The Great Hypospray Debate

[Resilynn]

Earlier this month BRAINOS and I designed a new hypospray to replace the old ones, for two reasons.  1, the old hyposprays looked like welders.  2, the CMO hypospray and regular hyposprays were still identical, which is silly considering the CMO hypospray holds more and injects quicker.

These were the sprites BRAINOS made.

The doctor hypospray is smaller with a longer trigger for a smaller capacity and slower injection.  The CMO hypospray is larger with a smaller trigger for a higher capacity and a faster injection.  Both are branded on the side with the Zeng-hu logo, reflecting the shift in our lore to a more cooperative corporate setting, since Zeng-hu makes the best medical tech.

 

Less than a week later someone decided they didn't like them and did their own hypo.  I don't think they did two separate ones to reflect the difference, but I haven't played since the change.  This is the sprite I've seen for that.

 

I'll let the creator of this sprite explain their design process.

 

Anyway, since there's a conflict in whose sprite should be used because of some misleading information on github regarding BRAINOS and my involvement in the design of the second sprite, weeeee are putting it to a vote.  So, thoughts.  Which hypospray do we prefer?  Would be prefer another all together?

For a side by side comparison:

[Roostercat]

I personally prefer BRAINOS's sprite more. Wowzewo's (I THINK that is who made this) sprite looks sort of weird to me in comparison.

[Melariara]

I genuinely enjoy BRAINOS' hypospray a lot. Very futuristic looking and still gives you a good vibe of "Oh hey that's Zeng Hu"

[FreshRefreshments]

I am on the BRAINO's side as well. 

[furrycactus]

BRAINOS's sprite is my personal favourite, as it's a Zeng Hu piece of equipment and I like that a lot, and it looks cool and futuristic. My only gripe is that I wish the bar along the top was the colour of the chemical(s) that are inside of it instead of a solid pink.

 

No offense intended to the other one, but it just seems... odd. And I think it's especially odd that we changed it with, to my knowledge, no indication or feedback thread. Super especially odd that we changed it to something so extremely different right after adding these brand new Zeng Hu ones.

Edited February 16, 2020 by furrycactus

[Leudoberct]

Personally, I prefer the sprites from Brainos.

[witchbells]

I prefer Brain's (that's your name now) sprite because it looks like it has more detail without being over-designed compared to the other one which looks a bit bland and lacks depth. Also, it's purple.

[wowzewow]

Well, I'd like to explain my thought process on this resprite, and I'd like to explain a few things.

1. There very much should've been a feedback thread, but it's already merged so I'll keep that in mind for the future. (also no idea Resi was working on this either)

2. Visual clarity, I.E, does it look like what it's supposed to do? / Ease of Gameplay

For starters, the color. It's purple on white. Science colors. It looks like it belongs in Science, not Medical.

To illustrate, which one of these is not like the other? Yeah, the hypospray.

(yeah, but what about Zeng-hu? Fine, whatever. There can be a purple motif, but it can't take up more like 50% of the color.

Right now if you've stripped literally everything with the description and name it literally looks like a gun SCIENCE could pull out of the protolathe!)

Let's jump into the shoes of CargoTech McBaldie. He's sorting out crates and he takes one look at it. "Oh, it's purple! It's clearly science stuff."

"GEE, I WONDER WHICH DEPARTMENT THIS BELONGS TO."

That's what I'm trying to avoid here. I mean, not everyone has sunk a 100 hours playing medical and know every surgical tool and chem like the back of their hand. I know, because I have.

Visual consistency ( Looking in line with everyone else )

Look, I didn't pull out this design out of my ass. I'm trying to make the tools look visually similar together.

3. The words

Literally the description states, "Air-needle", I.E, there's no needle. It uses AIR to inject the stuff.

And there's a needle on it. The literal reason why we're using hyposprays is to avoid the filthy needle cross-contamination and having to use a new syringe every time.

4. Foreword

Look, I'm willing to compromise here, hell, add a purple light-up attachment or something. Because I will definitely not approve a full revert.

Edited February 16, 2020 by wowzewow

[Resilynn]

2 minutes ago, wowzewow said:

Well, I'd like to explain my thought process on this resprite, and I'd like to explain a few things.

1. There very much should've been a feedback thread, but it's already merged so I'll keep that in mind for the future. (also no idea Resi was working on this either)

2. Visual clarity, I.E, does it look like what it's supposed to do? / Ease of Gameplay

For starters, the color. It's purple on white. Science colors. It looks like it belongs in Science, not Medical.

