New high pop station - Serpentcrest

[TytosB]

About the PR

i have created a new high pop station, 'serpentcrest' based around the gimmick of a syndicate station recently conquered by Nanotrasen.

here's some lore if you're interested.

"Serpentcrest station was originally founded as a mining outpost owned by a Gorlex subsidiary in order to
extract the very rich gold and silver deposits present. however, as the borders shifted in the never ending
proxy war between the syndicate and NT, its position became more strategically valuable than its ore, and
it was moved to direct Gorlex administration and converted into a forward outpost for launching and supplying operations into NT space. the structure was massively expanded, with new fully man-made additions to the station expanding out from the original asteroid base in all directions. the syndicate, being ever fond of iconography to an obnoxious degree, built
the station to literally take the shape of a snake curling around the gold-rich rock.

Very recently, the station came under NT control after a very violent and prolonged battle. the station
still bears many unmistakable marks of its history as a syndicate base, as well as many scars of the recent
battle, and the space around it is now littered with the wrecks of various NT and syndicate warships."

the station also has its own cargo shuttle and evac shuttle that go with the theme. as well as two small ruined ships nearby it.

Why / Balance

because i think it would be a very interesting and unique station in the pool with a very special concept and story.

Technical details

Media

and here's the custom evac and cargo shuttle:

Requirements

• I have read and am following the Pull Request and Changelog Guidelines.
• I have added media to this PR or it does not require an ingame showcase.

Breaking changes

Changelog

🆑

• add: added new station: Serpentcrest. along with accompanying evac and cargo shuttles

[ss14-map-server]

This PR contains new or changed maps:

Serpentcrest

07/14/25 21:56

[Lukasz825700516]

I like the concept, but:

• most of rooms seem to me to be way too empty compared to their size
• TEG seems to have no radiator setup
• very long maintenance corridors feel strange to me
• cargo has no outer reinforced walls
• medical has no outer reinforced walls
• head of personel is so far from the general service area
• clean chapel tiles clash so much with the dirty ones it hurts me

[TytosB]

I like the concept, but:

* most of rooms seem to me to be way too empty compared to their size

* TEG seems to have no radiator setup

* very long maintenance corridors feel strange to me

* cargo has no outer reinforced walls

* medical has no outer reinforced walls

* head of personel is so far from the general service area

* clean chapel tiles clash so much with the dirty ones it hurts me

thanks for the response, however, i made cargo and med have normal walls as thats pretty standard on most maps [box,bagel,marathon, fland] and the chapel dark tiles are actually chapel carpet.

[Minemoder5000]

So just doing a quick skim over this, you'll need to unmap most if not all of the syndicate contraband. The vestine, magboots, eva suits and masks, syndiejuice, susboxes, and everything else syndicate contraband.

[alexalexmax]

I like the concept, but:

• most of rooms seem to me to be way too empty compared to their size
• TEG seems to have no radiator setup
• very long maintenance corridors feel strange to me
• cargo has no outer reinforced walls
• medical has no outer reinforced walls
• head of personel is so far from the general service area
• clean chapel tiles clash so much with the dirty ones it hurts me

Agree with all these points, and

• Tile design/painting, in general, needs work. Many places have very little going on
• Many rooms do not look well-designed, just having the essentials kind of just placed down haphazardly along the walls
• The amount of ore asteroids mapped is crazy and should be lowered very significantly
• Not a fan of the service rooms that are missing corner walls (ex. the two substation rooms)
• The syndicate microwaves that almost completely replace regular microwaves will make the mechanic of microwaving IDs almost nonexistent, since syndicate microwaves in particular will just blow up upon trying to microwave an ID
• Space access is very limited apart from the “mandatory” airlocks (arrivals/evac, solars, cargo dock)
• Evac shuttle missing the evac repair locker
• Med shouldn’t have a round start chemvend restock
• I have no idea what is going on with the singulo/tesla setup - where are the emitters? where are the tesla coils? where is the MV wiring? Why force tesla instead of allowing players to choose?
• Where is the cargo bounty computer and cargo shuttle computer?

This map just seems like a substantial drop in design quality compared to the existing maps.

[TytosB]

@alexalexmax to address a few of these, thats a nanomed restock not a chemvend restock, the emitters/tesla coil/ etc is all in flatpacks because that makes setting it up faster and easier, i forgor the cargo computer when i was remaking cargo, and while the syndicate microwaves are very common, there are about as many normal microwaves on the station as a normal map would have. rather, the syndie microwaves actually provide the advantage of letting more people have the ability to cook food without making cooking ids too easy. also there are no less than four different airlocks in maints [counting the backup maints dock as one] for people to get into space, in addition to evac, arrivals, the shuttle bay construction bay, cargo, and 6 escape pods. so im really not sure how i could add any more ways to get into space.

