Snow Based Terrestrial Event Map

[Tyrant]

help i cant stop designing maps
if mapping were not meant to be done by mortal man, it would not be so fun

Hello.

A lot of people would really like a snow map. Herb's thread covers most of the points for having a terrestrial map, and I really hope OldPotato's map gets finished. That said, this is my own proposal for one. Normally i would have not posted anything but i couldnt get it out of my head.

Consider the following: 3 habitation domes, connected by retractable air-bridges in a straight horizontal line. The central one is for the bridge and the civilian department, the west wing for engineering and cargo and mining, and the east wing for med-sci and such.

Now consider an optional bonus: it's multi-story, with a second floor which you can walk around. Sort of like a roof level. Would be primarily used as maints and/or staff common rooms for each department. 2 station z levels. Maintenance catwalks that run across the tops of the roofs as well, both internal and external ones. Goonstation doesn't have any multi z stations at present, probably due to the amount of bugginess they had when first implemented elsewhere, and while Gehenna sort of was meant to be that, progress on it is unlikely to continue in this codebase. So it would be interesting to try as a proof of concept.

The exterior? Snowy, with snow layers on the floor. High snow buildup would impede movement, but could be temporarily cleared by using shovels of some kind to form paths. Footsteps would form in the snow as more builds up. The air would be thin and icy, mainly nitrogen with extremely low oxygen content. Nothing as fast acting as hard vacuum or co2 atmosphere, but still something you'd need internals and winter gear for. It'd mainly be snowy grass/dirt outdoors, with some dead trees and bushes maybe, possibly an ice lake to slip on. And over time, all external surfaces would accumulate snow, making outside exterior traversal annoying but not impossible.

The mining level and debris field would still be accessible by taking a mining shuttle, or maybe a specialist shuttle to the space diner. No ice trench for you. Pods would still function, but they would get stuck in snow, incentivizing you to portal straight to the alternate z levels.

Engine would probably be a TEG. Might as well use the cold, right? Nuclear engine is another alternative option, but not a singularity.

This map most likely would not be for rotation, but for gimmick rounds, similarly to how wrestlemap and density2 and crash are used. It's a good setting for some kind of event where you have to fight off invaders of some kind, approaching through the snow.

Currently, this is all that exists for the idea. No actual code nor room placement drafts have occurred yet, and most of this was thought of in the course of a really long shower.

And to those who don't know me: I'm not just ideaguy-ing this and hoping someone else will make my awesome epic idea. I created Aetherion Station, even if it didn't get added (I learnt a lot from it, but like any artist, I now no longer like my previous work and could do it way better now), so I would be developing this myself if i get even a smidge of dev approval.

why didnt you put this in the mapping forum

well, imaginary naysayer, this subforum gets more visibility.

Anyway, let me know what you think! Now is the time to shoot it down if it's an awful idea, before I sink hundreds of hours into it. What kind of things do you want to see in a snow map? etc.


Have a good day

[Tyrant]

made a design doc which basically reiterates everything i typed out here. but it also has an image
https://hackmd.io/@Tyrant/Snowmap

[Ikea]

Layout looks really similar to samedi, which probably shouldn't be replicated. In short, samedi ran into issues to where since getting to other departments was a pain, people just didnt do it, not to mention leaving each department funneled everyone through a single chokepoint which messed with antags. I think the key design of seperating departments walking distance is cool in theory, but in practice it leaves a lot of undesired behavior because now you're spending a lot more time in transit. For some more specific problems, gonna just steal one of kubius's (maps creator) discord comments.

"some of the big problems with the map:
- medbay is extremely far from 3 of 5 asteroids
- bombing medbay also bombs arrivals often
- bombing arrivals means no alternate exit
- bombing the central juncture cripples all inter-asteroid navigation
- you can't get to mining unless you already have a spacesuit
- some stuff still copypasted"
- Kubius

[Dhaidburt]

Layout looks really similar to samedi, which probably shouldn't be replicated. In short, samedi ran into issues to where since getting to other departments was a pain, people just didnt do it, not to mention leaving each department funneled everyone through a single chokepoint which messed with antags. I think the key design of seperating departments walking distance is cool in theory, but in practice it leaves a lot of undesired behavior because now you're spending a lot more time in transit. For some more specific problems, gonna just steal one of kubius's (maps creator) discord comments.

"some of the big problems with the map:
- medbay is extremely far from 3 of 5 asteroids
- bombing medbay also bombs arrivals often
- bombing arrivals means no alternate exit
- bombing the central juncture cripples all inter-asteroid navigation
- you can't get to mining unless you already have a spacesuit
- some stuff still copypasted"
- Kubius

Fair point, if this was used as an event map you probably wouldn't want to go throwing bombs around in its current design. That'd limit what you could do since you wouldn't be able to garuntee turning someone antag wouldn't have them bolt for science to make bombs, or plasmaflood as an engineer, and call a real early shuttle.

