Resurrect Cargonia

[washikarasu]

About The Pull Request

Cargo rebuilt from the ground up.

Why It's Good For The Game

Endeavour's cargo is one of the things I originally wanted to avoid in making the map. This rectifies it, returning some dignity to the important department.

Changelog

Tears down and completely replaces cargo. This also removes the RIDICULOUS stairs from science into the refinery. If you really need it with no cargo, break in like everyone else.

🆑
del: stairs into refinery
tweak: "tweaked" cargo
tweak: adjusts IC credits, again
/:cl:

[FreeStylaLT]

• It all being black inside and outside doesn't distinguish the department from the lobby, I'd suggest a more duller gray for one or the other.
• This has really blinged up the Cargo department with most amenities and even a built-in park and sofa-benches for.. the 2 CTs that will be inside.
  Wait a minute, this was feels like it was made by someone who never wants to leave Cargo. It's VERY blingy.

This APC is on the table:

I'm sorry you had to adhere to the enforced outer shape, I can tell it was a struggle to actually fill in the dead space, as seems to be a consistent trend on this map, even with remaps.

Overall, the Old version looked more cramped and budget, while the new one looks like an expensive, and expansive department. I can't say which I prefer more, which is unfortunate.

[washikarasu]

• It all being black inside and outside doesn't distinguish the department from the lobby, I'd suggest a more duller gray for one or the other.

  • This has really blinged up the Cargo department with most amenities and even a built-in park and sofa-benches for.. the 2 CTs that will be inside.
    Wait a minute, this was feels like it was made by someone who never wants to leave Cargo. It's VERY blingy.

This APC is on the table:

I'm sorry you had to adhere to the enforced outer shape, I can tell it was a struggle to actually fill in the dead space, as seems to be a consistent trend on this map, even with remaps.

Overall, the Old version looked more cramped and budget, while the new one looks like an expensive, and expansive department. I can't say which I prefer more, which is unfortunate.

how did that APC get there??

[washikarasu]

Okay that APC is definitely only there on the tests, neither in-game or in the file itself is it on the table.

[silicons]

i'll take a look tonight
i'll admit i'm somewhat ambivalent on adding dispensers

i've historically been against too many inbuilt amenities as opposed to built ones but we'll see

[washikarasu]

i'll take a look tonight i'll admit i'm somewhat ambivalent on adding dispensers

i've historically been against too many inbuilt amenities as opposed to built ones but we'll see

hell Atlas engineering has one too, though I'll be honest

nobody goes to the bar to drink, only to eat, which is funny when you say it outloud

[GySgtMurphy]

Part of the issue I see, is that this takes up all of the maints areas around Cargo.

It also makes the department far too large. Its nearly double its current size. Some expansion is okay, I don't have any issue with that. But, completely removing all maints on the upper left side of the shift for any sort of hidden movement is going to make things like events and other activities a lot harder to do. And, it goes against what the Endeavour was meant to provide, a ship with lots of places that could be explored while aboard.

Personally, if I had to put a limit on things, keep any changes to within the existing cargo departmental area, not blocking the flow through maints from the rear quarter of the ship to the middle.

[silicons]

Overall

I'd say atomize if possible but there's nothing that can be done here because this is a department rework PR.

Also, I'm aware that these are things sometimes broken by other map developments. The difference is I usually do not nitpick the initial push of a map because I don't want to shatter a map author's motivation by leaving 200 requested changes / feedback. This is on purpose, and is why I left so little feedback on Endeavor other than large-scale things like overall flow (most of which wouldn't/couldn't be addressed anyways so I just let live and let live).

I generally do not screen PRs by precedent. Precedent never really made that much of a difference to me because I look towards what should be and not what is, even if the players in a department like it more.

