Arrivals Shuttle

[peoplearestrange]

So for as long as I can remember arrivals has been a stationary shuttle. And of course that was partly due to shuttle limitations and also just ease.

But now we're quite far down the line in terms of stable shuttles and even "arrival" titles to show a shuttle is coming.

So why not have an arrivals area, maybe a dorms or another ship from which arrivals shuttle leaves from and then transits to SS13. This could help to avoid the whole "waiting in arrivals" shit that is frowned upon. It would stop arrivals being destroyed as a safe start point. It could also be linked to things like radiation storms stopping the shuttle docking during such deadly stations, holding it in "transit" space for a little bit.

It also add to a nice bit of immersion. The shuttle could be called back from the start point and "piloted" to arrivals dock via the bridge.


Any feedback/tips on making this work?

[Okand37]

I can imagine what fun it will be when people get spaced off the arrivals shuttle.

Besides that, there are a few things to consider:
Latejoin antagonists, what if they then just camp the room there, or mess with the shuttle? Obviously this has to be covered in policy, too, which isn't that big of a deal.
The aforementioned getting spaced off of the arrivals shuttle.
People will have a difficult time getting onto the station if the shuttle they take is depressurized and they have to take a ride on that, most likely resulting in a lot of deaths.
Arrival shuttle pingpong?
What if people send items back to the 'arrivals dock' on the other side? If someone with ethereal jaunt got back, wouldn't they be able to jaunt around to the rest of centcom (assuming its on z-level 2)

It could be fun, but I think theres just a lot less complexities without it.

[Steelpoint]

Interesting idea but I have to question how we'll balance the idea of a constantly arriving and department arrivals shuttle, and how such a mechanic will work.

Will the shuttle be regenerated every time it leaves the station z-level to repair any damage it sustained? How long will a newly arrived player have to wait for the arrival shuttle to depart if they start at the non-station dock? Will the shuttle be stuck on station forever if someone chose to not get off the shuttle?

The only way I can see this working is if the shuttle is constantly arriving and leaving the station at a regular interval, the shuttle is still immune to any form of damage, and anyone still on the shuttle when it arrives is automatically ejected if it leaves.

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One thing I can think off, to simulate "busy" activity, is to redesign the arrival shuttle to be much smaller, significantly so, and have multiple of these shuttles running at the same time, say three at a time, to guarantee that newly joined player will start on a incoming ship for that immersion factor.

Mock Up



The shuttle will automatically force out its occupants when it lands, unless it detects that there is no oxygen in the air or there is no surface to safely eject the occupant into, in that case the shuttle will not leave and instead dispense a shitty space suit to the occupant that will last for 60 seconds, giving the new arrival a chance to get out of the blown up arrivals but not to give the entire crew a bunch of free space suits.

The advantage of this system is that it minimizes the ability for abuse or griefing, however it removes the very wonderful arrival shuttle (though with this design it could be kept around somewhere).

[peoplearestrange]

I can imagine what fun it will be when people get spaced off the arrivals shuttle.

This would probably be the biggest issue... I guess door bolts? I dunno hard one.

Latejoin antagonists, what if they then just camp the room there, or mess with the shuttle? Obviously this has to be covered in policy, too, which isn't that big of a deal.
The aforementioned getting spaced off of the arrivals shuttle.

Well we technically have this "problem" already, people could just camp arrivals. Its already against the rules as far as I know.

People will have a difficult time getting onto the station if the shuttle they take is depressurized and they have to take a ride on that, most likely resulting in a lot of deaths.

Again this already can and does happen with the current arrivals, say a metor or singlo take out half the arrivals.
I suppose you could make it so it repressurises upon arrival at its home port?

Arrival shuttle pingpong?

This might be an issue, but a delay on the recall would be easy enough. Similar to the "train" on lifeweb.

Spoiler:

What if people send items back to the 'arrivals dock' on the other side? If someone with ethereal jaunt got back, wouldn't they be able to jaunt around to the rest of centcom (assuming its on z-level 2)

Sure, but the idea would be to make that z level kinda empty, no reason to want to go there. You can also restrict areas from thinks like jaunt, similar to central and also the wizards ship (you can jaunt around but not OUT of the ship).

[TrustyGun]

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/19178

Was attempted before. Oranges brought up some good points near the end. Personally I don't think it will work well.

[Steelpoint]

As my suggestion said if the shuttles are always in motion, and new players spawn in the incoming shuttle, then there's no concern about lack of player intuition.

[oranges]

BRUH, look at this dude

[peoplearestrange]

Well maybe we could use the starting area to our advantage for new players? Why not make like a mini tutorial area?
Surely signage could help lead people ("To SS13 shuttle" "To Tutorial area" "to bathrooms/changing rooms").

Maybe the arrival shuttle doesnt need to be one big ship? Maybe it could be smaller 1 or 2 man pods, of which up to 3 can arrive on station at once. And as 2 docks the 3rd one is automatically returned (if empty).

If someones willing to show me the basics of mapping I could have a go at making something.

[Cobby]

So in other words you join to wait until you can actually join the game?

If the shuttle transport is instant, it's just an overglorified arrivals area that you could have mapped onto the station with the added "bonus" of arrivals now being fair game because somehow moving your spawn point off zlevel but still having to pass through the same bottleneck is ok to be griffed since you had such emergent gameplay waiting to play the actual game :^)

If the shuttle transport is not instant and takes a noticable amount of time, you could easily get midround antagonist and not even be able to antagonize since the only place you can go to is the small spawn that forces you to assume everyone in there is not waiting like you and just joined. Assuming traitors are to improve the round, you just spent X/(usually <60) of the round trying to simply get into the actual game instead of being able to influence the round [aka the purpose of your special role].

I'm really not a big fan of this. If I want to "roleplay" in the sense of forcing me to sit in a location and talk to others, I can do that just as well in the bar and be able to join/leave as I please. If I want to "roleplay" in the sense of fulfilling the role, I now have to wait an extra X minutes to do so.

[Screemonster]

replace the arrivals shuttle with a fixed long-range teleport receiver or one-way gateway or something

for bonus points have half a dozen of them spread around the station so the sorts of people who camp in the corridor between arrivals and the rest of the station to ambush newcomers during rev rounds have no idea where the newcomers are gonna be arriving

[peoplearestrange]

*cough* oh look it happened :3

[Super Aggro Crag]

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