Cogmap 2: *** UPDATE TO BYOND 509 ASAP ***

[Mageziya]

I get that the point of the PTL's location that it's supposed to be haphazard, dangerous, and therefore supposedly fun. The PTL's location just doesn't work right now, due to how it goes against this maps design of having multiple paths to places. I feel like the placing at the very edge of that section of the station would resolve most problems, despite being boring. That, or maybe install teleporters at the PTL crossing as part of the map, instead of crossing fingers and hoping that mechanics would install them every round.

[Sundance]

People are missing the big design thing with cogmap as a whole, it's separated into quadrants; command/sec, research/medical, personnel and engineering. This has potential for some effects (tolls, people claiming their quadrant as their own, etc) but the most obvious one would be damage control.
Issues such as these:

Engineering could have special walls and windows that could straight up disallow heat transfer.

One thing that's bothering me a bit is engineering. I know that the layout was designed for the other engine, but with the current setup a hellburn is going to set EVERYTHING on fire rather than just the engine room.

Aren't very relevant. There doesn't need to be any special walls or doo-dads, as there's literal VACUUM separating engineering from other quadrants. If a fire breaks out in engineering, it will remain in engineering and wont spread to other departments unless someone has nefariously and maliciously designed it to be so. This makes fires a little less disastrous, but as a whole this is a very cool feature.

As far as the PTL goes, I do kinda agree that there could be some sort of bridge over the PTL beam could work, but this bridge is made of rods and can be cut with wirecutters. Something flimsy that would be better replaced by something mechanic orientated, but otherwise "just about works"

[Sundance]

Just a quick mash-up, as i'm heading out the door!
It's a little bridge going over the PTL. Just use the steps and catwalk sprites, they'd fit in perfectly! The is made of rods and can be snipped with wirecutters/ and otherwise damaged easily. It would be preferable to replace it with mechanics teleporters, as the metal grate bridge is so shit it's akin to taking a rickety wooden bridge across rapid water. Just ANOTHER thing that can be sabotaged, which is a good thing.

[Vitatroll]

Unless I'm crazy heat does pass space tiles. It just takes really really insane heat.

The main problem is the hot loop is close to the hallway. As it is now, just a regular fire from a hotloop leak will probably make that hallway too hot to walk without internals. The way the hotloop is and the fact that the combustion chamber is beside a maintenance tunnel which leads the the same hallway means a proper hellburn will probably make it impossible to pass without a firesuit. Lucky thing this hallway leads to medbay, I guess.

It is certainly better than the current setup because you can actually go around it, but it will likely make engineers even more hated and put far more pressure on new engineers to not fuck up even a little. I mean, engineering is already off my list of jobs to suggest to new people. If they run safe engines they get jeered at, if they experiment with the engine they get yelled at, and if they manage to hellburn they get cussed at. Poor guys.

[BaneOfGiygas]

Okay, so, there was recently an open test of Cogmap2 a few days back, and I was one of the ones that got to mosey around the place and get a feel for the area.

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, the major difference this map has is that everything's way bigger. This isn't necessarily a bad change, and everything being less cramped and tight-knit is appreciated in games with upwards of 50 players. However, the biggest change is that micromanaging the goings-on of the entire station is going to be MUCH more difficult, as travel time between departments has been significantly increased. This'll cause a few balancing things to be tweaked, mainly the matter of security and the AI having much more ground to cover, also mentioned in a previous post, and antagonists having a lot more room to work with. However, the crew does as well, and this will make rampaging around more difficult, as it's easy to lose a given target in this gargantuan station.

Another note is that the map is divvied up into multiple segments connected by airbridges and a maintenance tunnel or two. The increased airbridge count means that they're going to play a much bigger role in cutting off access to different parts of the station, and will likely introduce many more battles for turf control, which I definitely welcome.

The increased map size also gives a greater focus on communication, since gone are the days where you can jaunt from one end of the map to the other in about a minute. Planned meeting points and other such strategics will likely rise to greater prominence, as roaming around trying to find the person you want to meet in person is an exercise in futility.