Screening

1. Cargo is taking up way too much maintenance now. I forgot to mark the other side too but this drastically cuts at the relative amount of access maintenance has to the ship on this level. This is not good because we want a decent amount of maintenance access for gameplay reasons.
2. Is there a reason to make the lobby this big? I am aware that cargo is was kinda small compared to some other departments but this is a leap.
3. I'm failing to see why the warehouse/bay needs to be this big. This is over twice as big as the actual cargo shuttle. Furthermore, it adds seemingly lounge space; having nice map spaces is good and all but mixing it with department functionality in a way that bloats it spatially is not a good standard to set.

Nitpicks

There's honestly just generally too many lounge space now. You have seemingly the main lounge, a lounge area in the actual bay, a foyer, the QM's office is massive now, etc.

That said, I'm going to say I don't really care about the dispensers anymore.
It's cargo.
Cargo can just order dispensers if they want. At this point I'm going to stop caring as much about the amount of amenities (within reason; I don't want to see every department get functional kitchens or something stupid like that), as much as how it's done and how much space it takes. In this case, my problem is more with the design evoking a sense that said amenities are taking a lot of the map. Large departments with sprawl and duplicate functionality to public spaces are not necessarily a good thing and overdoing this is exactly what makes large maps feel too big, along with metrics like walking distances.

[silicons]

See comment.

[silicons]

Addendums:

4. Okay, so, I have to note. This old design is also suboptimal to me, because: the lobby is cramped, the quantum pad is frankly bloat when put in such a small lobby (even if it's meant to be near-public, which we are keeping), the hallway / distance into the foyer from the hallway is pretty wacky (walk distance is what makes maps feel too big).

Some expansion into maint is fine. My recommendations are in green X's.
I would prefer people make maint-accessible departments to lower the overall security of the map (yes, that's the actual reason, beyond 'give places to build'; central maintenance in central hall is not really private compared to sprawled maintenance), but that's a tall order because that absolutely will mess up department flow, so I don't really care about that.

The complaint regarding maint (separate from space, technically; you can make the tiniest department and it can still be unacceptably flow-blocking to maintenance) is specifically because it cuts off maintenance. Cargo will realistically never have true interior maintenance access because doing that would completely ruin the feel of the department without yet another rework, and frankly that isn't the most important part of why we want maintenance in the first place.

I will say that I hope there's an acceptable compromise to be made here, because I do like the overall theme and feel of new cargo a lot more than the old one. If it's a bit less over the top, just a bit, and restores some maint flow, is a bit more compact, I think it'd be very nice.

I very much like large and spacious-feeling lobbies with the central office looking out, too. It's a good design and lets you have a good vantage point as department staff, which is absolutely sensical for a logistics area.

[silicons]

Addendum 2:

I don't know, as a science player, why there was a staircase into refinery.
Since this is somewhat related to cargo; the general design paradigm I go for regarding 'sandbox departments' like science and cargo is the codebase's job is to signal what is the norm, and what is always acceptable.

The server rules don't say you can't break into cargo or even build a refinery in science for a reason. It's because someone naturally playing the game will see that they can't access cargo, but can (or soon will be able to) build mining tools, refining, fly out, access lavaland, or break in (which is icly against regulations), etc.

Putting things like ladders into cargo signals that you absolutely can just do it yourself. This is not good, because it is not science or anyone else's lane to be mining when there are miners. Access to lavaland, on that note, is not officially meant to be replacing cargo as mining/whatnot. We never gave access to refinery for a reason. It's just something you can do on lowpop / with no cargo, either with permission or in secret. Not as an expected allowance for another sandbox department that already has too much (let's be entirely real the existence of the protolathe and imprinter, combined with the development direction, means that science is the one department that almost never has right of way when it comes to these things).

[GySgtMurphy]

Addendum 2:

I don't know, as a science player, why there was a staircase into refinery. Since this is somewhat related to cargo; the general design paradigm I go for regarding 'sandbox departments' like science and cargo is the codebase's job is to signal what is the norm, and what is always acceptable.

The server rules don't say you can't break into cargo or even build a refinery in science for a reason. It's because someone naturally playing the game will see that they can't access cargo, but can (or soon will be able to) build mining tools, refining, fly out, access lavaland, etc.

