Various things do not work in away missions.

[WJohn]

Currently away missions are built to not function well with existing features found on the station. I don't know who thought this was a good idea or thought it would help deal with the lag no one ever experiences, but it's annoying me a lot and restricting mappers from doing things in away missions.

Camera networks: Camera networks do not function at all. Telescreens and security computers respond with "too far away from station". These work completely fine in space content in their own networks, not in away missions though!

Power monitoring consoles: They don't monitor the power of the wires they're connected to. These work completely fine in space content in their own powernets, not in away missions though!

Generators and (likely) solar panels: When wrenched onto a knot or terminal and given fuel, attempting to turn these on immediately results in them turning off. I have not tested it with solar panels but I assume that they don't track any sun and their solar tracking computer does not function, either. This means there is no way to generate power outside of swapping batteries from a cell charger or being very cheap and having an infinite SMES cell. Well what if I want to restore power, since, you know, the only thing we can even map right now is derelict and abandoned ships, stations, or outposts due to the lack of friendly NPCs?

It seems like these things were done to prevent lag from being a real issue, but as far as anyone is concerned we have a GIGANTIC space station filled with 106 APCs, areas, absurd amounts of atmos piping, and a huge friggin' powernet. Would a couple more APCs really kill you? Would an extra camera network made of 5 cameras really lag the server to death when we have literally 227 on the station right now?

[Atskadan]

its enough lag that its not really worth having them around, since away missions arent considered important just like old centcom was removed due to machine lag, you might think "what bad could a few machines do" but it WAS enough to warrant removal

[WJohn]

That's the not the same, though. Centcomm is never visited by anyone. Away missions are visited extremely frequently by comparison. It's true that for the most part they were visually similar (read: god awful hideous empty no effort put into them), but that's because no one has ever actually put any time into them. I have spent the past several days trying to make something really detailed: http://i.imgur.com/XOqkWUi.png

Away missions aren't paid much attention to because no one ever put any time or effort into them. So nothing was ever expanded with how they could work. If we're to start making a bunch of actually good maps, a bit of trust will have to be put into the mappers for us to pull through and make something great. I need help with the problems stated in the issue above to kickstart the idea of a good away mission.

[RemieRichards]

You have to realise WJ, Cameras and Powernets were all designed for the Station (or specific areas that warrant it), as that's where 90% of the game is supposed to and does happen.