Below Zero - base redesign idea
darrin
Frankfurt; Germany Join Date: 2019-02-15 Member: 250965Members
Frankfurt; Germany Join Date: 2019-02-15 Member: 250965Members
Now that I seem to get a better understanding of the 'base cell' concept and how it dictates the placement of base pieces like hatches, I think you should rework it a bit.
1) Generel height
First of all, consider to increase the height of each 'cell'. Currently, this causes quite a few bugs like unplacable glass domes, control room ceiling glitches or large room floor glitches.
Judging from the visual perspective, it wouldn't hurt, if both the floor and the ceiling would have twice or three times the height/thickness. Taking the multipurpose room as reference, I think three times the height of the thin white stripe on the picture below (between the windows) would be ok.
Same is true for the large room (ignoring that the window size feel odd): https://us.v-cdn.net/5019629/uploads/editor/n6/k3q5bdaza32z.jpg. This of course makes it necessary that the vertical connectors are adjusted (and the autmatic connection when two compartments are placed on top of each other). But to be honest, the vertical connectors are currently way to thin anyways:
It would be perfectly fine to increase their diameter (f.e. to match the size of the bottom plate with the frame of a window). Therefore, an increased height might not affect the overall height/width ratio (an increased hatch diameter would be cool anyways).
There's also a cool nice feature of the vertical connectors: they remove the normal columns! So as a special requrest. it would be really cool to see something similar to wall foundation using a special vertical tube instead. F.e. attach it to a cave ceiling and start to build your base downwards (like a wasp nest). I could even imagine horizontal anchor tubes that would connect like sideward hatches and would function as a sort of wall anchors instead.
2) Moonpool as an upgrade, just like the large room alien compartment
With the new height of the rooms , it shouldn't be so hard anymore to make the moonpool a medium-sized room instead and to make the moonpool an optional upgrade. Just compare the size of the moonpool and the alien compartment in the background (the alien compartment is actually larger than the image suggests and almost matches the size of the moonpool):
If the height still doesn't fit... or just out of 'fun', consider to reuse the concept of the cyclopse with the slightly elevated glass floor with an attached bulkhead.
And I would absolutely love if I could add two moonpools to a single large room.
3) Multipurpose room size
One of my biggest concerns in regard of the MPR is that the space around an alien compartment is too small. Since you can't lower the size of the alien containemnt because the hatch has to be placed exactly at the border of a 'cell', consider to increase the size of the MPR instead.
If you look at the left side of the picture, you see the difference to how close a large room gets to the border of a 'cell'. This should be the same for the MPR (the size of two lights). This would give the player enough room inside the MPR without raising any 'wall-touching-wall' issues.
This of course would increase the size of each wall section. To compensate, you could increase the size of the window, leave a small wall on each side or split the wall section into two smaller windows. Just keep in mind that the diagonal hatch has to be shortened as well!
If this doesn't work, please consider to add a rectangular room matching the size of an MPR instead (with curved edges instead of diagonal wall sections).
4) Unify the doorways
There are currently 3 different versions: The bulkheads, the MPR doorways with the yellow handles and the moonpool / large room doorways. This looks odd. With an increased MPR size however, I think the ones with the handles could be replaced by the large ones.
5) Slightly decrease the size of the observatory and let it connect to multiple sides
First of all for obvious reasons:
So reduce the size slightly. This way, the size would even match the size of the new lifepod. (the height of the observatory could actually be used to retrieve the new 'cell' height I have in mind).
I would also love to see a non-glass observatory-like base piece (in addition to the X compartment). The mini glass dome could be a ceiling window upgrade instead. And due to the fact that it's too small to be a real observatory, just consider to introduce a special MPR room 'obervatory' instead that comes with a glass floor as well.
6) Match the visual of the large room glass dome with the observatory / MPR glass dome
I.e. the large room glass dome should be divided into different sections. They currently don't even align well with the large room partitions. So I would appreciate a more filigree structure that would create a large central glass piece that match the size and position of the large alien containment glass top.
7) Other stuff
.... and a central MPR locker upgrade (neptune rocket):
1) Generel height
First of all, consider to increase the height of each 'cell'. Currently, this causes quite a few bugs like unplacable glass domes, control room ceiling glitches or large room floor glitches.
Judging from the visual perspective, it wouldn't hurt, if both the floor and the ceiling would have twice or three times the height/thickness. Taking the multipurpose room as reference, I think three times the height of the thin white stripe on the picture below (between the windows) would be ok.
Same is true for the large room (ignoring that the window size feel odd): https://us.v-cdn.net/5019629/uploads/editor/n6/k3q5bdaza32z.jpg. This of course makes it necessary that the vertical connectors are adjusted (and the autmatic connection when two compartments are placed on top of each other). But to be honest, the vertical connectors are currently way to thin anyways:
It would be perfectly fine to increase their diameter (f.e. to match the size of the bottom plate with the frame of a window). Therefore, an increased height might not affect the overall height/width ratio (an increased hatch diameter would be cool anyways).
There's also a cool nice feature of the vertical connectors: they remove the normal columns! So as a special requrest. it would be really cool to see something similar to wall foundation using a special vertical tube instead. F.e. attach it to a cave ceiling and start to build your base downwards (like a wasp nest). I could even imagine horizontal anchor tubes that would connect like sideward hatches and would function as a sort of wall anchors instead.
2) Moonpool as an upgrade, just like the large room alien compartment
With the new height of the rooms , it shouldn't be so hard anymore to make the moonpool a medium-sized room instead and to make the moonpool an optional upgrade. Just compare the size of the moonpool and the alien compartment in the background (the alien compartment is actually larger than the image suggests and almost matches the size of the moonpool):
If the height still doesn't fit... or just out of 'fun', consider to reuse the concept of the cyclopse with the slightly elevated glass floor with an attached bulkhead.
