Pre-hardfork Serpentcrest from Wizden

[Simul-ad-Astra]

About the PR

Ports/Pre-hardforks the map Serpentcrest! (technically maybe a port since we don't actually have the upstream files yet as of time of writing)

Serpentcrest is a highpop map originally made by TytosB (original PR link) themed around being a recently conquered Syndicate station, still in the middle of renovations from battle. Similar to Xeno but with the syndicate instead of xenomorphs

I am modifying it to meet our standards and requirements, including changing/adding the following:
HD room
Service Storeroom
Mailroom
Moving around a bunch of job spawners (and adding midround antag spawners)
and more!!!!!!

map is left unrotated for testing, of course.

Why / Balance

New map! yay!!! it's really cool and good looking. do I need to put more than this for the reasoning? Genuine question

the map does come with some syndi contraband, but from what I can tell it's mostly just clothes and the like.

Technical details

I left the pop numbers mostly intact from wizden's current version (except for adding slots for HD, service attendant, courier), please let me know if they need and tweaking, for I have no idea

the original files used were current as of space-wizards#44251 (last PR before files were taken)

Media

Major Changes:

HD Office
before:

after:

Service Storeroom
before:

after:

Mailroom
before:

after:

Requirements

• I have read and am following the Impstation Design Principles and Coding Standards.
• I have added media to this PR or it does not require an in-game showcase.

Licensing

• I give permission for any changes to the repository made in this PR to be relicensed under MIT.

Changelog

🆑

• add: NT's recently ""acquired"" station, Serpentcrest, is now receiving trials before full introduction into service in the IMP sector.

should I put TytosB (the map's creator) in the changelog? I'm happy to

[impstation-map-server]

This PR contains new or changed maps:

• serpentcrest.yml

Maps are being rendered. This comment will be updated if rendering them is done.
07/19/26 00:09

[Simul-ad-Astra]

as always, please yell at me if I did anything wrong

[Simul-ad-Astra]

alright! that's all the points in the imp mapping checklist covered, I think! just gotta finish the pr description and grab some images and it should be ready for review!

that was like. a super quick turnaround lol, I kinda feel like I've missed something. But that's what the review is for lmao, so I'll find out if I did

[Simul-ad-Astra]

wait no I forgot to add the drone room. oops
after that it should be ready

[Simul-ad-Astra]

ok yay I think it's ready

[Simul-ad-Astra]

ok it's not in the render but I did toss a nuke disk case in there

[AirCanadaTransit]

had a quick look at the render and while I think most of the contra is overall fine for a syndie themed station especially for higher pop, I am a bit worried about the syndie defib in med main, the weapons module in the bridge, and the uplink in the maints just west of med. the syndie defib is just a powerful weapon and I worry about it being used to self-sec, weapons module in the bridge im a little worried about command putting in a borg and changing AI laws to essentially make a sec borg, and the uplink in maints im worried might cause fucky mindshield issues if sec gets it or someone getting it and gutting renault for the TC to do self-antag/sec things with.

rest of the contra stuff is just some like interdynes in maints or random lighters which is just kinda whatever for highpop.

[FlippenPage]

defib i imagine is fine. not worried about uplink because killing renault for tc is kinda multiple rulebreaks for sec anyway. weapons mod is nasty tho kill that

[AirCanadaTransit]

uplink I was worried more for passenger instantly passing it to security then sec having a weird metashield thing of knowing about chamelon items and shit, also about a passenger killing renault to get an amag or emag and just being fucky with it

[Simul-ad-Astra]

I could've sworn the weapons mod was non-functional, but I'll double check that and make sure it is

[FancyPlanks]

uplink I was worried more for passenger instantly passing it to security then sec having a weird metashield thing of knowing about chamelon items and shit, also about a passenger killing renault to get an amag or emag and just being fucky with it

I feel like that'd be one of those things where we can kinda have a "see how it goes" feeling on it. If people get overly griefy with it then it can go but imo it feels relatively alright as is? All depends on how people treat it. And if people pass it to sec then eh, people already do that with contraband anyway. It can be annoying but i wouldn't change much just because it might happen

