Hello I would like to see this discussed further since I think there’s something here.
The general idea of this thread is the discussion of the pros and cons of more jobs being able to access lavaland, and having something to gain from it.
Pros:
-Lavaland is a different environment which can provide different opportunities for roleplay
-The entire reason SS13 is in orbit of lavaland is so it can be studied. This helps emphasize that.
-A large portion of server resources are dedicated to lavaland last I checked, and this helps more people make use of that
-It helps reduce the autism-fortiness of the place. With more people there, there’s more opportunities for that face-to-face RP that the staff seem to love so much
-You can do some really interesting things with this. Goliath diseases, new strange and exotic plants growing in the cracks of the soil, artifacts scattered around as if they’re growing out of the walls.
Cons:
-Splitting the server population between the two might result in both just feeling hollow and empty
-It might make mining less relaxing, since you gotta deal with all the tourists
-Requires a remap of most maps to include public mining (unless ruko’s gateway PR goes through)\
I usually built teleportation machines in front of cargo that connect to the mining bases, but the HOP may not give me the access.
This only once had let to an ash walker invasion.
If the lavaland gateway network goes through, you can almost think of lavaland base as being this, with a hostile outside environment for the particularly adventurous.
I’m on the fence about dramatically expanding lavaland, but having the gateway brings the two Z-levels “closer” together almost on par with Multi-Z. Also xenoarch being forced to spawn in maintenance is hella stupid.
I’m torn between keeping the round to the station Z level and working with what is already there and instead expanding lavaland while normalizing crew existence outside of miners there. At least the latter case keeps off-starion crew to largely the same Z-level and area unlike old space ruins.
I REALLY like multi Z, it opens the door for a lot of interesting station designs.
I disagree with fresh’ take that multi-z splits the population.
It’s just that multi z is hard to implement in a map, and you risk creating a lot of dead space (like hallways, maint tunnels or unnecessarily huge departments).
If done correctly multi z can be a lot of fun.
I don’t think it’d work like that. Lavaland has a lot of dead space, it would either scatter the few people in even more places, or just end up being unused.
I really dislike lavaland, and i think we’d be better without it (and mining as it is)
Multi Z from what I’ve seen just helps stack the bulkier departments.
Service being able to store their cold room and backrooms under them or just stacking botany under the kitchen itself.
Moving the bulk of xenobio under science.
keeping atmos and the shard on separate layers to protect the pipe network.
I have seen terrible examples tho… Icebox service is… kinda awful… bar is down stairs from the main corridor, making it less trafficked as you would need to walk down to see who is around.
Botany and kitchen don’t have an adjoining wall and if the chef needs to make their own food, they gotta go upstairs, through 5 doors and a corridor then down more stairs… kinda needs a redesign…
On the topic of lavaland… Giving a reason for departments to go down to lavaland seems like a fine idea… there IS already a science wing… may as well give excuse to use it…
then again a full redesign would be required… and measures would need to be put in place where crew cannot access the mining half to keep that gear separate. The teleporter as a hub in the middle and the two branches leading in opposite directions. (mining and civilian wings)
-Science has xenoarch which can be stationed on planet aswell
-Botanist can go get their own seeds if they wish after mining has cleared sections. (meaning mob killing is technically altruistic even if done for greed)
-Engineering can actually go down and look after it, maybe even requiring SOME minor work to keep operational, altho can be supported by mining with resources
-Medical can have a small sick bay / monitoring station on the planet and allows parameds to brave the wastes if they desire to recover any miners, their sensors being more accurate of a tell than X miner hasn’t moved in 5 min, better go check on them (If even noticed).
-Maybe even a small communal area/miniature service. Kinda like the access to dorms:
Small kitchen, aux botany (seeds and no modder) and some tables
I’m going to have to make sandwich station, a multi-z station in space with fully accessible exterior access to all Z-levels of the station, but also with departmental and structural design that sandwiches command areas and vault into the center of the station to make exterior access there of them more difficult or impossible.
Well I was thinking that the way the station would look is that it would have it’s heavy armored sections dedicated to the center of it, with civilian and leisure areas making the majority of the exterior, along side Arrivals and Departures, though having departures in the center makes sense for making it safer.
In the end I’m not skilled in Atmos, so honestly I’d not take a shot at that part, but building a general layout, furnishing it and getting the electrical grid up would probably be something I could potentially do.
Sorta, but no I think I’d go for 4 or 5 layers, not sure If Brig would be better place above or below Command layer.
Also, Highly tempting to put SM at the center of the bottom layer, test it exploding and see if having the 4th layer, (dorms? service? IDK something) would allow Command to survive the explosion of an SM going off at the center, Command layer would DEF be the center layer, since all the juicy NT secrets should be safe at the center of the sandwich.
I dont believe explosions transfer layers, hence my comment about keeping engi and atmos seperate. if they DID then all 5 layers above would suffer only X-1 range bombings compared to the floor below… likely taking out the entire station in the process. Unless there was a reduction factor for each layer crossed
