargo separate. Mining near Research, Cargo near civilian or security for fast crate delivery and return.
Service: Bar, kitchen, hydroponics next to each other, possibly sharing basic access. Hydroponics between bar and kitchen allows for fast distribution of produce. Whole service department should be as central as possible, to allow for efficient feeding. Strongly recommend "open" bar area, not walled or windowed off. And please do use wood furniture.
Civilian: Library and chapel can go where ever space is left, except maintenance. In case of chapel: Allow for relatively quick access in case of changeling or cult. Janitorial can literally go where ever space is left. Dormitories near central location, primary and aux tool storage far from engineering.
Bridge: Non-central location, near escape and/or security. Allow for, but minimise maintenance access to bridge in order to permit burglary but enable lockdown options. Main access points should be airlock-style, with flashers. Captain's and HoP's, possibly Head dormitories in bridge area as well. Captain's and head dorms further inside for security.
Communications and AI: Isolated, on a backup power network linked to main grid via SMES. Mini-sat seems tried and proven.
Other: Tech storage near engineering, obviously. Closer to main areas, other departments may have legitimate interest as well. Allow access to secure tech storage without space suit only through one door, expose adjacent tiles to vacuum. Vault similar, although vault can be placed where ever there is space available. Art storage also where there is space. Incinerator best to be buried in maintenance.


Anything else?

I like tall, strong stations with a sense of humor.

More seriously, I'm seconding sometimes dangerous situations. Stations should have an inherent capacity to go wrong.
Extensive and interesting maint is always a big plus, too.

Miauw wrote:Extensive and interesting maint is always a big plus, too.

This.

Cipher3 wrote:

Miauw wrote:Extensive and interesting maint is always a big plus, too.

This.

yuh
look at eff3 maint and box maint. and then combine them.

Assmaint and Metamaint were some of the better ones I've seen.

Then again, assmaint could just be expanded into the rock, so naturally it had potential.

Asteroid maint had a few good spots but was only large or detailed in one area. The maintenance that was most skilled at evoking the picture of old station remnants that have been boarded over and junk zones was EFficiency 3. Had maint dorms, maint bathrooms, maint bar, maint garden, maint secret cult spot...

You mean, secret surgery spot, right?

Cipher3 wrote:Asteroid maint had a few good spots but was only large or detailed in one area. The maintenance that was most skilled at evoking the picture of old station remnants that have been boarded over and junk zones was EFficiency 3. Had maint dorms, maint bathrooms, maint bar, maint garden, maint secret cult spot...

i think you mean efficiency 1
full hobostation

Personally would love to see a station where every room is seperated by Maintanance. And all Air Alarms and APC's are located in Maintanance as well, with some "rooms" in maintanance as well with some semi-important stuff such as SMES.

Kinda like this:

Phalanx300 wrote:Personally would love to see a station where every room is seperated by Maintanance. And all Air Alarms and APC's are located in Maintanance as well, with some "rooms" in maintanance as well with some semi-important stuff such as SMES.

There's a slight issue with putting all your electrical control kit in engineering in that the AI will no longer be able to control it. Unless you add cameras, in which case maintenance is no longer a no-AI zone.

idk 4 me bigger is better always. that applies to stuff outside of stations as well if ucatch my drift

Honestly, what I'd like to see for a station is a spindly dangerous as hell station made of interconnected separate parts connected by glass hallways.