/tg/Station 13

Hello everybody,

There is a thread in policy discussion concerning the removal of Box and an increasing number of people that seem to be dissatisfied with my favorite station. So I've decided that I would attempt to learn mapping to make box a better experience for everybody involved. I've started a new thread since the last one is from ~2018 and box has changed since then.

Some of the criticisms I have heard so far

-APCs located in maint.
I actually liked this aspect of Box as a traitor as you could emag or hack the apc, turn off the lights + environment so they need a crowbar to run and come in from the top. After thinking about it for awhile I don't think it is a good idea to deny apc access to AIs specifically malf AIs.
The fix is either moving the APCs into their respective departments/rooms or adding cameras to maint so the AI doesn't need to send a borg to hack the apcs.

-Box does not have enough EVA suits.
Meta and delta both have a total of 8, Box has a total of 4. Assuming 50 players that is either 1 space suit per 6.25 players (8 suits) or 1 space suit per 12.5 (4 suits). Not sure how many players box was designed for but in any cast it is a simple fix to increase the quantity of suits all that needs to be done is reshuffling the racks around or expanding into the room just east of the EVA suits. While I'm talking about EVA the addition of eva shutters + a button to control them would also probably be a good change.

-Box does not have enough public access fire suits in the main hallways
I'd have to do a count but this does seem to be the case at least for public access. I'm not sure how difficult it would be as I'm still figuring things out. From what I can tell it seems the main hallway or rooms connecting to it will have to be redesigned in order to add more emergency/fire lockers.

-Box's bridge is not fancy enough
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 26#p543914
This post from the removal thread by Yenwodyah sums it up pretty well.
Metal chairs instead of swivel/fancy, Non-distinct flooring, lack of vending machines, etc.
I'm actually looking into changing this at the moment: darker floors show off the decals more. Slightly bigger entrance for additional decals (little blue boxes) on the way in. Forgive the shitty image I'm trying to figure out how to zoom out for easy not shit cropped screenshots on my own. -Other decal work
I've seen arrivals needs more decals/needs to be redesigned if there are any other bare places try to provide screenshot comparisons as it will help with zoning in on departments/hallways. For example the outside of botany lacks
green squares and potted plants are in short supply on station.

-Box's powernet is shitting itself.
I'm not sure if it is a coding issue or just an issue with box but re-doing the entire power grid is a lot of work and would like to know if starting from scratch with the power net would help in any way or if it is literally a code issue. In any case there may be interest in having the power grid redesigned to be a circular loop instead of whatever the hell it is now.

-Possible problems concerning the layout itself.
Some of the grumblings I hear concern...

-AI upload being on the bridge.
I suppose this is applicable to revs or other bad guys that want to change the AI's laws instead of stealing the upload board from storage as its pretty difficult to arrive undetected on the bridge and change the laws.
The AI upload could be moved to a number of locations: the current location of the gravity generator (making it similar to Meta), onto the satellite (Delta), possibly even to the current comms room (moving current comms to the satellite).

-Cargo's position on the station
Not sure about this one cargo has always seemed fine to me. Might be a complaint from Meta security players who have cargo basically next door and don't need to travel far to secure it/get implants.

-Box's maint sucks
Reasons for this seem to range from the lack of room variety in comparison to meta/delta which has things like abandoned robotics/botany/etc. To things like the enclosing/redesigns of maint over time due to map changes making it feel more closed off and dead end-y.

-Perma is absolutely destroyed when meteors come.
Dunno if this is a 'feature' or if some grilles/walls should be set up to help keep the prison secure

Some of the things I have problems with and don't know if anybody agrees with me
-The location of the chem factory
it is pretty far away from chemistry if it isn't going to be moved then maybe moving chem to the old genetics room or viro would be the efficient thing to do
-The AI satellite is kind of shitty.
Not sure if having the AI on station was better as assassinating it was a pain, it was at least interesting. Also not sure if the older design of the satellite was better.
-Current location of the gravity generator
it seems kind of hard to sabotage being in the main hallway instead of in maint by engineering.
-The movement of the detective's office and removal of a maintenance tunnel leading to sec
I liked multiple ways into and out of the sec hallway as an antag
-The holodeck
I think a door from maint should be added so antags can use the atmospheric burn or wildlife simulator or bee whatever that place is called, without dying/having to go through it.
-Toxins current design
Its a really long right angle and has to go across the hall for the plasma/oxygen. I'd probably like to switch the RD's office and the tank storage it also has a rediculous amount of scrubbers/air pumps/empty cannisters
-Adding old engines
I'd like to add the parts of old engines (singulo+tesla) in their locked cargo crates, to engineering secure storage so engineers don't have to spend several thousand cargo points to do a fun side project.

