Feedback thread for service remap

[kyres1]

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/15961

 

This is a feedback thread for the above pull request.

[RyverStyx]

I approved it because I like the central dining area. I disagree that it's more cramped and think it actually utilizes the space better than having everyone in a single hallway. No one uses the back bar lounge in the current map and this remap will see it utilized more. All-in-all I think it ties service together more than the current map does and makes a more central service "department". Don't think the bartender losing space in their backroom is that big of a deal personally but I'm sure they could be given more if needed.

EDIT: The tree area is rather large and constricts some hallway movement as well. Maybe shrinking that would be beneficial.

Edited March 7, 2023 by RyverStyx

[Hunt]

While I am unsure if a blatant 'this is a functional step backward' is a constructive review of a remap, ill supply the feedback received over the past few days via discord conversations with people in relay/general.

• The starboard excess lounges were rarely used from what I was told and have witnessed.
• There remain three areas that permit private RP with no disruption, being two booths and the back bar (more to mention on that later.)
• From behind the bar, the bartender has a 7-tile wide distance that will only catch the convos of one 4-top table, allowing them to also take the orders of the 6top that is in the bar area and accommodate all guests at the stools.
• The back bar houses five stools, in addition to the 6-top table that is in the bar area, which provides the second bartender with twelve chairs to serve and interact with.
• The kitchen is able to view the dining hall and take orders remotely, approach the tables to take orders, or simply tend to the bar with only 8 of the chairs being within range.
• On the Horizon there are from what I count over nine areas that are private and without disruption for those needing to do special/private RP. I personally am unsure why and if more space is needed since on a daily round basis I have seen them for ages prior and for the time I have been playing again, they are never used anyways.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Hunt

[Garnascus]

I like this way better than our current map. Right now its really awkward that the main congregating point of the bar is....in the hallway? Yeah you can use the internal booths but....nobody does that. That is a mapping problem. Its also kind of weird that conversations from the current kitchen or orders get jumbled together with orders from the bar. It creates a lot of noise and these mapping changes separate the two. 

+1

[Scheveningen]

The entire service area being an open-air area is a nightmare for a spaceship, and for engineering to pressurize this spot. A singular decompression event risks killing a lot of people extremely quickly, as explosive decompression is no joke. This shouldn't be as open-air as atmospherics, which at least has a reason for an area of more than 50 tiles.

A fifth chair in the corner of the back section of the bar doesn't make a lot of sense because anyone seated is not aligned in front of the counter.

I'm sad to see the Pun Pun enclosure with a sleepytime bed was heavily nerfed. I insist this be restored.

[kyres1]

15 minutes ago, RyverStyx said:

I disagree that it's more cramped and think it actually utilizes the space better than having everyone in a single hallway.

In practice, this ends up being a case of having destinations to reach and needing to cross the central dining area to arrive at the bar. One way or another, the hallway entering the bar no longer just becomes a hallway, but it's a central dining area where people can  and will talk, and these conversations will be seen on both sides.

For reference to other readers, a good rule of thumb to always have is that your character can see (and thus hear) up to seven tiles from their tile in any given direction. That means, sitting in a relatively central portion of the dining hall looks like this;

Spoiler

The red dot in the middle is where the player is sitting. To put that into perspective, assuming the curtains are closed on the private booths, they are going to be sitting in a room that at most holds twenty-seven seated people (in line of sight of the chair). There's no reason to have this many chairs in visible sight of each other as opposed to the current layout, which uses walls blocking line of sight to explicitly minimize the conversation bleeding as it is.

There are obviously more generous examples of this that minimize the volume of seating areas in line of sight, but they all seem to fall pretty well into having double-digits worth of seats in view. This makes the bar, the new dining area, and the kitchen simultaneously all worse places to roleplay in when they already have such immense difficulty squeezing RP out of 5 seated patrons.

27 minutes ago, Hunt said:

The starboard excess lounges were rarely used from what I was told and have witnessed.

This also isn't true, and using this logic, expanding the table number above does not fix whatever issue this potentially might have.

30 minutes ago, Hunt said:

While I am unsure if a blatant 'this is a functional step backward' is a constructive review of a remap,

What this means is "I don't know what this fixes." Paving over work already done and functioning tends to have a motivation in resolving issues; I don't see issues highlighted here at all, and the ones proposed are seemingly acknowledged, but not fixed in this implementation.

[Hunt]

7 minutes ago, Scheveningen said:

The entire service area being an open-air area is a nightmare for a spaceship, and for engineering to pressurize this spot. A singular decompression event risks killing a lot of people extremely quickly, as explosive decompression is no joke. This shouldn't be as open-air as atmospherics, which at least has a reason for an area of more than 50 tiles.

