/tg/Station 13

So a discussionon having a vent z-level turned into a maintenance z-level idea.

General ideas on maint z-level

So general things. Bombs could go through to maint z-level or a bomb could be detonated in maint-z level to damage the area above. This also means the potential to FALL through the floor to the maint z-level below.

APC's or perhaps fuseboxes could be placed to control power. Has its own atmos systemand power system because it would be a utter clusterfuck to code atmos and power nets through z-levels. Unless perhaps... Some sort of wireless power system using a SMES HUB that takes power from a smes above it or something. Perhaps Maint Z-level could have its own miniatmos with all the normal gases. If possible it would be interesting to have apcs in the underground maintenance but I think this would be hard to code.

I assume their would be stairwells strategically placed around the station. Also with the ability to fall through the z-level this has the potential to allow traitors to break into an area by climbing up from underneath perhaps having some way to cut a hole into the area above(But be really obvious like a animation of a welder being played for those around and a loud hissing noise.

Possibility for the captain or HoS to hit the purge button to clean out maintenance if infested with xeno scum or something or the other. Perhaps it would be a slow wave of chemicals or fire to allow escape. Perhaps the clean button only being usable once every 10 minutes if two keypads are swiped or something. This is so incase xeno's get in it could be cleared out.

We could keep the original band maintenance around the station as a "Meteor shield" or something or the other.

Nuke disc can enter this z-level if using stairs. Nuke ops pinpointer only points vertically up if in the z-level as to not allow the ops to easily just detonate a portion of the maint in an attempt to capture the captain.

Buildable ladders to place in holes to climb down or up from maint into station vice versa.

Also a note from Remie Richards on atmos and bombs

Remie Richards wrote:
Explosions on Z-levels is actually pretty simple.
Check the turf beneath/above the epicentre exists (if(locate(X,Y,Z+1)), call explode() on that new turf with about 2/3 of the strength of the initial blast (so it's a sort of donut/sphere explosion, since 3D)

Atmos is more annoying yeah, perhaps just allow it to share (when the gases in the turfs equalise, Atmo code calls it sharing) with the turf above/below it if there are vents or UP/DOWN pipes.

I actually said one of my goals this year (after the other stuff I'm doing) is to make a nice framework for 3D Interactions in SS13 (sort of like that weird old tri-dimension WIP stuff)
Stuff like setting space tiles with a non space tile beneath them show up as 0 alpha with an underlay of the turf below so you can *see* 3D

It is a wretched hive of scum and villainy the likes of which the station has never seen before.

Please suggest more ideas on how to make Maintenance Z-level more intersting

Layering the station on its Z axis is an immense project that literally adds a whole new dimension to map design. There's a reason so few codebases have maps that do this (and the implementation isn't that great from what I've seen).

A good way to start would be to look at what other servers have tried this, and figure out how/why they failed.

http://wiki.baystation12.net/index.php/Luna
http://www.baystation12.net/forums/view ... =20&t=9915

To be fair the idea is to simply create a underground z-level and not create a entirely new space station that is multilevelled.

I like the idea of a maintenance z-level, but I'm concerned that it really has no reason to exist aside from being a gimmick.

A underground vent layer would be cool, but that would be significantly more harder to pull of.

A underground ventilation z-level would nonetheless be a interesting idea.

It would require a redoing of our current atmo system possibly, if we can get pipes to transfer from one z-level to another we can have most airpipes use the vent z-level as well as possibly power lines. We could also leave a few vent access rooms around the station allowing Engineers to enter the vent system, though only Aliens/Monkeys can enter the vent system from actual vent's.

Steelpoint wrote:A underground ventilation z-level would nonetheless be a interesting idea.

It sounds like a god damn amazing idea. However i feel like it wouldnt work too well. What happens if you try to decon stuff in the maint z-level? Would it transfer you to the correct place in the station? or into the middle of space? What happens if a bomb detonates in the station z-level? Would the maint z-level be affected?

Imo the main z-level would just consist of running ventilation shafts, some being 2x1 others being 1x1 with a few small rooms inbetween as maintenance posts.

