Space ruin: The sieged lab, a submap extravaganza.

[warriorstar-orion]

What Does This PR Do

This PR adds the sieged lab (IC name "Laboratory X-18" because I love stalker), a space ruin that uses submaps to create millions of possible layouts to ensure variety and fun. The reward is high level research papers but I'd like there to be more interesting and worthwhile things as well as I anticipate this being a challenging ruin.

It adds a miniboss, the Syndicate Harbinger, which has a chance of appearing via submap. It's a reskinned blood-drunk miner with the saw cleaver swapped out with an esword, and the KPA swapped out with the equivalent of an assault rifle. Dunno what it should drop, happy to take suggestions. When it first gets aggro'd, all airlocks in the vicinity are bolted open in an attempt to make it a bit more challenging to hide from, though obviously not foolproof.

If I did the math right, there's potentially millions of possible layouts, which should help keep things interesting. There's always the possibility that a layout gets generated that allows people to bypass most of the bullshit, but ensuring that players first have to go to the sec room to unlock the command office should ameliorate that.

The cool thing about some of the submaps is they basically help determine the difficulty level. For example, there's three medbay submaps, in three different states of integrity/use. The one in the best state has the best equipment. The other ones have lesser equipment, but are still worth going through.

Why It's Good For The Game

More ruins, good example of submap usage.

Images of changes

Core Template

Submaps

Harbinger

A sample layout

Testing

Lots of spawning in, walking around, engaging with ruin.

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Declaration

• I confirm that I either do not require pre-approval for this PR, or I have obtained such approval and have included a screenshot to demonstrate this below.

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Changelog

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add: Laboratory X-18, a Nanotrasen research facility in space under violent siege from the Syndicate. A different layout every round!
/:cl:

[kyunkyunkyun]

also, maybe add a bit more layers of rock/forbid teleports around command room? there is a possibility to get in via syndie teleporter, bluespace crystal etc.
Walls are not indestructible around the command room as well, people will use that for sure and just skip the whole ruin at some cases

[warriorstar-orion]

also, maybe add a bit more layers of rock/forbid teleports around command room? there is a possibility to get in via syndie teleporter, bluespace crystal etc. Walls are not indestructible around the command room as well, people will use that for sure and just skip the whole ruin at some cases

Good points. I've made the walls around command indestructible. In terms of teleporting, I just made the whole /area subtype tele-proof. It might be overkill, and I'm okay with narrowing it down, but we still don't have a super clear set of guidelines about PVE ruins and how much work we should put into anti-cheesing.

[AffectedArc07]

Alphabetise please

[AffectedArc07]

CFG change committed on prod, just alphabetise that list and we all good

[ArcZelf]

Huge fan of the ruin. The submaps help with keeping things different each time instead of knowing exactly where everything is minus the few must have places. In terms of loot the papers are able to be reached without having to go through the Harbringer which is nice if you want to just be able to help science with levels and not get crushed. The WT is nice to have alongside other ruin weaponry to use against turrets/potentially the boss in the area.

I'm not sure if the Harbringer loot is something you're still considering, but it's a difficult boss so if one out of a list of cool implants e.g xray/thermals/the razorwire/etc were picked that could possibly spawn in a one use autosurgeon whichwould be in an anchored immortal crate, only be opened with the Harbringers ID that drops on death. I think that would be a nice reward but also fitting for a syndicate themed strong boss.

I attempted the Harbringer myself using a laser gun from the white ship, WT rifle from the ruin and a KA from base explorer loadout. It went awful as I got taken by surprise and absolutely annihilated from the speed of the Harbringer so I think it's safe to say the boss is something you do with a pal unless you're really geared (or not panicking and not using meds like me).

gamingjournalistgameplay.mp4

I have only two complaints with the ruin.
A) It's really easy to space and MILLA travels so fast you can safely kill syndicate npcs without even using a weapon but at the same time if a turret happens to spawn then you'll still need to use a weapon regardless of the pressure.
B) More of a personal opinion than something objectively bad, but I think the outside rock could be a little thicker, I usually see a 2-tile thick regular rock before you see cold ancient rocks. The instant transition from regular rock to ancient rold looks kinda off. But this is just my own opinion, it's not like it affects the gameplay in anyway.

Other than that, the ruin is great!! It's a breath of fresh air.