Deep maintenance Z level

[colossusqw]

A thing i've noticed with maintenance tunnels, especially within a lot of the smaller maps, is they tend to have this shallow feel to them, not in the content shallow sense, but in the sense that no matter where in maint you are, you are never more than a few steps away from a hallway. This, along with their often very prominent insularity(specific tunnels being wholy disconnected from one another) makes them somewhat underwhelming and really hostile to any sort of covert or seedy antics, which is kind of their point.

You can't really move from one maint to another unnoticed, and you are never really far from the brightly lit hallways and departments. Hopefully this image illustrates a bit of what i mean(things aren't really for scale or much resembling 1 to 1 any maints we have, but it should give a general idea of their insular and kind of limited nature):



My idea to add some variety and make the maintenance systems feel a bit more expansive without requiring major changes to station layouts is as follows: A "deep maintenance" layer, which can be accessed via ladders in regular maintenance, and works in a separate Z level which connects the individual insulary maint tunnels. Deep maintenance is dirtier, has no access to power or lights, and is generally in some degree of disrepair, but provides an eccelently risky and spooky way to traverse the station unnoticed.



This would not influcence much in the mechanics of regular maintenance tunnels, or require much in the way of rearanging layouts to turn into a reality, and there is precedent for it's functioning in the form of something like the Nadir connected diner. I personally see great potential in something like this to alleviate some of the cramped feeling in the maint tunnels of a station like Atlas, as well as providing more opportunities for intrigue.

[Grifflez]

Like some kind of 'Underdark' but space station 13.

I dig it. I hope someone codes it someday

[Carton]

Yeah I'd absolutely love this to be honest, it'd give the stations more depth (hehehe) and also give a better plave for antags to hide and prep for crimes. Plus, can you imagine hunting for a ling in the deep maints of the station? That sounds atmospheric and scary as fuck.

[Lefinch]

There are no rats underneath the station.

Though yeah like Grifflez says, I feel like the idea is great but the task to build a station-specific "station guts" underneath the station, with access points and some kind of interlinked (or not, maybe a sub-power system) power network, and then re-linking it with balanced access points of the station proper sounds like a real job. I don't know much this matters or not, but unless you link up the AI camera system with the guts you have a prime hiding spot that means you're probably putting an officer in the guts every shift. That might be good? That might suck? I'm not sure. Maybe you could balance it with not giving the AI cameras (because why would it be watching the innards of the station?) by having some kind of log for when people go -into- the guts (so you know badguy is probably in there, but not -where-, prime for ambushes while still maintaining a potential chase.

How do you handle station destruction? It's going to be a bit awkward when the canbomb goes off and the little gophers pop their heads out and realise it's all gone. Maybe there's a code thing here that makes that work, or maybe if an entrance is destroyed the exit from the guts just doesn't work (and now you're stuck floating in the remnants of the station. It feels a lot like there's loads of little weird questions like this that might have made the idea a challenge, but I do think it's a good idea.

[Azrun]

Neat idea! Do you have any thoughts on how the increase to the size of a given map shifts the currently intended player counts. This can give a lot of breathing room to antagonists but also fragment the player base in the round.

[DannyEatsCheese]

Good idea, Sounds horrifying to code. Would like to see it if possible though. +1

[Kotlol]

The concept is good. I always felt like on some maps maintance shafts were "USELESS"
Ooh this is a maintance shaft that leads to.. the next room I came from and loops around it and becomes a dead end...
WHY!?

[meaow589]

Oh like a trench but it become under maintenance sound cool

[BadShot]

I like it, maybe it could segway into multi z-level stations even. Could you imagine?

[Soleil]

I've brainstormed about this with a few people over the years, it's a really unique idea and could be fun, but each time the actual code part scared me off. My idea was always like, some sort of vent system you could crawl into that served as a very narrow Z level or something thats overlaid over the map somehow, so you could for example hear people fighting and dying in the vent system while standing in Medbay and it would do the clonk clonk as you walk through.

[Chasu]

I like this idea, one of the servers I play on (Eris) has a very similar feature. If it were to be PR'd and merged, people would of course immediately explore it, thinning the player density on the station, but I think a spookier, more dangerous maint area would be neat.

[Glamurio]

I've brainstormed about this with a few people over the years, it's a really unique idea and could be fun, but each time the actual code part scared me off. My idea was always like, some sort of vent system you could crawl into that served as a very narrow Z level or something thats overlaid over the map somehow, so you could for example hear people fighting and dying in the vent system while standing in Medbay and it would do the clonk clonk as you walk through.

The real question is how to approach the design. Both has pros and cons.

• Make it randomly generated
  • High variance per map (More fun?)
    
  • Difficult to balance
    
  • Difficult to code
    
  • Random room / procedural generation might look ugly
    

• Make it static per level
  • Zero variance (Less fun?)
    
  • Easier to balance
    
  • Easier to code
    
  • Allows for unique feeling map layouts & easter eggs
    

Ultimately I'm in love with the idea, we'd just have to narrow down a direction.

[Mouse]

Stick a bunch of random room spawns in an otherwise static layout for the best of both worlds.

[Cal]

love the idea of a darker scarier (possibly randomly generated?) maints

[emmett]

i think having cameras at like just a couple of points would be fine, to get mere glimpses of things happening. like on one of semi-official entries and one on some semi-important looking thing. all just "semi" important because that's maints for maints, we're deep in it.

like the idea with log of entries/exits but what also could be neat (and perhaps more mysterious) is having access to the number of living things within. did someone leave or did someone die down here? is it the roaches and rats or is it a cult?