SO, about that New Big Thing

[StationCrab]

I am so hyped for this. Thank you to everyone working hard on this o/

[ImmortalRedshirt]

This map's gonna be a blast to roam through, I can tell. Also really liking the usage of floor grates and such to break up the floor tiles.

One thing I would like to ask about, though, is how our interactions with the Spur will go throughout our varied and exciting adventures. Will it mostly be small-level stuff, recognizing the scope of even an individual planet, or will there be a lot more of making the ship "the most remarkable unremarkable ship in the Spur"? Personally, I feel the former will much better serve the setting and event plotting.

[kyres1]

Some more teasers for the map.

 

Starboard Main Level Maintenance :

Spoiler

Fore Cafeteria (basically the main "bar/kitchen")

Spoiler

Main Shuttle Hangar (with its proper contents)

Spoiler

 

 

[Kintsugi]

cute

[Desven]

40 minutes ago, kyres1 said:

Some more teasers for the map.

 

Starboard Main Level Maintenance :

  Hide contents

Fore Cafeteria (basically the main "bar/kitchen")

  Hide contents

Main Shuttle Hangar (with its proper contents)

  Hide contents

 

 

The bar sign should probably be relocated. It makes the hallway look too asymmetrical imo.

[ImmortalRedshirt]

Whoever's designing those maint tunnels has the right idea. Floor grates to cover up the exposed cables and piping, dim red lights...this is definitely the vibe they should be giving off. Keep up the good work!

[Sparky_hotdog]

Love the look of that kitchen/bar area! Very excited now.

[BunkyB]

3 hours ago, kyres1 said:

Main Shuttle Hangar (With its proper contents)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

I'm not a big fan of the shape but I'm not a map designer.

One thing I really want changed is the ability to see people seated from the cockpit, by adding windows in the areas marked in yellow.

Maybe this is a bad thing if NBT has offmap hazards like Bay? Meteors and shit.

 

Oh another thing I'd like to ask:

What will be high traffic areas? This might be a difficult question to answer depending on the state of development the map is in but- Knowing how the map flows before it's released will help ease us into it a lot better.

Edited August 8, 2021 by BunkyB
Additional question

[Kintsugi]

shuttle is shaped like a turtle

 

Edit: One issue I just noticed is that the airlocks on the turtle-shuttle are too small. Unless every away-site has a breathable atmosphere, this is extremely claustrophobic.

Edited August 8, 2021 by DanseMacabre

[greenjoe]

seeing the new brig picture on the discord, it gives me a slight concern.

Now, every cell has a window, is there still a windowless solitary area for those prisoners who keep smacking away at windows/those who need to be kept away from other prisoners?

[NewOriginalSchwann]

I don't like the new bar very much. The fact that you have to go up into a walled-off room that breaks your vision to the bar to mix drinks now (your main purpose) isn't very good for talking to people, and is going to lead to a lot of dropped conversations. There's also, bizarrely, no Booze-o-Mat in the mixing room so you'll have to constantly walk back and forth between the two. It would, in my view, be better if the bar's drink machines were in the middle -- where both sides of the bar could easily access them -- rather than in the walled-off room up above. It also looks like the bar's going to be a really crowded space for (presumably) two bartenders, with how small the frontal bar is.

[Desven]

5 hours ago, kyres1 said:

Some more teasers for the map.

 

Starboard Main Level Maintenance :

  Hide contents

Fore Cafeteria (basically the main "bar/kitchen")

  Hide contents

Main Shuttle Hangar (with its proper contents)

  Hide contents

 

 

The more I think about it, the more it bothers me how barebones the medical area of the shuttle is. It's really cramped, and I find it hard to believe that they would rather equip a proper kitchen with machinery than maybe even a bed that won't move around. I think some design elements from the current transfer shuttle and research shuttle could be learned for the medical bit. Maybe even change it next to the cockpit and have it have actual walls instead of just glass.

As for the shuttle windows, all the current shuttles have some connecting textures to smooth the corners. I think the same could be applied here. And the cockpit windows should really connect to teach other, instead of looking like individual squares.

 

Regarding the bar, I've already addressed it. Not only I think the sign is way off, I think both the kitchen area and the bar area themselves need to be redesigned, and put in consideration just how much interaction you're cutting off from the people playing those jobs if the rooms are set in this way.

