Night-time on a space station

[Bedshaped]

Right now the station time is just a number which has little bearing on anything other than timestamps on certain documents. One thing I'd like to see done is the differences in station time to actually have some effect on either gameplay or the general ambience of the station.

Gameplay would be difficult to think of, I don't really have any ideas but as far as ambience goes, should the light level of the hallways be dimmed during night-time hours?

Perhaps between 8pm and 6am, the corridors will be made darker so that crew members can physically/psychologically adapt to being on a station at night.

Ideas or thoughts? Does anyone have a better idea how the station could change depending on the time of day?

[UnknownMurder]

Just a curious question. What about dionaes?

Just something to propose if the daytime and night-time were going to be implemented, who would go to sleep? Who would get 'over-night shift'?

There are many questions unasked.

Overall, I like the idea and I'm wondering how this would be in the game too.

[Guest]

Doesn't make sense. Anyone working on a space station will have already had training or enough experience working in space to avoid the 'jetlag' like effects, aside from the occasional SSD that it causes.

There is no night, there is no day. Not in spess. Adjusting it's lighting to a planet that it doesn't even orbit would be extremely arbitrary, and wouldn't work for 90% of our employees that hail from Sol.

[Guest Complete Garbage]

Doesn't make sense. Anyone working on a space station will have already had training or enough experience working in space to avoid the 'jetlag' like effects, aside from the occasional SSD that it causes.

There is no night, there is no day. Not in spess. Adjusting it's lighting to a planet that it doesn't even orbit would be extremely arbitrary, and wouldn't work for 90% of our employees that hail from Sol.

T h i s.

People on board would have all different circadian rhythms, so it hardly makes sense to add a day/night cycle to the station.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

There is justification to make this realistic in terms of our setting. In the cities in the moon caves of Luna they use powerful light sources to simulate light then dim/shut it off over a 12 hour period.

Human beings tend to get really fucked up if they're constantly hit with interrupted light for long durations of time. It's why insomnia and sleeping problems have become more and more common as we stare at bright screens at night or keep the lights on.

Dimming the lights on the station to represent evening or night-time would be a very nifty feature. Because time in space is so arbitrary we can time it to be whenever. Do we name it Biesel Relative Time, which is literally-who-cares, or Galactic Standard Time, which is Central Time Zone UTC-06:00 and where the server is hosted?

If this is implemented along with compressed time progression then we can have a smooth and natural shift between the days we spend on station with a brief period of night.

If we implement this stand-alone then it would make dead-hour feel like the graveyard shift.

There are problems with losing all the lighting - it would have to be toggleble somehow, because we also still need to work and see what we're doing. The affect would have to be limited to the hallways, which are like our 'streets', while places of business would remain brightly lit, with the exception of the dorm lobby, escape, and arrivals.

[Pyrociraptor]

There is justification to make this realistic in terms of our setting. In the cities in the moon caves of Luna they use powerful light sources to simulate light then dim/shut it off over a 12 hour period.

Human beings tend to get really fucked up if they're constantly hit with interrupted light for long durations of time. It's why insomnia and sleeping problems have become more and more common as we stare at bright screens at night or keep the lights on.

Dimming the lights on the station to represent evening or night-time would be a very nifty feature. Because time in space is so arbitrary we can time it to be whenever. Do we name it Biesel Relative Time, which is literally-who-cares, or Galactic Standard Time, which is Central Time Zone UTC-06:00 and where the server is hosted?

If this is implemented along with compressed time progression then we can have a smooth and natural shift between the days we spend on station with a brief period of night.

If we implement this stand-alone then it would make dead-hour feel like the graveyard shift.

There are problems with losing all the lighting - it would have to be toggleble somehow, because we also still need to work and see what we're doing. The affect would have to be limited to the hallways, which are like our 'streets', while places of business would remain brightly lit, with the exception of the dorm lobby, escape, and arrivals.

 

Maybe also add to APCs some kind of function to control the light level or similar. That could also be used by antags to be stealthy, without having to FULLY turn off the lights.

[Synnono]

I like this concept. As someone who once worked nights in a very, very brightly lit room, I can totally vouch for how easily it trashes the sleep cycle.

Having this be a feature in the corridors seems like a nice gesture to the (human) crew on the surface, but the company would clearly be disregarding that most of that crew comes from different worlds and time zones. It smacks of a good idea that was ultimately poorly implemented, and it seems pretty NanoTrasen to me.

Edit:

 

Maybe also add to APCs some kind of function to control the light level or similar. That could also be used by antags to be stealthy, without having to FULLY turn off the lights.

Thiiiis. Spooky shift at night? Vampire's delight!