I won't be able to do anything but goof off in the map editor for a few weeks as I figure things out in the map editor + github and deal with RL busywork but I would like to start looking at complaints/criticisms/proposals now. If you think there is something wrong with box no matter how small or insignificant now is the time to voice your opinion.

i definitely think it's good to play around with the map editor, and a lot of what you've typed out seems like it's going in the right direction

that said, someone else recently opened a work in progress PR for a new version of boxstation that may or may not replace what we have now, so it might be a good idea to see if icebox is going to fully replace oldbox before committing too much effort into a big scale revamp project

but even if icebox does replace oldbox, don't hesitate to keep chipping away at it for your own amusement/to learn mapping imo

-add basic human being support like fire extinguishers in each firelock "block", more fire suits and more o2 lockers
-remove the double firelocks shit in the main halls
-remove the maint apc cancer
-invert chem with the sec room and give medical 2 entrances (the north one and one where the mulebot landing site is

I think there's a fair argument to be made of how it's not that Box that should have all this more stuff added, but that it's the other maps which should have theirs reduced. So for the examples of EVA and emergency firesuits, the other maps could probably do with less of each. Decals and over-decoration I think also follow a similar problem. Box did come first after all (aside from Donut's necromancy), and has always embodied the spirit of a bare-minimum metal deathtrap.

Bawhoppennn wrote:I think there's a fair argument to be made of how it's not that Box that should have all this more stuff added, but that it's the other maps which should have theirs reduced. So for the examples of EVA and emergency firesuits, the other maps could probably do with less of each. Decals and over-decoration I think also follow a similar problem. Box did come first after all (aside from Donut's necromancy), and has always embodied the spirit of a bare-minimum metal deathtrap.

Box should be killed off, if only to stop people from bringing up box as a good example of anything. We get enough bad takes in other discussions.

Well, even without comparing to Box, I still think it's reasonable to say the other maps are too well-stocked in terms of resources.

skoglol wrote:

Bawhoppennn wrote:I think there's a fair argument to be made of how it's not that Box that should have all this more stuff added, but that it's the other maps which should have theirs reduced. So for the examples of EVA and emergency firesuits, the other maps could probably do with less of each. Decals and over-decoration I think also follow a similar problem. Box did come first after all (aside from Donut's necromancy), and has always embodied the spirit of a bare-minimum metal deathtrap.

Box should be killed off, if only to stop people from bringing up box as a good example of anything. We get enough bad takes in other discussions.

NOOOOO NOT THE MAINTY WAINTY NOT THE LOOTIE WOOTIE YOU CAN'T JUST NOT HAVE A FREE EMP GRENADE NOOOOOOOOO

PKPenguin321 wrote: NOOOOO NOT THE MAINTY WAINTY NOT THE LOOTIE WOOTIE YOU CAN'T JUST NOT HAVE A FREE EMP GRENADE NOOOOOOOOO

Very silly to pull this on skoglol of all people

The overabundance of stuff on other maps doesn't make box good

Mickyan wrote:

PKPenguin321 wrote: NOOOOO NOT THE MAINTY WAINTY NOT THE LOOTIE WOOTIE YOU CAN'T JUST NOT HAVE A FREE EMP GRENADE NOOOOOOOOO

Very silly to pull this on skoglol of all people

The overabundance of stuff on other maps doesn't make box good

HELP HELP I NEED MY PRESET MAINT LOOT I NEED MY PUBLIC SHOWER SOAP AAAAAAAAHHHH WHY CANT I FIND THE MULTIBELT HELP MEEEE I DONT WANT TO BUILD MY OWN RAGE CAGE AAAAAAAHHHH
(Yes I know he removed the multibelt)

nianjiilical wrote: that said, someone else recently opened a work in progress PR for a new version of boxstation that may or may not replace what we have now, so it might be a good idea to see if icebox is going to fully replace oldbox before committing too much effort into a big scale revamp project

Alright the icebox stuff is really good to know going forward I'll hold off on anything extremely large if icebox gets merged in the next two months. From what I can see on the youtube videos of it many of box's problems still exist

Tlaltecuhtli wrote:-add basic human being support like fire extinguishers in each firelock "block", more fire suits and more o2 lockers
-remove the double firelocks shit in the main halls
-remove the maint apc cancer