The matter of station security will also be drastically changed. Given how huge the station is, antagonists will be able to slip under the radar and hide much, MUCH more easily, inadvertently buffing folks like changelings and particularly sneaky traitors. One-person security teams are going to have an absolutely hellish time catching antagonists, even with the help of the likes of the AI. The chutes definitely help this issue, but given how frequent a deficit of security officers can be, it should be considered.

On a more minor note, I love the changes made to the AI upload; the turret placement, the hub of computers, and the greatly enhanced exterior walling means that forcibly breaking into the AI's core or upload chambers is going to be made a lot more difficult, and those turrets are in a particularly nasty position for anyone who isn't able to disable them. The lack of an airbridge connecting to the upload, while it removes some of the AI's protection, also removes one of the most frustrating things people encounter when dealing with a rogue AI: The fact that, in addition to bolting all the doors shut, they retract the airbridge, restricting access to those who are able to get their hands on some space-travel gear and are also able to fend off any pods being driven to protect the area. It's great.

Also, the fact that none of the armory gear is inside of lockers anymore brings with it a whole slew of implications, mainly that it's gonna get broken into a LOT more often. However, the addition of a laser tripwire ensures that, unless proper care is taken, folks will know about any attempted armory break-ins, letting security try and rush to the scene in order to stop the thief. It's an interesting addition (well, removal is more like it) that makes armory raids possible for those who don't have an emag or the actual HoS's ID on them, and makes the HoS's job quite tougher.

All in all, I'm very excited for the new map, and it addresses a lot of the gripes I have with the current one. It'll make for much more complex and interesting rounds, I find, and that's always something I'm willing to get excited about.

[Frank_Stein]

One-person security teams are going to have an absolutely hellish time catching antagonists, even with the help of the likes of the AI. The chutes definitely help this issue, but given how frequent a deficit of security officers can be, it should be considered.

Segways should be made more available for this reason. Possibly also safer? Like, give em a slower low gear mode that doesn't cause you to get flung off, and a high gear mode that works how it does now.

[Sex_Robot]

I wrote a long post about this but I think it can be move sussinctly be summed up with "bye securit, hello grey tide"

[BaneOfGiygas]

I wrote a long post about this but I think it can be move sussinctly be summed up with "bye securit, hello grey tide"

Honestly, I'm not going to say that chaotic rounds are a bad thing, they're frequently some of the best rounds. But it should be manageable chaos, or at the very least chaos that you can feasibly keep track of. It's getting more and more uncommon to see security teams greater than about three people, and even rarer still to see a security team that actually communicates with one another as opposed to a bunch of officers who fuck off doing their own things individually.

Trying to micromanage the goings-on of the current station is difficult enough with a small security team, trying to micromanage the goings-on of THIS station seems outright impossible without something new being brought to the table. Frank_Stein's suggestion of making segways both more available and less absolutely useless (at least, for their intended purpose) would definitely be a step in the right direction, because the time between someone calling for security and security getting there is usually spent at the mercy of whoever's chasing after you. That time, while not non-existent, should not be very lengthy, lest security become completely neutered in their effectiveness.

[Ed Venture]

Here I was excited to play security on this station. Very worrisome indeed. I hope Cogwerks takes what BaneOfGiygas reported into consideration

[Vitatroll]

During the times I'm on, justice tends to be dealt out by either the HoS or some vigilante. Having more than a single secoff seems to be a rarity. I probably won't notice much of a difference. It honestly works well enough, though. During serious threats it's more communication between departments than 'let sec handle it'. Stealthy killers like lings or vamps are bad though, and will be a horror on cog2. Don't really know how to balance that.

On a side note, setting up pay teleporters will make me a killing as a mechanic. Wahoo!

[Sex_Robot]

Security is already a hit and miss job and often pretty thankless where failure means the victims will call you incompetent and success means the criminal resents you IRL. The shrunken size of security vs a larger map isn't just a case of coverage but also security's ability to look after each other. Security is not only a prime target for antags but also for the subsection of players who just want to be lolsowacky as possible and will try and disarm rush any sec member they see.

The current station meant that if sec was incapacitated, backup could be less than 12-15 seconds away. The isolative notion of the new station means that a venture greytider can shove over and rob a sec player blind like in the current station, but now he also has the time to throttle the sec player to death or space them.

