/tg/Station 13

Bottom post of the previous page:

Well I suppose in that case just placing grilles or a glass cealing would be sufficent to prevent 'floating prisoner syndrome' from occurring.

Final question I have, how many multi-z levels do you intend to support?

You mentioned earlier you envisioned that three multi-z levels would be the maximum you would want.

I'm asking since if we port over the Russian Station, then we would have to condense it down from five to three floors.

Also we need a new name for multi-level z-levels.

As many Zs as byond supports, though visually I'm thinking a maximum of seeing 2 levels below (1 is in the screenshot/gif previously, and a level below that would be even darker, but just visible)

The only limitation is connections have to be numerical, eg: 2 can only connect to 1 and 3, but we shouldn't have much issue with this (I have a SSz (no processing) to store z information on, and code can use this to determine what's "station" and what's not, what's connected and what's not, etc.)

Good to know.

We'll have a lot of questions and balancing to consider down the road though, if this is brought to fruition.

Also, I'm going through RusStation and while at first it looks confusing, but as I examine it I can start to see its not that bad.

Everything seems squashed, but that's because each department usually consists of anywhere from two to four levels.

I have bad news.

Due to some byond bullshit, my local copy of the game no longer works.
at all.

Areas aren't being created (well they are, but they're null in code anyway for some reason!!), which spews a million runtimes, I can't spawn anymore (ghost or otherwise), objects only appear if I physically move up to them (admin teleport still lets me move my new_player mob), none of this is logically tied to my changes at all.

I'll keep working on it, and open a PR if I have to, but if I can't solve this then that's it, game over.
I know it's not an OOM error, as I have a gig and a half spare that's not being used.

Solved it, partially

That's a shame to hear, hope you get on top of the issue.

Steelpoint wrote:That's a shame to hear, hope you get on top of the issue.

I had planned to lazy init shadows at some point, and doing so has completely relieved the issue.
(They weren't lazy init before, they were originally just "is there a hole above? make shadow", but that was technically wrong so I changed it to always make shadows, which caused the previous spook, now it's "are you under a hole? make a shadow, if not, wait until you walk under a hole (which could be never)")

tl;dr

The train's back in motion bby!

I've begun messing around with the map of Boxstation to adapt it to three floors, because I figured that the best environment to test multipe z-levels in is a map players are familiar with.

The station that you are all familiar with will be on Z-2. The Bridge, Conference Room and Captain's Quarters are in their old locations, but on Z-3 instead, with big windows overlooking on the Central Primary Hallway below them. This frees up a tremendous amount of space in the center of the Central Primary Hallway on Z-2.

I haven't modified Maintenance or Engineering yet, but the plan is to move both of them to Z-1 and have a big sprawling Maintenance network on this Z-level that stretches to all the other departments. I'm not sure yet about what to do with Maintenance on Z-2, but it might be more fun to just leave it as it is and effectively triple the amount of Maintenance the station has. Maintenance on Z-3 likely won't be very big, you can think of Z-3 as containing "towers" sticking out of the station.

See through now reaches through 2 levels (as I said it would), a special spooky white crate will be your guide for seeing that.
Any levels above 3 and it's just pitch black.

As you can see, jetpacks and not-falling-through floors also works (all the junk at the bottom fell down 2 floors from the recreation "set" for the russian screenshot)

There's now a more formal concept of "Zpairs", this means explosions and sound can be added easily now too.

Please let us have falling damage from gravity objects. I want to dunk a passing greyshirt by pushing a vending machine on him

cedarbridge wrote:Please let us have falling damage from gravity objects. I want to dunk a passing greyshirt by pushing a vending machine on him

planned yes, with pianos instagibbing people because 1. rare 2. cartoons.

The visuals of gases now work through zs (the gases themselves don't yet, however)

Yeah space travel is weird with this, maybe if you're in space you get buttons to move up and down and can only use them if you're against a dense object you can climb that has another dense object above/below it or you have a jetpack

Also will you be able to look up to see holes above you?

