Nikov's Mapper Application

[Nikov]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Nikov

Position Being Applied For Mapper

Past Experiences/Knowledge: Project Reality Developer, Mapping. Tribes 1, Tribes 2 Mapping. Battlefield 2 Mapping. Operation Flashpoint / Arma / Arma II / Arma III mission editing, scripting and mapping.

Examples of Past Work:

Bear in mind I was building for a low spec audience. Its even lower here.

Preferred Mode of Communication (Skype, Steam, etc.): Discord.

Additional Comments: BYOND's tile-based system is rather easy to work with. I've fiddled about and make a few functional TEGs, gotten myself a standard for piping atmospherics, etc. I intend to offer my help primarily in running the utilities and developing standards for the engineering aspect of the next map.

[Nikov]

To my work examples I suppose I need to add things in BYOND. Well. Zippo engines aside, I ghost-mapped atmospheric substations in for Fowl, which didn't quite hit the mark. I had limitations not to modify existing hardware too much and the atmospheric octopus the coils out of mining maintenance makes, really, no sense at all. Try being a mouse in the pipes some time, or follow the power cables. There should be big loops of wire or pipe that departments tap into for a local SMES or air tank, then form a new sub-loop to the APCs and vents. Scrubbers, on the other hand, need to exit departments on either a pump (better scrubber performance overall) or pressure regulator (no power required) so that a high pressure incident (fire) doesn't choke the scrubber network in a neighboring department.

I've argued for this before and I've offered to help for a year, and at the urging of Nanako I'm applying for developer rather than waiting for the go-ahead to ghost-mapping. I am trying to offer specialist mapping for the engineering department, but I'll work on any part of the station.

A little thumbnail sketching shows a combined air and electrical department "substation" takes up 3x3 tiles of floor at 5x5 with the walls included. That's...

1x 10,000 liter air tank

2x High power pump

1x Pressure regulator

2x Universal pipe adapters

1x Meter

2x Maintenance Hatch

2x Window Blocks

4x Firelock

1x Atmospheric Alarm

1x Scrubber

1x Breaker Box

1x SMES

1x APC

1x Powernet Sensor

The only thing I'd ask in line of new assets is a resprite and possible recode of our "breaker box" that isn't a giant glowing cube, but a floor mounted switch you can walk over, toggle remotely, or take the steel panel off with a screwdriver to flip by hand. It could even display power demands on the various wire directions leading into it and allow loading inputs and outputs, something like our atmospheric filters and mixers. There's lots of times where having a switch to disconnect a power grid would be handy, but all we have are these "breaker box" monsters that eat a whole tile and are as useful as an on-off switch.

When I get home I'll BYOND this out.

[Nikov]

 

And before anyone says "Too late to offer",

[Skull132]

Any chance you could apply yourself to something other than just the internals as well? We already have Keknar to pester for that bit, so another mapper purely focused on it would be a bit too much, perhaps. Perhaps you could give us an example of a workspace design or something like that? Showcase your ability to also handle the aesthetic bit of mapping, basically.

[Nikov]

Instructions unclear, building torus station.

 

 

I did a version in which a repeating bulkhead pattern was sub-divided into quadrants, some of which were merged, and overall I'd built about half a station, guts and all. I'll see what I can do to flesh something out and let you feel an aesthetic sense. Unfortunately my best work was lost to the aether.

[Nikov]

 

Chapel redux for the new station. Chaplain office moved to the mined space adjacent to the library. In that space, the chapel now has the funeral elements in a more functional arrangement including a conveyor to allow a stately funeral procession of a casket to the crematorium.

It is assumed that, due to the certainty of death but the many varied preferences for spirituality, the chaplain's primary responsibility is to provide funeral services, and his secondary responsibility is religious services. As such the chapel is reconfigured.

The confessional is now tucked away to provide a symmetrical sanctuary space.

The windows are now electrochromatic to provide privacy if the chaplain so desires.

The conveyor belt passes through a black curtain, not airtight flaps like mere cargo crates.

Black curtains are also used to conceal some switches.

The windows and reinforced wall posts reflect traditional cathedral styling of buttressed arches and stained glass.

