ASmallCuteCat's Service Remap

[ASmallCuteCat]

I've been poking at doing a service remap to alleviate some issues that have been brought up with the current layout:

1. Service is at a dead-end hallway, nobody will ever walk past Service unless they intend to go to Service.

2. The bartenders and chefs are in direct competition for interaction, since the bar and kitchen are on opposite sides of service with the mess hall in the way.

So, a quick run-down of what I'm trying to PR:

Moves Machinist workshop from prime real estate in Central Ring over to where the Chapel currently is. This puts it next to the rest of Operations, and also right across from Medical. Easier for the machinist to come over to help with prosthetic installations, less travel time for robotic limbs and such. Convenient.

Adds a diner (kitchen with 2 chef stations, a freezer, and a small bar with appropriate access) to the Central Ring, replacing the Machinist workshop.

Moves the deck 2 washrooms across the hallway where the library used to be, gave it a shower stall and a washing machine.

Moves Chapel and Chaplain's Office where the old bar used to be. 

Moves Library to where the kitchen used to be. 

Adds a lounge with bar in place of the mess hall. This is for bartenders (and patrons) who want a quieter, cozier lounge vibe rather than the bustling diner vibe.

(yes, I know that hydroponics and the kitchen are no longer conveniently nestled together, but hydroponics is a whole beast to move since it has in-depth atmos and spans two levels - something's got to give and sadly in this case it's hydroponics)

The areas as of right now feel pretty empty and I know for a fact that I've forgotten to add most of the materials, resources, and other QOL bits that exist in the current map. So, please leave feedback, suggestions, "hey you missed this" comments here!

[ASmallCuteCat]

forgot to add the images LMAO WHOOPSIE

[Carver]

I'm not sure if it has nearly quite the same depth and style as the current iteration of service, but I like it in concept. If it could be spruced up to the same aesthetic standard as the current areas then I'd be all for it.

[hazelmouse]

I'm not levying judgement on this as a developer right away, but I'm not confident in any redesign for service which breaks up the trio of the bar, kitchen, and hydroponics bay like this does. Right now, the only saving grace service has in spite of its unenviably remote position is that all these facilities are close enough to function as effective anchors drawing players towards the cafeteria. I think any movement of any of these facilities needs to coincide with a total shift of the entirety of the department to that new position, doing it piecemeal is going to create many more problems than it solves. That said, I am very fond of the placements for the workshop and for the chapel.

Edited Saturday at 08:11 by hazelmouse

[Merlin1230]

I do think splitting up the trio could maybe work if it was the bar that was split from the other two; The bar only needs hydroponics for a few drinks, while the kitchen heavily relies on hydroponics to make a lot of dishes. Although, even then, I wouldnt like the kitchen being the one in the far off section since its (currently) the less popular role compared to bartender, and could probably really use the boost of customers from being in the center. Not that bartender couldnt make use of it, either.

I have a little concern about the chapel being more isolated down there since it definitely would be more difficult to attract visitors walking by from that hallway. I havent played chaplain, so I dont know how much difficulty they have in that from their current position (my gut tells me people might write them off if they dont have a religious character, but thats mostly conjecture since I again, havent played chaplain), but it might be something thats a downgrade from the move- not that the ops hallway gets a lot of traffic anyways. I do really like the layout though outside of the confessional not having private booths, its all pretty solid. Although, you may want to add in a second set of vents and scrubbers into the main room, considering both the size of it, and also that it will have a lot of people in it at once when gatherings do happen. Justttt to make sure people dont trigger the air alarm by breathing more air then the room can recycle.

The machinist workshop being where it is in this change I think is probably my favorite part. While machinist is a odd one out and could probably be reasonably put anywhere, being next to operations as the department theyve been assigned to will probably help in giving them more cohesion with the hangar techs, since right now they dont have much reason to say hi outside of the fact they share a radio channel and gossip together.

[ASmallCuteCat]

I'm not sure how to spruce up the areas to the current style, hence my request for help  

I'll be honest, I wasn't sure what to do with Hydroponics either - however, there's a little niche just outside of Science that I could try. I'd nudge Telescience into that "Empty Space" area and work from there.

My big hangup with moving Hydroponics is that all of the atmos stuff was overwhelming and confusing, but now that I've gotten everything else moved I can try to nudge Hydroponics over. A quick jog across the hallway isn't nearly as bad as having to trek across the ship. I'll back up my working file and play around with things, though I'll need to figure out what will fill the empty space in Hydroponics if I manage to move it.

I've updated the confessional, I was going off what I found on google images so it wound up looking REALLY weird lmao

[Nagito Komaeda]

I like the idea of moving the kitchen into the central part of the ship. It feels far less out of the way. Separating the Kitchen and Hydroponics doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me, either. Usually, cooks don't do garden work (unless they ask really nicely), and if they do they at least can't constantly switch between the two.