The vent walls would be resprited indestructible walls for balance and sanity purposes, or they'll lead directly to space if you break down the vent walls.

Also as Reime noted, transferring explosions from one z-level to another would not be too hard. Its just getting atmo to and fro.

In response to the atmos thing, again stealing learning from bay's attempts would be a good start. http://baystation12.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9401

Also goofball like halfway down

The more challenging issue is a simple gameplay one. Luna didn't work because it was confusing. People breaking in from above sounds cool but is a nightmare to display and not look silly and/or confusing. How do you show cracks or a hole in the ceiling without displaying the ceiling or looking like it's on the floor?

If this is literally just vents with absolutely minimal other features besides that, it could work. I'm talking no multi-z lighting, no deconstruction of the vent walls, no multi-z air processing, can't drag things in or out, sounds don't transfer from z to z, and no construction of additional entry or exit points, then yeah, it would be doable without a ton of work. All that stuff can be done later. At that point it would just be power, explosions, wire/pipe transfers, entry/exit, gravity gen, radios, and a whole mess of hardcoded tests for which z level you're on so rev-heads hiding in a vent don't cause the revolution to fail. Entry/exit is already done, I know there used to be a multi-z vent in the code, and APC's are trivial. Areas can be on multiple z levels and work just fine. Explosions are fairly simple, in theory, and the z tests need to be looked at anyway because I bet a lot of them are still if(z == 1) instead of using the defines.

So yeah if somebody is serious about this, it's completely doable, just do as little as possible.

also you need somebody to port this shit and then REMAP THE ENTIRE FUCKING STATION TO TAKE THE ADDITIONAL BALANCE CONCERNS OF THIS INTO ACCOUNT.
it's a cool idea but there's tons of issues, sadly.

And if you want interactive vent crawling, there's probably better ways to do that than a new Z-level.

How about putting the engine in the maintanance Z-Level to make it more usefull? Atmos as well perhaps if possible. And the current maintanance should be kept with the ladders in maintanance to get to a lower maintanance.

Having a vent system would be most ideal and amazing. In that case if you try to ventcrawl you go the the corresponding vent at the Vent Z-Level, meaning Aliums and the like have to actually move around in the Vent Z-Level to go to other areas?

On the mention of Multi Z sounds, just do my solution for Multi Z explosions (Find the turf below, do the exact same effect with 2/3 radius or in this case, 2/3 volume)

MisterPerson wrote:The more challenging issue is a simple gameplay one. Luna didn't work because it was confusing. People breaking in from above sounds cool but is a nightmare to display and not look silly and/or confusing. How do you show cracks or a hole in the ceiling without displaying the ceiling or looking like it's on the floor?

If this is literally just vents with absolutely minimal other features besides that, it could work. I'm talking no multi-z lighting, no deconstruction of the vent walls, no multi-z air processing, can't drag things in or out, sounds don't transfer from z to z, and no construction of additional entry or exit points, then yeah, it would be doable without a ton of work. All that stuff can be done later. At that point it would just be power, explosions, wire/pipe transfers, entry/exit, gravity gen, radios, and a whole mess of hardcoded tests for which z level you're on so rev-heads hiding in a vent don't cause the revolution to fail. Entry/exit is already done, I know there used to be a multi-z vent in the code, and APC's are trivial. Areas can be on multiple z levels and work just fine. Explosions are fairly simple, in theory, and the z tests need to be looked at anyway because I bet a lot of them are still if(z == 1) instead of using the defines.

So yeah if somebody is serious about this, it's completely doable, just do as little as possible.

Perhaps make the tile "Whitened up" to imply light is leaking through.

What about multi level sing movement? Will it eat the vent level too? Will the vent level become a safe area in the event of singulo release where the crew can take refuge like a tornado cellar in a trailer park?

Wyzack wrote:What about multi level sing movement? Will it eat the vent level too? Will the vent level become a safe area in the event of singulo release where the crew can take refuge like a tornado cellar in a trailer park?

Could just have a copycat singulo deleting turfs at 2/3rds the rate below

Its a very good idea but you will have to redesign the entire map, good luck with that.