Edit disregard this didn't notice the new page

Steelpoint wrote:I have a question, though it might be getting ahead.

Will it be possible for someone, if there is no gravity, to move up or down a z-level on a open air tile?

I was thinking of the possibility of designing a brig where the Warden's office is on a z-level above the brig cells, so the Warden has a permanent view of all the cells below him. However I found the question of if the prisioners could float up and out of the cells to be one of concern.

(This will also affect space movement, hard enough to track someone in space let alone if they go up or down a z-level)

Also, do you intend to examine the idea of allowing someone to 'look up' and see a z-level up to a degree?

Just have catwalks over the warden's area, or something.

>finally a use for reinforced floors
>rcd buff

its time

ITS TIME

glass flooring when?

Doctor Pork wrote:>finally a use for reinforced floors
>rcd buff

its time

ITS TIME

There was already a use for rfloors. You make burn chambers and grenade test ranges with them.

R6 siege when?

>Antags fortify an area and make a shitton of walls and airlocks between them and everyone else
>Go shanghai the chemist into making thermite for you
>Breach from the floor above, toss a flashbang down
T A C T I C A L
A
C
T
I
C
A
L

after this is done I want to try to code grappling hooks you can throw up or down holes to climb them

PKPenguin321 wrote:after this is done I want to try to code grappling hooks you can throw up or down holes to climb them

Stepladders.
Tablecrafted cable harnesses with a x% chance of failure and you breaking all your bones.
Jetpacks should be able to drop down/go up zlevels so ops can tactical breach.

A few questions for the hell of it.

How hard would it be to toss items between z-levels?
Would certain weights be impossible?

Would we need to start reinforcing areas with a harder to break top and bottom layer?
Brig and captain's office for example.

Would flashbangs hit through z-levels?

Even though blob is removed, how would this effect them?
Just planting a bomb under them would be an instant win.

Would we start putting in pipes that go between z-levels so we could have monkeys and such be even more of a menace?
Would they be attached to the ceiling and they would simply drop down with no way back in?
Would they be able to get back in if they were on a table or a chair?

Would explosives lose a bit of power going between z-levels?
A low tier bomb hits the bottom z-level and has enough force to blast to the top, would it hit it with full force or pitter out?

With the x-ray gene and heat goggles, could you toggle your up and down view to check above and below you or would you constantly see everyone above and below you?

Would space faring mobs like space carp be aggro between z-levels?

Would wizards be able to jaunt and blink between z-levels?

One Seven One wrote: How hard would it be to toss items between z-levels?
Would certain weights be impossible?

this is already in, thrown items or things without gravity don't fall, but anything else will fall (including the thrown item if it comes to a stop over a hole)

One Seven One wrote: Would we need to start reinforcing areas with a harder to break top and bottom layer?
Brig and captain's office for example.

Depends, the only way UP into an area would be bombs, though going down you could dismantle things, yes

One Seven One wrote: Would flashbangs hit through z-levels?

No.

One Seven One wrote: Even though blob is removed, how would this effect them?
Just planting a bomb under them would be an instant win.

Buff blob to have its automatic shield blobs to also cover the zs around it, and increase automatic spread so that each z is appropriately covered

One Seven One wrote: Would we start putting in pipes that go between z-levels so we could have monkeys and such be even more of a menace?
Would they be attached to the ceiling and they would simply drop down with no way back in?
Would they be able to get back in if they were on a table or a chair?

- Yes.
- Would what be attached to the ceiling?
- You mean standing on a table to climb up to the next level? Potentially, hadn't thought about it, only ways to transition levels at the moment are: grabbing railings (todo: add railings), ladders, stairs and jetpacks, with things like xenos being able to leap up/down planned, maybe jump boots or something also.

One Seven One wrote: Would explosives lose a bit of power going between z-levels?
A low tier bomb hits the bottom z-level and has enough force to blast to the top, would it hit it with full force or pitter out?

