Efficiency Station
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The main idea behind Efficiency Station was to make mining the central part of the station, and to surround it with all the departments that immediately need it (robotics, R&D, chemistry, cargo, etc.) to minimize transport times. This design has changed over time, as well with what should directly border that central market area. Furthermore, I made sure to put the main departmental connections side-by-side (chemistry's acid to R&D, R&D to robotics, hydro to kitchen). After that it was just a matter of figuring out where to put security, the bridge, and engineering as medical and science would always be near the center.
-WJohnston, the developer
Efficiency Station is a map developed by WJohnston throughout 2013. Its multiple iterations have been trial run on the second server, Basil/Badger. Since its initial creation it has been rebuilt several times to become what it is today.
The project was officially abandoned in 2014, until it was once again picked up by Allura.
Development news is posted in this thread on the forums.
Efficiency Station Theory
Penned by Anna Day, annotations by Selene Avery, theory by Selene Avery & Anna Day
Efficiency Station is the most recent station to make the Nanotrasen roster.
The station stands out from other because of its large and complex maintenance. Avery: Closer inspection and cartography indicates they may not have been maintenance at all originally; large portions have lighting fixtures, space observation decks, and the like.
Observation of these maintenance shafts reveal large amounts of burn damage, and if you look carefully enough, you might even find a forgotten corpse. Avery: Our working theory is that the Nanotrasen portions of the station were built on top of an already existing base; there are many reasons to suspect this.
1) Plasma-reinforced, or 'plasteel,' walls appear almost nowhere in maintenance. Furthermore, they appear almost strictly in plasma-related areas: the Gateway, a piece of plasma-catalyzed Bluespace technology; the Teleporter, another such piece of equipment; Engineering and the Solars, both of which use plasma-based collection methods in the singularity engine or photovoltaic cells; Xenobiology and Miscellaneous Research and Containment, an area for securing the slimes - whose effects are plasma-catalyzed - as well as captured xenomorphs; Toxins (and the Incinerator burn chamber) for obvious reasons; and lastly, the security areas (Armory, Brig, etc.) are reinforced for obvious reasons, as well, but their design and placement indicates that they were added to the station later. There is also a chemistry lab in the maintenance sector with plasteel reinforcement. I have hypothesized that, in this location, early alternatives and variations on plasteel were tested, ultimately resulting in them testing a variant of it for their own walls. Lastly, a pair of other rooms in maintenance - a monkey pen of some sort and an undisclosed secret position - appear to have been reinforced later, for their own reasons.
Why has Nanotrasen built a new station on top of an old one? What happened to said station? The following is several shifts worth of guessing and observations.
Examination of maintenance shows several rooms that would not be commonly found on a standard research station, among them are: markets, extended dorms and a strip club. Avery: I'm telling you, it's a brothel. Also, there are even more unsavory things to be found, like several drug labs and an old prizefighting ring. The dried blood, crusted vomit, and wads of cash are still there.
Evidence supports the fact that the station may not have been a research station, but rather a civilian colony station, maybe even a trade outpost. Avery: Main evidence of this is a lot of paper currency and a ton of civilian housing.
If this is the case, why has the old station been destroyed by a plasma fire, when such a material never would have been available to a civilian population? A small pile of bones was found in the mysterious maintenance shaft, examining these bones showed signs of damage, a cracked skull, fractured femurs. This seems to be evidence of hostile actions on the station. Avery: Heaven and hell. Just found the old medbay's morgue. Blood and brains on the floor. And a tThis part of the text has been scribbled out
The question is: Who would attack a defenseless trade outpost, and why did Nanotrasen move in afterwards?
Perhaps Nanotrasen destroyed the station themselves? Maybe their deathsquads killed the inhabitants, and burned the evidence. But the question still remains, why? And why build a station on top of it?
More answers need to be found, and we may never truly know what happened. But, this is our theory. Avery: If you look at the spread of what you find, it looks like a squad entered at the fore starboard area and worked counterclockwise, ending with the station's last living people making a stand at the medbay; this is where there's the highest abundance of uncleaned remnants of the dead anThis part of the text has been scribbled out. Avery: The final answer we can give is "We have civilian areas to grow things, have recreation areas galore, and have medical. What was in the area where our main station is now? The answer is likely a combination of the local power core and a very large hangar for handling major amounts of shipping and other shuttle traffic. What we can't answer is why here, and why on the bodies of the civilians who lived here before us?