Edited September 26, 2016 by Guest

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Making it an optional aspect of APC's would also be very cool. Whereas it's automatic for the hallways, it's revertable for different rooms. That would even give a neat little aesthetic where unused rooms are dim and used ones are brightly lit, giving a little reminder for what areas are being populated. Of course, Vaurca will probably keep their rooms dim or congregate there, whereas Dionaea will remain in the brightness.

And what Synnnoononoon said, it's very NanoTrasen.

[SierraKomodo]

Considering the new map is going to be on a planet/asteroid, it would probably make a lot more sense to see about implementing this once the new map comes out, than it does to implement it on a fixed-point station.

[Nikov]

We can certainly try it out here. The rotational period of the asteroid is likely to be much more or less than 24 hours besides. As a station maintaining its own clock, or even a synchronized company clock (everyone in Nanotrasen ships and stations on the same primary shift for ease of communications), we'd have lights dimmed in hallways for perhaps eight to ten hours. I'd suggest eight if only so only a third of our playtime is spent "at night" as the time is randomly pulled. However given alert levels, 1/2 odds may still yield mostly lit halls.

Green alerts; hallways at reduced lighting. Blue or red alerts go to full light.

APCs have a light level setting, accessible by anyone, like the thermostat.

Light settings adjust power requirements.

The Chief Engineer or Captain might have a master switch to set the thresholds on all the other APC's, from 50 to 120%. I can see forcing the station into low power lighting mode if I ever had to put her on solars. God forbid.

[Serveris]

This seems like a pretty nifty idea, actually. I'd, at the very least, be interested in giving it a trial run.

Would this in turn result in less power draw for lighting utilities on APCs?

[Synnono]

I can see forcing the station into low power lighting mode if I ever had to put her on solars. God forbid.

Or even if like...some amorous malf just wants to provide mood lighting!

But yeah, having it be an option (and having that option affect power draw) seems about right.

[whiterabit]

I really like this idea actually, some of my favorite rounds have been dead shifts lacking engineering solely because of the loss of lighting. Obviously with a system like this it wouldn't be quite to the same effect, but having an effective "night" setting to the station would be something I'd absolutely love.

[VileFault]

I mean, aesthetically this seems cool. And since it was suggested by a coder, I am inclined to think it could plausibly be implemented. But why are we pretending that this really makes sense?

 

Consider this. Cryostasis doesn't count as sleep. No movement of fluids, no neurological changes, because every metabolic process is supposedly slowed to a crawl. So everyone has to return to the Odin to legitimately sleep after a certain number of shifts, right. I am pretty sure that much is established lore. Ok, then, there are a few possibilities back on the Odin. By far the most efficient seems to be different dormitory "wings" running on different timezones. In the 'A' wing, the lights run on a schedule offset from the 'B' wing, which is then offset from the 'C' wing. That means that, when the 'A' people's internal clock is getting them to go to sleep, and they return to the 'A' wing where everything is dark, the 'B' people are just waking up to patented NanoTrasen bird songs. The Aurora would be kept constantly lit, but all the people staffing it would be working during what they perceive as daytime. Give every wing eight hour shifts, and you are in business.

Does that make sense? It just seems a bit odd to make anyone work the "night shift" when a setup like this could be arranged. We are floating at least a fair few AU from Tau Ceti, in a debris cloud no less. We have total control over when people feel like it is night, and would be incentivized to keep the station in use 24/7 by awake and happy workers. In a city, like the ones Mighty Senpai mentioned, you kind of need to have a universal schedule, because all denizens need to be able to interact with each other. If you scheduled an appointment with a lawyer who was only awake at 3am, it would be a bit of a drag. Here, we need to make the most out of super-expensive equipment. I agree, though, that it would feel a bit more right on an asteroid station. Can't wait for the change!

That all said, I wouldn't mind this. There are plenty of aspects of the Land of Spessmen which require me to suspend my disbelief already, and I can happily deal with it if the cool factor is sufficient, which I believe it is here.

[Serveris]

.. Where did you develop this? Most people don't even live on the Odin. They live on or near Biesel - even New Gibson.

[VileFault]

Huh. Bit late to find it exactly where I read all this, though I will try tomorrow. I always thought that after the shuttle took us back to the Odin, we either prepared for a new shift or slept there. Isn't the Odin supposed to be way bigger than what the map suggests, and act as a support station for the Aurora/Exodus and other installations in the region? Do we really make the journey down to planetside settlements every day? That seems like it would be pretty crazy, even with bluespace drives and whatnot.

I guess they probably have apartments or homes or units or something down on Biesel or New Gibson, especially if they have families, but it seems like employees in the cloud would be away from home for weeks, if not months at a time. Again, though, correct me if I am wrong.