Putting things like ladders into cargo signals that you absolutely can just do it yourself. This is not good, because it is not science or anyone else's lane to be mining when there are miners. Access to lavaland, on that note, is not officially meant to be replacing cargo as mining/whatnot. We never gave access to refinery for a reason. It's just something you can do on lowpop / with no cargo, either with permission or in secret. Not as an expected allowance for another sandbox department that already has too much (let's be entirely real the existence of the protolathe and imprinter, combined with the development direction, means that science is the one department that almost never has right of way when it comes to these things).

I'll take the hit on the initial stairs into Cargo. Tracker suggested it to me, and I ran with it. Not because I thought we really needed it.

[washikarasu]

Addendums:

4. Okay, so, I have to note. This old design is **also** suboptimal to me, because: the lobby is cramped, the quantum pad is frankly bloat when put in such a small lobby (even if it's meant to be near-public, which **we are keeping**), the hallway / distance into the foyer from the hallway is pretty wacky (walk distance is what makes maps feel too big).

Some expansion into maint is fine. My recommendations are in green X's. I would prefer people make maint-accessible departments to lower the overall security of the map (yes, that's the actual reason, beyond 'give places to build'; central maintenance in central hall is not really private compared to sprawled maintenance), but that's a tall order because that absolutely will mess up department flow, so I don't really care about that.

The complaint regarding maint (separate from space, technically; you can make the tiniest department and it can still be unacceptably flow-blocking to maintenance) is specifically because it cuts off maintenance. Cargo will realistically never have true interior maintenance access because doing that would completely ruin the feel of the department without yet another rework, and frankly that isn't the most important part of why we want maintenance in the first place.

I will say that I hope there's an acceptable compromise to be made here, because I do like the overall theme and feel of new cargo a lot more than the old one. If it's a bit less over the top, just a bit, and restores some maint flow, is a bit more compact, I think it'd be very nice.

I very much like large and spacious-feeling lobbies with the central office looking out, too. It's a good design and lets you have a good vantage point as department staff, which is absolutely sensical for a logistics area.

This is pretty much the part of the maints I took up, you know the area with the stairs are still maints right? just put flooring down

[washikarasu]

Another thing I honestly fail to understand is, why is it okay to make science occupy two decks and stretch across the entirety of the port side of one of them, and medical likewise occupy the starboard side, of all things, Medical REALLY doesn't need that space, and medical itself will be the first to tell you that. But the moment you stretch out a bit of a department that does need space it's suddenly irky. It feels like stepping away from Triumph's standard is heavily frowned upon here, even though, we know for sure it's BAD. Terrible even, it's even a running gag to hate on the map.

Hell if it were me I'd even cut science and engineering to half. This map was made to be big and you want to fill the space of the map with useless maintenances and bloat. From a honest to god perspective, some of these comments seem out of touch, and blamed upon "gameplay purposes". It's not that cargo it's big now, it's bigger. The maintenances I took out were utterly useless, especially when you'd literally space yourself if you walked in the weird hangar before the changes I made, yet you want me to put them back because, maybe, some century from now, someone might want to build there.

If you need any further justification to why removing those maintenances isn't outright bad, just look at the ginormous space next to cryogenics, it's baffling, you could actually fit Atlas bridge in there if you compacted it.

I already know I'm going to be giving sermons to the fish with this but, maintenances shouldn't exist solely for space, there should be a clear purpose for bypassing a closed off area in a case of emergency, carrying pipes, anything. It shouldn't be there, just, because, it makes no sense, even gameplay wise.

[silicons]

I didn't say you shouldn't stretch out cargo, I pretty much just don't want you to entirely cut off lateral maintenance. This is the two maintenance areas that I need to be kept. If it can stretch into interior, that's fine. If it can't, that's that, leave some doors on the sides and call it there. I don't think this is a hard ask when it still lets you expand quite a big chunk.

