cogblap v0.98 | beta testing will be happening occasionally

[Cogwerks]

Here's a new revision of my huge dumb map proposal sketch.



HUGE 100% VIEW: 4MB WARNING
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/89619796/cogma ... embled.png

Delivery functions, assuming AMDLs are at the junctions and everything works
http://i.imgur.com/v9lTE.jpg

Specific new ideas for this sketch vs. last version:

• Furnace engine, described in one of my earlier suggestion threads.
  
• Hollow infrastructure core with a whole bunch of open-vacuum catwalks and crates flying around at high speed
  
• Combine Automated Mass Driver Loaders + blast doors to make a controllable, multi-path delivery system. AMDLs can shove items in a cardinal direction. If the stuff on the belt can't move that direction, it'll keep going straight instead. If my idea works as I expect it should, that big chunk in the middle of the station would let you fire crates from QM into the hub and direct them to the west, north, or east wings of the station. Engine waste can be fired from the south and take a direct route through to Disposals. Once in Disposals, materials on the belt can either be directly returned to QM, crushed and returned as scrap to QM (maybe to be sold / recycled?), of crushed and fired into deep space.
  
• Replace the old disposals crusher with a much more fun trash compactor. WHAM! Meatcube! Scrap cubes!
  
• Imagine directing the route so a screaming compacted meatcube-person comes slamming into the shipping and receiving dock at QM. Fun for everyone!
  
• Lock the clown in a crate and keep them going on a permanent loop through the driver network!
  
• If the Arrivals/EVA corridor gets bombed, crewmembers will have to use the airless catwalks and/or the mass driver relay to get between the northern and southern wings.
  
• Access docks at north, west, and south to accept little random-event shuttles, chinese food deliveries, escape pods full of bees, etc.

[Dachshundofdoom]

Okay, so this is frigging awesome. Seriously. I mean, holy shit, the mass driver delivery thing has so many ways to go beautifully wrong. I can already see the thrilling escapes/horrible failed escapes people could make with those things. The layout and idea are just awesome overall.

I would like to add, though, that considering the difficulty/time elapsed in getting from one tip of the Horseshoe/Tree/whatever to the other tip without having to either spacewalk on those support catwalks or launch yourself through the crate distribution network, perhaps space suits should be made slightly more available, or the emergency suit should be upgraded to let you move at full speed but still rip off after a few seconds.

I like the second idea if only because I like the idea of making a quick sprint through space, dodging crates and trash, all while on a time limit until your suit fails, just because you wanted to go from the engine to the Jazz Lounge quickly.

[Weavel]

Main thing I like is the Medical/Research arrangement; Genetics and Pathology sharing a monkey pen is fantastic and I can see it being hilarious, and Chemistry/Medbay contact is always great. I also quite like the Boxing ring being at the bar and the Botany dome being utterly miles away for seclusion.

My main beef is the sheer size of it; maybe it's just because of the lack of assets the rev4407 has that's making it look empty, but I have to say it looks utterly painful to move around at any reasonable speed. The sheer distance between both arms of the station would make contact between some branches basically non-existant.
One idea I think could fix this (bar just shrinking it) would be airbridges.

http://i.imgur.com/95fOs.jpg
The purple is representing a main hallway, with the blue-white as the airbridge. Shunt QM a little bit right and fiddle about with the Chapel/Janitor to squeeze them in, or just move the bridge down.
I'm saying this because I think 1. Airbridges are cool and criminally underused and 2. It'd cut time walking from place-to-place by quite a bit.

Just a few thoughts anyway.

[h3half]

I quite like it exactly the way it is, even without a surplus of space suits. It makes things more dangerous; one big horseshoe with the disposals launcher connecting the two tips. It would be very interesting to see how traitors manage to move from one area to another with security hot on their tail, as it would be very hard to turn around or "run laps" on this station.


cogmap horseshoe is far superior to Donut 2.1 or Shroom Station

[FrontlineAcrobat4]

/This map looks great, but I have a couple of suggestions.

1. The Northwest SMES should be crammed in the CE's Office instead of having an entire maintence tunnel just for it. Then, you could use the space to add the interrorgation room, solitray confinement, and the execution chamber.