A fifth chair in the corner of the back section of the bar doesn't make a lot of sense because anyone seated is not aligned in front of the counter.

I'm sad to see the Pun Pun enclosure with a sleepytime bed was heavily nerfed. I insist this be restored.

I have gone forward and readded a smaller version of the pun pun bedroom, the backroom is used for prep so I don't see a major loss in losing three tiles to an area the bartender uses once.

The extra barstool was removed.

There are a total of four vents and scrubbers dedicated to the open space dining hall/etc. I find the nightmare factor and hell that will come with a breach to be part of the benefit of this design. Meteors or breaches are supposed to be chaos, you should not be able to continue drinking during those scenarios.

[Hunt]

Here is the most up to date image.

[Carver]

I really can't say enough how much I dislike this. It removes my absolute favourite sections of the bar - the dark, cozy lounge and the relatively quiet stage area - while making the whole thing guaranteed to be breached if there are any carp. Furthermore if one area is breached, the whole damn thing is breached - gone is the security of having the stage breached and the bar and kitchen being fine, having the bar breached and the kitchen being fine, etc. Passing by the bar to check for people is also far less passive and easy than it once was, given you can no longer shoot it a brief glance walking through the halls.

I like the visual use of stairs and railings, but there was very good reason for actual walls and doors being used extensively there to separate rooms.

[Hunt]

5 minutes ago, Carver said:

I really can't say enough how much I dislike this. It removes my absolute favourite sections of the bar - the dark, cozy lounge and the relatively quiet stage area - while making the whole thing guaranteed to be breached if there are any carp. Furthermore if one area is breached, the whole damn thing is breached - gone is the security of having the stage breached and the bar and kitchen being fine, having the bar breached and the kitchen being fine, etc. Passing by the bar to check for people is also far less passive and easy than it once was, given you can no longer shoot it a brief glance walking through the halls.

I like the visual use of stairs and railings, but there was very good reason for actual walls and doors being used extensively there to separate rooms.

Regarding breach concerns:

Windows and shutters are now in place to segment the breached zones. It should also be noted, since it was not mentioned earlier, all three sides have their own exterior window shutters. A button behind the bar, behind the dining hall, and in the kitchen for them to all shutter their exterior windows as needed.

 

As for needing cozy spaces, there are lounges on deck three that off-duty and passengers spawn in at the round start. Three separate cozy rooms that I have never seen someone use to date, remain even with these changes.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Hunt

[Carver]

1 minute ago, Hunt said:

Regarding breach concerns:

Windows and shutters are now in place to segment the breached zones. It should also be noted, since it was not mentioned earlier, all three sides have their own exterior window shutters. A button behind the bar, behind the dining hall, and in the kitchen for them to all shutter their exterior windows as needed.

Even so, I still deeply miss sections like the L couch that were good for private meetings between crew - the little curtained 'smoking area' with the two comfy chairs that served a similar purpose. These all added to a very comfortable, gloomy atmosphere for the 'other half' of the bar that was pleasant to have overall. Now if I want privacy I may as well just leave and go to the cafe or the lounge behind the holodeck - and before the curtained dining tables are mentioned, they're never private. Everyone will check them in the current bar since they're so trivially accessible compared to the prior mentioned areas (which requires walking into an entire other room) and there's no real way to keep nosy crew out.

[Hunt]

2 minutes ago, Carver said:

Even so, I still deeply miss sections like the L couch that were good for private meetings between crew - the little curtained 'smoking area' with the two comfy chairs that served a similar purpose. These all added to a very comfortable, gloomy atmosphere for the 'other half' of the bar that was pleasant to have overall. Now if I want privacy I may as well just leave and go to the cafe or the lounge behind the holodeck - and before the curtained dining tables are mentioned, they're never private. Everyone will check them in the current bar since they're so trivially accessible compared to the prior mentioned areas (which requires walking into an entire other room) and there's no real way to keep nosy crew out.

For those who will be missing the dark and quiet lounge areas, would it be satisfactory to have the stage and a couch lounge area brought to this spot instead of a 6top table? such will be enclosed, which will further prevent breach spreads and such.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Hunt

[RyverStyx]

3 minutes ago, Hunt said:

For those who will be missing the dark and quiet lounge areas, would it be satisfactory to have the stage and a couch lounge area brought to this spot instead of a 6top table? such will be enclosed, which will further prevent breach spreads and such.

Honestly turning that area into a private lounge may be better and pretty cool

[Carver]

Depending on the aesthetic that can't really hurt - though it falls under the same privacy issue as the curtained dining tables have, where it's a few steps from the bar so every nosy bastard will walk in to look since unlike actual restaurants you won't get kicked out for bothering guests.