Tile mosaic frames the sanctuary space in a cobweb motif.

Doors are now dark grey and opaque, allowing total privacy and preventing light pollution.

The altar is three wide and marble. Marble belongs in the chapel.

The floor being broken by the conveyor belt means no more fukkin' crayon bullshit.

[Scheveningen]

This is really great, actually. Especially the layout of that torus station. I'm no authority on mapping but I know enough of atmospherics mechanics to say that the designs are efficient and have countermeasures against atmospherical issues (in the form of firelocks which are often overlooked in usefulness).

[Nikov]

The torus-station is actually from the pre-distro/scrubber pipe days of code. There needs to be main runs and then divisions off those runs for individual departments. I've seen the newmap and the oldmap and it bothers me to see air supplies coming into departments by convoluted routes with no redundancies.

[Skull132]

Directed Fowl to this.

[LordFowl]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Nikov

Position Being Applied For Mapper

Past Experiences/Knowledge: Project Reality Developer, Mapping. Tribes 1, Tribes 2 Mapping. Battlefield 2 Mapping. Operation Flashpoint / Arma / Arma II / Arma III mission editing, scripting and mapping.

Examples of Past Work:

Bear in mind I was building for a low spec audience. Its even lower here.

Preferred Mode of Communication (Skype, Steam, etc.): Discord.

Additional Comments: BYOND's tile-based system is rather easy to work with. I've fiddled about and make a few functional TEGs, gotten myself a standard for piping atmospherics, etc. I intend to offer my help primarily in running the utilities and developing standards for the engineering aspect of the next map.

 

I still maintain my apprehensions concerning your priorities. I do not think it would be unfair of me to estimate that your number one priority, indeed your entire purpose for applying as far as I can tell, is to create your own ideal of a pipe-network. While this may be all well and good, it's not something that is strictly needed right now, and more importantly it is not a sustainable position as a mapper. Mappers cannot be specialists first - they need to be able to accomplish most any mapping task, and must have the desire to do so.

Additionally, there is no present need for a mapper as is. Keknar, Juani, and myself can take care of pretty much any mapping that the final days of the new map require, and no major additional projects are in the plans.

With all this in mind, I'll ask one final question before making my verdict:

What can you, as a mapper, provide to the mapping team? You have seen the new map, so I ask of you to formulate 5-10 distinct objectives - either related specifically to the new map, or for Aurora in general - beyond improving the piping/wiring network.

[Nikov]

1. Develop a coherent schema for the infrastructure on the Aurora station. Firelocks, air alarms, APCs, disposal tubes, distro and supply lines, electrical routes, substations; and how they all interface with areas, hazards, positions where compartments are vulnerable to breaches and sub-divide large pressures into damage-control compartments. This is my primary interest.

2. There is a lot of asymmetry in the new map and there is an absence of clean lines and clear demarkations. There is also a lack of consideration for some roles. Take the chapel. Only half of the chapel was a nice rectangular space because the confessional was put in one corner and the other corner had... spare stools? The chapel was the most public structure possible with glass walls on all sides and no steel to appear as a girder holding in the glass. Then the Chaplain's office was tucked in the back with the crematorium. Are bodies to be taken from the morgue across the station in the Medical wing through the main hallway into the chapel? Why isn't there some discreet passage? Why wasn't the medical morgue placed adjacent to the chapel? It is as if the bodies being transported around are entirely afterthoughts. Nobody ever does a funeral so nobody cares how much of a pain it is to execute one. But if the map is designed to facilitate funerals, it follows we'll see more people attempt them.

3. There are numerous safety/fire concerns in the new station. A blow-out of toxins misc research will burn out hydroponics, a sleep room of SSDs, and spill into the aft hall. It should blow out to void space. Many doors do not have emergency shutters under them where they should. More issues will arise as the map is played on, but the look of it is that fires will be devastating. Areas and area air alarms don't incorporate relevant firelocks, so a breach in certain maintenance areas won't shut firelocks to their access points and the airlock will be opened to vent the next compartment, entirely negating the point of firelocks.

