This map for the game Space Station 14 is my first full station, designed around the theme of an alien spaceship having been recently taken over by the player corporation. It features custom art assets, unique layouts and a design philosophy of making every in-game department have a twist on normal gameplay. Overall it’s meant to convey a sense of being out of place and adapting to an unfamiliar environment, while still ensuring that gameplay runs smoothly for both new and experienced players alike.
Some key design features:
– Corridors and maintenance paths use unconventional layouts, featuring more turns and tighter hallways than normal. This is offset by having plenty of signage to assist in navigation, as well as clearly marked-out map spots. Getting from point A to point B faster may involve taking shortcuts through maintenance tunnels, allowing for more experienced players to learn the layout and optimize movement.
– The Medical department is unusually split up, with the Chemistry sub-department physically disconnected from the main Medical Bay. To offset this there is a protected disposals pipe network that allows travel between Medbay and Chemistry, and Chemistry is given a small mini-bay to assist with treatment and encourage interactions with crew (which is especially suitable since Chemistry is next to Cargo, which will likely have injured Salvage Specialists travelling through).
– The Anti-Matter Engine is located in the wide open space between Science and Medical. Other stations keep it in an enclosed space inside of Engineering to hinder sabotage, but by having it in such an open area this ends up being balanced by the fact it’s now too public to sabotage. This is also offset by Engineering’s other main power generator, the Singularity/Tesla generator, being pre-setup meaning they can quickly transition to stronger energy should they need to.
– Security’s Permanent Confinement features a unique feature by having the room consist of only 3 walls; the fourth one is instead made up of a containment field, usually reserved for Singularity/Tesla containment. Turns out this works very well for containing prisoners too!
– The maintenance tunnels to the far east of the station contains a section that is blocked off via barricades. Inside, a map-unique alien mob named “Lone Praetorian” stalks a dark labyrinth. It’s intentionally not lethal and provides a speed-boost upon hit to help a player encountering it escape, but the fact it is inside of a dark section of the map means it’s very effective at causing jumpscares for unsuspecting players.
These are but a few of the design choices made for the map. During playtesting it has consistently ranked in the top-half of the map pool and has been seen as a fun and exciting addition to the game.
