Suit Storage Units

[Ricotez]

Title update to reflect that this thread is now more of a general discussion about SSUs

The SSUs have always bothered me. They are snowflakey, clunky, and no other form of storage uses buttons like that (I'm not counting vending machines because they are vending machines). Space suits are the ONLY suits in the game stored like that, all other special environment suits are stored in lockers (L2, L3 or L4). It's a bit better than before, when SSUs were only found in EVA, but it still bothers me.

Two years ago I made concepts for "L1" lockers to fit into the L2, L3, L4 encoding scheme for environment suits. These concepts haven't been updated since and are not final, but here are two previews that I think I also posted back then:





I can finish these up (especially the V in EVA needs some modifying so it looks less like a U), make versions for all the different departments and suits, and modify the code and maps so all suits are stored in L1 lockers instead of SSUs. But I'm not gonna do that if I'm the only one who is bothered by them. So please tell me if you agree that space suits should be stored in lockers like all other suits, or if you prefer the SSUs now that they are found all throughout the station.

[CPTANT]

Nah, you can emag EVA lockers and fry people in them.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Nah, you can emag EVA lockers and fry people in them.

You only need a screwdriver for that

[Gun Hog]

Suit Storage Units are far more interesting than boring little lockers. The only thing I would change about them would be the sprite set and the ability to have an ID lock.

[DaemonBomb]

They add flavor.

[Anonmare]

Nah, one tactic I use as AI is to fry the space suits with the help of an engiborg or two to make syphons more dangerous.

[Scott]

I prefer the suit storage, but I wouldn't mind new sprites for them.

[Cheimon]

I think they're much more interesting and functional than lockers. UV frying of suits (and any bodies you can fit in there) has already been mentioned, but there are other things too, like the fact that whether or not the suit's inside is already graphically represented in game (whereas you have to open lockers to find that stuff out). The fact that you also can't drag the lockers away is a good thing for keeping suits in place, since it makes them harder to steal (they're too big to fit in your hand otherwise). Then you can have things like locking them and hacking them. I think, snowflakey as it might seem, it does provide a lot more fun than a typical locker experience.

Not that I hugely care, I mean, fuck it, it's only a space suit container. Do what you want.

[Saegrimr]

SSUs are better just BECAUSE they are stupid snowflakey pieces of shit. Plus its not like I can roast Stickymayhem in a locker while he blares Space Asshole.mp3 at me.

Fucking lockers EVERYWHERE.

[Ikarrus]

Nobody ever checks the storage compartment if the suit's already been taken.

It's perfect for hiding things.

[bandit]

Or people. I've hidden in the captain's office for fucking ages without being detected.

[Ricotez]

alright so general consensus right now is to keep the SSUs, so I'll invert my idea instead


what if ALL environment suits are stored in SSUs from now on? so also radsuits (L2), biosuits (L3) and bomb suits (L4)?

[Gun Hog]

alright so general consensus right now is to keep the SSUs, so I'll invert my idea instead


what if ALL environment suits are stored in SSUs from now on? so also radsuits (L2), biosuits (L3) and bomb suits (L4)?

I am fine with that. They just need more sprites.

[whodaloo]

spraking purely personally, i kinda like the divide where Obviously Space Worthy suits get the SSUs and the more normal esque-stuff just gets lockers.

although i guess if the new rad/bio/bomb suits got new sprites that were visually distinct it'd be aight

[Ricotez]

the SSU sprites need a serious overhaul anyway, instead of using layers there's a separate sprite for every possible combination of factors so you have a true fuckton of sprites for them

also they are SUPPOSED to be semitransparent so you can see from the outside if something is inside of them but it's practically impossible to see that in-game because the effect is so subtle, so if I redo their sprites I will probably get rid of that or make it a bit more obvious

[TechnoAlchemist]

alright so general consensus right now is to keep the SSUs, so I'll invert my idea instead


what if ALL environment suits are stored in SSUs from now on? so also radsuits (L2), biosuits (L3) and bomb suits (L4)?

Only issue with this is that you can't walk through /move an ssu like an open locker. Might cause some space/remodeling issues.

[firecage]

So.

L1 = Space Suits.
L3 = Bio Suits
L4 = Bomb Suits

But WHAT the fuck is L2 then?

[whodaloo]

l2 is radsuits, read the topic dummy

[Ricotez]

what level would firesuits be though? according to the announcements, level 5 is blob (alien lifeform?) and 7 is viral outbreak (no idea why this is not just 3), so would that make fires level 6? what does a level 5 suit even look like if it's supposed to protect you from blobs? maybe my guess on level 1 was wrong and that's actually fire?

I am starting to think there are no answers, just generations of coders who all had different ideas on how to make this classification system work

[Wyzack]

That would make sense that firesuits be level 1, simply because the threat system seems to have some vague danger ranking. Fire is certainly less threatening than deadly virii, radiation or bombs. I think that maybe EVA suits do not even rank on this scale. I certainly never assumed they did until you brought it up in this thread

[Ricotez]

it has been 2 years but I think my original idea was that, in space, hard vacuum is the big background danger, the secondary threat that always lurks around the corner in every other situation, and would therefore be classified as level 1

[whodaloo]

yeah see thats why i'm a fan of EVA suit storage being special snowflakey, because the vacuum of space is the Big Bad and all the others are small potatoes, at least looking at it from the viewpoint of the station designers

if i were gonna overhaul equipment lockers what i'd do is anchor them to the ground and make it so instead of just being a normal locker you make it more like a SSU where there's a predefined slot where the head protection and the exosuit sections go.

[LiamLime]

what level would firesuits be though? according to the announcements, level 5 is blob (alien lifeform?) and 7 is viral outbreak (no idea why this is not just 3), so would that make fires level 6? what does a level 5 suit even look like if it's supposed to protect you from blobs? maybe my guess on level 1 was wrong and that's actually fire?

I am starting to think there are no answers, just generations of coders who all had different ideas on how to make this classification system work

There is no correlation between suit level and the alerts. Before radsuits were added,, there was only L3 (biosuit), which is likely some sort of reference - everything tends to be. L2 was then added when radiation suits were created. Much later L4 was added with bomb suits. I'm also not sure if the L stands for level, might just be an arbitrary classification or ID, or maybe some of the pre-tgs devs wanted to have multiple types of biosuits, but only ever added L3. Shrug.

[Cheimon]

I guess the really big advantage of not having space suits in lockers is that they aren't dragged away in the event of a hull breach, so they're still useful and possible to get to.

Not sure the others need that, though.

[Ricotez]

the arguments in this thread so far have been really compelling, so I will definitely not be removing the SSUs

instead I want to do something about their clunkiness, but primarily about their sprites. SSU sprites are some of the prettiest sprites in the game, but IMO they don't really fit in with the rest of the game for that reason.

also im trying to have the suit that you store in the SSU actually show up on its sprite (using the item_state icon that the game also uses to render the suit on your body) but the SSU sprites are actually a bit too small for that so i have to figure out how to do that one