I knew about the dissatisfaction with the maint apc stuff and the need for firesuits and o2 cabinets I'll have to look at the fire extinguisher stuff. I'll probably ask for an in game poll or run one somewhere else to determine what to do with it and probably the whole power grid with it in general.
The double firelocks shit is really good to know and is a very easy fix.

imagine not enjoying maint diving for treasure. how's about you suck my dick. add random traps or hazards or whatever if you resent my ribbon with bubbles coming out of it that explodes in my hand when i try to throw it at sec. make it mini-spelunky. one of the stations already has hostile simple mobs. when box was the go-to guy we didn't know that was allowed

why are maint apcs bad? i'm pretty sure each department has access to the maint tunnel where their apc is

I'd actually like to see the removal of extra equipment on other maps rather than bumping up the equipment to fit other maps

(mind the size, though. some maps have more equipment to house more players. others are just giving players all they could want roundstart.)

fire extinguishers and o2 cabinets arent """"extra equipment""" its like saying we shouldnt have all the windows to space bolted to the floor roundstart its just cancer that you are on fire and guess what? you didnt powergame a crowbar as soon as shift started now you are stuck by firelocks and die time to quit and play a better map

Armhulen wrote:I'd actually like to see the removal of extra equipment on other maps rather than bumping up the equipment to fit other maps

(mind the size, though. some maps have more equipment to house more players. others are just giving players all they could want roundstart.)

maps are no longer picked according to their pop size expectations - we vote for what isn’t donut and box so we still get those epic fucky wucky wacky 99 pop event hall pubby rounds

in fact there should be a gas mask for everyone because I hate not having gas mask it’s high rp

Maint APCs are one of the really good features of this map, though. It means that engineers always have access to an APC if it needs to be fixed or messed with, and it gives more potential for antags to fuck with them.

Powernet seems to be a bug with powernet code itself, but it's only triggering on Box for whatever reason.

I also agree with most of the above posters saying that rather than just throwing more loot and resources at Box, we should be reducing the other maps resources and loot to be on par with Box. Much like with the chem bonanza we had not too long ago, it's just people getting used to the unreasonable expectation of always having easy access to free shit with no drawbacks. They'll hate it for a bit if you take it away, but it'll be better for the game in the long run.

Upload being on the bridge is also fine. As far as actual difficulty of access, it's just one extra door compared to most maps. Otherwise, it's a layout choice that works just fine for the map. Other layout concerns are also kind of meh. Box has always had a good layout in my eyes. Everything is where you expect it to be. Maint is expansive yet disconnected, so you can hide there all day if you want but can't traverse the entire station through it, and there are plenty of rooms within it to make use of.

Sprucing up decals is a good idea, though. Dark flooring in command seems to be the norm nowadays, and it really does make it pop. Replacing shitty chairs and making use of the newer twat carpets should also be considered.

-Adding old engines
I'd like to add the parts of old engines (singulo+tesla) in their locked cargo crates, to engineering secure storage so engineers don't have to spend several thousand cargo points to do a fun side project.

oranges already shot this down months ago when I suggested it for delta, because he thinks old engines are deprecated content that shouldn't be used anymore, like the ninny he is

stuff like free toolboxes/metal stacks/ space suits could just be turned into spawners that fire on mapload depending on pop tbh
like on low pop it turns some space suit storage into tables in eva but this isnt wha tthe thread is about

I remember when we only played this map, pls no remove

Daxxed wrote:I remember when we only played this map, pls no remove

haha I remember when we only used cloning for reviving pls no remove

haha i remember when we only had trekchem for medbay pls no remove

I can help with mapping if needed.

also would prefer to see less stuff in other maps, as opposed to box getting more

that sort of thing leads to smaller interpersonal conflict in my experience which leads to more interesting rounds, because if someone steals an item you need or something that gives you some kind of dynamic IC that isn't "wait for the antags to show up"

I think I have a grasp of the basics of the map editor. Now I just got to make sure there are no problems with the map merger and figure out how to make PR's.

trollbreeder wrote:I can help with mapping if needed.

Yeah sure is there anything in particular you are interested in doing?
Because if you are just looking for an assignment you could look at the arrivals hallway

Metastation's arrivals. Box's arrivals hallway More decals (those tiny almost grey squares in the corners of floor tiles you can see the orange/yellow ones by cargo's entrance) could be added in a manner consistent with the rest of the map Box does have some slightly to the left of the screenshot around the lounge. If that doesn't interest you, you could take a crack at adding grilles+lattices to protect the Perma prisoners from meteors, or really anything else in the thread.