2. Since the station is very large and a little disjointed, would it be possible to add teleporter pads in certain parts of the station, so the crew could go on one of them and teleport to another part?

3. If we would re-add Pathology into the game, shouldn't be connected to both research and medbay, or is there something new about it that has not been announced.

4. Also could we add a room in the bridge for Jones, the second cat, and George? We give them so much crap we should give them something.

[Cogwerks]

Wha? The CE's office is in Engineering, it's nowhere near the bridge. The Interrogation room already exists there between the brig and the detective's office. I didn't leave space for the solitary room because I don't think it adds to the game at all, getting locked in there sucks and it's not fun for anyone. If you want to execute a traitor, there are more interesting ways to do it elsewhere on the station... back when we had a gas chamber, it took up a lot of space and about a third of the time it just caused the whole brig to catch on fire.

I'm doing a bit more fiddling with things to bring the overall size down a bit, also replaced the hallway into the mainframe/upload area with an airbridge. Everyone loves airbridges, right?

[FrontlineAcrobat4]

Oh, I thought the empty room in the bridge was for the CE, I did not realize he had an office in Engineering.

[Cogwerks]

Haha, what a shitty office that would be. Nah, that empty room is just a little storage-murder area for bridge junk.

3. If we would re-add Pathology into the game, shouldn't be connected to both research and medbay, or is there something new about it that has not been announced.

I wrote a big pathology revamp proposal awhile ago, one of the key parts was rolling it into Medbay instead of Research. Make it more about identifying and curing randomized artifact/botany style diseases that might come up during the round from messes and exposure to weird stuff, less about sitting around watching timers count down for something you can never actually use unless you're a traitor.

p.s. f u all i added an airbridge

I quite like it exactly the way it is, even without a surplus of space suits. It makes things more dangerous; one big horseshoe with the disposals launcher connecting the two tips. It would be very interesting to see how traitors manage to move from one area to another with security hot on their tail, as it would be very hard to turn around or "run laps" on this station.


cogmap horseshoe is far superior to Donut 2.1 or Shroom Station

Thanks man! Yeah, that's pretty much exactly why I put the launcher system there. I didn't want to make another donut by having a corridor or airbridge there, I wanted something that's ~almost~ a donut but with zany danger involved in trying to take shortcuts across it.

It would definitely be harder to just keep running in circles all day long, but I think (hope?) the networks of maintenance tunnels would still help in escapes. Personally I kinda think it's more fun to get chased into a dead-end and then double-back in a panic rather than keep running in loops over and over.

edit:

Here's a quick trash compactor sprite, lined up with the shuttle engine heater machine to make it into a 3x1 machine.

[FrontlineAcrobat4]

yay trash compactor!

[Archenteron]

Those are awfully large and extensive solar arrays. Smaller ones would be nice so that they can only provide a stopgap measure before power outages. Other than that, an awesome new map idea.

[Winged_Chiller]

Those solars aren't that big. They look about the same and even if they are bigger, the station is significantly bigger and that's a lot of extra lights and lights consume insane amounts of power.

[Cogwerks]

Those are awfully large and extensive solar arrays. Smaller ones would be nice so that they can only provide a stopgap measure before power outages. Other than that, an awesome new map idea.

Good point, I just knocked off one of the rows on each side now and it looks a lot better.

[BillyMays]

Map looks great, the delivery system will be interesting.
Also a jazz lounge, YES.

[atomic1fire]

Perhaps you could change the maintainence room behind the Jury room into a room with a table and some chairs so the Jury can privately deliberate things.

Unless the courtroom sits unused like every other court room, it could be interesting to have half the crew arguing behind closed doors whether the clown is innocent of farting on the captain.

[Cogwerks]

Perhaps you could change the maintainence room behind the Jury room into a room with a table and some chairs so the Jury can privately deliberate things.

Unless the courtroom sits unused like every other court room, it could be interesting to have half the crew arguing behind closed doors whether the clown is innocent of farting on the captain.

I added a beepsky haus with its own route into sec below the Segway Garage and also made that maint room a little wider. I'm wary of putting in too many SERIOUS RP things though like a specific deliberation room, trials almost never happen and the few times they have, I have never ever seen the jury actually deliberate. I don't want to go the route of TG and have a billion rooms for every conceivable cool thing that nobody will ever actually do.