[Feature] Floor navigation guides

[twoski]

One thing that tgstation does exceptionally well is make it easy for newcomers to navigate the map simply by reading the directional signs on the map. They place them fairly liberally at hallway intersections and they generally guide you to the important hubs.

One thing we discussed on discord is that they have to align to the wall they are on, which means text-based signs would be a bad idea since nobody wants to crane their neck to read them and sometimes you just don't have enough south-facing walls to comfortably stick them on.

Icons were another discussion, but they also kind of suffer from being less readable when rotated.

So my attempt at simple readable signs were just colored floor strips that don't need to be placed on walls. I think they work very well without having to have any sort of icon or text that could potentially be muddled or hard to read.



Currently the floor guide object inherits from the tile edge objects. They merge with the floor and can't be right click inspected, which i'm not sure i like... On the one hand i like that they are destroyed when the underlying floor is destroyed, but players SHOULD be able to right click inspect them in case they aren't certain what the color is supposed to represent. 

Which is another point of discussion, what colors should represent what depts?

Some are obvious.

Blue -> Command
Red -> Sec
Green -> Botany
Yellow -> Engineering
Purple -> Sciences

Some are less obvious.

Blueish white -> Medbay
Orange -> Mining
Turquoise -> Evac
???? -> Quartermaster

I don't have a color for quartermaster. One could argue that QM deserves orange more than mining since mining isn't exactly a very sought-after department in terms of traffic. I think both departments deserve something. Maybe mining should be a dark brown and QM should be orange.

What does everyone think so far?


UPDATE:



Here's the pull request: https://github.com/goonstation/goonstati...6/pull/132

[The Grim Sleeper]

The idea of using colored line and colored arrows to guide people sounds excellent.

I don't quite 'instantly understand' the lines and arrows in the image. It took me some time to go "Where is evac? Evac's color is Turquoise, so the arrow that extends the Turquoise line is the direction to go, so go east."
Would it be possible to place an arrow, that can't be examined, on top of a department-colored line object?

On the colors: The ID-cards are colored 'green' for command and 'blue' for civilian locations, like chef, bar and botany.
Since the bridge has blue doors, a blue rug etc, I think it would be smart to update the ID-colors as well. But at least the ID should match the floor-lines.

[twoski]

I could make an arrow that sits on top of the colored thing but since you're typically chaining the colored strips together i figured it makes more sense to just place one arrow and then all the colors after it instead of stacking arrows on top of the colored strips nonstop

[Frank_Stein]

I tried to make something similar once
https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=10898

[twoski]

did you give up on em?

i feel like what i have is ALMOST where it needs to be. i think it needs icons but the icons need to be omni-directional or i need to just make the icon always face down no matter how the floor strip is oriented

easy ones:

medbay -> + sign, easy
engineering -> a wrench is not something that needs to face a certain direction.
botany -> a flower or leaf? hell if i know how to convey that as a small icon.
science -> an atom/molecule symbol. might be tough to squeeze in but i have room to expand these things a bit.
command -> a star would work fine

harder ones:

sec -> 4 shields forming an X, perhaps. or an eye? or a box with an x inside of it? if not omni-directional then a shield is fine.
evac -> 4 arrows pointing outwards from a center circle?
QM -> 4 lines in a row or something? if not omni-directional then maybe a briefcase?
mining -> mining pick i suppose would work but it would not be omni-directional.

some of these are a bit abstract so maybe i have to bite the bullet and make their icon always face downwards so players can always read them properly.

[Frank_Stein]

What I found to probably be the best way to go about it would be floor tiles that act as a compass. So maybe a circular icon with an indicator arrow pointing to the north, south, east or west

[twoski]

alright so i ended up doing 16x16 icons. this is perfect, takes up very small amount of room and i have an icon for each department (aside from like, bar and kitchen)



and even colorblind people can figure out what they mean.

DMI: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/4...guides.dmi

Code (goes in decals.dm):

Code:

/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide
    name = "navigation guide"
    desc = "A navigation guide to help people find the department they're looking for."
    icon = 'icons/obj/floorguides.dmi'
    icon_state = "endpiece_s"
        
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/security
    name = "Security Navigation Guide"
    desc = "The security department is in this direction."
    icon_state = "guide_sec"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/science
    name = "R&D Navigation Guide"
    desc = "The science department is in this direction."
    icon_state = "guide_sci"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/mining
    name = "Mining Navigation Guide"
    desc = "The mining department is in this direction."
    icon_state = "guide_mining"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/medbay
    name = "Medbay Navigation Guide"
    desc = "The medical department is in this direction."
    icon_state = "guide_medbay"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/evac
    name = "Evac Shuttle Navigation Guide"
    desc = "The evac shuttle bay is in this direction."
    icon_state = "guide_evac"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/engineering
    name = "Engineering Navigation Guide"
    desc = "The engineering department is in this direction."
    icon_state = "guide_engi"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/command
    name = "Bridge Navigation Guide"
    desc = "The station bridge is in this direction."
    icon_state = "guide_command"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/botany
    name = "Botany Navigation Guide"
    desc = "The botany department is in this direction."
    icon_state = "guide_botany"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/qm
    name = "QM Navigation Guide"
    desc = "The quartermaster is in this direction."
    icon_state = "guide_qm"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/arrow_e
    name = "Directional Navigation Guide"
    icon_state = "endpiece_e"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/arrow_w
    name = "Directional Navigation Guide"
    icon_state = "endpiece_w"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/arrow_n
    name = "Directional Navigation Guide"
    icon_state = "endpiece_n"
    
/obj/decal/tile_edge/floorguide/arrow_s
    name = "Directional Navigation Guide"
    icon_state = "endpiece_s"

[twoski]

I made a pull request: https://github.com/goonstation/goonstati...6/pull/132

[MrMagolor]

did you give up on em?

i feel like what i have is ALMOST where it needs to be. i think it needs icons but the icons need to be omni-directional or i need to just make the icon always face down no matter how the floor strip is oriented

easy ones:

medbay -> + sign, easy
engineering -> a wrench is not something that needs to face a certain direction.
botany -> a flower or leaf? hell if i know how to convey that as a small icon.
science -> an atom/molecule symbol. might be tough to squeeze in but i have room to expand these things a bit.
command -> a star would work fine

harder ones:

sec -> 4 shields forming an X, perhaps. or an eye? or a box with an x inside of it? if not omni-directional then a shield is fine.
evac -> 4 arrows pointing outwards from a center circle?
QM -> 4 lines in a row or something? if not omni-directional then maybe a briefcase?
mining -> mining pick i suppose would work but it would not be omni-directional.

some of these are a bit abstract so maybe i have to bite the bullet and make their icon always face downwards so players can always read them properly.

I think that having a beaker of some sort for science makes sense. Also, for QM, there could be a crate or a dollar sign.

[Nnystyxx]

I do like the idea of Sec's logo being an eye, gives you just the right amount of vaguely Orwellian paranoia

[twoski]

I tried an eye but it never quite looked good enough so i gave up on it and went with a shield.