The new position for the Chapel seems very nice, but the chapel office is massive, like- extremely large beyond reason? I think that's also why you might find issues detailing it well; how are you going to fill up that much dead space? Having the confessional in the office seems odd to me, too. If the whole point is privately confessing your sins, then why should people be fully reliant on the priest letting them in?

The library corner is neat, but also appears very open. I think it could benefit from having a larger table (2x2 or 2x3 maybe) as a game table. Maybe add a large stack of folding chairs somewhere. In fact, just spitballing here, but what if the library primarily consists of folding tables/chairs? It could be a neat spot for people to adjust as they see fit, with the modular nature. No clue how that would look, though.

Finally, might be worth showing off how lighting looks in these areas. My perspective is that the vibe in the service areas is heavily influenced by the lighting. Just look at the bar, how immensely the vibe shifts based on the setup. That modularity in lighting could be played with in multiple areas of Service.

[ASmallCuteCat]

10 minutes ago, Nagito Komaeda said:

The new position for the Chapel seems very nice, but the chapel office is massive, like- extremely large beyond reason? I think that's also why you might find issues detailing it well; how are you going to fill up that much dead space? Having the confessional in the office seems odd to me, too. If the whole point is privately confessing your sins, then why should people be fully reliant on the priest letting them in?

I added the confessional because there was so much space to fill up - the snoot of the ship is very oddly shaped which makes it hard to turn into a useable room. Too many tight corners that you can't exactly furnish because then it's too easy to get stuck. I'll fiddle with decor.

Would the confessional booth be better off in the main chapel? I could easily nudge some things around.

[Merlin1230]

25 minutes ago, Nagito Komaeda said:

Separating the Kitchen and Hydroponics doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me, either. Usually, cooks don't do garden work (unless they ask really nicely), and if they do they at least can't constantly switch between the two.

For me Its less about the separation of duties between the roles, or even travel time, and more just that they should be besties and cooperate a lot! Service as a department can really struggle to be interconnected because of its very nature, and I feel like having them all close together helps with the department being more lively since being close together would encourage them to talk to eachother more outside of just work duties. Its honestly something that I think bartender especially struggles with in the layout thats currently ingame, since in order to interact with the kitchen and hydro, I have to leave my post entirely and have it out of LOS. Its not exactly something I can easily mix in while still talking with customers unless business is just dead.

So technically, the kitchen could handle hydroponics being anywhere, but I think its more interesting for them to be next door or even integrated together like they are with the kitchen now just to help encourage them to RP with eachother and maybe even cooperate on in round projects or events. Some of my favorite moments as a bartender are me interacting with my fellow service workers, even if I mostly only get to talk to fellow bartenders in that regard.

[ASmallCuteCat]

Quick mockup of better bar-kitchen-hydro adjacency. I nudged Science over a little bit

[ASmallCuteCat]

It worked out better than I thought it would. Hydroponics and the kitchen are attached once more.

Science is now narrower but I tried to use up a lot of the empty space (example - the viewing area that's just a whole load of open turf) and pack everything in a little more tightly.

[Carver]

Perhaps for chapel space you could have the mass driver facing forward, with a larger viewing area for crew to witness the launch of the dearly departed? It makes more sense for the final send-off to be at the fore of the ship, off toward wherever the crew may yet travel. Solves the issue of having too much empty space as well.

[ASmallCuteCat]

34 minutes ago, Carver said:

Perhaps for chapel space you could have the mass driver facing forward, with a larger viewing area for crew to witness the launch of the dearly departed? It makes more sense for the final send-off to be at the fore of the ship, off toward wherever the crew may yet travel. Solves the issue of having too much empty space as well.

I like that idea! It might be tough to pull off but I'll play around with it.

I now have a mental image of the Horizon using cremated crew member urns as ammo in ship-to-ship combat

[Arbiter_Ambrose]

23 hours ago, ASmallCuteCat said:

It worked out better than I thought it would. Hydroponics and the kitchen are attached once more.

Science is now narrower but I tried to use up a lot of the empty space (example - the viewing area that's just a whole load of open turf) and pack everything in a little more tightly.

The destructive analyser needs to be closer to the main science stuff, since it connects to the console I believe, not that it wouldn't work, I just think it might work out a bit better.. is this all of science you have touched?

[ASmallCuteCat]

1 hour ago, Arbiter_Ambrose said:

The destructive analyser needs to be closer to the main science stuff, since it connects to the console I believe, not that it wouldn't work, I just think it might work out a bit better.. is this all of science you have touched?

Yes. Xenobio, Xenobot, and Xenoarch remain unchanged.

I thought I moved everything over, guess I must've missed a few things >.<