To illustrate, which one of these is not like the other? Yeah, the hypospray.

(yeah, but what about Zeng-hu? Fine, whatever. There can be a purple motif, but it can't take up more like 50% of the color.

Right now if you've stripped literally everything with the description and name it literally looks like a gun SCIENCE could pull out of the protolathe!)

Let's jump into the shoes of CargoTech McBaldie. He's sorting out crates and he takes one look at it. "Oh, it's purple! It's clearly science stuff."

"GEE, I WONDER WHICH DEPARTMENT THIS BELONGS TO."

That's what I'm trying to avoid here. I mean, not everyone has sunk a 100 hours playing medical and know every surgical tool and chem like the back of their hand. I know, because I have.

Visual consistency ( Looking in line with everyone else )

Look, I didn't pull out this design out of my ass. I'm trying to make the tools look visually similar together.

3. The words

Literally the description states, "Air-needle", I.E, there's no needle. It uses AIR to inject the stuff.

And there's a needle on it. The literal reason why we're using hyposprays is to avoid the filthy needle cross-contamination and having to use a new syringe every time.

4. Foreword

Look, I'm willing to compromise here, hell, add a purple light-up attachment or something. Because I will definitely not approve a full revert.

Fortunately, I don't think it's your approval that matters here.  If you can erase our work and put in your own sprite, I SURE can do the same if the community likes our sprite better.

[Sheeplets]

Modify the sprite to not be purple and not have a needle. Problem solved.

[BurgerBB]

I prefer the existing design of the sprites already. The suggested sprite changes are exceptionally close to already existing guns, and the design of the hypospray currently really looks like a gun more than a medical tool.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

Wezzy's is definitely more in-line with what Medical has, but I do think it's a good idea to work purple into his design. Brainos's and your's is fairly distant from the rest of the medical items, and it's hard to recognize AS a Medical item.  I do like Brainos's and your's because it shares my style of weapon grip. But overall, it stands out greatly with the rest of the medical equipment. No offense to either of you, but Wezzy's fits better, and I have to be consistent in my stance on being in favour of things being uniform in design.

[furrycactus]

I for one will fully support a full revert, because BRAINOS's sprite change went through a feedback thread process and was overwhelmingly approved. This change did not go through the process, and silently replaced what had been accepted and nearly universally loved, and it seems incredibly rude of wezzy to straight up replace BRAINOS's work, and then say "well I refuse an outright revert of my own work". 

As such:

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/8281

A PR to revert it, until feedback is gathered.

[MattAtlas]

Being uniform in design is something that people like to flaunt a lot until you find out that it practically murders creativity and opportunities for cool items - because things have to always be "consistent" with everything else in the department. Unfortunately, that's not how it works.

I don't think it's exactly outlandish to have an item or two that differs from a department's style. Especially when said item works to give the different megacorps a bit of life and presence in the station. The reason why I was a fan of the old sprite is that it did just that - it represented Zeng-hu excellently. The current one is... I don't know, but it's pretty bland, and I don't like it.

[witchbells]

53 minutes ago, furrycactus said:

I for one will fully support a full revert, because BRAINOS's sprite change went through a feedback thread process and was overwhelmingly approved. This change did not go through the process, and silently replaced what had been accepted and nearly universally loved, and it seems incredibly rude of wezzy to straight up replace BRAINOS's work, and then say "well I refuse an outright revert of my own work". 

As such:

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/8281

A PR to revert it, until feedback is gathered.

I'm in support of this as well, and I'm also very disappointed with Wezzy's conduct in this situation.

[MoondancerPony]

I am heavily disappointed with how this change was put through. I support a full revert as well. The issue with making it not-purple so that it doesn't look like a research item is that... Zeng-Hu's theming is purple. Lore consistency is better than visual/intra-department consistency, IMO. Why not resprite the other items to fit instead, since they're absolutely ancient sprites anyway?

[Nekonyan123]

I like braino's, they look cool and consistent with the lore.

[NewOriginalSchwann]

I prefer BRAINOS' work and am quite disappointed with the revelations that have resulted from this thread. As such, I support a full revert.

[Resilynn]

I was asked to post this since brainos is at work right now to clear up any confusion about the whole “This was posted with brainos’ blessing” claim on github  

 

 

Wowzee said since he didn’t mean literally, but again, I was asked to post this so *shrug*.

Edited February 16, 2020 by Resilynn

[geeves]

The only reason I ever approved the PR so soon after BrainOS had his sprites implemented was the phrase "with brainOS' blessing.". If it were not there, I would have questioned why it were changed so soon afterwards.