As unrealistic as it would be to map, I think a triangle formation would be better. No need to run through the entire station to get to the engine fire as a doctor after all. It would also mean that losing any one dome wouldn't completely destroy your chances on reaching the other two. We could also put arrivals and escape in the center, meaning any extreme failures wouldn't prevent new people from joining or remove the idea of escape.

Side note, I hope that we can melt snow with flamethrowers and engineers would constantly build them to clear out massive amounts of snow blocking the air bridges. Beepsky would have a FIELD DAY!

[Frank_Stein]

Layout looks really similar to samedi, which probably shouldn't be replicated. In short, samedi ran into issues to where since getting to other departments was a pain, people just didnt do it, not to mention leaving each department funneled everyone through a single chokepoint which messed with antags. I think the key design of seperating departments walking distance is cool in theory, but in practice it leaves a lot of undesired behavior because now you're spending a lot more time in transit. For some more specific problems, gonna just steal one of kubius's (maps creator) discord comments.

"some of the big problems with the map:
- medbay is extremely far from 3 of 5 asteroids
- bombing medbay also bombs arrivals often
- bombing arrivals means no alternate exit
- bombing the central juncture cripples all inter-asteroid navigation
- you can't get to mining unless you already have a spacesuit
- some stuff still copypasted"
- Kubius

These are good points about having different areas separated by distance. It makes a lot of sense to keep all the players roughly in the same place.

I think you could keep the concept of needing to leave the main base, but that might be to go access some equipment or machinery, giving the anatag chances to try and create situations to separate a few people from the main group

[Tyrant]

I never played on or even saw samedi, so I didn't realise it was similar. I'll look into samedi more.

You all raise really good points about the disconnectedness. A triangle formation may be a much smarter idea (who doesn't love a crime hole?) so I'd definitely have to look into it. After all, mining would have to cross the WHOLE map to get to medbay, which is probably really bad. I'll add a triangle version to the design doc soon.

By the way, the graph in the design doc wasn't to scale, so the walking distance wouldnt be THAT long, but it's still definitely a bomb target. Still, it being a snow map does mean that loss of an airbridge isn't as much of a cutoff as it would be under an acid sea or in space. I think opportunities for parts of the station to secede or hunker down or be stolen isn't necessarily a bad thing though, and I do like the symmetry of having 3 totally round domes. Going off a straight line design, maybe medsci could be in the centre, with the civvie department and arrivals on the right, and escape near engineering? or swapped arrivals and escape, even. Obviously a triangle formation wouldn't have to worry about that.

Thanks for the feedback though!

Oh and I don't think I specified, but the map would be sized for highpop, as an event map. It should be functional as a rotation map in a pinch though, like wrestlemap is.

[Tyrant]

I've drawn up a rough design of what a triangular alternative design might look like.


Snow gardens, for context, would be like the owlrey but outdoors, and with penguins instead. Like a park, except you need internals to brave the cold and thin atmosphere.
The nodes sticking out of the domes are supposed to be like auxillary buildings, or in the north dome's case, a docking arm.
Wasn't sure what to do with them for engineering or medsci, though, so I just kind of left it vague. Arrivals could go on the medbay docking arm but it would make more sense to go on the civilian one? But it's also not good to have arrivals and escape right next to each other. Bit of a conundrum. Oh well.
Lemme know what you think!
Stuff is still up for reshuffling.

[Kotlol]

So the airbridges aren't retractable are they? Cause this game does NOT do diagionals well XD

[Tyrant]

They can always be coded custom

[Tyrant]

may begin work on it if there are no strong objections

[valtsu0]

I don't believe there is a way to make diagonals, much less diagonal airbridges, to not be super jank

There is a reason why there are only a handful of diagonals on all the maps combined, and those are mostly on low traffic areas (most notable is outer maints on nadir)

[babayetu83]

i had an idea like this once but the main gimmick was that each department was on a separate floor accessed via maintenance stairs and a maintenance elevator and a normal elevator. if the floor broke away via an explosion you could fall down the hole to a lower floor. if you got really unlucky you could fall from the top floor aaaaalllll the way down to the basement and die painfully

[Kotlol]

I have two types of station ideas myself.

A modular station.

A "terraforming" station on a large asteriod.

[valtsu0]

Here is 2 very quick suggestions with one larger and 2 smaller "domes" notably not featuring diagonals while trying to avoid the problems with the original shape. Of course these have their own problems like way too tiny sec in #2

[Tyrant]

Tentative newer design utilising 4 domes instead of 3. The interior of the domes is NOT the full thing, since other rooms will be slotted inside in and around. Still, let me know what you think.
Hackmd is https://hackmd.io/@Tyrant/Snowmap , hopefully that link works
   

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WHY IS IT SO SMALL
oh well clicking on it work