New map concept [Personal project]

dose names

To be quite frank: i think it's time to retire the "Exodus" type stations.

What's wrong with them?

Blatant Exodus hate aside, I've actually given this a bit of thought, and here's a simple design idea I wanted to show.

I've been thinking about what makes Aurora what it is, and realized that, essentially, we're a research station. Yet, I see so little science being done, and most of the time, I get the impression that we're on a space station... in space... for the sake of it.

This is mostly due to science being a department that gets so little exposure. It's basically off, on its own, in a little corner of the station where nobody cares. So here's the main points on this:

-Engineering and cargo stay where they are. They're fine there, and can stick together as they're technical/maintenance jobs, and where the station's "lower class" can go.
-The bridge stays in the middle of the station. If we rebuild the station from scratch, we make sure to make it first, so we have enough room for everything, and we can stick the AI core right in the middle where it's safe.
-Science and the brig get switched. The reasoning for this is that the brig doesn't need to be anywhere near the middle of the station, as officers should be patrolling around the hallways, not waiting there, unlike say, doctors in medbay. In fact, in most workplaces, you want the security/staff areas to be as much in the shadows as possible, save for checkpoints. We're not a prison.
-Science gets a lot more room, along with possibly a spiffy northern hallway.
-A northern hallway, leading onto both science and civilian areas, could serve as a sort of central hub, with the ever popular bar area remaining between science (old brig) and medbay. Since we can't stop people from always crowding into the bar, it's important to keep it as open as possible, else the people inside it get completely cut off from the rest of the station and vice-versa.
-The HoP's office could be moved near arrivals. This gives the HoP a bit more of a job (overseeing new arrivals) when I find they often don't have anything to do. The HoP can always walk to the bridge if they need it.

Now, here's a list of things we could do:
-Expand the civilian area. A common room. Dorms that aren't completely spartan. A rec room. Perhaps on-station housing/private dorms, either for the sake of RP (would be hard to assign, though) or for heads (we do have head-specific bedsheets in the code). Maybe a gym.
-A nice hallway leading to the civilian/science area, 5-tiles wide, with greenery and benches. Or a little hub room, just above the bridge, where most of the action happens.
-Make science a bit more comfortable. Big, glassy areas giving on the hallway, with their own break room and conference room. Science rooms that actually run along the department's hallway and not against it, so you can actually see science being done when you walk around.
-Make arrivals look a bit more like a terminal. Benches, a seating area that's more than a table with four chairs, it should really be a lobby for the station. And view on a reception desk (if not the HoP's office, as suggested).
-Set up a small security checkpoint near the bridge, close to the science/civilian areas, if not in the civilian area. Room for a few officers, so that we can have some chair RP happening in an area where people might actually come find officers for help, and not in the brig's break room that's a thousand miles away from everything.

I do admit, the station layout is a bit much for size and getting around. I could actually see myself enjoying a ship map, as it's size might be a bit more....easily traversed.

And is Sam even still alive? I've not seen hide nor hair of our mapper sla- dev. Dev. Not slave.

Also, you've become a Bujin Pony, apparently.

If you are going to try and insult me. Do it in a language I understand.

I also fail to see what my avatar has to do with anything. Art is art.


Anyway. I will be back on server Thursday/Friday hopefully.

Let's not get off topic please.

Except for the part where it makes sense for the bridge to be in the middle of the station. You don't look at a V8 engine and say "You know, we've been using cylinder engines for a while, maybe we should try to do something different because why not?" You come in with a solid concept before you start to mess around. Otherwise, development work becomes a pain of fixing design after design until you end up with an efficient base again, instead of starting from an already working one and ending up with something as efficient much more quickly.

There's also been severe design issues with the maps you've submitted for the server. Empty spaces, strange, overly symmetrical designs, unnatural furniture arrangements, missing or superfluous elements (double air alarms or scrubbers), unfinished elements in final releases (the unrotated bar shutters come to mind).

If I had to sum up the issues I've had with your work, I would say I feel like you try to come up with innovative designs that "look good on a grid", without really considering original function or purpose. You end up with layouts that not only look strange, but also lose function over their predecessors. Some of the areas we've recently reworked were in no need of a rework, and the reworks didn't bring anything new, simply shuffled things along (losing some in the process). I'm for change, but I think change should bring something better, not exist for the sake of it.

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As for this layout, I'm actually for moving the bridge around (maybe to the top of the map), and turning its present location into a communal area. Not replacing it with more departments, because the way it is right now, the bridge is simply this big box most people outside of command ignore. So what your design suggests does not really fix that problem. (Even if the library is a public space, it's not open enough, and should be in a quieter corner of the station. I doubt putting it in the middle will let it receive much more traffic.)

But I'll add that Goonstation is a mess of tubes and pods, whereas Baystation is a cluster of rooms. What you have done here is a reshuffle of Baystation, with the traditional cross-shaped hallways and central box, and there's very little alternate pathways. Part of what makes Goonstation good is all the extra stuff they packed in it, as well as the disorganized, varying corridors of which there is none of here. (It's also a bigger station than Aurora, which we have to keep in mind.)

I found these suggestions a good idea, so I reshaped the central area and moved the divisions down so research and medical are touching (genetics) with engineering right above so it's not too much of a jog down in case SHTF. I also have a large room with no immediate use, so suggestions welcome for the "" block too.