[ArtisticRoomba]

Aforementioned comments aside, Serpentcrest is a very unique station and I quite like the theme of it. There are some problems though.

• Containment doesn't have its own HV net, ideally it should be on its own net with a substation and SMES, similar to other stations.
• Containment APC not connected to HV subnet
• Containment cold storage equipment should not be in flatpacks
• Radiation collectors should be pre-setup and pressurized inside of the station (see Bagel)
• Post-wastenet spacing pipe is on the wrong side of the atmos recyclernet array and should be on the other side
• TEG setup is lacking a dedicated burn chamber and should have some type of hotloop available for engineering to use
• Gravity gen should have its own SMES and substation, right now it causes a 10s no-gravity on station load
• Engineering maints is just a long straight hallway with no curve
• Signal button inside of blast door inside of engi shuttle building area
• Unpowered holopad in atmos
• SMES array north wall could use something going for it, whether it be tables or otherwise
• Large groups of telecoms servers are unpowered
• Engi maints shouldn't really be a straight line into the department, rather it should wind.
• Atmos burn chamber should be external to the station and surrounded by scaffolding. Otherwise it could easily be released to Atmos/the station and barbecue everyone. Also bad for superconduction enjoyers.
• PA control computer facing the wrong direction.
• Bridge needs computers like the mass scanner console.
• Captain's area should get more more unique tiling than completely all wood in order to spice up the area, his bathroom also should just be bathroom tile as using the gold tile like that doesn't look good.
• Computer to the side of the chair in captain's room doesn't look good and should be moved to be inline with their desk in the middle or some other place.
• Armory turret will get blocked by the nuke if people breach from space.
• Armory turret has no control panels to speak of.
• AI cannot see space, and the outside turrets don't have any control panels for them. Generally, I don't think that AI turrets should see the outside at all.
• Internal AI turrets don't have any control panels for controlling them.
• I would probably remove components on the L6-ROW and NT1984 in the showcase room.
• The very, very, large centerpoint area reminds me of Loop and admittedly it wasn't very good. There isn't much going for the Drama area as well.
• The absolutely massive line of firelocks dividing the center area doesn't look good and should be avoided.
• Ice cream area should get more unique tiling.
• Try not to use the emergency wallmounts when you don't need to use them, they look bad on non-shuttles.
• Science morgue is placed the wrong way, you can't open it.
• The complete usage of techmaint tiles for science looks bad and should be avoided, or more variety introduced.
• Please use the insulated gloves spawners when you want to spawn insuls, as there's a lot currently mapped. The mapped sunglasses in maints should also be replaced by maintloot tables.
• The wall of firelocks in sci maints looks really bad, they should be removed. The firelock usage in maints is also pretty excessive and should be toned down a little.
• Science shouldn't get a uranium spear and plasma tank.
• Interdynes shouldn't be mapped like hotcakes.
• Don't pre-map mail.
• The salvage area is pretty far away from cargo and is hard to figure out where it is, so a sign should be added.
• The firelocks partitioning the cargo area looks bad and will usually never work as items can easily block them. There's a very large amount of space in the middle of the DONK that is weirdly unused while everything is cramped into the top half of the area.
• Remove the mining drill from salv.
• The advanced first aid kit for salv is a bit extreme as well.
• Salv's airlock is not properly circuit protected, so they can unbolt sides in certain situations.
• Stuff like vents and scrubbers should not be hidden under objects, they should be visible.
• Air alarms shouldn't be obstructed by a machine.
• Maints chem having a full dispenser, chemvend board and hotplate is iffy.
• I have problems with the syndie surgical bundles, as they contain the advanced circular saw which is pretty good.
• The medical alt-hall which is just maints just feels really bad.
• Hyperzine injector should be unmapped
• Chem should only get one hotplate
• There are two chem lockers but three stations are available
• The clothing covering up the freezer for cryo will troll players
• Librarian should not get a free stealthcane
• Engi goggles shouldn't be in substations
• No tiling under HoS door
• I wouldn't give security a webvest and C-20R
• Anyone with security access can just let prisoners out of genpop through the windows. I would just make the visitation proper plasma glass.
• Walls don't align with other walls in some certain areas. The walls in south asteroid for example.
• The asteroid walls should be reinforced, otherwise people can just space the area.
• The evac docks don't look good, they're oddly embossed/uncentered.

Overall I have problems with the map. There is a lot of contraband and loot mapped throughout the station that needs to get pulled out and there are a lot of unconventional decisions made as well. There are so many little mistakes here and there that it has become very hard to enumerate them all. Admittedly, the mistakes made here improve very little over the core problems that Loop had.