I do not appreciate being lied to.

Nor do I appreciate the implication that a developer has to consult with another developer before making a change. That sounds like a veiled threat, from someone who has absolutely zero authority making such. Wezzy has no more sway over what gets implemented than I do, or any of the developers do. The fact that a falsehood was placed at the very start of a PR should indicate that.

Such matters are reserved for the Head Developers, Skull and Arrow, as well as the Maintainers, Matt and Alberyk (as well as the former). They are appointed to be the final decision makers in whether a PR is good for a server. NOT a developer, though we developers have some say, especially if code is inefficient, unbalanced, or game-breaking.

Apologies that this slipped by me, it might happen again, but in that case, shoot a PM to myself or the maintainers and we'll sort it out right quick. Thanks, community.

[FreshRefreshments]

Indeed, I think the conduct shown here is incredibly poor. Not to mention, the other sprite is universally preferred. A full revert seems completely fitting, in my own humble opinion.

[Snakebittenn]

Please don't dogpile anyone while you comment on this thread. Try to focus on the sprites. The people who can look into this will look into this.

[AmoryBlaine]

8 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

Being uniform in design is something that people like to flaunt a lot until you find out that it practically murders creativity and opportunities for cool items - because things have to always be "consistent" with everything else in the department. Unfortunately, that's not how it works.

I don't think it's exactly outlandish to have an item or two that differs from a department's style. Especially when said item works to give the different megacorps a bit of life and presence in the station. The reason why I was a fan of the old sprite is that it did just that - it represented Zeng-hu excellently. The current one is... I don't know, but it's pretty bland, and I don't like it.

If trying to make stuff look like it's belongs to the same game, is creativity killing, perhaps that's an issue with the creator's capabilities or intent, rather than with creativity. The idea that creativity equates to a breakdown of uniformity in design is silly. These things can co-exist, it's just easier to go and do your own thing rather than consider how it looks in comparison to everything else. This is made easier when the vast majority of people don't particularly care about consistency.

 

I care less about the fact it's purple and the rest are green and more about the fact it looks completely different from the rest of the present work. But in regard to it's representation of Zeng-Hu, how does what is presented represent Zeng-Hu? It's pretty bulky looking from the comparisons, the grip looks similar to that of the new .45s, which makes me think of it more like a gun, and there's a massive company logo on the side. Not subtle at all. What I'm getting from the item, with these things in mind, is what I feel Necropolis brand equipment would be like. Bulky, military-esque, and with a big stamp of approval on the side in the form of the logo. I always assumed ZH had a more sleek and percise feel. Evidently not.

 

[Skull132]

Technicalities wise, I'm afraid Wezzy is leaning on being in the right here.

The sprite has no outline. The size is bordering on too large in proportion to the other items. The primary accent colour belongs to the science department, not the medical department. In fact, none of the accents used mark it as belonging in the medical department. Like, the sprite looks good on its own, but it does not fit the rest, not by a long shot.

Regarding the approval process. It would be incorrect to say that the maintainers do not lean upon people of expertise for their opinion. In the case of sprites, it would be Wezzy. However, I'm not exactly certain what behooved Wezzy to say what he did. Not that he even needed to say that. But this matter shall be pursued in private, for the time being, and should not be discussed further in the thread.

Allow me to reiterate what I've reiterated before. The maxim currently pursued by the head devs is that anyone is free to put up their PRs with or without coordination. Just that, without coordination, you run the risk of having heavy changes be requested about things you would have known about prior, or having your PR be deemed unacceptable.

[BRAINOS]

i wanna be explicitly clear when i say that i've got no beef with wezzy. i think, in this case, they might've misconstrued what i said as "approval," but my approval literally does not matter. i'm not staff. they're totally free to put whatever they want as PR.

 

i did say that his sprites are an improvement on what the original hyposprays were (those ugly fuckin welder things lmao), and maybe I could've been clearer that i did not like their sprites, but.... again, my approval is not a contingency for things to be added or changed. i have the social skills of a trained walnut, and talking to me can be like pulling teeth. my entire personality basically boils down to being non-confrontational and pretending i'm just cool about things instead of completely emotionally incapable of caring.

i think both sprites are pretty ugly, in all honesty. mine are chunky, his are pillow-shaded, and both are very clearly done by amateurs. we can go with either one, i'm cool with it.

if anything, looking back on it, i think it was somewhat a courtesy (however unnecessary) that wezzy showed me his sprites at all.