And I would absolutely love if I could add two moonpools to a single large room.
3) Multipurpose room size
One of my biggest concerns in regard of the MPR is that the space around an alien compartment is too small. Since you can't lower the size of the alien containemnt because the hatch has to be placed exactly at the border of a 'cell', consider to increase the size of the MPR instead.
If you look at the left side of the picture, you see the difference to how close a large room gets to the border of a 'cell'. This should be the same for the MPR (the size of two lights). This would give the player enough room inside the MPR without raising any 'wall-touching-wall' issues.
This of course would increase the size of each wall section. To compensate, you could increase the size of the window, leave a small wall on each side or split the wall section into two smaller windows. Just keep in mind that the diagonal hatch has to be shortened as well!
If this doesn't work, please consider to add a rectangular room matching the size of an MPR instead (with curved edges instead of diagonal wall sections).
4) Unify the doorways
There are currently 3 different versions: The bulkheads, the MPR doorways with the yellow handles and the moonpool / large room doorways. This looks odd. With an increased MPR size however, I think the ones with the handles could be replaced by the large ones.
5) Slightly decrease the size of the observatory and let it connect to multiple sides
First of all for obvious reasons:
So reduce the size slightly. This way, the size would even match the size of the new lifepod. (the height of the observatory could actually be used to retrieve the new 'cell' height I have in mind).
I would also love to see a non-glass observatory-like base piece (in addition to the X compartment). The mini glass dome could be a ceiling window upgrade instead. And due to the fact that it's too small to be a real observatory, just consider to introduce a special MPR room 'obervatory' instead that comes with a glass floor as well.
6) Match the visual of the large room glass dome with the observatory / MPR glass dome
I.e. the large room glass dome should be divided into different sections. They currently don't even align well with the large room partitions. So I would appreciate a more filigree structure that would create a large central glass piece that match the size and position of the large alien containment glass top.
7) Other stuff
- Non-glass hatches (like the round bulkheads from the cyclops)
- Different window options (f.e. choosing a lot of smaller ones instead)
- a wall segment that comes with 2-3 perfectly aligned lockers attached to the wall
- Maybe some wall lockers that can be accessed from both the outside and the inside (see quantum locker)
- Wall-mounted power switches (see neptune rocket) f.e. to close all bulkheads or to shut a whole base down
- The command chair (see neptune rocket), maybe as some sort of auto-medbay.
- better matching colors for a large room and base columns (I can dim them if I want to, so you don't have to)
- indoor wall color & setting the color & brightness of the interior lighting
- maybe different light/color settings per room (choose a room like you'd choose one to disable the energy there)
.... and a central MPR locker upgrade (neptune rocket):
Comments
Three times the current thickness of a floor/ceiling seems like a lot. Alterra isn't known for splurging on stuff when they can reduce costs by scrimping and saving on materials...
Despite my previous comment about materials, I have to agree. They make me claustrophobic just thinking about crawling through them!
Another great idea! I love the thought of reducing my base's dependency on the seafloor.
It seems like this would get a bit complicated when you consider the way the legs are different on the moonpool. But I love the idea of including a medium room. I mean, they already have them in the world, we just need to be able to build them.
This could be fun, but I imagine you would encounter similar issues as mentioned above.
Perhaps these could all be features added to the Control Room?
Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes!
I have always wanted to see a sloping corridor module (think shopping center access ramp) that could be used in conjunction with the 90 degree corner modules to make up a 180 degree turn and then by using a second sloping corridor, link up with a lower module. In this way, you could have a whole series of levels accessed by a much easier way rather than climbing ladders up multiple stories.
This thread here is mostly about the height of the habitat pieces and everything related to this. There are currently quite a few bugs, like these:
And although I know these bugs don't have the highest priority for good, I wanted to point out a few details with this post, in hope it might alter the way how things are fixed later on.
In the second screenshot f.e., you can see that the fake ceiling almost takes up the full height of the large room stacked on top of it (add the height of a fake floor and it would be 100%).
What I am saying is that I think it's unnecessary to limit the height of the stacked rooms so much!
A moonpool f.e. isn't higher than a large room! The main difference though is that in case of a large room, most of the space is fake (and the large room would benefit from larger columns anyways).
So I am convinced that if the devs would increase the height of a habitat 'cell', the extra space could be used for good! Not only as an extra layer of protection against glitches; it would also add more design options!
The thin sheet that represents the water level in the moonpool is more or less at the same height as the solid floor of other habitat pieces (which is the reason why the moonpool doorway has no stairs, but other rooms have). Everything below the water level is still useful. This is essentially the height I'd add to stacked habitat pieces.
And the moonpool is also a perfect example of how an increased room height adds more options.
For one, it's a good opportunity to unify the rooms & doorways. Like a unified floor level, unified floor colors & patterns, unified gangway sizes, unified 'overhead bin' positions, etc.
Second, the devs could make the moonpool an interior habitat piece. Two moonpools could be added to a large room and a special, personal moonpool could be developed for the MPR (multi-purpose room). Heck, it could even have a special 'cargo' lift.
Not only that, other central room pieces could be designed (like a MPR scanner room upgrade, the central lockers I've mentioned, an actual large tree or 'wall' planters in the center) and these could result in different visuals for the ceiling (like a radar system, free power transmitters, plants hanging from the ceilings, etc).
In addition to better dry-ground doors, it would be awesome to have some stairs and smaller walkways than the foundation piece.