Lower the time investment for gimmicks/things generally?

[TDHooligan]

This isn't a super specific suggestion, but I think that the current time to get real gimmicks built can be way too long right now. Doing stuff like construction can take a huge chunk of time out of the shift, especially if you've then got to create something on top of that. You enter a shift with the idea and by the time you're done with it in RP, you have the last ~15 minutes of the shift to do anything with it.

My experience is that hiring new players is just simply too big of a risk - if they aren't sure on how to do a couple things, me teaching and helping them is what I'd like to do, but the time investment with that often makes the entire gimmick unworthy of being done. 

As a result, to build a store beyond using 3 tables and a couple walls, I need someone I know to join the shift, already prepared with the idea, and the knowledge on how to do so. 

There's a swathe of things that could be made faster, either directly or through QoL changes. I just want to know:

Do you experience this? Is coder sentiment that things are 'good where it is' or 'fine, but could probably be improved'? What sort of things are too slow?

[Lord_earthfire]

I overall agree that we should find ways to enable faster gimmicks.

I love building stuff and done many gimmicks involving this. What i found was that very often space on our stations is too small for fast building.

What this means is, if i need to do anything beyond 3 tables and a wall, i need to construct (and pressurize) whole rooms. This means you need to take big measures to not space complete hallways, need air canister/grenades and waste a ton of materials with flooring. Most construction areas on station are completely spaced. And if they aren't, we got shit like donut 2 construction area decals that are just atrocious and need tedious cleaning.

And if some rooms are avaible, they are packed to the brim with items and machinery you need to get rid off. I love redecorating the bar when i roll bartender. The worst part are stuff nobody uses, like zoldorf, dart boards, slot machines and so on you 100% need a decon tool to remove. And worst, the party button that fucks over all lights you replaced with coloured variants you are unable to deconstruct. (Oh and yeah, the unmoveable owls and unremoveable plants in the owlery make that place on many maps unuseable)

And don't get me started on the amount of reinforced walls everywhere.

I think by now this is mostly a map design philosphy issue. Our maps are designed to concentrate the player density and keep walkways low. But this does not leave much empty, useable rooms for gimmicks and stores. the expansion of the public market on cogmap 1 does help, but the spaces for the actual markets are still too small.

This not only accounts for empty rooms. Departments are packed to the brim. I know many botanies that got only a few spaces for actual machinery and e.g. Kondaru botany is so packed you don't have two walkways if you try add any auxiliary machinery to it. Heck, i even run into space issues if i try to make more elaborate feeders on Donut 2.

There are a bit of things that try to make these processes faster, like the ABCU. But it always comes down that if i want to make a medium-sized project, i need to pull up the big guns and build whole rooms in space. Prefabs and the space diner exists at least but they are hardly visited and need aggressive advertising (many more visible stuff helped here, though!).

All in all, i would say we need just bigger stations and less packed departments. I would die for a few pressurized 6x6 empty rooms without much decals/machinery or unremoveable crap sprinkled in it a staffie has access to.

[According_tome]

Building stuff require huge time investment im all in for this.

[Chatauscours]

Would it be OK (or at least of somewhat help) if such rooms would be located off station (at least on certain maps)?

Thinking about stuff like Indigo for Kondaru, but maybe in a bit bigger and cleaner, and less depressurised.

[LeahTheTech]

We do have the ABCU, but it's a bit jank and could definitely be made a lot more user-friendly. If there's un-removable things on maps then they should be fixed, and it might also help to let you smash things like computers. Some construction stuff is necessarily slow because otherwise it tends to be used to grief (walls), not sure what else could be done to make it easier but I'm all for encouraging people to build things!

[Cal]

I agree, I think the ABCU could be made even more user friendly, maybe?

[Meggal Bozale]

Huge agree. Most big gimmicks I've ran and tried to run have lead no time to really do crew interaction (not like that happens much on 1 but STILL), since 99% of the time has to be spent making it or the shuttle's called by the time I'm done. But at the same time, that just ups the bar for gimmicks. Yeah, anyone can do [x], how about you do [y] which has now arose as viable since everything's easier now? Iunno. Hopefully that wouldn't be a problem.

[Lord_earthfire]

Would it be OK (or at least of somewhat help) if such rooms would be located off station (at least on certain maps)?

I'm explicitely talking about on-station. Off-station doesnt bring much because people dont come past them except they explicitely search for it. Even in maintenance it would be more than enough.

[colossusqw]

Honestly, I see the issue the opposite way. I remember old 2 hour rounds and the current pacing worked really well for them, you always had plenty of time to work on everything you needed for a gimmick, and then some to spare in letting people mess with it.

The amount of intricate and cool built things has plummeted quite a bit since the round duration change and IMO, it would not be a good idea to just speed up everything else since this is by far the fastest playing SS13 server already, and at least for me, someone that often struggles to keep up with things, sometimes leaves no time for slowing down and taking in the ambiance, or even just plan what I'm going to do on a round.

[Kotlol]

In my opinion... certain gimmicks just need to be sped up or stream lined.

Construction is one of them.. but insted of buffing and changing things like the ABCU.

We have things like room desginators and such. Just make underused tools have more use.
Add "Construction set crates" for QM so it can be sped up.

Make it streamlined but not easier.. or else people those gimmicks wil become frequent, losing their effort and spark.

[IPingu]

I would be all for this, ABCU in its current state is amazing and definitely underused. It allows you to copy entire rooms from machinery to floor sprites, with the blueprint being able to be used again and again in any round. Although it definitely could use a bit more polishing with its UI and give more visual identification for what it can and cannot copy, it currently seems to arbitrarily choose what machinery can and cannot be copied.

[Silent Majority]

"Build areas" could have a 20 percent faster build/remove speed?

[babayetu83]

it'd be cool if you could create and save templates for later use to cut down on build time

[TDHooligan]

i think the big issue with the ABCU is it requires you to have a room idea built and saved already, when most ideas are organically built during a shift. idk.