Map Idea: Salvage "Station"

[atomic1fire]

keeping in mind the fact that the station is made out of salvaged parts, maybe the various departments could be a hodgepodge of designs and parts from other stations and locations. For instance a repurposed bee hive is now botany.. Not because they planned on it, but because a group of friendly bees started nesting and coated a spare warehouse with a honeycomb.

[ZeWaka]

[Frank_Stein]

Yeah, the way I'd go about designing this is to design each section independently, damage it, repair it, damage it again, then haphazardly connect them to the other segments

[Drago156]

Yeah, the way I'd go about designing this is to design each section independently, damage it, repair it, damage it again, then haphazardly connect them to the other segments

and then probably throw some maint tunnels with holes and dangers around the outside of the different segments connecting

[Gannets]

What a great image.

[amaranthineApocalypse]

Holy fuck, yes

[Drago156]

with that image, there's no mining, mechanic lab thing, pod bay, or science (unless science is one long hallway that blocks off hydroponics?), and medical doesn't seem to have the designated areas for pathology and genetics

that's all I can really notice in terms of missing stuff right now

otherwise I think that looks pretty cool for design

[Frank_Stein]

Idea regarding mining: litter the station z level with additional wrecked ships that aren't a part of salvage station. Instead of mining for supplies, you rummage through the debris to find useful materials, or use tool and you pod to dismantle wrecks for salvage

[Mageziya]

One thing I will caution: remember that this concept is basically "how can we build the most terrible map that the station has ever seen."

Once the novelty wears off it could easily shift from "engaging and terrifying" to "endlessly frustrating".

A middle ground of sorts needs to be found.

[Sitoutumaton]

I'm liking the idea, but as Mageziya said, there are lot of cons too with this design.


I DIG

• Dangerous station - crew is not longer sole source of danger. Might foster cooperation.
  
• Novelty of chaotic design.
  
• Cobbled together appearance and empty spaces can be converted and improved by an enterprising crew.
  
• Lots places to hide from security and hide shit in.
  

NAH

• Novelty can wear off.
  
• Chaotic design with no clear junctions isolates crew.
  
• Limiting stockpiles and dispenser output can make roles reliant on them obsolete and unpopular.
  
• How prone are arrivals and main hallways to depressurization?
  

[Frank_Stein]

[*]How prone are arrivals and main hallways to depressurization?

I'm thinking, you handle hallways by not really enforcing them against depressurization, but having a lot of alternate junctions that can be used when main ones go down.

Personally, I think the main areas shouldn't be too crazy with their design, since it's a salvaged ship. It would make sense to keep the interiors of those things navigable, even if certain rooms were damaged and exposed to space.

Where you get labyrinthine is the way they're connected. Start with a main direct route from each wreck to it's neighboring wrecks. Then add ways to bypass having to go through wrecks you don't need anything from to get to the ones you do. Then damage some of those routes and add some work around's the damage and you've got a hellish tunnel network aka The Changelings playground.

Your Department should be relatively safe. It's having to travel between departments where all the danger should happen, and the limited supplies should be what necessitates that travel to occur.

[Lady Birb]

• Limiting stockpiles and dispenser output can make roles reliant on them obsolete and unpopular.
  
• How prone are arrivals and main hallways to depressurization?
  

I have some answers to these two, at least.

• I never intended for it to imply there would be no things like chem dispensers. You would still get chem dispensers and nanomed vendors, just you would have less of them, so scientists need to take turns, and medbay would actually need to think about how many items they are using up.
  
• Hallways would actually be pretty damn resistant to depressurization. The makeshift, fragile tunnels will be limited to maintenance, and the hallways will primarily be civilian ships and transport shuttles welded together, which means lots of airlocks and bulkheads. A bomb would rarely be able to depressurize more than one area.
  

As Frank_Stein said, while individual departments would be cramped, they would be rather easy to navigate. The real maze is moving between departments, and the scarcity of resources is what forces you to move.

Maybe if having the station be a complete maze is too harsh, we could have a occasional painted-on signs pointing in the general direction of the different departments throughout the hallways, making it easier to figure out where to go.

[Frank_Stein]

Maybe if having the station be a complete maze is too harsh, we could have a occasional painted-on signs pointing in the general direction of the different departments throughout the hallways, making it easier to figure out where to go.

Using the in-game crayons and markers to make guiding arrows to the quickest way around would be great.

Not only because it matches the theme of them haphazardly putting things together and marking directions as they go, it opens it up to people removing those directions or tampering with them to misdirect people