Sec becomes infinitely more satisfying when it's organised, when Geoff Goldman or Sundance Freely emerge from their office and it is rare enough already, the new map even may counter that which will almost certainly lead to the withering of sec as a department as the people who play it a lot burn out entirely and the peripheral sec players who enjoy playing with the more experienced sec staff avoid it all together.

Although something tells me that to a subsection of the playerbase this would be the best thing to happen to ss13 in years.

[Sundance]

Hmm that is concerning alright. I had a small feeling the hugeness of the map would have an effect of dampening security efforts but the recent testbed and banes post put things into perspective.
There would definitely need to be some security improvements alright. Something that REALLY needs to be looked at lest sec becomes a shell just to be raided by people with all access. God knows that it's already half like that as is. Throwing suggestions out on the table in this thread would akin to posting in the traitor item superthread, i.e: Not considered. But fuck it, lets discuss it and i'll repost it in a thread when the map is live.

What security need in a big map is not better weaponry, but better intelligence. I'm not talking about if sec did their ABC's and ate their oatmeal, i'm talking about military intelligence, like tracking, analyzing and cracking subterfuge. Stuff like:

-Improved security cameras. None of the list crap. Making it work like AI camera in that you can control with via wasd/arrows would be a HUGE buff alone.
-Door tracking. Marq's first door tracking thing was good but also flawed in that it's interface was jarring and it created lag (afaik). Remove the "tracking" aspect and keep the interface simple: Just simply insert the door code and that's it. Perhaps hitting it a sec analyzer reveals door code aswell as screwdriving? This would mean sec could find out who was in a room and when.
-Bugs. Covert listening devices. Plant them on people, in places to feed into security channel or a mainframe.
-Improved forensic analysis. The buff to the forensic analyzer was great, but it would probably need an even bigger buff with the map. Let it work over distances.
-Perhaps the AI could get an improved tracking ability? He could "tag" a player which would essentially feed info into the AI's chatbox about the location of the player. This would mean the AI could essentially track two players at once.
-Sec could do with a lockdown function, similar to the bridge lockdown function. The armory should also have a lockdown function with two buttons, one outside the armory and one in the hos's office. This makes cracking the armory even harder, as you'd have to take out the APC or if there's DWAINE involved you could take down the tripwire aswell.
-Frank's idea of improving segways is A+. Also what might also be good is that the chutes in security checkpoints could be two-way, meaning that security could be deployed from center base to the checkpoints. High risk if there has been station damaged and they could be a target of sabotage, but it would be a buff anyway.

I know some of those suggestions probably comes of as hitler but y'know not everyone plays security. Infact most people voicing concern about security are the ONLY ones playing security frequently. Let that be known.

Freely

*scream

[BaneOfGiygas]

During the times I'm on, justice tends to be dealt out by either the HoS or some vigilante. Having more than a single secoff seems to be a rarity.

I'll be honest, this is most of the reason I don't really play HoS even though I recently got whitelisted for it. Being the sole representative of the entire security department is both immensely tense and is something that's happening a bit too often for my liking.

The increased size of the station is, as mentioned before, likely meant to accommodate the increased player count. But, as has been proven throughout the months, the number of average players across the year bobs up and down, and we're hitting a low point around now. On high-population rounds, with each department being filled with multiple active people, this station works wonders. But that's an ideal, and it's an ideal that rarely ever sees fruition.

The current station meant that if sec was incapacitated, backup could be less than 12-15 seconds away. The isolative notion of the new station means that a venture greytider can shove over and rob a sec player blind like in the current station, but now he also has the time to throttle the sec player to death or space them.

This is really important, and I've bolded isolative (even though that isn't a word) because it basically encapsulates all my concerns about the new map in one, polysyllabic package. The distance between players is going to be increased, and if projections about the player count don't match up to expectations, in-person interaction with other players is going to be really fucking difficult for all parties. It might be really difficult regardless, I don't know. The statement about changelings receiving a massive buff in power thanks to the increased map size is also very important. Discreet dealings are going to be made much easier in this map, which brings a mixed bag of different complications.

