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src/en/space-station-14/mapping/guides/mapping-guide.md

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+# Mapping Guidelines
+
+This document intends to give you helpful tips and guidance on how to create a fun and playable Space Station 14 map! 
+
+These guidelines are only for the design of the station. For instructions on how to map and commands to use, please read the the [General Guide](https://docs.spacestation14.com/en/space-station-14/mapping/guides/general-guide.html).
+
+```admonish info
+Remember! These are ultimately guidelines and not rules; you may choose to disregard them, but you should be able to explain *why* you are doing so.
+```
+
+## Starting Out
+
+### Planning The Layout
+
+There are multiple ways to begin mapping, but to save yourself the trouble of constantly remaking and replacing items over and over, it's recommended you start with planning out the layout of rooms, walls and passageways first. This can be either done in the mapping tool itself, or by using external tools such as a pixel editor to more easily move designs around. Even a simple pencil sketch can be of great help.
+
+Use existing stations as inspiration and guidance! Comparing at the size of departments and general areas can help with determining how many players your station will be able to support and inform how many lockers, ammenities and what power structures need to be mapped.
+
+### Station Theme
+
+When trying to conceptualize a new station, it can be useful to decide on a **theme**, **lore** or **gimmick** for your map as a starting point. This can help inform decisions you make about the station's layout and design to ensure that it feels cohesive and unique. The default setting of SS14 stations is a corporate research station accommodating NanoTrasen workers and passengers. Some examples include:
+
+- Oasis: Has a **theme** around a greenery, with a **gimmick** of a large central room in the middle of the station. 
+- Fland: Has a **lore** of being built as part of an asteroid, with a **theme** of indoors asteroid rocks as part of the station.
+- Core: Has a **gimmick** of the Singularity being in the center of the station, with a **theme** of dirt and rust.
+- Plasma: Has a **gimmick** of active plasma pools on the station, with the **lore** being that the station is an old plasma asteroid mining rig, with the **theme** being dusty asteroid hallways.
+
+```admonish info
+Remember! Having a theme or focusing on a gimmick does not guarantee a good station! Use it as a guide but avoid compromising the playability of the station purely to fit your theme or gimmick. Seek feedback, playtest early and don't half-ass your concept.
+```
+
+## General Station Layout
+
+**[TODO: Expand this section? Maybe move things into a Tips & Tricks section instead.]**
+
+When designing a station, you want to have a healthy balance of **Departmental**, **General** and **Maintenance** areas. 
+
+Avoid dead end hallways and areas. 
+
+Avoid double-thick walls.
+
+
+
+### General Areas
+
+#### Hallways
+
+Hallways are the main traversal option for moving across the station, connecting the different departments and points of interest. They should be well-lit, have camera coverage, provide ample space for movement and have clear signage for where they lead - this results in them being fairly high-traffic and a comfortable option for station crew. While they may be fairly simple you should not take them for granted; there are good and bad hallways. 
+
+Hallways should provide enough space to move large equipment such as crates and machines without impeding the flow too much; generally 3-tile wide hallways are a good balance between width without feeling too open, though they may be made smaller or larger in certain circumstances (e.g. connecting to rooms, side-passages). Hallways should rarely result in a complete dead-end for three reasons; dead-ends provide little reason to use the hallway, backtracking is largely unfun for players, and in the event of environmental hazards such as spacing the player should always have at least one pathway that wasn't the one they entered from. This pathway can be an airlock into Maintenance but shouldn't be departmentally restricted. Generally the docking arms for Arrivals/Evac can be treated as exceptions.
+
+```admonish note "{Aesthetics}"
+Hallways are what's available to the general public and should therefore have general appeal. Are there places for crew to take breaks in their worklife? Common areas to spend time? What decorations would your station have set up for general crew? 
+```
+
+```admonish info
+There's a general expectation that public areas and hallways are where you find snack/soda vendors as well as fire-safety/emergency-oxygen lockers. It can be a good idea to make small cubbies for them in straight hallways, or to put them at the end of a hallway, as to not disrupt movement. 
+```
+
+```admonish info
+If you have a hallway next to a department it can be good practice to include floor decals/colors that match the department! It helps players identify where they are on the station and where the hallway leads to without looking at signs/maps!
+```
+
+```admonish info
+To reiterate: always provide at least two pathways into/out of a Hallway. It may seem like a subtle thing but is very important for good station movement flow. Don't forget it!
+```
+
+```admonish warning
+Avoid making super-wide hallways! They tend to look bad due to having a lot of plain similar space, and the rows of airlocks/firelocks necessary aren't great either. You can break up wide hallways with planters to create parkways or convert them to a Common Area of some sort.  
+```
+
+```admonish warning
+Avoid making super-long hallways! Sometimes it may be unavoidable, but with good planning you should be able to keep your station from having a long hallways that reaches from one end of the station to the next. Holding a single key to get from one place to the other with perfect sightlines is uninteresting gameplay. 
