Giving the Away Missions Some Love

[MMMiracles]

Gonna start revamping all away missions to something more modern and less broken.

Beach: MERGED

Spoiler:

Caves: MERGED
PR: https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/12954

Based around a mostly unexplored cave system with a mining outpost on the upper-most layer. Four layers to explore as it gets progressively deeper into the planet's core, who knows what you'll find down there?

Snowdin: MERGED (asset overhaul soonish)
PR: https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/13318

A large-ish away mission. Based inside an enclosed valley layered in thick snow. Several NT-Owned outposts are scattered throughout the valley for plot-related reasons I've yet to think of.
There will be a topside area and an underground cave dungeon to explore. The start and gateway exit will be located in the topside area for those who don't wish to dive into the cave dungeon for that phat loot.
Exploring the area without proper insulated gear is a good way to freeze to death so either pack warm or hope you find some spare sets of winter gear scattered around in the outposts.

Robotics Facility: CONCEPT

An abandoned robotics facility used for testing and production of NT-based silicons has had its supply gateway re-activate recently. This wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't for the fact it was left to become a space derelict years ago.

Something probably involving the S.E.L.F faction, not 100% sure yet.

I'm currently looking into improving the current assets of the Snowdin mission, mostly consisting of the ugly walls and probably redoing the entire dungeon area all together after the freeze is over.

[Luke Cox]

I don't know what all the away missions look like, but be sure to give each one some sort of story that can be gleamed from the map itself, and an objective of some sort. Somebody suggested having to restore power to a place to get the gateway back working. Stuff like that would be very engaging.

[onleavedontatme]

My plan for the away mission maps are as follows

-put the syndie satellite out in space
-put the meat packing ship out in space
-remove station collision entirely or remove all its loot snd put it out in space

[MMMiracles]

As an update on the cave mission, I've gone to saving the volcano-land and lava turf sprites to be used for it. It seems like a real shame for them to go to waste considering how great they look.

[onleavedontatme]

As an update on the cave mission, I've gone to saving the volcano-land and lava turf sprites to be used for it. It seems like a real shame for them to go to waste considering how great they look.

I'm gonna make a PR to replace the asteroid sprites with them soon I think.

[invisty]

I have an away mission that was 90% complete. It's pretty benign, with a power-solve puzzle and a little bit of creepy backstory to be discovered.

Maybe I'll finish it.

[Luke Cox]

I have an away mission that was 90% complete. It's pretty benign, with a power-solve puzzle and a little bit of creepy backstory to be discovered.

Maybe I'll finish it.

Creepy backstories are what away missions need. I'd love to see your map finished

[Deitus]

make one a strip club full of phoebe lotsu/fortune ray clones pls

[MMMiracles]

Well I just lost a few hours worth of work on the away mission, last backup is fairly outdated compared to what I had done.

fak.

[MMMiracles]

Caves is finally finished and merged into the master branch. Gonna take a bit off mapping but I already have an idea for another mission if the feedback for caves stays mostly positive.

[ChangelingRain]

Main problem with caves right now is the inconsistent cave theme, but that's a really easy fix because all it needs is sprites and implementing those sprites, and the sprites are done.

Otherwise, it's a pretty damn good mission, not too hard, good loot if you look around, nice theme.

[Zilenan91]

Does the SORD actually do anything, I found it in a locker and it didn't seem to do damage

[MMMiracles]

Main problem with caves right now is the inconsistent cave theme, but that's a really easy fix because all it needs is sprites and implementing those sprites, and the sprites are done.

Otherwise, it's a pretty damn good mission, not too hard, good loot if you look around, nice theme.

Sprite inconsistency will be fixed once smoothlava is merged and the basalt rock tiles are done (i tried both but fucked it up so it looked bad and I gave up on that part).

Does the SORD actually do anything, I found it in a locker and it didn't seem to do damage

The SORD is the best weapon in the game.

[Ricotez]

I once tried to have the sord,,,, do negative damage because it's so shitty, but damage code has safeguards against that and I didn't want to mess with them too much

[MMMiracles]

Started mapping out the tundra awaymission, mostly trying to get the foundations of the outposts first before anything.

[MMMiracles]

oh look this isn't dead yet

Updated post, gonna look into some asset improving on the snowdin mission and redoing the dungeon.

[lumipharon]

If you're going to generally improve away missions, can you just like, remove the emitter maze?
Seriously it was made before emitters were deconstructable so it's 100% cheesable with a screwdriver and crowbar, not to mention it's just generally cheesable and uninteresting.

[Zilenan91]

Yeah please remove that mission. It makes me not want to even use the gateway it's so bad.

[kazeespada]

Please implement the beach away mission, it would be nice for the away mission to be completely not deadly every once and awhile.

[PKPenguin321]

Please implement the beach away mission, it would be nice for the away mission to be completely not deadly every once and awhile.

>complains about the wild west mission for being ugly and boring
>wants the beach mission
???

[kazeespada]

Please implement the beach away mission, it would be nice for the away mission to be completely not deadly every once and awhile.

>complains about the wild west mission for being ugly and boring
>wants the beach mission
???

Beach is more like a break from an Away Mission. You can just chill at the beach and just smoke and drink. Its like the bar, but your even further from the station so people won't come rev you or gang you, or nuke you.

Wild West is an MEH away mission that takes forever, and isnt that fun.(Its not Moon Base bad) but its as bad as challenge.

[Zilenan91]

I wouldn't mind having beach as an away mission if it had some cool stuff on it like a volleyball court or some minor station loot so people could just chill.

[MMMiracles]

I did update the beach mission but it was taken out of rotation for not being action-y enough for the server. Maybe I'll look into putting more content into it when I'm doing making snowdin look less shitty.

Also yes emitter maze is awful but I think you're better off asking MSO to disable it from rotation.

[lumipharon]

>people complain that away missions will steal all the crew away from the station
>remove away mission because it's not a deadly murderhole that will steal crew away from the station

Ebin.

[kazeespada]

Can I have the .DMM and any associated .DM for the beach?

[MMMiracles]

I might have a PR up in a few days with the changes to snowdin, majorly in the dungeon area. I'm trying to look into using the ruins spawner so the dungeon area is essentially a giant cave system with random ruins spawning in marked areas.

Also I added blizzards for the topside area so that will be fun.

Can I have the .DMM and any associated .DM for the beach?

I mean you can just get it off the github easily.