 

 

Look its things like this here. The east airlock doesn't have a firelock. The north airlock does. The east airlock is in the area for the hallway, the north airlock is in the area for maintenance. Now the most likely point of breach is the west wall, but even with that alarm triggered, the east airlock will have no alert to a player to say 'breached' (or as easily, raging high-temperature trap, given the engine radiator). That will get people killed. How it should be is for a path to be traced from the nearest breach point, to the nearest airlock, and make sure its all in the same area and heading to an airlock with a firelock under it and an air alarm inside the area. Otherwise people die.

Also there's two firelocks under one of these doors.

 

 

This was twice as much pipe as was needed because the foyer was mapped with double airlocks on the south side instead of a single airlock or a double airlock split by a central post. Because that south airlock isn't shifted one more tile left, a straight run of pipe couldn't go through the opposite door under its airlock floor. So it makes that big dog-leg around the other side of the room to add a vent and scrubber just out of the frame and then go north to connect to the atmos monitoring room. I'm seeing dozens and dozens of little things like this where straight lines and uniformity and standards were abandoned.

 

 

Also why is engineering storage a 5x9 room with one wall's center point neatly at 3, yet its a double-adjacent airlock offset to the 3 and 2 tiles. So the atmos pipes don't come in at the centerline but just below it. Also there's only a door on the east wall. Why not one door on the east and one door on the west, so people can flow through from the foyer to the reactor at round start. Why make them jostle each other going in and out of this reinforced wall bunker like this.

So turn it into...

 

 

Added a fire alarm, which was missing.

Added an airlock to the west side and removed an airlock from the east side, making it a passthrough space instead of a dead-end closet.

Removed two engineer lockers to put the YouTool and EngiVend machines securely in the corner where they won't crowd the room.

Sorted all glass, metal and plastic into one table corner and all tools into the other table corner.

Put the oxygen tanks next to the oxygen canister so you can refill your new tank without having to jostle all the people putting on hardsuits.

Ran the atmospheric pipe through the floor from one end to the other directly along the major walkway for easy maintenance.

Put the vent and scrubber on opposite corners 1 tile from the wall for symmetry and feng sui.

Made sure the vent and scrubber manifolds didn't cross the other pipe type. Also feng sui.

Removed the welding supplies locker that was outside the space.

There's no intercomm in there but that's definitely on my checklist for a functional room.

Move the light bulbs so you aren't burning your hand trying to use an APC or pick something up.

So I'd be making a pass over every single room, shoving things into neat corners like an OCD housewife obsessed with workflow and then do my real-world cable installer thing on the side.

I mean I'll ghost map every one of these things in, but it seems inefficient for me not to be a map dev and make a real tear at it.

[Scheveningen]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Nikov

Position Being Applied For Mapper

Past Experiences/Knowledge: Project Reality Developer, Mapping. Tribes 1, Tribes 2 Mapping. Battlefield 2 Mapping. Operation Flashpoint / Arma / Arma II / Arma III mission editing, scripting and mapping.

Examples of Past Work:

Bear in mind I was building for a low spec audience. Its even lower here.

Preferred Mode of Communication (Skype, Steam, etc.): Discord.

Additional Comments: BYOND's tile-based system is rather easy to work with. I've fiddled about and make a few functional TEGs, gotten myself a standard for piping atmospherics, etc. I intend to offer my help primarily in running the utilities and developing standards for the engineering aspect of the next map.

 

I still maintain my apprehensions concerning your priorities. I do not think it would be unfair of me to estimate that your number one priority, indeed your entire purpose for applying as far as I can tell, is to create your own ideal of a pipe-network. While this may be all well and good, it's not something that is strictly needed right now, and more importantly it is not a sustainable position as a mapper. Mappers cannot be specialists first - they need to be able to accomplish most any mapping task, and must have the desire to do so.

Additionally, there is no present need for a mapper as is. Keknar, Juani, and myself can take care of pretty much any mapping that the final days of the new map require, and no major additional projects are in the plans.

With all this in mind, I'll ask one final question before making my verdict:

What can you, as a mapper, provide to the mapping team? You have seen the new map, so I ask of you to formulate 5-10 distinct objectives - either related specifically to the new map, or for Aurora in general - beyond improving the piping/wiring network.

