Map im working on: CROSSTATION

[Rilor]

Its probably not good, though it follow some basic design things i wanted to accomplish.
1. (hopefully) intuitive to navigate.
2. Areas are close to the areas they need to access: botany is close to chef and cargo, cargo is close to mining and botany, medbay is easy to find, cloning is easy to bring people to, sec is in a central-ish location.
3. Not donut shaped. (theres enough donut shaped maps.)
4. (Kinda) work around the problems cause by the station being cross shaped rather than donut shaped (or something more complicated) for example: science has a transport pipe that leads from research to escape as scientists don't get main access, everyone else has maint access or is above the central target area, except the chapel and barber shop (design oversight that i will ignore because at most that's about two people)
5. try to do some odd design choices that are probably bad ideas like a room that gives people who were perma-brigged a chance to escape, and a sort of quasi comedy department.

Please give feedback on what i have so far

[Carbadox]

I think this might have alot of potentional. Simple overall map design so it'll be very easy to learn. If you could, use Paint to add some text to each area so that people know what it is/is supposed to be, since alot of rooms are pretty bare and its hard to make out.

My general critisism is that too much of the map is very orderly and next to each other. For example, the arcade just has Robustris machine, the arcade cabinet, and sleepers next to each other which is too plain. Try to shake it up and move stuff around, not just the arcade but other areas as well like the Janitors office. There's alot of beauty in symmterical but also asymmterical lay outs. Try it out.

You have alot of space and I like having lots of space to move around in butI'm not sure you're gonna be able to make use of all of it. Don't be afraid to resize the outside perimeter of the station as well as the rooms to make it smaller and more compact.

Where is Arrivals and where's Escape? By the looks of it, there seems to be to place the cyrogenics unit for late joining next to Escape? It's best if the two are as far away from each other to avoid people who just joined getting immediately killed by antag shenangens going on at Escape. Also, what I think is Escape is huge and way too big IMO. I'd cut it down severely and partition the Escape wing corridors into peices so that one hole doesnt just depressurise the whole place.

The bridge and courtroom are also bigger than they need to be IMO. Cut their size down and give to to Security. It's way too tight as it is. The brig seems very very off. I'm assuming that's hidden walls in the bathroom and solitary confinement cells, in which case the mechanical toolbox, multitool, zip gun and general manufactor was immediately a huge no. There's a difference in giving the brig a point of weakness and just giving prisoners the necceary items to escape.

Add a maintance tunnel around the perimeter of Security as a buffer zone from the other areas. Other wise, it just makes breaking into Sec way too easy.

Move the brig down so that the general population area is on a corners in the centre. Having the TeleScience teleporter in the centre of the map, which is bound to be a high traffice area, is extremely risky, as invalid coordinates can release fireballs, hostile mobs and other dangers. I would bury it deeper into research where it isnt as much of a risk.

I like botany alot, in the image attached I'd added some possible window placements to make it prettier. Also, I think adding a 2x2 table in the kitchen instead of a 3x1 would be better for symmetry and gameplay. Moving the ValuChimp vendor into the freezer would give more space to move in the kitchen and let you utilise the free space in the freezer. I'd also replace the tables at the bottom with the freezer crates that certain maps have, the ones that store ice cream cones, fish and similar. Remember to add an air conditioning system to the freezer, the maintance tunnel outside looks like the perfect spot for it.

The ValuChimp vendor next to the paint machine is doesnt seem right to me. I know it's supposed to be so that the clown will probably get to mess around and do funny stuff with monkeys but more often than not, people just use it to empty it and fill the room with monkeys. I think it'd be better off removed from there.

Chemistry is nice but again, too big IMO. Bring it all closer together.

Chaplains office too really long as well. I'd say cut it in half and move some of it more into the direction of morgue and make the left over space where the main hallway is into an emergency tool storage.

That's about the best feedback I can give since it's still very early in the works. Like I said tho, I think this has alot of potential so keep working on it, I think it can be something really good.

Forgot to link the minor edits I drew on the map
https://imgur.com/a/b2LL1fG

[Frank_Stein]

General tip I'd say, make your center area big. Like, really big, since it's going to be your main junction.

Look into incorporating some loops that feed back intoyour 4 main hallways, kinda like a clover design

[Rilor]

Latest pic of cross station, Now with cargo done and comedy sub-department with "borrowed" carpets to make it look nicer, secret in chapel (book probably going to be replaced, not sure what it is but i think it might be secret and somewhere else) and cryo is not where it was, havent figured out a new area yet but whatever.
To do list:
-find out if people like the increased disorder in janitors office to see if i need to increase or decrease it
-need to shrink some more areas. (mostly bridge and gym)
-Find a new area for cryo
-Get more space in sec and use it to create a sort of second wall around it without creating 4x4 wall chunks because I think those look awful
-add the freezers, and the air conditioner (eventually because atmos and atmos pipes scare me)
-Figure out if the book in the not-so-secret office is a good idea.
-figure out how to make cargo better
-fill in medical, rest of engineering, rest of research, detectives office, AI upload, and make crew quarters better


Carbadox, incorporated most of your suggestions as they seem like good ideas, also that was not the barmans office that was the mime cubby, because there are plans to make the mime a normal job rather than latejoin and might as well pre-emptivly add an room for them. But since you pointed it out i realized that the barman usually has an office so i added one

Frank_stien not sure how to implement the loops idea, and also not sure how i can make the central area larger without basically moving every part of the map without making the central hallways even wider

[Sord213]

I like the map, layout is nice and clear. Would probably be easy to learn and remember where everything is.

Couple suggestions/concerns I have:
Public access maint. Right now I don't see any way for, say, a staff assistant to access maint. There's the one access up near escape but other than that, if you walked into maint you'd be stuck until you do a full loop. Imagine right now, you're a staff assistant running from security. You run down the hall and want to escape into maintenance. To get into maint you'd have to run all the way to escape or one of the crew quarters areas and enter maint there. From there you only have one or two places to go, you can't bolt out a door back into the halls.

Loooooooots of deadspace. You'd going to have a fun time filling up the large open spaces with stuff. Bridge, research, medbay, escape. All of those areas have a LOT of open space that will feel strange. Escape especially. I'm not sure why you have it that large unless you're planning on having a custom escape shuttle. Most of the normal shuttles are quite narrow. Plus there's a ton of open space below the dock. Having room for multiple coworkers is nice, having to physically run across the room to ask them a question isn't as nice.

Use more glass doors. This is a very personal liking of mine, but I love having glass airlocks on public facing hallways so you can see into departments. Places like the brig could also use glass airlocks. You want to be able to see into the cells so you don't have to open the door.

Similarly with glass airlocks, windows. I love stations where you can actually see into departments. Add in blinds if they want privacy.

[Rilor]

yeah other than the bar and a couple other areas, there isnt much maint access, ill add a bit more

Yeah ill decrease the space in several of these areas. as for why escape is that large, Im not using a custom shuttle i Just A. dont know which shuttle im using, B. not exactly sure how wide they are though it wouldnt be hard to check.

Ill try to increase the amount of glass doors, though the ones for the brig are purposful as those are solitary cells, though once i figure out how blinds work i think ill replace it with a window that has one on by default.

[aft2001]

I know I push this too many times for new maps BUUUUUUT:

Have you considered AI Satellite? Or other satellite structures, such as research outposts or owleries! I'm personally just a fan of having my own cozy satellite when I play AI, but that's just me. Upload would still be on the station, of course.


As another point, I really enjoy how public the map feels - I presume all the main halls are public, and there's plenty of windows, so you get to see all the spacemen doing their spaceman things, like dying, instead of just hearing it from a distance!