Deep maintenance Z level

[colossusqw]

A thing i've noticed with maintenance tunnels, especially within a lot of the smaller maps, is they tend to have this shallow feel to them, not in the content shallow sense, but in the sense that no matter where in maint you are, you are never more than a few steps away from a hallway. This, along with their often very prominent insularity(specific tunnels being wholy disconnected from one another) makes them somewhat underwhelming and really hostile to any sort of covert or seedy antics, which is kind of their point.

You can't really move from one maint to another unnoticed, and you are never really far from the brightly lit hallways and departments. Hopefully this image illustrates a bit of what i mean(things aren't really for scale or much resembling 1 to 1 any maints we have, but it should give a general idea of their insular and kind of limited nature):



My idea to add some variety and make the maintenance systems feel a bit more expansive without requiring major changes to station layouts is as follows: A "deep maintenance" layer, which can be accessed via ladders in regular maintenance, and works in a separate Z level which connects the individual insulary maint tunnels. Deep maintenance is dirtier, has no access to power or lights, and is generally in some degree of disrepair, but provides an eccelently risky and spooky way to traverse the station unnoticed.



This would not influcence much in the mechanics of regular maintenance tunnels, or require much in the way of rearanging layouts to turn into a reality, and there is precedent for it's functioning in the form of something like the Nadir connected diner. I personally see great potential in something like this to alleviate some of the cramped feeling in the maint tunnels of a station like Atlas, as well as providing more opportunities for intrigue.