 

What are you three even doing with the new map if you aren't even installing firelocks underneath airlocks? You guys not realize how dumb it is for a breach to happen and an air alarm to go off in a certain area and half of the airlocks in the area are missing their firelocks? Without firelocks, there's not even an informational indicator of what the atmosphere is like on the other side, and anyone can easily walk into the area by mistake and SCHOOOOOOOMPF all of the air is gone. There's like not even a point to having air alarms at that point besides telling someone at a remote controller what's going off. Firelocks add the necessary visual protection to stop people from walking into breaches without having the information in front of them of what to expect on the other side.

I'm not against putting someone who actually knows what they're doing and pays attention to detail on the mapping team. Forgetting to install firelocks underneath airlocks is a rookie mistake, not a mistake a mapper should be making if they're taking their job seriously as an individual attempting to haul in a new map.

Oh you need mappers alright, preferably someone who doesn't make terrible design decisions.

[LordFowl]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Nikov

Position Being Applied For Mapper

Past Experiences/Knowledge: Project Reality Developer, Mapping. Tribes 1, Tribes 2 Mapping. Battlefield 2 Mapping. Operation Flashpoint / Arma / Arma II / Arma III mission editing, scripting and mapping.

Examples of Past Work:

Bear in mind I was building for a low spec audience. Its even lower here.

Preferred Mode of Communication (Skype, Steam, etc.): Discord.

Additional Comments: BYOND's tile-based system is rather easy to work with. I've fiddled about and make a few functional TEGs, gotten myself a standard for piping atmospherics, etc. I intend to offer my help primarily in running the utilities and developing standards for the engineering aspect of the next map.

 

I still maintain my apprehensions concerning your priorities. I do not think it would be unfair of me to estimate that your number one priority, indeed your entire purpose for applying as far as I can tell, is to create your own ideal of a pipe-network. While this may be all well and good, it's not something that is strictly needed right now, and more importantly it is not a sustainable position as a mapper. Mappers cannot be specialists first - they need to be able to accomplish most any mapping task, and must have the desire to do so.

Additionally, there is no present need for a mapper as is. Keknar, Juani, and myself can take care of pretty much any mapping that the final days of the new map require, and no major additional projects are in the plans.

With all this in mind, I'll ask one final question before making my verdict:

What can you, as a mapper, provide to the mapping team? You have seen the new map, so I ask of you to formulate 5-10 distinct objectives - either related specifically to the new map, or for Aurora in general - beyond improving the piping/wiring network.

 

What are you three even doing with the new map if you aren't even installing firelocks underneath airlocks? You guys not realize how dumb it is for a breach to happen and an air alarm to go off in a certain area and half of the airlocks in the area are missing their firelocks? Without firelocks, there's not even an informational indicator of what the atmosphere is like on the other side, and anyone can easily walk into the area by mistake and SCHOOOOOOOMPF all of the air is gone. There's like not even a point to having air alarms at that point besides telling someone at a remote controller what's going off. Firelocks add the necessary visual protection to stop people from walking into breaches without having the information in front of them of what to expect on the other side.

I'm not against putting someone who actually knows what they're doing and pays attention to detail on the mapping team. Forgetting to install firelocks underneath airlocks is a rookie mistake, not a mistake a mapper should be making if they're taking their job seriously as an individual attempting to haul in a new map.

Oh you need mappers alright, preferably someone who doesn't make terrible design decisions.

 

I understand that you're trying to be helpful and assist Nikov in his application, Delta, but you're hyper-aggressive approach is completely unnecessary, particularly when the question was not directed at you and this application is not by you or for you. I would seriously advise you reconsider your strategy as wingman - a better one would be letting things follow their natural course instead of torpedoing the application by derailing it. Aka, buzz off.

As for you, Nikov.

1. Develop a coherent schema for the infrastructure on the Aurora station. Firelocks, air alarms, APCs, disposal tubes, distro and supply lines, electrical routes, substations; and how they all interface with areas, hazards, positions where compartments are vulnerable to breaches and sub-divide large pressures into damage-control compartments. This is my primary interest.