Concerning maintenance I'd like to hear any ideas people have for maint rooms or other little changes that could be put in...some of the ideas I've had floating around

-A plasmaman suit storage room (has 1 set of each of the plasmaman jumpsuits with helmets, and a shower to change)
-Clothing lockers in maint by each of the deparments. (Medical clothing near a medbay maint entrance, engineering by engineering etc.) so tots/baddies could disguise themselves before breaking in. I saw this on another map and thought it was neat.
-An edgy/fun clothing depot/public theater thought it might be neat to put in some of the fun not used as far as I can tell clothes. I'd really have to look and make sure none of the stuff has combat stats but stuff like the bunnysuit (easter bunny outfit), star trek clothes that only spawn on holodeck atm, pretty sure there was a british redcoat jumpsuit, goth coats/dracula suits.
-Carpet/flooring storage. A room with crates filled with I dunno like ~200 of various regular floor tiles mostly thinking of the new colored carpets maybe some wood and the blue/red/green circuit tiles so a bored assistant could redecorate a hallway or some rooms if they felt like it.
-Old holiday storage room. Halloween Jack-o-lanterns, wooden chairs, etc as an example of a Halloween styled room, maybe some snow or snowmen for an x-mas styled room.
-a semi-empty medium/large sized room possibly with some boards, parts nearby to make some of the stuff, metal, and glass (autolathe not sure if it prints anything dangerous nowadays) for a fun building location.

Several metastation/delta rooms could also be copied
-Garden, robotics in maint, library in maint, etc etc.

Very big news Box fans this week.

1. The bridge and firelock PR has been put out last Saturday.
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/49949
If I did everything right and this gets merged it means no more double firelocks and a brand new fancy bridge. I didn't add any vending machines or do anything crazy yet as this is just a decals thing at the moment.

More importantly and the very big news

2. Thanks to a helpful engineer (I think it was Raymond Dugmore so props to that guy) that ensured I would not die from power loss as AI. I can hopefully fix Box's powernet through mapping at least concerning the AI satellite and the Gravity Generator room. The issue seems to be something really fucky with the SMES units or their terminals.
Link to the issue report where I painstakingly go into detail. If you know a coder maybe tell them to look at this because I'm not sure who to contact or if old issues like this are even looked at.
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/issues/48026

In any case after the bridge+firelock PR goes through I'll re-wire the grav gen room and AI satellite to be similar to telecomms so the power failure doesn't happen in those two areas. I would do it right now but the PR process and using the mapmerger are still new to me and I want to make sure I did it right with the first PR.

If you manage to fix the powernet issue, shoot me a DM. I've got a couple mappers trying to solve the issue as well.

they're working in shifts

Will do. Currently testing my ideas for a simple fix, the good news is that my changes do seem to be working at least in the short term (less than an hour). If somebody faster and better at making PR's than me wants to do the fix then be my guest otherwise I'll have one out by Saturday.

Grav Gen-
Red - removed wire
OJ - moved SMES, air alarm used to be here
Yellow- Moved terminal + air alarm

AI-
basically moved some of the wires up 1 tile. Unfortunate that one of them is under a wall but the fix does seem to be working.

Been like a week or so since the last post so...
Updates on the box situation-
Had a merge conflict with the bridge + firelocks PR so I split it into smaller PR's as I was really bad at fixing the issue. The power fix, and the firelocks PR both got merged working on the bridge for the third time now. Next PR from me is going to focus on another small aspect adding decals to the arrivals hallway and probably botany if you know of any other hallway related areas that need decals let me know so I can put it in that PR.

Sometime in the future I would like to look at some basic changes to maint
Here are some of the areas I was thinking of changing in the next two weeks. Most of these are really small changes just deleting walls and moving some furniture around aside from the chemistry piping area.

The chemistry piping area
I'm not going to move it yet, it is on my todo list as the location is awful but I would like opinions concerning r-walls in the lab. I'd like to change them into normal walls similar to the original chemistry lab in medbay as I am of the opinion r-walls should be used sparingly for very secure areas even the CMO's office doesn't have R-Walls except in the north not sure if that should be changed or not since genetics was removed. Southeastern Maint
I'm not sure if I should [RED] remove these to do minimal changes to make it more open or if I should remove the entire [ORANGE] area to add a lot of space. Holodeck Maint
I want to add a door here in [RED] no idea if I can do anything else to improve the area. Engineering maint
I'd like to remove the things in [RED] both the wooden barricades and the girders maybe also open up another path from the fire closet Botany/Library Maint
I'd like to open up the area in [RED] by removing the windows + adding floors so you can run from point A to point B a little more quickly, if you need to shake off a pursuer you could also run north.

cool you shoudl do everything you want to do cause nobody else will improve it

oranges wrote:cool you shoudl do everything you want to do cause nobody else will improve it

i mean i tried to

Since the repo is MIA and I cannot do much work on my buggy broken PR's I'll give a status update.