[Simul-ad-Astra]

I think it's worth noting that this was taken from the current live version (unless a pr just got merged today modifying it) of serpentcrest on wizden, a place with a lot more bad player behaviour than we tend to get, which has already gone through several rounds of reviews and revisions and seems to be working fine enough for them as is. So it'd say it's probably in a fine enough place for testing here. If problems come up in testing I'm happy to fix them

[lobsterpaw]

i definitely share AC's reservations about all the mapped contraband but i agree with fan that it's a "give it a shot and see how it goes" situation. if it causes a lot of problems then it can be quickly removed. i'm not sure i'm entirely sold on the station concept itself, but that's not really an actionable critique, i guess. it's a cool concept but it feels a little odd that there's So Much Syndicate Stuff

[Simul-ad-Astra]

the idea of the station is that it was a syndicate station that was just recently conquered by NT and they haven't finished repairing and refurbishing it

here's the snippet of lore the og PR had

"Serpentcrest station was originally founded as a mining outpost owned by a Gorlex subsidiary in order to
extract the very rich gold and silver deposits present. however, as the borders shifted in the never ending
proxy war between the syndicate and NT, its position became more strategically valuable than its ore, and
it was moved to direct Gorlex administration and converted into a forward outpost for launching and supplying operations into NT space. the structure was massively expanded, with new fully man-made additions to the station expanding out from the original asteroid base in all directions. the syndicate, being ever fond of iconography to an obnoxious degree, built
the station to literally take the shape of a snake curling around the gold-rich rock.

Very recently, the station came under NT control after a very violent and prolonged battle. the station
still bears many unmistakable marks of its history as a syndicate base, as well as many scars of the recent
battle, and the space around it is now littered with the wrecks of various NT and syndicate warships."

[Simul-ad-Astra]

the tests hate me

[Simul-ad-Astra]

fuck I think I forgot to port the custom shuttles lmao. Oops.
I'll fix that soon, marking as draft for now cause it's fucked up

[Squamatic]

Hi sorry for my absolute novel of a comment. Overall I think this map has a lot of potential! The environmental details are really well executed and I feel they sell the map’s story really well. However, I worry that the volume of mapped contraband is going to be a major headache in terms of security gameplay, map maintenance, and admin workload, especially in areas like security where every officer’s wardrobe is filled with chest rigs.

I think it’s worth noting that while this is an upstream map, Impstation runs with a metashield that WizDen no longer has, so we may have problems that they don’t with regards to mapped contraband causing gameplay issues. It looks like a lot of the really egregious items have had a little component surgery that render them safe for mapping, so it really just comes down to roleplay and metashield expectations IMO.

There’s also a lot of containers that have been manually filled in mapping mode. While this isn’t unusual or strictly disallowed for Imp maps, a lot of the manual fills I found had items that would provide gameplay advantages specifically to in-the-know players (so many Interdynes........), which should generally be discouraged. It’s very difficult to monitor these manual fills (the only way I know of is to manually search the map’s YAML, and even for that you need to know what to search for) so we have to operate on a trust system that I don’t think is being followed here.

With that said, mapping notes begin. Remember as always that I’m not actually in charge of anything, you don’t have to do what I say, and this is all just my onion!

---

First off, easy fixes:

• Remember to add a full render of the map to your PR!
• Make sure you run fixgridatmos, the remodeled areas like the HD office don’t have any air in them
• I would also recommend running fixrotations on the map and both custom shuttle grids, you’ve got roughly 2000 entities with junk rotation data attached to them
• The HD office’s fax machine needs to be named using VV
  • The HD’s office also has a departmental announcement console where I think it’s maybe supposed to have the job board console?
  • The service mats room also has an unnamed fax machine
• Arrivals has an air alarm floating loose in the southeast arrivals shuttle dock
• The vault is missing a tile under its door
• The vault has a mapped funding allocation computer board. The funding allocation computer isn’t used on Imp and shouldn’t be available in round
• The bridge has a research assistant spawner instead of a research director spawner
  • Sub-note to this is that me and some of the folks who helped me test had a few weird issues with spawners not working properly. Might have just been my localhost misbehaving but watch out for that as an ongoing issue
• The shutters button on the south side of the captain’s office is unreachable without a wrench
  • This is also the case with a turret control panel behind the south AI upload console in the AI core
• The air sensor in the hall outside cargo’s front desk is the freezer prototype where it should be the normal prototype. This makes the air alarm incorrectly read as a warning roundstart
  • The main science area also has an incorrect freezer prototype air sensor
  • The kitchen’s freezer has a regular air vent when it should be the freezer prototype
• The CE’s office has a bonus fireaxe it shouldn’t have
• None of the solars airlocks I tested were linked to bolt correctly
• The TEG room has an unpowered external airlock on the north side
• The blast door for the TEG room’s burn chamber has two mapped buttons but neither of them are linked
• The blast doors that lead into atmos are really cute but unfortunately are comically easy to break into with a multitool and remote signaller, which can both be found in the tools room right across the hall
  • Similarly, science’s robotics wing has a linked blast door button that is non-directional, so it can be activated by anyone from the other side of the wall
• The janitor’s closet should only have one janitorial locker, since it contains the shining spring. Big maps usually have a few extra janitorial supply crates instead!
• The maints to the west of the HoP office use the painted airlock prototypes for command locked doors instead of command access maints doors. Not a huge issue but the painted ones look a little odd
• The QM’s locker has a spationaut hardsuit manually added to its fill
• Medical’s locker room is missing an LV wire connecting the rest of the room to its APC
• The reporter’s room needs a bit of work
  • Should have a wireless camera monitor, not a camera monitor (confusing, I know)
  • Should have an entertainment camera router, not a wireless camera router
  • Needs setup run on the entertainment camera (right click for context menu and hit “setup”, then fill out the field for the channel name)
• Warden’s office currently spawns with two warden weapons (needs to use weapon locker prototype or the spawner, not both)
  • If you decide to keep the warden weapon spawner, you should probably seal off the north entrance to the room with another warden access locked door. Warden toys are for the warden, not other secoffs
• Telecomms has a spare security key accessible with regular engineering access. Not strictly sure on this one but another thing worth mentioning I think
• Several midroundantag spawners are in areas that are inescapable without tools. I’m not sure how much of an issue this is now that heretic sacrifices aren’t using them to respawn, but it’s worth taking a second look at how well they’re gonna play if they spawn in, say, a 3 x 3 room that’s boarded shut

---

The “hey it kind of feels like you’re trying to cut corners when it comes to player-to-player interaction or other mechanics” zone:

• There’s mapped bots (cleanbots, medibots, firebots) absolutely everywhere. It’s not unusual to have one or two on bigger maps but there’s so many on this station
• Botany has a mapped water tile which acts as an unlimited infinite water source
  • Botany also has a mapped bottle of mutagen on top of what can be made with the agrichem kit, which feels a little unnecessary
• The bar’s back room has a mapped bottle of ethylredox. Usually we expect bartenders (or their patrons) to ask the chemist for this
• Salvage has a mapped handheld mass scanner. This is sometimes okay for lowpop maps, but on mid-or-higher pop maps salv should be asking science for these
• Science has:
  • Mapped real insuls
  • Mapped OSI
  • Mapped high capacity cell
  • Mapped tech disk terminal (I’m actually not sure if this one is normal to map or not but it’s going here for good measure)
• Chemistry starts with a pretty big stack of plasma. Mentioning so the roundstart chem plasma arguers can argue
• Medical also has kind of an absurd number of autoinjectors for standard chems
• Some areas like chemistry and the bar’s backroom have mapped wirecutters and screwdrivers. These are intended to be used as a part of the map’s gimmick (snipping access wires to use syndicate vending machines) but this also means that certain jobs always start every round with certain hacking tools & is possibly worth further discussion

---

Lastly, as of this review the shuttles aren’t included in the map PR but I diiiid take a little peek upstream… A sneak preview if you will, since it sounds like the plan is to port those too, and I’ve got a handful of notes on those as well:

• The evac shuttle could probably use some scrubbers, currently it doesn’t have any
• The cargo shuttle’s power draw very slightly exceeds the capacity of its generator, which means the SMES slowly drains over the course of a round. Maybe not an issue but worth keeping an eye on
• The cargo shuttle’s mapped syndie loot lockers might cause some issues wrt salvagers misbehaving, since they have a chance to spawn with combat boots, combat gloves, and/or chest rigs (though the rest of the map also has a lot of chest rigs so maybe that’s not a huge deal. Why are there so many chest rigs??)