Other codebases do multi z bombs as being weaker on all zs that are not the original one, the way it works is the explosion force would be reduced the further out you go in Zs (so 30 at middle z, maybe 20 at 1 z out, 10 at 2 out, etc. in both directions)

One Seven One wrote: With the x-ray gene and heat goggles, could you toggle your up and down view to check above and below you or would you constantly see everyone above and below you?

You would have to move your head up and down, meson/xray vision is going to be locked to your eye's current Z, it won't enhance between-z vision just because it's easier and cleaner to do so this way (otherwise there'd have to be a way to have temporary per-person zshadows, which is just going to be nasty and I won't even attempt it)

One Seven One wrote: Would space faring mobs like space carp be aggro between z-levels?

AI can get pretty costly as it is, for the beginning atleast AI will remain locked to their own Z, however things like space carp could just naturally bob up and down between zs, meaning they'd still get the chance to find you. I did notice a funny bug with SNPCs in that one was able to aggro me, and then when I moved Z levels it was attacking me through the floor, this is a bug with the heavily deprecated SNPC AI code however, so no worries.

One Seven One wrote: Would wizards be able to jaunt and blink between z-levels?

Well, wizards jaunt between areas don't they? multi z maps would have different departments on different levels, I think that's enough right? otherwise they can jaunt to a staircase or ladder.
Not ruling out more specific things however.

We defiently will need guard railings, unless we're going for a 'extreme' maintenance spelunking experience.

Now that I've looked over the Russian map, I'm very impressed with some of their floor sprites, and sprites in general. They add a lot of depth to their maintenance, which is hard to capture with our more limited sprites for maintenance.

Remie Richards wrote: this is already in, thrown items or things without gravity don't fall, but anything else will fall (including the thrown item if it comes to a stop over a hole)

Oh, I should have been more specific.
I was wondering if it was possible to throw thing up a z-level, with weights like heavy just being impossible.

Remie Richards wrote: - Would what be attached to the ceiling?
- You mean standing on a table to climb up to the next level? Potentially, hadn't thought about it, only ways to transition levels at the moment are: grabbing railings (todo: add railings), ladders, stairs and jetpacks, with things like xenos being able to leap up/down planned, maybe jump boots or something also.

I was wondering how people would tell ground and ceiling vents apart.
Would they just be a shadow that says 'There's a vent above you but you can't reach it' or something like that?

Maybe even letting someone with magboots walk up metal walls.
Just to give them a bit more of a reason to be stolen.

How would singulo work? Would it move between z-levels?

Also how the fug would space work with a multiple z-level station

I would imagine the sing would also affect several of the z-levels above and below it. Maybe lore wise it could be reworked to act as a spherical object that affects all z-levels, meaning irrespective of if your on the first of fourth level of a station its effects will be consistent no matter where you go.

Space travel would likely allow players to move up and down z-levels at will, it may require us to reexamine space movement and things like jetpacks for balancing purposes. Its impossible enough to track someone in space let alone if they can hide in the dark AND go up and down z-levels at will.

Not considered the sing much, unsure how to proceed, probably leave single-z for now.
Going up and down, in space or not, will be limited to ladders, stairs, jetpacks, etc. There'll probably be external ladders outside the station and stuff.

Just going to list some things left to do, chime in if you think I've missed anything:

• Atmos - Gas (Logically simple, Unsure in practice)
• Atmos - Pipes (Logically simple, Unsure in practice)
• Wiring (Logically simple, Unsure in practice)
• Sound (Easy change, just need to do it)
• Explosions (Easy change, just need to do it)

Well that solves that issue.

On that note Remie, on looking at the RusStation there are several ladders on the exterior of the station, so I assume that makes space z-level transitions viable.

I do think balance wise it would be easier to restrict the ability for people to move up z-levels outside of ladders/stairs/pipes. Falling down a z-level is much easier to balance.

Oh, in my spare time I've recreated the first level of Russtation. Its rough and unfinished but it does show a general idea of how the station would look like on /tg/, sprites and all.

You've put catwalks over floortiles? is this an attempt to simulate things?

I was going for as close of a 1:1 remake of the Rus station, and for a lot of their maint they have a plating+catwalk on areas near guard rails.