1. I Put out a PR to improve the decals of arrivals + hydroponics I'm probably going to use this one to beta test my ability to fix Merge conflicts with the merging+editing process. Last time I checked I was getting some kind of travis-CI build failure after editing I was going to look at that right now but...the repo is MIA atm.

2. I put up a second PR was that would remove some of the walls clogging up maint until I got around to finalizing what I want to do with it.

3. Somebody else (who I cannot remember without the PR in front of me) worked on making the box power grid less shit I think they also moved all the APCs from maint into the departments it seems to be the change people wanted but I'll still kind of miss the APCs in maint.

4. After I figure out how to fix the PR's I want to put out bigger updates beginning with maint or the main hallway adding in more firesuits+extinguishers here is a screenshot of my early design progress for arrivals maint. So what has changed?
Garden will be moved to dorms probably in a diff PR but for now I put a maint garden in, arrivals surgery has been moved northeast from its location above the sec checkpoint, a very primitive xenobio has been added a reference to the old days when you didn't have the computer to teleport slimes around and had to kill them with a fire extinguisher instead of a cold room. As of now the slime processor has to be built but there is a monkey recycler and two cubes enough to get started. The little atmos area has also been connected to the main air supply so if an emergency contaminates the air supply you can just open a valve and save the station or dump your burning gas up here with the downside that all things atmos are pretty far away and you are very likely to be spotted it is honestly much easier to just make your own connector if you wanted to do sabotage stuff like that but you have the option.

Not sure what to put in the area above arrivals sec checkpoint perhaps one of the earlier ideas I put out in the thread earlier, I'll probably turn that crate area into a carpet/floor tile storehouse so assistants can do some redecorating. I also want to put in some blast doors similar to chapel/hydroponics maint in here and diversify the lockers/welding fuel tanks/water tanks/crates replacing them with other things.

I don't think you should add more silly maint rooms, like a pre-built botany, or expand the other one into a full pre-built xenobio. Aside from many other considerations, it takes away the fun from when people make it themselves.

Old box NW maint screenshot added for comparison. Thanks for the feedback, to clarify my design goals...
The ultimate goal is a balance of fun for players that enjoy constructing things and players that want to immediately get into the constructed work (oftentimes traitors who want to operate in secret).

Lets look at Meta's maintenance robotics workshop from the POV of a traitor and non-traitor. In order to access it they have to smash down grilles and girders, or burn their eyes to get access to a secret workshop. They get immediate access to the exosuit fabricators but lack all the surgical elements unless they invest TC's or make do with makeshift tools it is something that doesn't take too much time out of their antag round but does require a bit of set up to use properly. From a non-antag POV they can deconstruct the grilles and girders, set up surgery, light it up, make it look nice with floortiles, and after all the decoration is done they could use it as a secondary robotics location.

So I wasn't intending on making entire feature complete departments in maint rather themed rooms as going into a 4x5 room with closets a table and a spiderweb is a bit dull and not really memorable, anything I make I'd like to allow for some work to be done so bored crew have something to do but I'd like to have some of the work done so it can be completed and enjoyed in 20 minute shifts which is the unfortunate reality of many box shifts at least on Bagil. For example the current maint xenobio has enough to get started but is not 'feature complete'. There are two monkey cubes and a slime core to allow a single slime to grow and split once, an un-upgraded monkey recycler (which was moved from the inside of the walls in old arrivals as seen in the screenshot above) which gives some of the resources back but not enough to keep up the pace unless they use the garden biogenerator to make more monkeys or they assemble a slime processor so they can get stuff from slimes. The xenobio does have a board for a slime processor but none of the parts to make it so if they want to harvest slime cores they would have to get parts from science, cargo, storage, or scavenging. They also only have the single slime pen that doesn't even have a disposals system to easily feed the slimes and is quite small so that disposals or expanding south or west for more pens is a viable project for them unless they like being surrounded by hungry slimes. The basics are there if they want to put in the effort but if they want to do more they have to put in at least a little elbow grease this isn't even taking into account all the work required to breed the slimes they may want.

edit: If you do have directed suggestions for individual things or rooms for example: instead of piles of dirt add a 20 stack of sandstone so they can set up their own garden or a statue room, make the garden 2 tiles wider and add a door on the right something to that effect I do appreciate it.