Engineering lobby expansion

[FabianK3]

Introduction

This PR has the goal to revamp the engineering lobby. In this PR the lobby itself and the areas adjacent to it have been modified, the adjacent areas as necessary.

Why?

The current engineering lobby is very small. With four to five engineers, the lobby can already be considered full. It becomes especially cluttered when every table is stacked to the ceiling with different stuff and one or two crates are lying around. Generally - The lobby feels too small and is just a simple cube. Engineering lobbies should be a bit wider open as they feature the cut between clean hallways, monitoring and paperwork, and the oily heavy-duty equipment next door.

What changed?

• The engineering lobby has been merged with the starboard hallway adjacent to it to provide more space.
  Desks, notice board, consoles and equipment area next to it, feels like engineering.
• The engineering lobby now has a notice board.
  No more wiring sheets lying around.
• The public hallway next to the main elevator received a table with paper for engineering's guests.
  I broke a window, sorry guys!
• The hallway between the lobby and the medical ICU has been made smaller to accommodate the new layout.
  For the lazy doctors coming from residential and security waiting to get in.
• The first aid locker next to the SM-airlock has been moved closer to the lobby to provide more visibility to it.
  No more bleeding out, remember that locker.
• Fixed wrong tile in hard-storage and wrong decal in shield gen room.
  I could not resist them.
• Very minor changes of the lobbies original contents and areas around it for usability, feel and fluff.
  Prototype, test, refine.

Preview

Lobby

Public facing hallway

Engineering-medical hallway

StrongDMM overview

Addendum/Edit

Updating Preview pictures and What-changed to latest commit.

[FabianK3]

!review

[FabianK3]

Latest commit didn't only feature refactoring, but should also fix the CI blocked by duplicate grates.
Updated PR description to reflect changes and update preview pictures.

[courierbravo]

Its an existing thing from before your PR, but do you think you could move the engineering ringer button onto the desk please? Other than that, this all looks great. I'm slightly hesitant about a bigger engineering lobby given the impact the one we had a few years ago had. But I'd at least like to try your changes.

[NonQueueingMatt]

I have two main concerns here:

• I do not particularly like big lobbies - it's the kind of thing we tried to expunge from the Aurora for good reason. People would clump up in these big lobbies, fundamentally out of sight from the public (note how the current lobbies have no blind spots from the hallway immediately outside, whereas your lobby now has one to the left) and thus cutting them off from interaction from the outside. This is a core element of Horizon design philosophy.
• The two tile hallway to the south is really bad for mobility, especially since it's often trafficked, and especially by security for chasing antagonists.

[FabianK3]

Its an existing thing from before your PR, but do you think you could move the engineering ringer button onto the desk please? Other than that, this all looks great. I'm slightly hesitant about a bigger engineering lobby given the impact the one we had a few years ago had. But I'd at least like to try your changes.

Done with 4ecbf46

[FabianK3]

I have two main concerns here:

• I do not particularly like big lobbies - it's the kind of thing we tried to expunge from the Aurora for good reason. People would clump up in these big lobbies, fundamentally out of sight from the public (note how the current lobbies have no blind spots from the hallway immediately outside, whereas your lobby now has one to the left) and thus cutting them off from interaction from the outside. This is a core element of Horizon design philosophy.
• The two tile hallway to the south is really bad for mobility, especially since it's often trafficked, and especially by security for chasing antagonists.

Regarding A)
I'm basically maining engineering and from my personal experience there are two situations:

• Engineers are all around the ship
• Engineers do idle in the lobby and for that case the lobby is too small. I joined Aurora a year ago and can't really comment on the previous lobby sizes, but so far the feedback i read towards the bigger lobby was very positive. The whole lobby should be visible from the hallway south or east...

Regarding B)
I thought about that while doing the changes and found no solution without making the lobby cramped again. I then realized that security's entry has a similar design size with much more traffic. From my own experience, that hallway seems to be only used to walk through, it's rather rare that somebody actually gets stopped there. I am open to suggestions of course on how to handle it!

I am not sure if this is common practice, maybe we could make a test-merge out of this?
I understand your points, perhaps we can collect some experience by testing it?

[FluffyGhoster]

I'm not convinced making it bigger would be a positive either

[FabianK3]

I'm not convinced making it bigger would be a positive either

Sorry to hear, what concerns you about it? Similar concerns as Matt named?

[DreamySkrell]

Agree with Matt's concerns.

This makes it so the lobby is the department entrance, and non-engineers can't enter the department without going through the lobby. Other departments have entrance and lobby separate.

[FabianK3]

Agree with Matt's concerns.

This makes it so the lobby is the department entrance, and non-engineers can't enter the department without going through the lobby. Other departments have entrance and lobby separate.

Operations has a lobby that also functions as main entrance to the department, i don't see any issues with that.

[FabianK3]

I see three ways on how we could continue:

• If you have suggestions on how i could address your concerns, i will try to implement them in this PR.
• If you have no suggestions at the time, i will close the PR and perhaps come up with a new one and a new layout to address the concerns in the future.
• If you oppose the whole idea of making the lobby bigger, i will close the PR and leave it at it, though the general feedback i got was rather positive towards the change.

Let me know what you think is appropriate.

@NonQueueingMatt, @DreamySkrell, @FluffyGhoster

Appendum
A test-merge could proof another good way to continue and see how much weight the mentioned issues have.

[FabianK3]

After getting additional input from @NonQueueingMatt on the mentioned concerns, i have decided to close this PR and come back with a new one to address the issues.