I forgot to add on this. Its a good concern. Its hard to tell if it would go that way, since repairing the derelict basically evolves it into something closer to a normal round but with more shuttles. There are always people that go “bored, call shuttle” but I feel like that doesn’t win over until the shuttle vote. The shuttle vote is usually a crapshoot. Is everyone bored? Was it a greenshift? Is everything on fire? Is something preventing a shuttle call? Or maybe all the players on like long ass rounds. Maybe its low pop.
I can see why someone might think it would go that way, though. It wouldn’t be dissimilar to build rounds. The difference i see is the “station”. In station meteor events, everyone gets forced onto lavaland in the mining base. The mining base is not meant to fit an entire station in it, even with the science area. Zombies is an actual midround not so its not an admin build event anymore, but the building was just walls and shit so it doesnt really count anyway. Sandbox is a gamemode thing, and people get bored with it after not too long. In a game where majority rules, the few people who could work on shit for hours don’t overrule the people who want round chaos and to be antag. My map, however, has a full station, with normal stuff. The derelict would mostly be maints, besides maybe some easily accessible core hallways that would let the shuttles connect. However, I think a fleet of ships at the start would be more interesting. Plus, if the ships actually work, a small fleet can access a derelict very easily, should the heads coordinate such a movement.
Moving on past the actual reply, I do have some new notes that might be worth adding to my mess of random thought.
The Ore Silo problem remains the largest issue. I realized there is a second issue. Command presents a potential gameplay problem at the moment, as the shuttles would only be piloted by command. If no one rolls command, the ships are entirely inert until round end or someone picks command. There is no possible method of preventing this possibility at all times without changing how job rolls are done in a way that I feel the players wouldn’t appreciate. even on high pop, sometimes there are heads missing. Actually most of the time there is at least one head missing. So thats a new issue to parse.
After that, I’ve thought of a new format on top of the Fleet and the Derelict that have now been suggested. You could also make the primary station a mothership on orbit. The mothership wouldn’t be pilotable, it would just be for show. It would be like a previously suggested model where the station contains portions of departments, usually parts that the station might need suddenly and urgently, like parts of medical, and the proto lathes/circuit printers. Then either parts that make the most sense to be in the shuttle, or parts that the station doesn’t really need all the time, go into the shuttle portion, which would be able to freely disconnect from the mothership.
A large issue across all maps is accessibility. Losing maints means more than losing the funny dark loot tunnels. It means more than losing a place to hide wires and pipes, or bodies. No no, it means you lose entrances to departments. The Airlock doors that I would have planned on using would all bottleneck traffic in and out of each department, usually restricting ALL ACCESS to each department to 2 primary docking doors. Maybe I should make doors on both sides, so you can exit the shuttle from either side. This would increase departmental space access while docked in space, but also allow for easier docking at other locations. But having to design each shuttle to accommodate symmetric airlocks. I guess that might be fine, but it would certainly make each shuttle feel more… the same.