Why maintenance should have vents

[Eler00]

One thing that just seems to be true regardless of map is that maintenance doesn't have air vents or scrubbers. I believe that, both from a lore and from a gameplay POV, this should change.

Let me first talk from a gameplay POV:

What is the main purpose of vents? Is it supplying the station with air? While that is one of their functions, I would argue it is not the main one. Crew don't use up enough air for replacement to be needed. If it was just about recycling air and filling maints up after a leak, then adding vents to maints would not make much sense. The handful of times where maint needs to be filled with fresh air or scrubbed, portable tanks and scrubbers can be used. But in my opinion, the main reason for vents to exist is in fact ventcrawling. 

A lot of rounds end up spawning either a mouse-blob, terrors or xenos (though rip for xenos for now), on top of more rare ventcrawlers like antag atmos techs or morphs. The vent network is their primary method of movement. However, those event antags all want a quiet place out of view to build up in. This forces them to go to the handful of places in maintenance that do have vents and are thus accessible, namely turbine or chapel electrical maint.

The fact that maints don't have vents sharply constrains those antagonists, especially at the very start, forcing the evolution of a strong meta by leaving only a handful of viable nest/blob locations. Even after the start, it is not rare to see terror spiders stuck in maint rooms behind doors they can't force open, where vents would be a natural way for them to spread and get around.

Another factor that was brought to my attention is headcrabs. Headcrab nests get spawned somewhere in maintenance, nobody finds them, they build up a shitton of crabs that are all trapped in one tiny room to be unleashed on whoever is unlucky enough to open the door. If maintenance had vents, we could make headcrabs ventcrawlers (if they aren't already), which is a very headcrabby way for them to spread around.

You could argue this would make those antagonists more powerful, especially in maintenance, since a xeno hunter or terror spider could be lurking in a vent in the dark. IMO, that would even be desirable, making maintenance a great deal scarier than it currently is. The biohazard invading the station having an advantage in maintenance seems appropriate to me. Since maintenance vents are in less frequented areas, they should also have a tendency to not get welded as much, leaving biohazards a way out of a mostly welded network.

Secondly, let's talk from a lore POV:

First, let me say that I firmly believe gameplay and balance concerns should be more important than lore. With that out of the way, are there arguments for or against vents in maintenance? You could say that maintenance is not a proper part of the station, not designed to be livable or comfortable and that's the reason why it doesn't have any ventilation.

However, not having areas on your space station get any fresh air, ever would be an incredible safety risk and liability. Secondly, there's areas of the station proper only accessible via maint, so there's an expectation that some people need to go there. Third, if maint is supposed to be this inhospitable, why does it have some lights? And lastly, there are areas of maintenance that are flavoured as former station parts that were abandoned. Areas like old bar, old diner and so on are supposed to have once been normal rooms. Why, then, did someone go through all the trouble of ripping out their vents and scrubbers, instead of just turning them off or whatever?

My proposal

So, what exactly do I propose? I don't think maintenance should have anywhere close to the vent and scrubber density that the proper station gets. However, there should be some scrubbers and vents added in choice locations where they can cover a fairly large area, as well as in locations that are formerly normal rooms like old bar. That should give blobs and spiders more choice in starting location, lessening the meta-factor.

[Garrulous]

If I'm not mistaken about atmos mechanics, this would likely require maintenance to be split up a good bit more than it already is. The atmos system is built to be used in one enclosed space, which is why it works well pretty much everywhere with the exception of arrivals. With the many separately enclosed spaces inside one Maintenance APC area, It likely wouldn't work well without bolting airlocks open. 

[Charliminator]

But don't some rooms have multiple vents and scrubbers? What would make this any different?

[AffectedArc07]

On 8/13/2020 at 10:40 PM, Garrulous said:

If I'm not mistaken about atmos mechanics, this would likely require maintenance to be split up a good bit more than it already is. The atmos system is built to be used in one enclosed space, which is why it works well pretty much everywhere with the exception of arrivals. With the many separately enclosed spaces inside one Maintenance APC area, It likely wouldn't work well without bolting airlocks open. 

Vents spit out air based on the contents of the tile they are on, not based on the air alarms total pressure

 

From a design perspective, maintenance shouldnt have vents because well, its a maintenance shaft area which shouldnt be traversed by regular people if you go from an IC perspective. Its called "maintenance" for a reason.

 

From a maintainer perspective, remapping maint to add vents and scrubbers and everything into it would add even more to the maintainer mapping load, so I advise against it, especially for now. 

[Eler00]

9 hours ago, AffectedArc07 said:

From a design perspective, maintenance shouldnt have vents because well, its a maintenance shaft area which shouldnt be traversed by regular people if you go from an IC perspective. Its called "maintenance" for a reason.

 

I've addressed this in my initial post, under lore reasons. But to reiterate: First, some maintenance areas are flavoured as abandoned station proper areas, which were originally meant for people to go to. Old bar was designed for people to go there, initially. Old surgery was once a normal surgery room, etc.

Second, just because an area isn't meant to be travelled through often doesn't mean you don't give them any ventilation, especially on a space station. And if you're at that level of cost saving, why does maintenance have lights?

[BryanR]

4 hours ago, Eler00 said:

I've addressed this in my initial post, under lore reasons. But to reiterate: First, some maintenance areas are flavoured as abandoned station proper areas, which were originally meant for people to go to. Old bar was designed for people to go there, initially. Old surgery was once a normal surgery room, etc.

Second, just because an area isn't meant to be travelled through often doesn't mean you don't give them any ventilation, especially on a space station. And if you're at that level of cost saving, why does maintenance have lights?

Game play we keep the areas for different OOC reasons however if we're talking about IC reasons then really nobody except Engineers should be traveling through maintenance until it can be brought up to a safe standard. Old Bar, Old Surgery, the Drug Lab in Sci Maintenance, the Old Diner, all these areas are dilapidated and wouldn't be suitable for crew to inhabit.

To answer the why don't you give them ventilation? Breathable air is strangely enough a more finite resource than electricity. (IE Tesla Engine produces infinite power while consuming no resources.) The station CANNOT manufacture its own breathable air. It makes sense that it'd be substantially more expensive to ship air to the station to fill up areas that if used properly would only see Engineers in environmental suits with their own oxygen tanks.