---

Ok I’m going back into hibernation good luck with the map discussion byeeee.

[Simul-ad-Astra]

What Squamatic said

As discussed above, I definitely agree that the contra is something to monitor, but I think it's worth going through testing first before worrying too too much about it right now. It's definitely got the potential to cause headaches, but I'm not sure it's easy to tell which stuff will or will not until it's put into practice.

honestly I didn't comb through the map very thoroughly at all while porting lol, my bad there. It only needed some pretty light modifications to meet the imp mapping checklist and I kinda trusted that there wasn't anything too egregious going on with it, but I could've (and maybe should've) been a lot more careful. welp

I can definitely go through and review a lot of those manual fills (especially those interdynes)

Thank you for the big list! I'll get to work looking through that. most of these points & problems are carried over from the wizden version, but I'm happy to fix em up

also I did add a render...

[Simul-ad-Astra]

What Squamatic said

there's a couple things you mentioned on your list that I'm not sure what you mean?

Arrivals has an air alarm floating loose in the southeast arrivals shuttle dock

I don't see a floating air alarm anywhere in arrivals. Both present are on walls and seem normal to me

The maints to the west of the HoP office use the painted airlock prototypes for command locked doors instead of command access maints doors. Not a huge issue but the painted ones look a little odd

which airlocks are you talking about? all the airlocks around HoP look normal to me judging by their ids

[Simul-ad-Astra]

okay! squa's changes addressed and shuttles ported! should be ready for review again

[marsfriend]

something i found particularly alarming balance-wise i'd like to mention:

i think the bit of chem and the bar having syndicate machines with notes about how they need to be replaced (with the NT versions in cargo for delivery) is very cute, and the syndicate booze-o-mat has identical contents to the NT one, so that's fine. but the syndicate chemvend has multiple free bottles of pax, lead, and mute toxin if you just snip the manager wire (and chem is roundstart given tools and a note encouraging wirehacking this very machine, as part of the bit of them being syndicate access locked).

that feels like a LOT of rare and powerful chems for anyone to have access to for free rather than having to make them, whether they're antag or not—that much pax in particular could majorly turn the tide of a round like revs or nukies, let alone solo antags.

there's also potential discussion to be had about how the presence of the NT machines in cargo might give cargo antags an advantage (since cargo can print tools and hack those for their contents instead of/before delivering them), but that one i'm happy to test out and see how it goes down in practice first. free 90u pax however is unignorable

[Simul-ad-Astra]

I have now gotten rid of both chem and the bar's screwdrivers (but not the wirecutters) to try to make them have to work a little to get the contraband stuff, but I totally agree that 90u of pax is ridiculous.

Honestly that much pax seems kinda ridiculous in general, even for the syndi chem vender's other uses. The only ones I can think of right now are the nukie planet and the chemist shuttle (if I'm remembering those correctly), both of which are fully capable of making that pax themself if they want it.

With that in mind, would it be unreasonable to reduce the stock of pax down to one 30u bottle, or even remove it from the inventory fully?

if that's not a good option, I'm happy to instead just make a new prototype without the pax (or with it reduced to one bottle)

now that I'm looking at the image again, this could just as easily go for the mute toxin as well. 90u of that also seems like quite a lot

[lolmatdi]

With that in mind, would it be unreasonable to reduce the stock of pax down to one 30u bottle, or even remove it from the inventory fully?

