Standardize shuttle direction/layout, and add docking arms on the top deck

[Dreamix]

 

 

 

Firstly, standardize the shuttle layouts and sizes. A shuttle should face south, meaning the pilot looks south, and the engines point north. So it is same as the horizon, basically. It should also be 9x9 including walls at most, but could be smaller of course.

 

Secondly, add these docking ports, on the top deck. Either west side ones, or both west and east. Even just on the west side, four standard docks (S1, S2, S3, S4) is more than enough (if somehow were to have 3 away site/ship shuttles coming in + merchant or something). With also E1 for the merc (if they were not remapped to the new standard). And E2 for, uhh, something I guess. That should be enough, but more is always good, for variety and stuff. There's also enough space for security checkpoints, on both east and west sides.

 

[KingOfThePing]

So every shuttle ever made should look/be built the same is what you want to say?

[Dreamix]

11 minutes ago, KingOfThePing said:

So every shuttle ever made should look/be built the same is what you want to say?

Well, yes, but also no. Every shuttle should fit inside the 9x9 square, but it doesn't mean every shuttle needs to look exactly the same, and have exactly the same layout. Below, a few of the possible shuttle layouts I had just made, that all fit in the 9x9 limitation.

 

ALSO, it doesn't have to be exactly 9x9. It could be a bit longer (expanded to north), or something. It's just that 4 shuttles that are 9 tiles wide can very nicely fit in my proposed dock areas.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Dreamix

[WickedCybs]

I don't want all shuttles to be constrained to a 9x9 design. Other than still looking the same even with minor changes (they're all boxy), they have the same airlock positions, thrusters and it'd be difficult to fit stuff in. It's also just offputting to me from the perspective of a player and mapper and I don't want to lose the more imaginative designs, like the TCFL or OX shuttle.

It's going to be the OX ship spam all over again, I think. If we standardize that hard and have effectively identical shuttles. Another thing is, we're not going to have so many third party ships wandering around and docking at the same time. We could easily still have airlocks in various areas that can accommodate different angles and still have the usual 1-3 ships that appear dock.

Edited August 27, 2022 by WickedCybs

[wowzewow]

I would agree with standardization. Maybe with more different sizes, though. Small/Medium/Large. Would help with variety.

We've already had a near miss with the TCFL ship getting a ad-hoc dock. It's time we clamp down on this before the whole Horizon becomes a mess of docks.

[EJJ]

I think standardization is good, but maybe we should consider allowing docking arms to hang off the Horizon a bit, or more odd bends, etc. Deck three has a ton of open space that's unused and I dunno if there are any future plans to really put anything new up there/expand the bridge but putting some more places on D3 for people to hide/run off into would be useful, at the least. (I honestly think D3 needs a bit more maint tunnels just because of how kinda easy it is to find an antag up there if you know it decently enough.)

Maybe give docking arms security checkpoints but make a way to bypass them either through maintenance or something else? Mercs rolling up and immediately running into the security cadet manning the checkpoint and the round going into Red almost immediately would suuuuuck.

[Carver]

4 hours ago, EJJ said:

Mercs rolling up and immediately running into the security cadet manning the checkpoint and the round going into Red almost immediately would suuuuuck.

If you're docked properly as the mercs you're probably not going stealthy, to be fair.