I don’t really play very often right now, but I was sitting around when an old thread from here or maybe it was a conversation on the discord, or something, wormed its way into my head. I remembered we talked about some cool ideas for station layouts. My favorite out of these was a station was is effectively just a dock, with each department being its own functional shuttle. The idea has a lot of limitations, with the biggest being the viability of an entire department that can move z levels, let alone ALL of the departments. regardless, I thought was a really cool idea, and even thought of some ways to circumvent some of the limitations, though some of it would probably require specialized coding. Most of that was just tucked away in my mind somewhere, and then I felt like putting it into some sort of form. I would honestly like to see it one day, and maybe if I ever feel like putting in the effort, I’ll learn how mapping works and work on it myself.
So basically, the station I’m imagining about is several large shuttles docked at a refueling station. I’ve through together extremely rough early concept work for the design and layout of the shuttles and dock itself, but there are still several areas that I am pretty unsure with. I made this in paint, so its obviously not super high quality, but it mostly gets the idea across. I have 4 images. The Dock/Station Layout all together, then some ideas for the ships themselves.
This concept is really barebones. It would probably be pretty constricted, and it contains no maintenance areas. While I want to address this, and the lack of solars, I figured that while having the dock is important, I also want to make sure the dock forms around the ships, and not the other way around. The thing that sparked the change is the mostly finished Medical ship on the far right. I don’t think its a terrible design, I think it would probably have to swap places with the science ship, which the far left ship was going to be. the middle ship was Service, containing a small mobile restaurant. I have other designs for those ships, so the other thing I want to look at is the actual station.
On the far left is Engineering, with atmos on the top, and the SM on the bottom. Unlike most maps, the SM would have an additional use. Each Departmental Shuttle would use generic shuttle thrusters to move, though they would probably have more than a small shuttle could hold. At the start of the round, they would be empty. Plasma generated by the sm would be sucked up and instead of being spaced, it would get pumped to atmos, where it would get filtered into a plasma tank that would feed into fuel lines that go to each shuttle.
Across the hall from engineering is Security. The entire one big square across from engineering is all of security. Then next to security would be captain’s office and room, and then bridge and a publicly visible meeting room, and then next to that is HoP’s office. HoP would be in charge of Cargo and Service as normal, but HoP never does that stuff so I can get away with making Service its own shuttle.
The three rooms to the right of HoPs office is Cargo, which functions as normal
I could also make security and engineering shuttles, but I can’t really justify doing it with Cargo. Cargo already has the mining shuttle, which I could simply make larger. The Cargo shuttle probably has to come to the station z level to function properly. You could make Security a Space Pol Style swat shuttle that just happened to be stopping by, but any seccies who are assigned to a department (like sci sec) would effectively be part of that ships crew over the docks crew. Most of the ships would be allowed to undock at about 45 minutes into the game, allowing for fuelling and some level of progression. the shuttles could also be launched early, though dangerously, if the alert reaches delta.
I have some ideas for the shuttles as well. While the initial concept for the dock had a rough concept for the medical ship, it was the first one I would revisit. It was what sparked me doing the ships first, after all.
The Medical shuttle is effectively a mobile hospital… At the top, we have CMO’s office, connecting to the cockpit on the right, and the power and oxygen storage on the left. Below that, is the reception area, as is typical of a medbay. this contains the docking airlocks, a window, several chairs, and a receptionist desk. Below that is Chemistry which, also by usual medbay standards, is facing the external lobby, allowing potential windoor access. Below Chem is Genetics and cloning. I’m kind of torn on having Genetics on the Medical shuttle, but its usually in medbay… so whatever. Above that is a morgue which is below surgery. Surgery is split into its usual three rooms: a room that can have some beds for ssd/catatonic, a room for actual surgery, and a room for watching surgery. Then, isolated from the rest of the shuttle, but in an art deco way, is Viro. In the very bottom of the shuttle are the thrusters and Plasma tanks. I don’t want to use canisters because that’s too easy to sabotage, I would prefer those big air tanks or whatever they are called. I think each shuttle should have at least one of those for plasma only, and at least one for its local air.
I think this design looks nicer than the other design I had going. The biggest issue was that I wanted viro to be isolated like it tends to be sometimes, but without ruining the shuttle shape. Another issue is how big the shuttle actually is. I would have to sit down and actually like… make it to really grasp how big I want this to be. Obviously its just one department, so it can’t be too crazy, but I would expect this to be mid to high pop map. I think you could probably jam everything I wanted to into this regardless, but looks are important sometimes.
The Middle shuttle is the Service Shuttle, including self sustaining food production, a janitorial staff, 5 star karate chefs, and even in house entertainment. The main entry brings you into the bar, where most patrons would be headed. Meanwhile, this shuttle actually has maintenance. Only one though, and its necessary because of the engines. Regardless, behind the bar is a small maint tunnel for the thruster fuel pipes, which connects to the service lathe. Botany would have to use that service tunnel to exit the shuttle.