If you remove it, is there a way to have the entry still there, just out of stock? Like, for flavor, y'know

[Ecramox]

If we want to keep any of these chems, then keeping one bottle of pax is the least offensive, since that at least is something chem can make without any outside help. Mute Toxin I'm a lot more mixed on, but I'd certainly be willing to try it out. However, I want those other chems gone. Toxin can be sourced from botany as needed, and lead I believe is Nukie only? I'm theoretically fine with giving chem access to stuff they wouldn't normally have on one map, but it doesn't help that these two are very powerful poisons.

[Simul-ad-Astra]

what lolmatdi said

oh yeah probably. I can look into that if I end up going that direction

[Simul-ad-Astra]

what Ecramox said

yeah that all makes sense. Seems like replacing the prototype would be the better option then. Cool
I'll get to work on that stuff

[marsfriend]

If we want to keep any of these chems, then keeping one bottle of pax is the least offensive, since that at least is something chem can make without any outside help. Mute Toxin I'm a lot more mixed on, but I'd certainly be willing to try it out. However, I want those other chems gone. Toxin can be sourced from botany as needed, and lead I believe is Nukie only? I'm theoretically fine with giving chem access to stuff they wouldn't normally have on one map, but it doesn't help that these two are very powerful poisons.

the 1 bottle of toxin is actually in the manager-snip stock for normal chemvends! that's the one thing here that isn't a new problem LOL

i personally heavily disagree with the idea of keeping any pax at all. to me the fact chem can make it themselves isn't a point in favor of keeping it, that's just all the more reason that they should HAVE to make it themselves rather than being handed it for free... i think the best solution is to make it a reskin with no difference in contents, like the bar's bruise-o-mat.

i don't really see any benefit to having any of these three chems in the vend, other than giving antags with access to the machine and basic tools an advantage that they don't have on any other map, which--while we don't have a mapping standards document covering these aspects for me to point to--feels contrary to imp's general mapping philosophy. it's discouraged to map full stacks of gold or research-locked items in Science, for example, because the former should be obtained from Cargo and the latter takes work to gain access to; this should follow that same kind of principle, imo

[SivShele]

Broadly speaking, I think having a map with some unique quirks is very good and healthy for our environment. A station with some mapped contraband is fun, and unique antag opportunities shakes things up! I'd much rather something a little out there gets tested and specific pain points identified and curbed rather than all unique gameplay aspects of the map get killed before testing. Am I a little nervous about obtainable lead? sure, but also it could be fun. How often do we get to see lead anyway? honestly, if we can love train, we can love this.

I think Squa's list is very in line with things worth changing (especially wrt player interaction concerns) but the contraband and other on-theme syndicate stuff should at least make it to playtesting.

[Simul-ad-Astra]

the PR should be up to date with squa's list addressed

[marsfriend]

I'd much rather something a little out there gets tested and specific pain points identified and curbed rather than all unique gameplay aspects of the map get killed before testing.

very fair! i hope i didn't cross the line into sounding like a hardass--i'm also happy to try things out first in case they do work out. just wanted to make sure the issue was noted, since it's a big map with a Lot of these potential pain points, so smaller ones could get overlooked

[Simul-ad-Astra]

it's definitely a good thing to make note of

[Squamatic]

I don't see a floating air alarm anywhere in arrivals.

Riiiight here. I should've gotten a screenshot earlier, I didn't realize how confusing my wording was. My bad!

which airlocks are you talking about?

To be 100% clear this is entirely just aesthetics, the little maints nub just looks odd to me.

Otherwise looks ready for playtesting!

[Simul-ad-Astra]

ahh thanks, I see what you mean with both now

yeah it is an awkward little spot but I'm not sure what else you'd even be able to do with it so ?????????
I'll probably just switch the door out but otherwise leave it as is

[Simul-ad-Astra]

ok the last things I have on my list for right now are that one airlock and changing out the syndi chem vendor. after those two it shouldddd probably good for testing unless anyone has anything else important they notice

[Simul-ad-Astra]

okay this is kinda just spitballing but what if I changed the syndi chem's contra inventory to be like a vial of 2u vestine. just a single sip to savour

[Toasterblast]

2u of vestine mixed with a bunch of other shit and its called like. improperly stored vestine. and the description is something about the seal on the vial being broken