Pillar October Update (Atmos, corridors, maint, decor)

[Peptide90]

About the PR

So a few weeks in the works hopefully to address a lot of issues people have had with new Pillar.

Most notably, atmos has been moved to where the SM was in engineering, corridors have been shrunk to 3 wide instead of 4 wide and I've done a pretty hard decal and maint pass on the station, so it should be both more visually interesting, with more stuff to find and do and looks more alive.

Look past the dev changelog for the render.

I stopped tracking the changelog so much towards the end.

Changelog

Salvage / Cargo Area

• Expanded salvages catwalk area outside.
• Adapted some of the Moony screenshots to improve area around salvage.
• Salvage Cargo corridor reduced to 3 wide and maint improved. More lockers in general around here.

Botany

• Disposals chute added to botany.
• Botany got some fluff and two lockers. Also some non tile locked dirty decals.
• Botany now spawn with two animal crates.
• Seed extractor added to botany...whoops
• Maint opposite Hydro heavily changed - More interesting design + lockers + things + engi room + closet.

Security

• Security locker room now has back to back stools to sit on while you change your boots...
• Sec locker room floor is now more distinct, also added some fluff to HoS, warden and cells.
• Cell 4 is now security desk space for interviewing passengers and chilling out.
• Permabrig minor decal / decoration stuff, now a table for an observer and moved N20 tank into plain sight.
• Security dock area decalled and spruced up a lil.
• Security checkpoint near old arrivals expanded to 2 cells and larger room.

Science

• Robotics lab touched up and fluffed up.
• Connectors and pumps added to science anomaly testing gas loops. Plus desk ~& plushie.

Medical Area

• Corridor beside medbay / bar changed to 3 wide with new greenery in railings added.
• Biomass reclaimer and parahenalia added to morgue.
• Chemistry now has 3 sets of equipment by popular request. Plus bottles.
• Changed medbay to firelocks over doors instead of edge locks.
• Some minor decoration to medbay, more fluff items.
• Maint below virology now has a escape pod docking area. Maint edges curved.

Misc

• Barteners room spruced up a lil.
• HoP maint spruced up and corridor beside medbay "abandoned".
• Courthouse corridor changed to 3 wide, various changes related to that with minor room layout changes and entity changes.
• EVA helmets added to EVA storage.
• Evac decorated with some plants within a railing area.
• Piping near arrivals changed so it doesn't go under walls (increased length of runs / entity count).
• Minor changes to maint structure to make it less bland - more greenery / decoration in walls.
• Arrivals to Sec maint tiled and spruced up / decorated some.
• Old arrivals (west) revamped to have a barber and explorers guild instead of lots of empty space.
• Where atmos WAS is now a museum with some quirky artifacts and a painting gallery. Some new maint rooms surrounding it for better, more specific loot and a spaced room.

Engineering:

• Empty space above SMES room turned into under construction room. Engineers eat your heart out.
• Atmos is now in engineering.
• Firelocks over doors now and some other little bits.

Screenshots

Changelog

:cl:

• tweak: Pillar map major update. Atmos is now in engi, corridors are now smaller and more alive, maint has been spruced up and lots of spaces are bigger, more decorated and more loot sprawled.

[github-actions[bot]]

This pull request has conflicts, please resolve those before we can evaluate the pull request.

[moonheart08]

• Maint is still incredibly empty and needs many more tanks, lockers, racks, and assorted interesting decor like small tables, secluded rooms, blocked off (barricaded) alternate passages, etc. Consult Kettle and Omega for ideas here.
• Maint needs more than a single long hallway, especially more rooms. Look at box. Area around HoP's office is the only one to get the idea of maze-y maint that most of the rest of the maps follow right.
• Maint is too well lit and should be scarcely lit, not a hallway.
• Main hallways lack any sort of indicator decals and this just makes them feel bland. Look at Omega and Box for ideas here.
• I know you like the space bridge but it needs some maintenance around it, otherwise it's an impenetrable fortress (which has been an issue in practice)
• Hallways are over-lit now and need more light spacing.

[Peptide90]

Additional Changes:

• Barricaded off two sections of maint near museum.
• Decalled all disposals and vendors around the station, more dirt and grime too.
• Maint below HoP changed slightly to make HoP office less square.
• Added lots of trash spawners and more posters to maint.
• Tiled and decorated more areas of maint previously untouched.
• Minor layout changes to a variety of maint locations, adding more twists and obstacles.
• Tiny solars added to salvage, bigger solars added to bottom right maint.
• Garden maint bar and solars added to top near arrivals.

Among other things, I put a tiny maint on the top of the bridge section. It looks like trash but now people can access grav / tcomms and break via the rear of bridge. I've not seen it be an issue in practice but oh well.

Reduced the number of lights in maint as well as reduced lights in main hallways where there was some overlap. Generally it's 4-6 tiles between lights, 4 where there's open spaces or no chance for lights opposite. Generally I like a bright station though with no shadows casting in main hallways (it looks trash).

There is also plenty of rooms off of maint and plenty of decoration and entities to interact with. The flooring has also been improved across maint with a liberal helping of decals.

The decals in the corridors on Omega do not look good and that's my opinion. I wanted to add thin 1-2 pixel lines in various offsets in main corridors as a visual guide leading to departments (with arrows) as well as a thicker not quite half tile line. I've never got round to doing this but those are the sorts of decals I would put in corridors. Sure there's probably more room for decals in corridors but in general I've went round and put lines around all disposals and vendors, as well as the odd flavour decal like a cross to indicate something is missing.

Render:

I will say if you look hard enough there are some sections of maint that don't have floors or much of interest, generally these are very limited like below boxing and up near the maint altar. It's a few tiles and not every inch of maint should be decorated within an inch of their life. It's like 5 seconds of walking or less to pass these sections to move from one interesting section to another, and there are things off of them for people to interact with as you can see.