The styling of the map, however, is very unique and I would like to see a good story told of a syndicate station overtaken by NT in upstream. The NT room hidden in the station is a pretty good joke.

[Kowlin]

Here are some things I found while playtesting this map on Leviathan:

• Decals can be wiped away with space cleaner, unsure if intentional or not.
• AME doesn't spawn with any AME fuel.
• The kitchen freezer has the wrong air vent. It should be a passive one to allow the air to be cooled.
• Related to the kitchen freezer, it doesn't have any air stoppers. I don't know if that's intended or not with current mapping standards.
• The Cargo shuttle was unable to be moved in testing without placing a new shuttle console.
• Moving a TEG mix from the main Atmos room to the TEG room is difficult due to the limited space available for pipes.
• The evac shuttle needs fixgridatmos run on it.

[TytosB]

Here are some things I found while playtesting this map on Leviathan:

* Decals can be wiped away with space cleaner, unsure if intentional or not.

* AME doesn't spawn with any AME fuel.

* The kitchen freezer has the wrong air vent. It should be a passive one to allow the air to be cooled.

* Related to the kitchen freezer, it doesn't have any air stoppers. I don't know if that's intended or not with current mapping standards.

* The Cargo shuttle was unable to be moved in testing without placing a new shuttle console.

* Moving a TEG mix from the main Atmos room to the TEG room is difficult due to the limited space available for pipes.

* The evac shuttle needs `fixgridatmos` run on it.

thanks ress, can you tell me which decal in particular was cleanable? some are meant to be and some arent

[Kowlin]

Here are some things I found while playtesting this map on Leviathan:

* Decals can be wiped away with space cleaner, unsure if intentional or not.

* AME doesn't spawn with any AME fuel.

* The kitchen freezer has the wrong air vent. It should be a passive one to allow the air to be cooled.

* Related to the kitchen freezer, it doesn't have any air stoppers. I don't know if that's intended or not with current mapping standards.

* The Cargo shuttle was unable to be moved in testing without placing a new shuttle console.

* Moving a TEG mix from the main Atmos room to the TEG room is difficult due to the limited space available for pipes.

* The evac shuttle needs `fixgridatmos` run on it.

thanks ress, can you tell me which decal in particular was cleanable? some are meant to be and some arent

It was the ones regarding syndicate logos I'm pretty sure.

[TytosB]

hotfix to address all the issues ress and i found during the test round today.

[Kowlin]

Round 2 of play testing, whew, that was a VERY long round!

Atmos:

• TEG hot loop end has one of the volumetric pumps going the wrong way.

AI:

• Camera vision is lacking, feels very claustrophobic. No vision into space.
• No freezer camera.
• AI core looks a bit too easy to disconnect. (and make into a shuttle)

Borgs:

• There is a lack of chargers on a very big map, it would use some chargers that are not directly in Science.

Disposals:

• When trash is deposited into disposals and flushed to recycling, and recycling is off, it becomes difficult to easily recycle all materials. This is because there is no easy path back for trash when it takes the turn.

Security:

• Warden's fax is easily accessible and steal able.
• There is no prisoner outfit locker in/around the GenPop locker room.

Captain's office:

• Lacks a communication's console.

Power & Cabling:

• AI Sat needs a SMES bank in order to be a one way power grid.
• The single generator in the AI sat is insufficient to fully power the sat alone.
• Station power is easy to sabotage because there is only a singular HV wire going through out the station, a second line may have to be added for redundancy.

[TytosB]

* Station power is easy to sabotage because there is only a singular HV wire going through out the station, a second line may have to be added for redundancy.

i hope the engis got to have a nice long talk with bradley

[Kowlin]

Just gonna put this here for posterity, Tytos is also waiting for #36960 so that the corpses can be replaced with actual Syndicate corpses.

[Nukesthestation]

Just gonna put down some issues I noticed during a playtest/admeme that happened a bit ago that I noticed as hos:

sidenote: for a good chunk of the round I was basically the only sec, excluding the ned cadet, but we later had a latejoin warden and sec officer or two

• people seem to take the station as a free "be a shitter pass" due to all the contra

• WAY too much contra on the station, sec/ i spent most of the time dealing with the contra flowing into sec, and or getting contra from people, to the point that we eventually had to ask cc for permission to allow some levels of contra, so that we could go about and actually do things other then arresting people over and over for syndigear that they would get right away after we took it

• people were easily breaking into GenPop and, by extension, had no issues breaking out

I don't have much else since I didn't get to explore the station or do much else before the part of the admeme (xenoborgs) came and decimated sec