2. There is a lot of asymmetry in the new map and there is an absence of clean lines and clear demarkations. There is also a lack of consideration for some roles. Take the chapel. Only half of the chapel was a nice rectangular space because the confessional was put in one corner and the other corner had... spare stools? The chapel was the most public structure possible with glass walls on all sides and no steel to appear as a girder holding in the glass. Then the Chaplain's office was tucked in the back with the crematorium. Are bodies to be taken from the morgue across the station in the Medical wing through the main hallway into the chapel? Why isn't there some discreet passage? Why wasn't the medical morgue placed adjacent to the chapel? It is as if the bodies being transported around are entirely afterthoughts. Nobody ever does a funeral so nobody cares how much of a pain it is to execute one. But if the map is designed to facilitate funerals, it follows we'll see more people attempt them.

3. There are numerous safety/fire concerns in the new station. A blow-out of toxins misc research will burn out hydroponics, a sleep room of SSDs, and spill into the aft hall. It should blow out to void space. Many doors do not have emergency shutters under them where they should. More issues will arise as the map is played on, but the look of it is that fires will be devastating. Areas and area air alarms don't incorporate relevant firelocks, so a breach in certain maintenance areas won't shut firelocks to their access points and the airlock will be opened to vent the next compartment, entirely negating the point of firelocks.

 

 

Look its things like this here. The east airlock doesn't have a firelock. The north airlock does. The east airlock is in the area for the hallway, the north airlock is in the area for maintenance. Now the most likely point of breach is the west wall, but even with that alarm triggered, the east airlock will have no alert to a player to say 'breached' (or as easily, raging high-temperature trap, given the engine radiator). That will get people killed. How it should be is for a path to be traced from the nearest breach point, to the nearest airlock, and make sure its all in the same area and heading to an airlock with a firelock under it and an air alarm inside the area. Otherwise people die.

Also there's two firelocks under one of these doors.

 

 

This was twice as much pipe as was needed because the foyer was mapped with double airlocks on the south side instead of a single airlock or a double airlock split by a central post. Because that south airlock isn't shifted one more tile left, a straight run of pipe couldn't go through the opposite door under its airlock floor. So it makes that big dog-leg around the other side of the room to add a vent and scrubber just out of the frame and then go north to connect to the atmos monitoring room. I'm seeing dozens and dozens of little things like this where straight lines and uniformity and standards were abandoned.

 

 

Also why is engineering storage a 5x9 room with one wall's center point neatly at 3, yet its a double-adjacent airlock offset to the 3 and 2 tiles. So the atmos pipes don't come in at the centerline but just below it. Also there's only a door on the east wall. Why not one door on the east and one door on the west, so people can flow through from the foyer to the reactor at round start. Why make them jostle each other going in and out of this reinforced wall bunker like this.

So turn it into...

 

 

Added a fire alarm, which was missing.

Added an airlock to the west side and removed an airlock from the east side, making it a passthrough space instead of a dead-end closet.

Removed two engineer lockers to put the YouTool and EngiVend machines securely in the corner where they won't crowd the room.

Sorted all glass, metal and plastic into one table corner and all tools into the other table corner.

Put the oxygen tanks next to the oxygen canister so you can refill your new tank without having to jostle all the people putting on hardsuits.

Ran the atmospheric pipe through the floor from one end to the other directly along the major walkway for easy maintenance.

Put the vent and scrubber on opposite corners 1 tile from the wall for symmetry and feng sui.

Made sure the vent and scrubber manifolds didn't cross the other pipe type. Also feng sui.

Removed the welding supplies locker that was outside the space.

There's no intercomm in there but that's definitely on my checklist for a functional room.

Move the light bulbs so you aren't burning your hand trying to use an APC or pick something up.

So I'd be making a pass over every single room, shoving things into neat corners like an OCD housewife obsessed with workflow and then do my real-world cable installer thing on the side.

I mean I'll ghost map every one of these things in, but it seems inefficient for me not to be a map dev and make a real tear at it.

