Away Missions [Darn Beeches]

[TheMasterOfCoin]

 

Going to keep this simple, as it doesn't need too much explaining.

 

The Gateway annoyingly goes to the beach and phoron station all the time, while you might think this is okay. When people gear up almost every shift, to do Gateway - and often spend about 20 minutes or so preparing, sometimes even longer then that. Then waltz into the Gateway and find, for the third time in the row, it's the beach or the phoron station - they kind of start to hate the Gateway.

 

I'm not saying you need to make the Gateway constantly action packed, but reducing the chance of it going to the Beach or Phoron station would make it a lot less soul sucking to use the Gateway, when it constantly goes to the places nobody wants it to go to. It's just a suggestion, not really a big change on your part and it requires very little effort. Worst case scenario, everybody wants to use the Gateway. Not really too bad in my books.

 

[Mrs Dobbins]

 

Could be worse, could be the challenge map pretty much every time, like it was.

Because everyone loves powergaming a maze that is lethal if you make a mistake in order to get an LMG and deathsquad armor.

I would like to see the wild west and the space-battle map added to the rotation though, they look cool.

 

[MarvinMartian34]

I want a way that it can't repeat somehow. Like let's say that beach was last round. Well this round it randomly picks, but beach is taken out of the rotation for one round.

[FalseIncarnate]

 

More Gateway maps is definitely something we want to look into adding, which will provide both new excitement and help reduce the chance of missions like the beach being selected.

 

Largely, the issue is a lack of suitable maps that provide an interesting yet balanced challenge vs reward.

 

For example, the beach is literally a perfect example of low risk, low reward. The swimsuits and a freely accessible mini-bar area are the reward, and the only significant risk is that an admin possesses a crab and makes it MAD, or that someone comes along and bashes your head in with a bottle of booze.

 

The higher the challenge of the map, the better the reward should be. However, the challenge also needs to be balanced, which the ironically named "Challenge Map" was not. Most people would rely on exploits and other "cheap" methods to complete it for the reward, which was largely useless to the general crew since you weren't supposed to go around gunning people down with the LMG as a non-antag in the first place.

 

I have somewhat discussed/joked about making gateway missions that are effectively boss fights / arenas. Upon arrival, you'd be safe until you "opt-in" to the fight by pressing the start button or something to that effect. This would give a large challenge that could be balanced towards a multiple-man team or smaller ones designed for a solo combatant, as well as a place for science to LEGALLY use all those guns, mechs, and maybe even bombs that they've been stockpiling all round (we all know you're doing it, science. you're not fooling us!) in non-validhunting or self-antagging ways.

 

I'll talk with some of the other coders/mappers/admins about developing/finding some new maps to add into the cycle, because the gateway missions are definitely beginning to get rather stale.

 

[Headjack]

You could reintegrate Xenoarchaeology into a specialized gate map.

[TheMasterOfCoin]

 

To be honest, I'm confused why Xeno doesn't own the Gateway? I mean probably because it almost never involves aliens, but - you know, if you added alien / artifact orientated maps. That'd be cool. Instead of sticking them out in the middle of nowhere mine town, where Archeologists will not go.

 

To be honest, kind of gets annoying seeing Clowns and Janitors use the Gateway, instead of - you know, science.

 

[AzyWng]

 

Perhaps we could make a list of possible maps? I've got a few in mind.

I haven't thought about how these would be balanced. At all.

 

• Military base, filled with combat drones, weapons, the OCCASIONAL turret (since too many was what made the challenge map a lot less fun), armor, and syndicate personnel.

• A forest, filled with space squirrels, space trees, space birds, butterfiles, and space bears. Maybe a cache of supplies and items in a shack nearby? Add an axe to the supplies, of course.

An accurate representation of SS13, filled with greytides (the mob) and comdoms (make another type of mob and give it an energy gun attack.) The map itself would be a different space station map. The items of the map would be the exact same as the current space station.

A mining station infested with xenos. Add weapons that people tried to use to kill the xenos.

A station or derelict filled with spiders or space carp. Add some massive spider boss... Thing.

 

So, yeah. Those are some of my ideas. Like I said earlier, none of them have any thoughts of balance put into them, but I honstly can't figure out how these would be balanced anyway.

 

[Lolzyking]

we already have a xeno station, it would be nice if they added an auto lathe to it , and some sheets of plasma to get their pacman up though. Maybe add a laser gun to the security room too, the only thing its got is shotgun ( but damn was it effective at killing xenos, I got a praetorian guard double tap.