+```
+
+<details>
+<summary>Hallways Checklist</summary>
+<br>
+- <b>[TODO: Fill in checklist]</b>
+</details>
+
+#### Common Areas
+
+Interspersed with Hallways you have "Common Areas". These can serve a similar purpose to a Hallway, providing traversal through parts of the station, but tend to be designed around a specific purpose. These are important to add to the roleplay aspect of the game and to make the station seem more realistic; recreation would be important on a remote space station, after all. Bored crew can also repurpose these "ownerless" rooms into something else as they are free space in often fairly high-traffic areas of the station.
+
+In terms of gameplay they can serve different purposes; a side room for eating vending machine snacks may also serve as a path into maintenance, or a wider hallway with chairs and tables can break up same-y hallways. Bathrooms tend to be fairly useful as they provide an excuse to map in intuitive publicly accessible water access (sinks & toilets) as well as floor drains for disposing chemicals. Aim to have a reason for why a Common Area is where it is; is it there to enhance station movement? Does it add to the aesthetics to the station? 
+
+```admonish note "{Aesthetics}"
+Common areas are very versatile and even those that are primarily made for gameplay functionality can have strong themes. So lean into it! What is the purpose of the area? What kind of utility would an area in that part of the station provide? Is it related to any nearby department? 
+```
+
+<details>
+<summary>Common Areas Checklist</summary>
+<br>
+- <b>[TODO: Fill in checklist]</b>
+</details>
+
+#### Maintenance
+
+Despite their often grungy appearance and lack of department belonging, Maintenance pathways are one of the most important parts of creating good station movement. In the abstract Maintenance is not different to a regular hallway (you get from point A to point B) but their ability to slot into anywhere on the station makes them a powerful tool.
+
+In mechanical terms, Maintenance is signified by a lack of cameras, poor lighting, tight spaces and creating distance between/around high-population areas on the station. Since departments often create a large block of untraversable area for the majority of crew, Maintenance should open up possibilities to move around them. **[TODO: Needs to be elaborated!]** It should also act as alternate entrance/exit points for a department, in the event that crew needs to evacuate the area but are unable to use the main entry points. Maintenance also provides an excellent opportunity to prevent dead-end hallways and gives players somewhere to retreat in the event of hazardous environments.
+
+Since SS14 is a game involving antagonists causing chaos and murders on the station, Maintenance plays a key part in this. Maintenance acts as a place to retreat/slip into as an antagonist, both to avoid the AI and bumping into any crew walking the main hallways. Design your Maintenance entrances such that a player is never too far away from one. Your station should have several areas far enough away from high-population locations (such as departments) where a person can be murdered without risk of being overheard. This also provides a staging platform for antagonists that need to invade the station, or players seeking to hide and prepare with less risk of being found out by patrolling Security.
+
+Another purpose of Maintenance is to act as a playground for bored crew. Scavanging it for tools and parts (known as "Maints Diving") is one part of it, and you want to encourage that by mapping fun loot and random-spawn Maintenance closets (make sure to not go overboard here!). But Maintenance is also an excellent way to let players flex the sandbox nature of the game and create something in the space. The "Maintenance Bar" is a staple on many stations, where the area and materials are mapped to encourage opening up an unofficial bar. Aim to include several of these kinds of locations in your map; even if they go unused, they work great when doubled as traversal/preparation areas mentioned above.
+
+Therefore, when adding Maintenance, try to do it with a purpose. Is the Maintenance tunnel providing a necessary shortcut? Does it open up an opportunity for an antagonist? Is it creating movement opportunities into/around departments? Are you enabling a fun side-activity for players?
+
+```admonish note "{Aesthetics}"
+Especially Maintenance should feel lived-in; what would it look like after the station's maintenance staff spent time living in the back tunnels of the station? What things have they left in there? What did they do away from NanoTrasen's prying eyes?
+```
+
+```admonish info
+While you are free to map fire-safety or emergency-oxygen closets in more open areas such as Hallways, there should generally be a closet right inside the entrance to a Maintenance section. It's fine to disperse more of these further into Maintenance as well!
+```
+
+```admonish info
+Don't forget, just because it's Maintenance does not mean it's exempt from firelocks! You do not have to worry about air or fire alarms, but since Maintenance tends to sprawl out across the station and doesn't always have airlocks, you don't want to end up with a single hole spacing large amounts of the station. It's not necessary to include atmospherics pipes into maintenance, but can serve as a nice gesture to areas that crew may restore and/or spend a lot of time in.
+```
+
+```admonish info
+Maintenance should have air/oxygen/nitrogen canisters mapped inside of it, preferably in groups and not too far from the entrances. This is to allow players to refill their breathing tanks in the event of long-duration spacing or for species that require always-on internals. Air canisters are primarily used to refill areas that have gotten spaced. Aim to include enough canisters such that a player feels they only have to "slip into maintenance" to find a canister, rather than needing to remember a specific place. 
+```
+
+```admonish warning
+Engineering substations should generally be freely accessible to Engineers so that they can repair and/or sabotage them, and Maintenance is a good place to put them. 