The vast majority of your objectives appear to be largely directed at tidying up the map. These objectives are not particularly compelling, and an aptitude for spotting bugs that haven't been sorted with yet is not really an impressive asset, although your help is of course appreciated.

Of your three objectives, two of them are devoted largely to infrastructural overhauls, which was a topic I asked you to skip over because it has already been made clear in your application and your discussions with me that your first objective is to create your ideal network, your second objective to be a mapper.

The overwhelming attitude I've gathered here is the desire to dive in and perfect every little thing, and to hell with all else. While you may idolize the OCD obsession as a positive quality, I cannot help but imagine it as quickly tiresome. My least favourite past-time is butting heads with colleagues, and there has been a distressing hint of butt to head throughout this application process.

There is no shame in operating purely as a ghost-mapper, and feeling like you have to be a developer to see any change is probably not healthy. I would seriously not advise pursuing this application unless you are comfortable in working within a team-orientated environment - because that is the key distinction between a ghost-dev and an official dev; official devs are part of a team, for all of its good and its bad.

And on that point, I still feel no overwhelming need or desire to add on another member to my team. Despite Delta's assertions, I am confident in both the competency of the mapping team and their ability to take the map down the final stretch, polishing it off in preparation for release. I am not sold on the idea of another member because I do not think it is necessary, and I would not be willing to accept a member unless I knew they were competent and able.

And that is the reason I have kept this application of yours open for so long, instead of shortly dismissing it like others. I am confident of your ability to actually map, Nikov, and of your competency in design. Yet, the doubts I still do nurse - work ethic and priorities, still concern me. I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and sleep on this decision, posting my final verdict tomorrow. In the interim you are free to post anything else that comes to your mind that may be relevant to your application.

[Scheveningen]

The vast majority of your objectives appear to be largely directed at tidying up the map. These objectives are not particularly compelling, and an aptitude for spotting bugs that haven't been sorted with yet is not really an impressive asset, although your help is of course appreciated.

 

If the map's a mess filled with glaring design flaws and errors that you hadn't noticed yourself, then someone who can do mapfixing on the fly would not hurt to have on the team.

 

The overwhelming attitude I've gathered here is the desire to dive in and perfect every little thing, and to hell with all else. While you may idolize the OCD obsession as a positive quality, I cannot help but imagine it as quickly tiresome. My least favourite past-time is butting heads with colleagues, and there has been a distressing hint of butt to head throughout this application process.

 

I think describing Nikov's attention to detail and efficient attitude and belittling it down to OCD obsession is rather unfair and insulting to the applicant and their intelligence. If anything, Fowl, you've been the only person to come in and start butting heads with everyone else.

 

And on that point, I still feel no overwhelming need or desire to add on another member to my team. Despite Delta's assertions, I am confident in both the competency of the mapping team and their ability to take the map down the final stretch, polishing it off in preparation for release. I am not sold on the idea of another member because I do not think it is necessary, and I would not be willing to accept a member unless I knew they were competent and able.

 

There are three of you. Two of which have questionable on-server activity that waxes and wanes. I don't doubt their ability, but having another person to work for the map and speed it along even faster by taking portions of the workload off other individuals can do nothing but benefit your team. The applicant is a server regular with a great in-depth understanding of atmospherics and and possessive of an excellent attention to detail. These qualities are excellent to have in a mapper. It'd be an utter shame to turn away someone over concerns and issues such as work ethic and 'priorities', the former being unfounded until they're hired on and you observe for yourself, and the latter being vague and assuming of malicious intent.

I've had my arguments with Nikov and I do not hold him to as high as a regard as you think I hold him, but I am not a fool and I can make notice of competence, talent and ethic when I see it.

[Tequilajoe]

I would love to see a veteran of the engineering department working on the mapping team, I can't really think of anyone else I'd trust more to set up a coherent map. Let me re-emphasize this: Nikov far more than a veteran of engineering. Many regulars know engineering and atmospherics very well. But few can boast playing chief engineer 4-5 days out of the week for... however long he's been playing. I know its been longer than me, and I've been playing on Aurora for nearly a year. And from what I've seen in this application, he is clearly willing to put forth good effort, so I don't think LordFowl should be concerned with his work ethic. I noticed that LordFowl also feels that Nikov would have to display competency as a general mapper rather than a quality of life/atmospherics specialist, and I think he'd have no issue with that either, considering his extensive game experience. As an engineering player myself, I find that working in engineering teaches you as much about other departments as it does your own.