The empty spaces in maintenance are also pretty baffling but I can't force people to fill it in (I even noted on Murphy's PRs that improving maint flow and adding empty space at the same time is absolutely not good, and only was okay with it in the cases where it was clearly better than the alternative)

Science / Medbay

Science has maintenance (I'd enjoy if it was a bit more compact on the hallways; it is honestly bigger than maps that I've seen comfortably host more than 100 players and still feel quite spacious). Maintenance isn't colored correctly on it, but it's there.

Medbay does not. Not sure if it ever will, really; obviously wrapping maintenance around patient rooms is not really doable like that.
It can be somewhat argued that the actual content in there somewhat justifies the space span but yeah. It's a bit big. If a PR was made today that made medbay bigger in a way that cut off maintenance I'd also be asking why that's a good idea.
But you know, it already did. I can't retroactively go back and say to change it without halting the entire map back then, so.

"X is already this way" is not a valid argument to me, "you shouldn't require this because [reason A] [reason B] [reason C]" is. A lot of the things made here are initially very quirky for the lack of better wording but I am not going to get into silly wars over who gets more; if we do that, we're going to just sprawl every department until they own an entire deck because there's no winning that. Look at security. Does it need more space? It's kinda small compared to science/medbay. It doesn't have any use for more space though, and ironically I've actually argued that not having genpop is not good (ergo it needs to use a bit more space to have the thing that we want security to have to stop it from being a fucking youtube box lmao) but it was pointed out it couldn't be done without a massive refactor to security that would delay the map, so I relented.

There's no special treatment from me when it's on the git, I just weigh what is more valuable to merge first and what can be excused to have a quick merge. I would like to merge this PR quickly because it makes cargo objectively a hell of a lot better than it is, but uh, I can't ignore what I see with it just because someone else did it first.

Maintenance

Maintenance is required as bypass areas to not funnel everyone through central hallways and departments (usually monitored and tightly controlled). I require this for most maps because it inherently makes the map less controllable by command / security / the departments in terms of knowing who's moving there (albeit lessened by citrp's godawful 21 tile piercing through-wall sound system lol)

Maintenance is not really space for building into. 1-2 tiles of hallway isn't enough to make a real expansion, and /area hell will obliterate most attempts at it from people without blueprints until we have a better system for that.

Yes, I said 1-2 tiles of hallway.
When I demand maintenance on maps, it's for interior access and lowering securability of the map.
Not because I want empty spaces put everywhere for command to do secret meetings in so the crew don't know about the spicy xenochimeras.

Some amount of maintenance rooms (not empty spaces!) are fine.
Having it everywhere is not.

[silicons]

What I also have to say about science vs cargo specifically.
This isn't some double standard and cargo will need space with some of the stuff I want to give it (e.g. smithing / whatnot; don't want to just stuff that in the warehouse lol). Same with science, only the space needed is nil because it's replacing existing mechanics.

Even with drawn borders, however, cargo will be able to have the utilization of science on its zlevel without taking away lateral maintenance.
It would, in-fact, have less interior-accessible lateral maintenance than science.
Which I don't like, but, again, I don't care all that much. The existence of some small crawl space hallways is what's being asked for here, not an intricate maze with perfect access to every room (which is also not fun to deal with IC or OOC either; there is such a thing as overdoing maintenance). There's not a good place to inject said maintenance into cargo here and if it's needed someone else can do it in another PR.

[silicons]

It was pointed out that I entirely missed the maint stairs because I mentally batches the maint stairs with the removed refinery stairs and so I thought that was gone and didn't look at the path considering that.

Oops.

[silicons]

After review,

Here's what I really see.

• this department can / should be pulled back a tile later to make room for maint, with shop being moved
• between a department that's too big by a tile and a department that's terribly small to the point it's pretty ridiculous in scale (it looks like it's still triumph) and five empty maintenance rooms, one is the lesser evil

I will be merging this PR tonight.
There may or may not be a maintenance update to be done later to pull it back by a tile and do some rearranging, but as usual.

Development is iterative.
This is a better iteration and at that point it's the most important metric for me.