[MAP] Research Outpost

[69andahalf]

Due to a lot of people asking about the outpost I decided to try my hand at reviving it based on this old screenshot.

It's to the south west of the station, not too far so you can launch yourself there and not die from exposure. You can get there via the mass driver located next to the med-sci dock, which I assume is what it's original purpose was.

The outpost itself has a dock, a large multi-purpose test chamber for all your crazy experiments, an observation room, a sleeping area, and couple of maintenance cabins. The main power comes from the two sets of solar arrays, rather than the reactors that cog has in his original image. I have also included a warp beacon, but it isn't shown in the pictures.

Although I tried to make this outpost look nice and added a lot of not strictly necessary stuff I wanted it to be something that if need be, you could live and survive on. Despite this, the main purpose of this outpost it to be blown up, I just hope because of how it looks that people don't think that they cannot test bombs in it.

I've include two shots of the outpost, one of the actual outpost itself, and the other is where the outpost is in relation to the station.



Spoiler!

Excuse the horrid copy-paste space.

I assume that a max-power canister bomb would actually end up damaging part of the station if it were to go off inside, but if need be the location of the outpost can easily be changed. It's not like every toxins player can even make a max-cap canister bomb though!

Finally, here's the download link! Like before, it's a copy paste map file, with a bit of the station attached to ensure proper placement.

Commence

[Doctor Honkington]

I would absolutely love this, considering I'm a man who mostly plays science, this would be a great place to distance yourself from blowing up a good portion of the hall that leads to medbay.

However of course, I'm going to drop some suggestions.

Everything is basically perfect, all though it'd be pretty cool if there was a coffee vending machine too. Every scientist needs caffeine to keep working.

One more, in the testing chamber, it'd be great if there was a chem dispenser and a heater fitted somewhere in there. Just so you can make things on the fly while you're there instead of travelling all the way back to the station.


edit: Also aren't the walls supposed to be the new ones or is that different when making the map itself?

[ZeWaka]

Holy cow this is great! I definitely agree with Honkington on the chemical dispenser, it would be cool to have a little outpost that could sit on its own. The new walls might work, some places are not designed with that perspective in mind but it just might work.

Maybe add a backup furnace to provide power in case the solars get thrashed?

[Noah Buttes]

The mass driver is actually located there to serve as a way to quickly get rid of dangerous artifacts, like bombs

[69andahalf]

One more, in the testing chamber, it'd be great if there was a chem dispenser and a heater fitted somewhere in there. Just so you can make things on the fly while you're there instead of travelling all the way back to the station.


edit: Also aren't the walls supposed to be the new ones or is that different when making the map itself?

Thanks for the suggestion! The main reason why I didn't include a chem dispenser on the outpost was I didn't want scientists to run off and seclude them self on the outpost at the start of every round. Mind you, you can easily do that with mechanics and the botany ship now, so I'll see about throwing one in.

The walls look that was in DM view, but when the map is run they turn into the regular new walls.

Maybe add a backup furnace to provide power in case the solars get thrashed?

I'll see if I can squeeze one in, there's plenty of room.

The mass driver is actually located there to serve as a way to quickly get rid of dangerous artifacts, like bombs

Hm, that does present an issue. On the one hand they're super rare at round start, and I don't really see an issue with throwing them onto the bomb testing outpost if they are only happening occasionally. On the other I don't want to remove a feature that has been kinda long standing.

[Frank_Stein]

Add a second mass driver? The occasional mix up of someone meaning to go to the test station and accidentally jumping into the disposal one would be worth a few laughs.

[69andahalf]

Add a second mass driver? The occasional mix up of someone meaning to go to the test station and accidentally jumping into the disposal one would be worth a few laughs.

Yeah, it was never really an issue of adding a second one it was more where to add it. I'll see what I can punch a hole it.

[lambskin]

I gotta say, I am loving this! no more blowing up the space diner, wrecking other peoples plans. or alternatively using the test chamber and blowing up half of medbay.

[Mageziya]

I absolutely love this, though I have minor weird balance concerns. First thing that came to my mind was resource saturation, but then I remembered that it isn't 2011 and Cog2 is actually laden with tons of useful shit that people ignore, so that's not a problem.

My other mild concern is that it's almost too well equipped. Seems destined to become a traitor nest every round or something like that, but then again, is a spot where traitors can set up really that different or bad compared to what we already have?

So yeah, in general, this is great.

[Gannets]

It'd be nice to give scientists a place to do dangerous experiments without me yelling at them to go blow up the diner. Just as long as the research department doesn't get abandoned in favour of the outpost.

[UmmonTL]

The artifacts that get shot out that mass driver most frequently are the annoying noise artifacts I believe.

One thing you could do is create a teleport pad from the mechcomponents both on that station and somewhere in the science department. Depending on where those are located going there would be as fast as going to the regular testchamber, you could even leave out the additonal chem dispenser/heater and not make another secluded spot for brewing chems.
The only thing that would have to be done is that those telepads get assigned random IDs so they can't be easily hijacked.

[Vitatroll]

Are the computers hooked up to anything? They're pretty useless without access to a mainframe. Well, unless you piggyback on the station radio. Not sure you even need em' there, though they do look nice.

Well anyways, I really like it. It looks awesome. I agree about the lack of chem machines being a good thing though. It's a place for testing. It's highly likely to be hellfoamed, exploded, or overrun with bad things by the end of each round. Make it too nice and people will go back to using the diner instead of their supernerd treehouse.

If I had any requests it would be a valuchimp and a chemicompiler. The valuchimp makes testing a lot more potent. The chemicompiler (in the testchamber. or can you still move those? I forget.) for testing the horrible things you can do with it without going through mechanics.

Oh, and those caves behind the windows. Nice. Looks like a great place for a menagerie. I'll have those well stocked with zombies, martians, bees and other sorts of cute things.

[Grifflez]

Hold the phone!

What kind of science outpost doesn't have a nuclear self-destruct payload incase an experiment gets out of hand?

What if a blob spawns there???

[Noah Buttes]

Hold the phone!

What kind of science outpost doesn't have a nuclear self-destruct payload incase an experiment gets out of hand?

What if a blob spawns there???

The kind that isn't zeta.

[69andahalf]

I don't wanna poop on people's suggestions, but I can't see this replacing the research department. It doesn't really even have anything to do on it aside from blow stuff up or mess around. Although, I think based oh Vitatroll's suggestion I'll remove the chem dispenser and heater I added but put in the chemicomplier which should further dissuade people from camping out. Heck, most of the stuff in the test chamber itself can be found in the one station-side.

I don't see an issue with adding a valuchimp, I guess the only concern I had was antags abusing it but honestly with mechanics now I don't see that as a valid excuse.

And yes, most computers run off the mainframe, but I think that the DWAINE terminal should be able to hook up to the air sensor, but they're mainly there to look good!

Well Grifflez, the self-destruct payload isn't included with purchase and must be provided by the customer. Get good at making bomb and then blow it up!

Thanks for all the input, I'll see if I can knock something out soon.