LordFowl, even were you to decline Nikov as an official mapper, I sincerely hope that you'd continue to take any advice he has to heart. This application shows some very helpful, some even critical (like adding missing firelocks), updates to the map.

[Nanako]

I'm really liking nikov's attention to detail.. The reasonings for layout changes seem pretty well explained, with reasoned deasigns behind them

Also, RE Funerals. As the new map is multilayered (and the morgue is in the basement) it'd be entirely possible to install some kind of mini elevator in the chaplains office to uplift corpses

[Nanako]

To add, Nikov is a man ive spent a lot of time with over the past year. He mainly plays chief engineer and does a whole ton of remodelling constantly. He seems to pride himself on minute detail and intelligent design

I can't recommend him strongly enough, i think. Not just as a mapper, but as a design voice in the development channel. His input and IRL engineering expertise would be invalueable, and i'd love to have him onhand as a bouncing point for ideas. I'd be honored to have him as a colleague, consider this a glowing recommendation

[Juani2400]

Hello there.

As of the map's current state, I don't think we really need more mappers. All major mapping is done, and most of the issues that are in the map -which are infinite-, are small and normally caused by merging of the different pieces done by each one of us; easily fixable. We are aware of a lot of the issues the map has, and they will probably be fixed before the actual release. In fact, I have personally asked Fowl to inform me when I can start working on the full inspection I plan on doing to the wiring, piping, disposal network and detailing of all the map, as there are merge requests up and you all probably know that we can't really do a lot of things in parallel. I already have a packed list of things that I need to fix, and it only helps if you actually contact us if you spot a mapping error.

The decision on this application has to be made by Fowl, and ultimately by Skull. I do appreciate your abilities as a mapper, and the problems you have noticed, but given that we mappers are mostly idle because we can't work on the map if another mapper is working on it and the fact that I doubt major re-mappings will be allowed until we release, I'd say you should apply then, or submit your individual projects as a "ghost-mapper".

Let's also please don't criticise the mapper team. Fowl puts a lot of time into the map, and its code, and I'm sure Keknar has put his time as well when he was in charge of his assigned areas. They have pulled with most of the map's work, with me only designing Medical as I am the newest addition. They've done a pretty good job, although there are things that need fixing, which, as I said, will be done.

[LordFowl]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Nikov

Position Being Applied For Mapper

Past Experiences/Knowledge: Project Reality Developer, Mapping. Tribes 1, Tribes 2 Mapping. Battlefield 2 Mapping. Operation Flashpoint / Arma / Arma II / Arma III mission editing, scripting and mapping.

Examples of Past Work:

Bear in mind I was building for a low spec audience. Its even lower here.

Preferred Mode of Communication (Skype, Steam, etc.): Discord.

Additional Comments: BYOND's tile-based system is rather easy to work with. I've fiddled about and make a few functional TEGs, gotten myself a standard for piping atmospherics, etc. I intend to offer my help primarily in running the utilities and developing standards for the engineering aspect of the next map.

 

I have thought about it extensively, and have unfortunately decided against accepting this application - through no dire fault of the applicant themselves. You are a very competent mapper and have definitely proven yourself to be very dilligent and passionate, but the simple fact of the matter remains that the size of the mapping team is more or less where I want to see it. In the past larger teams have failed to prove themselves more effective than smaller teams, and I think we all work best with a trio of dedicated mappers. I hope that we can maintain a strong relationship with you and other passionate non-developers because at the end of the day it is the combined effort of everyone that benefits the server best. Rest assured, if a position ever opens in the mapping team you will be high on the list of considerations, as again I am very impressed with your passion. I am sorry that it has taken so long to resolutely determine this, but the matter has been very conflicting in my mind because again you are a very admirable candidate, however there simply is no opening currently.

[Skull132]

Application denied by the head of the specific team.

Archiving.