[maniacalFowl]

To echo what many other people are saying about the shuttle, I don't quite like it's design. Mostly in that it looks like it's made for creature comfort. Something that ideally shouldn't be a primary concern with an away shuttle. The small kitchenette is a nice touch bust mostly unnecessary. As well as that small area with the wooden deck. I think a lot of can be gained from looking at what Bay did wrong and what they did right in their away shuttles and basing them around their function.

The Calypso was nice in that it had a rear cargo hatch to allow for quick movement of its holdings but also lead to problems with refilling it with atmosphere and eventually breaching its main cabins which became a huge problem as time went on. Grey's gotta tide and so on. It has similar nice clean white tiles and a microwave so your passengers can make a quick snack on the go but truly there's nothing special going on. Hell it even has a pointless bathroom... Which never got used...

Moving onto their current ship, the Charon, they improved on the original concepts in the Calypso that made it something to desire. They gave the crew a slightly larger airlock to use, a larger cargo space, and most importantly the ability to move cargo in and out of the ship without voiding the cabins. Also, one may not there are quite a few doors even in these small ships. Sectioning off the different cabins will save the crew so much heartache and a lot of their oxygen at the same time. Wide open floor plans are nice for bars and houses I can't afford, not for space ships. I know there are going to be people shitting on me saying "Weh, Bayfugee get outta here," but lets be honest, they've been playing this setting for a while now and they have somewhat of an idea of what works and what doesn't.

 

[OffRoad99]

15 hours ago, maniacalFowl said:

To echo what many other people are saying about the shuttle, I don't quite like it's design. Mostly in that it looks like it's made for creature comfort. Something that ideally shouldn't be a primary concern with an away shuttle. The small kitchenette is a nice touch bust mostly unnecessary. As well as that small area with the wooden deck. I think a lot of can be gained from looking at what Bay did wrong and what they did right in their away shuttles and basing them around their function.

The Calypso was nice in that it had a rear cargo hatch to allow for quick movement of its holdings but also lead to problems with refilling it with atmosphere and eventually breaching its main cabins which became a huge problem as time went on. Grey's gotta tide and so on. It has similar nice clean white tiles and a microwave so your passengers can make a quick snack on the go but truly there's nothing special going on. Hell it even has a pointless bathroom... Which never got used...

Moving onto their current ship, the Charon, they improved on the original concepts in the Calypso that made it something to desire. They gave the crew a slightly larger airlock to use, a larger cargo space, and most importantly the ability to move cargo in and out of the ship without voiding the cabins. Also, one may not there are quite a few doors even in these small ships. Sectioning off the different cabins will save the crew so much heartache and a lot of their oxygen at the same time. Wide open floor plans are nice for bars and houses I can't afford, not for space ships. I know there are going to be people shitting on me saying "Weh, Bayfugee get outta here," but lets be honest, they've been playing this setting for a while now and they have somewhat of an idea of what works and what doesn't.

 

Ahh, the Charon.
My current main is my former Bay main (I'm not sure if I'd be a Bayfugee, I've been playing on Aurora before I even tried Bay...), and that was an ace shuttle pilot. I have quite the experience when it comes to the Charon, from regular journeys in the depths of space to handling all sort of emergencies. To this day it remains the best shuttle design I've seen on SS13.
Baystation 12 should genuinely be our primary source of inspiration.

Back on the topic at hand, I agree with Fowl, the current shuttle seems to be built with the goal of keeping your crew morale high (the kitchen, the table with the deck of cards and so on) whilst sacrificing all common notions of practicality.
I'll be honest, I feel it needs a complete redesign from the ground-up. Here's what I'd suggest:

• Remove the kitchen. If you're in need of food and drinks you may just want to pack rations before the journey.
• Remove the beds.
• The side airlocks are WAY too small. Ditch one, and make the other bigger.
• If we want to keep the Sick Bay, then make it slightly bigger. As a former Medical main I know I would have nightmares to even treat a single person in there.
• The four tanks to the port side of the shuttle are...how are you supposed to move them? Say that I have to grab the fuel tank, where in the hell should I put the two water tanks, even temporarily? Now imagine thinking this while the shuttle's full of people. I'd have nightmare for days. Also why is there a fire extinguisher tank when we have no fire extinguishers on the shuttle?
• The stern Cargo Bay is...SMALL. Way too small, it needs to be A LOT bigger.
• Remove the two shutters from the Cargo Bay and replace them with an airlock. From a mechanical as well as lore-perspective, you want an airlock. Should the shuttle land on a planet whose atmosphere is different than ours, the shutters won't help to keep those gasses out, and at the time being I am not seeing any scrubbers whatsoever on the shuttle. The whole interior will, therefore, be easily contaminated.
• Why are there two seats in the cockpit? Make it a single-seated shuttle, a co-pilot would be useless.