[Nikov]

I've always presumed the Odin has my state room because the thought of re-entering a planet's atmosphere every evening seems a bit beyond even the wildest of Johnny Rocket sci-fi. Commute to the moon? Maybe a business trip, but not as your 9/5. Christ. In fact, the Odin having everyone's houses is silly as well, unless its a big spin-gravity flying cylinder the size of a city. Gateways? The implications of gateways are completely unrealized in our setting, and I'm fairly certain the off-site gateway is just a holdover from the map switch.

It would be a lot easier on this conversation to just presume everyone slings up a hammock in Maintenance, rather than walks through a shimmering blue light to their suburban home in Wisconsin. See how one of these options is patently ridiculous? Oh God, the station is falling apart, get the wounded into the escape pods, oh wait, just throw them through the gateway to Biesel Naval Hospital's ER lobby.

[UnknownMurder]

We have dorms. Dorms are nice. Dorms is where we sleep. Imagine being murdered when you sleep.

I like the idea of being able to dim lights and brighten lights (and break them accidentally because too high).

[VileFault]

Christ. In fact, the Odin having everyone's houses is silly as well, unless its a big spin-gravity flying cylinder the size of a city.

I am pretty sure we have spooky-scary gravity generators in this world, but really anything works. And we kind of have to have stations like that somewhere, right. The only thing on the Odin that I was able do dig up was an old thread where people talked vaguely about the possibility of the Odin being a couple of things (http://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=6592&p=65254&hilit=Odin#p65254). Not really cannon, so as far as I know this is all up in the air anyway. My God, my guy's life is probably a total lie. I am beginning to think that the poor bugger really does just quietly slip into some water closet when I am not around and doesn't come out for four hours.

In the end, this little digression I have developed a weird obsession with isn't super relevant to the actual change, which I pretty much agree with. Though I think that, if we finally give APC's a light switch and dimmer, we should remove those stupid wall-nipples that nobody uses. I once had a xenobotanist whine to me for over half an hour to fix their APC. Turns out that the light switch was off. That is how little those things are used.

EDIT: Exactly Synnono, it is kind of irrelevant.

Edited October 4, 2016 by Guest

[Synnono]

Living situation between shifts may be getting just a tidge too far off topic here, and is perhaps something for the lore team to consider elsewhere. It's worth recalling that hyper-realism isn't always/often the goal, but stupid corporate policies and silly implementations of 'good' ideas are persistent themes in the game and in our lore.

We are traversing the distance between the ass-end of Tau Ceti and high Biesel orbit in two minutes on that transfer shuttle. Teleportation exists. Let's not think too hard about it and let folks live where they wanna live between rounds. I still think that the lighting could be believably implemented because it might as well be purposefully ignoring the various realities of the crew.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

"Is this realistic?" is a question that is very rarely taken into consideration by myself. For a true, strong argument, you base it around "Is this consistent?"

Is day/night consistent with our setting?

I say yes, because we have a significant group of the population of each race living permanently in orbitals. People do live on the Odin, it's a giant complex with attached residential 'apartments'. It is an orbital with the population of a small city.

It would make sense in a company paper to keep our orbital rhythms in check by simulating day/night. It's literally whatever they want our bodies to sync to.

If we add this and sync it to our eventual compressed time progression where every hour is a day followed by 30 minutes of night, followed by an hour of day, followed by 30 minutes of night....

[Zundy]

WORDS WORDS WORDS I'm going to make time compression canon!

 

 

As for the actual idea, I like it. It can easily be explained away lore wise, is consistent with the setting (I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and makes for an interesting aesthetic look in game, as well as an interesting spooky-ma-gooky mechanic which I can imagine spooky traitors taking advantage of.

Here's a picture of the spooky ISS during a night cycle:

 

 

My the god the ISS looks like absolute fucking garbage. Needs more sleek panels imo.

[Nikov]

Is it consistent we have the ability to generate 9 m/s^2 of acceleration with a reaction-less drive on a mass the size of a space station, yet the space station isn't cruising at 1 gee acceleration up to light speed? Well, there's a reason "realistic" and "consistent" go hand in hand in realistic settings. It is realistic to try and push the crew into a diurnal cycle, although it would be done in two or three watches rather than one watch. I suppose it makes sense to put the whole company on the same schedule to avoid the time zone nonsense modern multinationals face.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Nikov... W-Who says the station is accelerating? I-It's in orbit around the sun in the asteroid belt.....

[VileFault]

God damn it, I feel bad for contributing to this debate about what really makes sense. Do you like the idea of occational spoopy skarry mood lighting? I do. Thus it should be. Besides, if the people playing when the "night" happens are largely playing at night IRL too, then it contributes to muh imerssions.