This system consists of two components. The first, the Area Spawn system, allows for individual atoms to be dropped into maps at load time based on designated criteria and a heatmap algorithm. This allows things like placing pets, machines, or job spawn points without doing map edits.
The second, the Automapper system, allows for dropping entire map templates onto existing maps, overwriting existing areas. This allows for making larger changes to maps without any map edits - adding new rooms, changing existing ones, and so on. It should still probably be used sparingly to avoid problems.
(Example map template slammed into the middle of MetaStation)
Why It's Good For The Game
Up to now, edits to upstream maps have been a headache for us, as they involve a significant chance of causing merge conflicts when maps are inevitably changed upstream every single week. This system gives us some actual control over upstream maps, for anything we may want present on the station at roundstart. This may be especially relevant if we end up making any new jobs, as they will likely need rooms of their own.
Also, we can make Orbstation-exclusive pets and put them wherever we want.
About The Pull Request
Ports the Automapper subsystem from Skyrat, by Gandalf2k15, first implemented in https://github.com/Skyrat-SS13/Skyrat-tg/pull/14679.
This system consists of two components. The first, the Area Spawn system, allows for individual atoms to be dropped into maps at load time based on designated criteria and a heatmap algorithm. This allows things like placing pets, machines, or job spawn points without doing map edits.
The second, the Automapper system, allows for dropping entire map templates onto existing maps, overwriting existing areas. This allows for making larger changes to maps without any map edits - adding new rooms, changing existing ones, and so on. It should still probably be used sparingly to avoid problems.
Why It's Good For The Game
Up to now, edits to upstream maps have been a headache for us, as they involve a significant chance of causing merge conflicts when maps are inevitably changed upstream every single week. This system gives us some actual control over upstream maps, for anything we may want present on the station at roundstart. This may be especially relevant if we end up making any new jobs, as they will likely need rooms of their own.
Also, we can make Orbstation-exclusive pets and put them wherever we want.
Changelog
Nothing player-facing.