 

[Alberyk]

This week's teaser:

 

Central plaza and a smidgen of other department entrances

Spoiler

An improved bar with feedback taken into consideration

Spoiler

Kitchen (Sightlines between bar and the main diner are broken intentionally. Shutters not visible on northern table due to le marble tables but they exist )

Spoiler

RDs office

Spoiler

 

[Sheeplets]

There's a couple issues with the new kitchen just at a glance.

• The double airlock dividing the seating and ordering areas closes in the rooms. They're unnecessarily claustrophobic and it reintroduces a problem we remedied in the current kitchen - There's only room for three customers.
• The ordering area towards the bottom seems redundant and the little penalty box around it eats up valuable floor space in an already tiny area. On a more minor note it also force you walk away from the seating area and across the room to hit the drink taps.
• There's no tables directly beside the cooking appliances, meaning you'll have to walk across the room to grab ingredients you could otherwise set down right beside you.
• There's only one set of appliances. When we designed the kitchen we have now the goal was to have two symmetrical work stations with equipment so that both chefs could work on their projects independently without stepping on one another's toes. It'd be nice to have another oven and stovetop added to accommodate this.
  
  I can't think of anything else but as it stands now it seems frustrating to order from it let alone work in it, though I don't mean that in a rude way. I know all of this is heavily WIP and I look forward to seeing more.

[Ickysoup]

I wish to add my worthless 2 cents to the kitchen design

[Kintsugi]

5 hours ago, Ickysoup said:

I wish to add my worthless 2 cents to the kitchen design

The wall is there to prevent conversation bleed-over, and I think in that purpose it is absolutely vital. A packed bar and a packed kitchen will be impossible to navigate conversationally if they’re exposed to one another.

[Ickysoup]

 

1 hour ago, DanseMacabre said:

The wall is there to prevent conversation bleed-over, and I think in that purpose it is absolutely vital. A packed bar and a packed kitchen will be impossible to navigate conversationally if they’re exposed to one another.

The west wall isn't as important as the airlock and south wall that partially divides the kitchen.

Taking out that south wall and moving up that area in the bottem area will provide alot of room for either counter space or a second set of cooking appliances if the plan is to keep having two cook slots.
 

Edited August 17, 2021 by Ickysoup

[Alberyk]

This week's teaser

Updated kitchen:

Spoiler

Chapel:

Spoiler

Medical Lobby:

Spoiler

 

[Butterrobber202]

YESSS THE CORPSE CATAPULT IS BACK!

[Desven]

27 minutes ago, Alberyk said:

This week's teaser

Updated kitchen:

  Hide contents

Chapel:

  Hide contents

Medical Lobby:

  Hide contents

 

I like it. The kitchen is great.

 

The problem I see with the chapel is the same it has at the moment, the light switch beeing too far from the entrance. Maybe an extra one near the door would be nice, especially since sometimes people just like to enter and talk.

 

As for the kitchen, that dark corner could use an extra lightbulb. The server lights are way too dim.

[Alberyk]

This week's teaser:

Surgery:

Spoiler

Cargo Office:

Spoiler

Pool:

Spoiler

 

[Roaper]

pool's back baby 😎

[4000daniel1]

I think it's only natural considering we're moving from station to ship but, the Cargo office is a little cramped. Personally, I've always found all the space it has on our current map convenient, most of all because it allows it to be the center of internal interactions as well as external ones. Internal interactions being various Cargo shenanigans and just hanging out and chatting. Being able to do that at the same place where it's IDEAL for at least one cargo technician to be sitting in at all times to be able to process people's orders as soon as they get put in, is nice! But I think when there's only room for two chairs this becomes a bit less feasible, which I can assume will make the seldom used breakroom more useful! Or perhaps it'll encourage the department to hang in more public areas like the kitchen or bar, there's definitely pros and cons here. But in my opinion, I'd love to be able to have a similar amount of space in the office as on the current map.

Maybe it'd be possible to move the northern walls up a tile or two? I have no idea how things look there though, so I can assume it'd take an annoying amount of rearranging.

ALSO POOL PARTIES LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Edited August 29, 2021 by 4000daniel1