Also here is the part of the post where I was going to make security suggestions but Sundance basically took 90% of the words out of my mouth. However, allow me to give the remaining 10%:

-Improved security cameras. None of the list crap. Making it work like AI camera in that you can control with via wasd/arrows would be a HUGE buff alone.

I'd make a case for THAT to get an improvement, too. It's excusable on the current, much smaller map, but I'm envisioning myself trying to fiddle with that sort of system on this sort of map and I'm not seeing it going very well. Maybe just let the AI get an improved version while letting security get the AI's current method of camera navigation. Also, I don't know how possible picture-in-picture is, and it probably isn't, but something that lets you have a vague gist of your surroundings while your face is buried in the camera monitors would help with not getting blindsided by some random jerk who's throwing you out of an airlock.

[Sex_Robot]

I've bolded isolative (even though that isn't a word)

UR NOT MY DAD

Freely

*scream

Blame IOS spellcheck

Player communication is already hell and while it is a case of closing the gate after the horse has bolted, escaped to Malaysia, met a lady horse had two adorable horsebabbies upon which you track them down, capture one of the horsebabbies and then that one escapes as well. Maybe bigger isn't always better. I like playing Sec & Medical because they are the only 2 departments where interaction with other players is the core aspect of the job be it people coming to you begging to be healed, or you going to them to stop them forcefeeding the clown bath salts, they both involve interaction. Anything that detracts from that is a sad sad thing

[Ed Venture]

-Improved security cameras. None of the list crap. Making it work like AI camera in that you can control with via wasd/arrows would be a HUGE buff alone.
-Door tracking. Marq's first door tracking thing was good but also flawed in that it's interface was jarring and it created lag (afaik). Remove the "tracking" aspect and keep the interface simple: Just simply insert the door code and that's it. Perhaps hitting it a sec analyzer reveals door code aswell as screwdriving? This would mean sec could find out who was in a room and when.
-Bugs. Covert listening devices. Plant them on people, in places to feed into security channel or a mainframe.
-Improved forensic analysis. The buff to the forensic analyzer was great, but it would probably need an even bigger buff with the map. Let it work over distances.
-Perhaps the AI could get an improved tracking ability? He could "tag" a player which would essentially feed info into the AI's chatbox about the location of the player. This would mean the AI could essentially track two players at once.
-Sec could do with a lockdown function, similar to the bridge lockdown function. The armory should also have a lockdown function with two buttons, one outside the armory and one in the hos's office. This makes cracking the armory even harder, as you'd have to take out the APC or if there's DWAINE involved you could take down the tripwire aswell.
-Frank's idea of improving segways is A+. Also what might also be good is that the chutes in security checkpoints could be two-way, meaning that security could be deployed from center base to the checkpoints. High risk if there has been station damaged and they could be a target of sabotage, but it would be a buff anyway.

I know some of those suggestions probably comes of as hitler but y'know not everyone plays security. Infact most people voicing concern about security are the ONLY ones playing security frequently. Let that be known.

These are amazing ideas for security I really like the Security lockdown, that has to be my favorite. Sadly I missed the map test but I knew from the get-go that the size of the map was going to cause issues for security. I honestly feel like the map is too big, I mean for the past couple of months I've only seen the player count go to 40 to 50 players and it's been extremely rare for it to go to 50 let alone over 50 players. At the same time Cogmap 2 looks really well designed and I really regret messing the chance to test it, if only I knew testing happening in the first place I would have made time to participate. I'm sure Cogwerks will do his best to iron out the issues once he has enough feedback and even more so once the map is out.

Things to keep in mind with security

1. Security is finally starting to use teamwork, not to the extent I and other frequent security players have been trying to encourage but it's happening slowly
2. A fair amount still want to be a lone wolf.
3. Security is only truly effective when they can respond to things quickly, something that looks all most impossible looking at this map
4. A fair amount still patrol alone even when they know there is a well armed traitor or changeling afoot.

Other players have posted above their concerns about these maps and I based that short list over what I just read.

I would have more thoughts on the matter if I got to participate in the test as I have been dying to play security on CogMap2 since I pretty much stopped playing security on Cogmap1 cause the game has been extremely dull lately and security just feels like a job where I wait for things to happen most of the time.