[RyverStyx]

11 minutes ago, Carver said:

Depending on the aesthetic that can't really hurt - though it falls under the same privacy issue as the curtained dining tables have, where it's a few steps from the bar so every nosy bastard will walk in to look since unlike actual restaurants you won't get kicked out for bothering guests.

If privacy is a concern there are wayyyy better spots to go rather than the most trafficked area of the ship

[Carver]

Honestly, it wouldn't be a concern if we could get boltable windoors. The clumsy solution would be windoors with special access requiring cards from behind the bar.

[Hunt]

This should resolve a majority of concerns:

An additional private lounge was readded to the bar with a stage attached.

This room will prevent a breach from fore spreading and allows for emergency airlocks to be on the bar stairs, preventing a breach from spreading from the bar to the dining hall and vice versa.

Convos will no longer bleed except from two tables, one of which will lead to a single barstool I believe, and the other being a four-top table right beside the kitchen that will leak but will also allow the chef to take orders for those sitting at a table and not just the bar, as some requested.

 

In total there, after counting, are 8+ private areas for whatever your RP needs are around the Horizon.

Breaches will not spread as easily and additional scrubbers/vents were included.

Convos will not leak, especially to the bar, and the kitchen will only be affected by a single table, an improvement nonetheless.

The giant tree from the hall was removed and transplanted to the center of the dining hall, resolving the space where the 6top table was.

[RyverStyx]

17 minutes ago, Hunt said:

This should resolve a majority of concerns:

An additional private lounge was readded to the bar with a stage attached.

This room will prevent a breach from fore spreading and allows for emergency airlocks to be on the bar stairs, preventing a breach from spreading from the bar to the dining hall and vice versa.

Convos will no longer bleed except from two tables, one of which will lead to a single barstool I believe, and the other being a four-top table right beside the kitchen that will leak but will also allow the chef to take orders for those sitting at a table and not just the bar, as some requested.

 

In total there, after counting, are 8+ private areas for whatever your RP needs are around the Horizon.

Breaches will not spread as easily and additional scrubbers/vents were included.

Convos will not leak, especially to the bar, and the kitchen will only be affected by a single table, an improvement nonetheless.

The giant tree from the hall was removed and transplanted to the center of the dining hall, resolving the space where the 6top table was.

I like it. One last nitpick from me would be maybe a window or windoor’d table in between the top left two tables in the main area so the bartender can peak out there if they want to.

[Rabid Animal]

it always felt weird to me that the bar and kitchen were effectively in the hallway so I do like this better.

[Hunt]

48 minutes ago, RyverStyx said:

I like it. One last nitpick from me would be maybe a window or windoor’d table in between the top left two tables in the main area so the bartender can peak out there if they want to.

There is a windoor towards the end of the bar, right next to the stairs that go into the bar, I figured the bartender can just use that to go into the dining hall area. Players wanted wants walls separating the dining hall and bar due to convo leakage.

[Scheveningen]

Looks fine there.

[WickedCybs]

This part is definitely fine as is to me, but if you ever get feedback about it being a problem, I don't think it would be a mapping issue to place glass airlocks on these stairs here to further minimize partial venting.

 

That aside I think the changes have developed this remap into something really interesting now so I do really like it as a roleplay space and somewhere for crew events to take part in. I'd definitely like to see it in action. The only thing I see as an issue is that hydroponics is almost entirely 1 tile walkways which might be annoying if 2 are playing the role at the same time. It could be worth removing a row of trays maybe but I couldn't really say as to how you could add new ones.

[Scheveningen]

This basically reminds me of the old Aurora service sector where it was in the center of the donutstation. It was awesome, and it was the saddest thing ever to have to see it go when we made the rebase to Bay.

Nostalgia aside, it was objectively the best service sector design. It was great, all of the chill-out zone was dedicated in a specific fun little place. While this isn't quite the same as that, it's very close -- and I'm happy to see the actual main bar itself isn't connected to the fore hallway. That always just gave me a headache.

[Dreamix]

I think the newest iteration is very nice. The problems and issues mentioned, were addressed and fixed.

I think this is a massive improvement overall, compared to current state. No more bar in the hallway. No more conversations bleeding between bar and kitchen.

 

Basically the only complaints that I have (that aren't really major, or deal-breakers):
- It is no more symmetrical (or close to it), with the stage and L couch room protruding to the front
- Hydroponics is super cramped
- The smaller bar front (the one with 4 stools) is super small and cramped, and kinda useless. I cannot imagine finding that enjoyable to use for the second bartender (as we have two bartender slots).
- There is a huge 9x5 space in the hallway in front of the bar/kitchen. That space is just empty and has zero use.

[WickedCybs]

I really dig the big hallway space personally.