Remaking Cog2's Engine Room

[tamakona]

Cog2 is pretty infamous for being pretty funky to work with. It's got a large pipe network that does wacky loops making it more difficult to repair, maintain, and upgrade compared to other maps.

On the other hand it's also kinda fun to have this kind of special challenge. I think even if maps had the same engine, it's a good idea to have some level of "flaw" that allows for every map to have an interesting problem to solve. Kondaru's poor insulation is an example.

Lately I've heard that Cog2 has been tipping a little bit into the area of being more trouble than it's worth, so this got me wondering. What would you change about Cog2 engine to make it better? What would you keep the same?

[Lefinch]

Cog2 has its solid fans which happens to include me, so I'm actually more on the side of "it's fine as is" but I'm not going to die on the hill of insisting the engine cabin can't be changed around if we get like 30 replies agreeing with you so I'll try and contribute. Even if I had to anecdotally and unscientifically pick an engine arrangement that people perhaps critique most though it would actually be Donut 2: SMES ring, Position of the singulo itself, the separated research outpost powersetup, though actually I like all of these things just to be contrarian.

Depending on how you feel about it, and I actually like it because I'm a "having variety between engine layouts is interesting" person: Co2's pipe layout is as you say very dispersed and unlike for example kondaru: you can't see everything going on from one position. So it would probably help people to have it condensed down a bit so more of the loop was visible from one position. That's quite a bit of mapwork though.



I don't know if it'd make a huge difference, but having some way to get in/out of the main chamber without being ignited by the hotloop when it leaks help so you can grab the firesuit?

Speaking of, would it help if the purge valves were not in there? It's where leaks tend to turn up most.

[TrickyWolfer]

I vouch for the removal of the pipes that went through the left-side alley. It's a chokepoint where most engineers die due to trying to fix a leaking pipe (and really quickly devolve to a plasmafire). If there's a design where the hotloop can be condensed and mushed into the TEG room (I know it's possible, at least 3-4 furnace could fit), i think it would not only reduce engineer's death, but also easier to tend overall.

Second, the cold loop can also be condensed. However, I'm sadly not map-savvy enough to understand how hard it would be to move the control room slightly to the right even more.

Here's a (very) rough estimate on what I would try to do. It looks pretty violent, but it is functional (I forgot to connect the north side with the control room, whoops)

[Lefinch]

Okay yeah, I see what you're picking up here. So going for a kondaru-style isolated engine cabin. Well you're not wrong: there's nothing that would stop that being possible, space isn't a premium. Without thinking too hard the new space could honestly be used either to relocate gas storage, or space for interesting/HPD testing/layouts, or move the engineer quarters into it and turn the engineer quarters into a misc space/construction room/something else.