Weavel Station (better name pending)

[Weavel]

I finally managed to get Dream Maker working/not being 100% shit, so I took a stab at making a map.
I've stuck to the basics; I haven't got anything excessively fancy or new, just established things in a different arrangement. The general theme was to try combine the ideas behind both Donut and Shroom while expanding for space where people can build, die and/or build things to try kill people with then die by.

It's not much but I'd like some feedback and suggestions for what to add/remove.



the above looks squished because it is, pls dont be rude

THE FOLLOWING LINKS ARE LIKE 3000x2000 BEWARE

http://i.imgur.com/JPCYF.jpg
Clean

http://i.imgur.com/SzvJB.jpg
w/words

----SOME FUN FACTS----

- the RD has a pet facehugger called Elvis
- there is a brain and a beer keg stashed behind the Captain's room, possibly both his own
- the Smoking Lounge has an emergency vent system in case the HoP or something walks in and you're huffing weed 420 blaze everyday (note: it doesn't work)
- the Seal Enclosure has a chute that you can throw meat into. Throw the right meat, the seals will be happy/die painfully/mutate and murder everyone/mutate and murder you
- re-added a tank of lovely Sleeping Gas to Toxins. Also more hidden beer kegs there
- also more beer kegs behind the Chapel

[FrontlineAcrobat4]

Ok five things I have questions on:

1. Of the two shuttles which ones are the escape and arrivals?

2. If the top shuttle is arrivals, how would the QM shuttle get in?

3. Why is the Bar and Kitchen seperate?

4. Why did you add so many beer kegs?

5. If the smoke lounge is the small room connected to research in the bottom left corner of the map, why is it crammed in there and not near the Bar?

Other then that, god bless you for even trying to make this.

[Archenteron]

Is the kitchen compltely across the hall from the cafe itself? Also holy shit you gave medical staff/patients a smoking lounge, I love you.

[Weavel]

Ok five things I have questions on:

1. Of the two shuttles which ones are the escape and arrivals?

2. If the top shuttle is arrivals, how would the QM shuttle get in?

3. Why is the Bar and Kitchen seperate?

4. Why did you add so many beer kegs?

5. If the smoke lounge is the small room connected to research in the bottom left corner of the map, why is it crammed in there and not near the Bar?

Other then that, god bless you for even trying to make this.

1 & 2: The top one is escape. Remeber, this is space, vertical movement can work too. I might shift escape a little though because it might make more sense.

3: The bar and kitchen are directly across from each other because I wanted to mix it up; the chef can now do deliveries of quick-order meals at his little take-away stand, and it makes for a more interesting hallway layout: I really wanted to try get the central ring working and I'm very happy with it.

4: Beer kegs are basically my way of dealing with how few assets the version I'm working with have. It's my own way of marking "Sweet easter egg spot". Also beer kegs are fun.

5: I was thinking in terms of an actual hospital; they have smoking zones, and I thought it'd be a fun thing to add. I didn't want to shove too many things in one place at the bar, either.

Thanks for the questions though, glad people are looking at this!

Also holy shit you gave medical staff/patients a smoking lounge, I love you.

Much appreciated, man.

[FrontlineAcrobat4]

Ok now that you've explained the reasoning behind your ideas I get it. I like how you've changed a few things up.

[HumbleBee]

you and cogs complete disregard for symmetry gives me headaches.

[HumbleBee]

i do like the bar, the minibar outside the kitchen and the BEEEEEES enclosure. the position of the cargo shuttle is a little awkward though.

[Weavel]

i do like the bar, the minibar outside the kitchen and the BEEEEEES enclosure. the position of the cargo shuttle is a little awkward though.

I'm thinking I might try swap BEEEEEES and the Cargo Bay around for that reason.

Also fuck symmetry.

[Cogwerks]

Also fuck symmetry.

The kind of macro-symmetry that Humblebee wants is boring and bad. Local symmetry though helps to make structures feel like they've got an architectural purpose, but I don't think our friend Humbles there knows how to spot that. :ugeek:

[Weavel]

The kind of macro-symmetry that Humblebee wants is boring and bad. Local symmetry though helps to make structures feel like they've got an architectural purpose, but I don't think our friend Humbles there knows how to spot that. :ugeek:

Only scrubs don't understand local and macro symmetry. :ugeek:

Anyway I'm gonna keep updating this as I go along building it, so gimme a shout if you think of anything you'd like me to add, change, etc. There's still plenty of space.

[Cogwerks]

Mind if I offer some critique?

Looking at the layout of that map, it doesn't feel like a station. The hallways are far too long, wide and winding, job areas are too spread out from each other, and there aren't really many structural decisions that read as "this is a thing in space" other than the obvious things like the shuttle bay. It honestly feels more like a DOOM map or a sprawling surface facility to me.

Do you know about the select-drag function in Dreammaker? At the bottom of the object instance panel, look for "add", "fill", "select". Drag selection boxes around rooms and then you can drag the whole thing around as a chunk. If you already know about that, rad, it took me quite awhile to find it and I've heard a lot of other folks miss it too.

Building up all the rooms the first time is the tedious part, once you've got them built it doesn't take too long to tear them all off to the side and start rearranging them in blocks. You can also use that to copy the entire z-level to a new blank level, rearrange the hell out of that one, then compare back and forth between the two versions with one click.

[Weavel]

That's one of the main problems I have with it myself, it doesn't really feel like a station to me either. I'm not quite sure where to start with it, though; I'm going to try shrink the hallways and move escape and Engineering, but bar that, I might need a full-on redesign.

And yeah I did manage to find the Select tool miraculously early. I'll give some proper re-arrangements and see what I can come up with.

[Cogwerks]

If you're interested in seeing how my work changed between revisions with that tool:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/89619796/cogmapv07_full.png
VS
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/89619796/v09.png

(huge files warning)

(also attn: pre-emptive thing for everyone else, don't discuss my map links here, this is Weavel's thread!)

Anyways you'll probably notice the huge difference between hallway layouts. In 07, I was more concerned with getting the individual rooms fleshed out, didn't consider the overall space very well and as a result the corridors are a nonsensical mess. Backed away from it for a few weeks, then came back by just tearing all the individual pieces off. Used the select-drag thing to throw all the rooms out into space, moved some of them around to see how the shapes best related to eachother, then sketched out a new corridor system for that.

If your workflow is anything like mine, I'd bet that the overall picture gets kinda lost while you're still building the individual parts. Maybe this process log will help?

[Weavel]

That'll definitely help, yeah. I think I do have the same style workflow. My idea was that I wanted to try combine the simplicity of where job rooms were from Shroom, and to add the overall maintenance and general space of Donut. I think I might have gone slightly over-board on the latte;, as a result places like Medbay and Research are streamlined enough, but the corridor system is insanely massive and twisting in comparison. I'm shrinking it as we speak, hopefully I can manage a new edition with shrunken and less painful navigation processes.

[Aphtonites]

Mixer station!