My biggest critique of this one is that maybe service should be part of the station. Like maybe I shift engineering to be a fuel truck, bringing electricity and fuel, while Service is simply the basic life support of the station, a janitorial staff and a rinky diner in space that you can eat at between work or while refueling. Maybe it shouldn’t be a shuttle at all. But maybe all of the departments should. I don’t have to much to say about it in the end, I think. A cooler, more sleek design would be better, thematically. If its a traveling restaurant in space, it would want to look good. I just tried to keep it similar to how it looked in that first concept picture.
Finally, the last concept I drew up for now, until i suddenly and abruptly revisit this in the future, is the Science Shuttle. This shuttle turned out pretty well, if pretty boxy. The interior main hallway is too wide, but that could be changed pretty easily. I put placeholders for either tables or benches along those walls. In the back of course is fuel, air, and electricity. However, Toxins storage would also be back here. Toxins is the room with the large black shape in it. I did not attach a good launch point, but I assume that there may be some way to change it to the lavaland bomb site instead, which would be practical. Below Toxins is Xenobio. to the right of Toxins is Robotics. Below Robotics is Xenoarch, and next to Xenoarch is a dock for the generic sci shuttle that most maps have. There are some technical problems there. I don’t know if an object and dock to an object that is in hyperspace, if that happens. Can you dock a shuttle to another shuttle? I really doubt you can, but the concept was optimistic. Having both the sci shuttle, and a departmental shuttle, Science could leave the station and scan monsters for research, bomb lavaland for ore, or other asteroids. This idea doesn’t really incorporate Exploration, but they could also be like the sci shuttle. Maybe all three shuttles exist in a small fleet, with the main sci department being the main ship, explo the secondary, and the sci shuttle just a small transport ship. anyhow, on the right of the ship is RDs office, with lamarr at the top. Below RDs office is nanites, and next to it is RnD proper.
I really liked the idea, and I’ll hold onto these and maybe come back to them later. I don’t know how to map make, but maybe I’ll look into learning at some point.
There are a lot of pretty glaring issues that make the concept really hard to pull off. I’m not very good at bloating stuff, so the map doesn’t have any maint in the concepts. I mean there are the engine rooms on the ships, which you could for sure put some maint loot in, but there isnt a maint proper. I guess the answer would just be putting maint surrounding the non dock parts of the station, and between security and cap, and cargo and HoP. Maints play an important role, but I also think that less maints usually leads to less frustration with stuff like silently getting killing in maint and then stuffed in a locker and welded into a wall.
Each Department being a shuttle would present a number of problems. How do midrounds spawn? will they spawn on the shuttles? Should they? Blob can’t move its core onto shuttles, so that’s a problem. I think you could solve that by making it so shuttles with blob tiles on them can’t move, they get glued in place. Then other departmental shuttles could bail out, but the ones that get grabbed before they get away are stuck until they can get cut loose. But on the other hand, if all the shuttles run away, its a game loss. Each Department being a shuttle could result in cool events though, if some midrounds COULD spawn on them even when they weren’t docked. Imagine the Science shuttle went silent for a while, and it docks, and their radios crackle back onto the common radio frequence. Every died to xenos, and the only survivor tried to flee back to the station but accidentally dragged a ton of xenos to the station. But, then again, Ore Silo access would be really annoying if it got cut every time your department left the Z level. You could put departmental lathes onto the dock, or each shuttle could have its own Ore Silo, and they simply requisition some from Cargo during the shift, or obtain it themselves.
I would like the docks to be universal, or at least semi universal. Easy to use. Maybe make it like default escape shuttle docks for each dock, and each shuttle has to fit that somehow with at least 1 air lock. The current designs don’t really care about that, but it would be funny if 2 departments were arguing because one department took the other departments parking spot.
The Chain of Command would be weird with this set up. I would like to think the map comes with some lore. the Captain of the Dock is effectively the Dock Manager. Anything that is directly part of the dock, and anything that goes on inside of the dock, is his responsibility. He would be encouraged to help organize the shuttles, keep track of where they are, and what they are doing in local space, or keep an eye out for syndicate activity, all depending on what the dock actually ends of having as part of it directly. For example, if sec is part of the dock, then sec reports to the Captain. But if Sec is a shuttle, then sec is semi independent. They stop crime in local space, the space station included. The Captain is in-charge of local space, but the seccies aren’t directly under him. Any Heads that captained shuttles would be pseudo mini captains. In the current layout, with Service as a shuttle, I like to think that the shuttle has been there for some time, and HoP is actually the service shuttle captain who is semi promoted at the dock to HoP, which is why he has service and cargo.
Well, this is really really long and rambly, which makes sense I suppose. Maybe those concept drawings were incomprehensible to anyone but me. Maybe literally no one cares. I mean, asking someone to read all of that is asking a lot honestly. Like I mentioned somewhere else in this essay of a post, I don’t know how to map, so this is basically just a fantasy for me right now. I think it could be a really cool and unique map design even if the shuttles couldn’t move. I’m worried that this is kind of too long and too rambly to come across as reasonable, but I’ve already written it and while I can unwrite it, that would be however long it took to write this shit wasted, and I think the idea is worth at least entertaining.
If you have any ideas around this concept, such as suggestions, critiques, additions, or your own take on it, feel free to throw them in. If you actually read the whole thing, then maybe you think its a cool idea too.