Edit: Here's a comparison to show case.

Could we make our own view() and range() procs so they include upper and lower floors at reduced range? It might solve many aoe-based inconsistencies.

yeah sure, sphere range or something.

As long as we're posting images...
What I like about this setup is that the Bridge now has a full 360° view of the Central Primary Hallway and that even though there are windows into the Captain's Quarters now, to smash through them you'd need to clib up to Z3 in the middle of the Central Primary Hallway. Although you could probably also use that maintenance tunnel directly under it to get in.

It's amazing how much of a difference that makes.

Here's a better image of Level 1 of russtation, and of the /tg/station version.

RusStation /tg/station version in progress.

Ricotez wrote:...

Are you gonna do this to the rest of box? Because that looks dope.

I like what Ricotez has done with the bridge, I just hope we can do more than just lift up areas onto a higher or lower ground but also take advantage of the new dimension to help redesign and expand current areas.

This will be more of a long term change, we'll see mappers make new changes over the course of many weeks and months to take advantage of this new system.

Here's a example of making the Warden able to better monitor prisioners. quickly done mind you. (Armoury would be a level up or something, I dunno this is just a mock up for a example).

(There would be flooring where there would be no cells to view)

Holy shit I've never wanted something so much. The idea of the warden office being a mesh floor over the prisoners below so he can watch/ shoot /tase the rowdy ones is excellent. Unless someone's smuggled wirecutters into the permabrig beforehand...

More like throwing tear gas grenades down.

As I said, its only a mock up to show the possibilities of this system. If I were to design such a brig I likely would not use the exact same design you see above.

Oh yeah can we shoot down?

Probbably not at the moment / any time soon but that would definitely be something to look forward to

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:Probbably not at the moment / any time soon but that would definitely be something to look forward to

Maybe tie it to the direction you're looking up/down/straight

cedarbridge wrote:

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:...

Maybe tie it to the direction you're looking up/down/straight

I think at least until this is properly implemented it should be more simple.

Also I just realized this means we could have proper chasms in Lavaland that aren't bottomless pits!

Could you potentially allow for digging up/downward in sand?

Dig up sand turf with a shovel to remove sand like normal, then take a pickaxe to it for an option to dig up/down. Trying to dig into a non-existent z-level should give a fluff message about the stone being too hard to pick through. It'd be pretty useful for stations like asteroid(rip) or what I'm currently working on to allow more expansion, or if whenever lavaland gets another level.

MMMiracles wrote:Could you potentially allow for digging up/downward in sand?

Dig up sand turf with a shovel to remove sand like normal, then take a pickaxe to it for an option to dig up/down. Trying to dig into a non-existent z-level should give a fluff message about the stone being too hard to pick through. It'd be pretty useful for stations like asteroid(rip) or what I'm currently working on to allow more expansion, or if whenever lavaland gets another level.

I mean... sure?
I'll probably add some kind of attackby_from_above, attackby_from_below procs that just default to attackby()/nothing, that people can work with.

MMMiracles wrote:Could you potentially allow for digging up/downward in sand?

Dig up sand turf with a shovel to remove sand like normal, then take a pickaxe to it for an option to dig up/down. Trying to dig into a non-existent z-level should give a fluff message about the stone being too hard to pick through. It'd be pretty useful for stations like asteroid(rip) or what I'm currently working on to allow more expansion, or if whenever lavaland gets another level.

pickaxe for sand, shovel for actually moving z-levels. Shovels are useless right now.

Oh hey, Eris. I made an edit of it's hud a few months ago for a project.

Looking down at the halls through the windows as captain sounds incredibly dope. This open up so many great possibilities for lavaland, too.



Are we gonna implement a jump button?

Atticat wrote:Looking down at the halls through the windows as captain sounds incredibly dope. This open up so many great possibilities for lavaland, too.

GHOST
TOWERS

Speaking of Lavaland, I had a idea for a partial remake of the Lavaland mining base if we get multi-z levels, create a sort of proper upper landing zone.