+```
+
+```admonish warning
+Avoid making Maintenance tunnels thin and straight. 1-tile wide tunnels can be fine to some degree, but make sure you break it up with 2-wide tunnels and small rooms. This opens up opportunities for mapping tables, racks and equipment, which help constrain the space but provide some interaction and makes the area feel more dynamically sized. Long, straight tunnels become an issue since it forces boring movement (just hold one directional key), but they also eliminate a lot of decision-making when fighting ranged weapons, since you're constrained in which way to move and there is no way to break sightlines. Even small 1-tile bends can suffice here.
+```
+
+<details>
+<summary>Maintenance Checklist</summary>
+<br>
+- <b>[TODO: Fill in checklist]</b>
+</details>
+
+#### Arrivals & Cryosleep
+
+Arrivals is one of two locations where late-join players arrive to the station in a shuttle and get to participate in the round. Therefore it should have the infrastructure to support it; you want to include maps, signs and labels to guide the player into the station. A good practice is to provide the player movement options; leading Arrivals' main path out into a crossing and providing multiple Maintenance accesses are examples of this. 
+
+Cryosleep is the other location and acts similar to Arrivals but mechanically works differently. Instead of a shuttle docking with the station players spawn in via Cryo Beds, which simply act as spawnpoints. These beds also have a double functionality of letting players exit rounds in a way that is less disruptive than e.g. suicide, and also opens up the job slot the player character had. Because of this Cryosleep needs to cover being travelled *to* as well as from, while Arrivals mosty concerns itself with travelling *from*.
+
+Whereas Arrivals need to connect with some part of space to support the shuttle, and therefore tends to be on the edge of the station, Cryosleep can be located deep within the station. 
+
+Arrivals is in a unique position in that it's (as of the writing of this guide) protected from sabotage via server rules. This is to prevent new players joining the round immediately dying upon arriving at the station. Because of this, you should be careful of where you position Arrivals when you plan your map to prevent it being a place antags interact with. Avoid putting it right next to departments or Evacuation and don't make it interface with a high-traffic area. Cryosleep does not explicitly have this rules restriction but should still be mapped with it in mind.
+
+```admonish note "{Aesthetics}"
+Both Arrivals and Cryosleep are public areas and may be one of the first impressions a player gets of your station. What should the player see as they join the game? 
+```
+
+```admonish info
+Same as not mapping Arrivals/Cryosleep too close to high-population areas, don't make those areas too interesting to be in. Providing some ammenities is fine but Arrivals/Cryosleep are places you should primarily travel from/to because of their gameplay functionality.
+```
+
+```admonish info
+Sometimes the station may be in a bad state even if Arrivals/Cryosleep wasn't intentionally targetted. It may be a good idea to map in emergency lockers nearby so that players don't immediately die due to environmental hazards upon spawning.
+```
+
+```admonish warning
+Arrivals airlocks should NOT be access locked. This is because power issues or confusion may cause players to end up on the outside of the airlock in space. Due to the shuttle's ability to gib people upon arriving players should be able to enter the station through the Arrivals airlock even when the shuttle isn't docked.
+
+Note that this can also make Arrivals an appealing entry point for antags. Provide alternative public space accesses to avoid Arrivals being in the crossfire for a dangerous antag entering the station!
+```
+
+#### Evacuation
+
+#### Tool Room
+
+## Departments
+
+### Command
+
+#### Bridge
+
+#### Captain's Room
+
+#### Vault
+
+#### Head of Personnel's Office
+
+#### EVA
+
+### Security
+
+#### General Areas
+
+#### Armory
+
+#### HoS' Office
+
+#### Warden's Office
+
+#### Genpop
+
+### Medical
+
+#### General Areas
+
+#### Chemistry
+
+#### Morgue
+
+#### Cryogenics
+
+#### Surgery
+
+#### Chief Medical Officer's Office
+
+#### Virology
+
+### Engineering
+
+#### General Areas
+
+#### PA Room & Singularity Chamber
+
+#### AME Room
+
+#### Secure Storage
+
+#### Secure Tech Storage
+
+#### Atmospherics
+
+#### TEG Area
+
+#### Chief Engineer's Office
+
+### Service
+
+#### Bar
+
+#### Kitchen
+
+#### Botany
+
+#### Janitorial
+
+#### Chapel
+
+#### Theatre
+
+Threatre is an umbrella name for the Clown, Mime and Musician jobs. These jobs have the same unique "Theatre" access, but while it is common to see them share a room that is not always a necessity. 
+
+### Science
+
+#### General Areas
+
+#### Xeno Archeology
+
+#### Anomalous Research
+
+#### Robotics
+
+#### Server Room
+
+#### Research Director's Office
+
+### Cargo
+
+#### General Areas
+
+#### Cargo Bay
+
+#### Salvage Bay
+
+## Evacuation Shuttle
+
+## Tips and Reminders
+
+Canisters in maintenance
+Publicly available drain
+How to use station beacons
+Avoid mapping too strong loot
+
+### Decorations & Decals
+
+Areas should be lived in
+Decals should be used in a good way (get examples)
+
+### Nice-To-Haves
+
+Canisters in maintenance
+Publicly available drain
+Gaming room