Subways and Sewers

StopSignal · 2017-03-09T20:01:16.000Z

We might need also more places to enter/get out of them. If possible, even in the back of some houses or inside public places. Just to have a more strategic approach to use them to avoid enemies and being seen. Right now is “go from this street to this one” and it usually leaves you in everything but a good place.

Sunshine · 2017-03-10T05:21:30.000Z

When you play with a really high spawn rate, sewers and subways become a great ways to get into and out of large cities without fighting huge hordes. And the occasional subway will connect .

pisskop:

But, Ill tell everyone a little secret about New england right now. We dont have a single subway outside of like boston. And the sewers, while many drainage pipe can fit a man crawling or perhaps crouched down uncomfortably, most cannot house a chud

Yes, the idea of subways in small towns is crazy. And sewers with exposed sewage is down right medieval. They should probably be renamed to maintenance tunnels/ storm drains and get shrunk down to a much smaller size. That wouldn’t really change anything as there are no tracks or trains in the ‘subway’ now.

secretfire:

THAT BEING SAID - I’ve had some AWESOME fun in the sewers in old versions. By — FAR — my favorite was when one intersected lab on a lab run. It was sealed off by metal grates, and I sawed through them somehow, drawing monsters from the other side (which was appropriate). I then ended up using it as an entrance to the lab and setting up an underground camping site. It was loads of fun.

I don’t know why they don’t connect to labs anymore. They don’t even connect to sewer plants.

Edit:
There should probably be areas, like special labs or bunkers, that are only reachable through the underground. Like, imagine if the Necropolis didn’t have anything on the 0 z-level so you wouldn’t know where it spawned without hunting for it. That wouldn’t make subways interesting exactly, but would give a reason for exploring them.

I’ve never messed around with an exclusively underground mapgen. Do sewer connections work properly and does an underground overmap special interfere with what spawns on the surface? I know it would block another special from appearing in that area, but houses and forests should be normal right?

pisskop · 2017-03-10T14:17:39.000Z

yea. any expansion of sewer/subs should include ant-made intersections and connections for labs, mines, etc

secretfire · 2017-03-10T22:50:59.000Z

en.wikipedia.org

Storm drain | Residence

In several large American cities, homeless people live in storm drains.[citation needed] At least 300 people live in the 200 miles of underground storm drains of Las Vegas, many of them making a living finding unclaimed winnings in the gambling machines. An organization called Shine a Light was founded in 2009 to help the drain residents after over 20 drowning deaths occurred in the preceding years. A man in San Diego was evicted from a storm drain after living there for nine months i

Thats much, much more common then people living in the sewers, par se, outside of really large cities with subways (like Boston or NYC/etc.) But its a great trope.

One other source…though to my knowledge I’ve never heard of people LIVING in them…almost every former ‘boom town’ in Pennsylvania has extensive tunnels under it. Butler, PA, for instance, has huge semi-flooded tunnels where guys sneak in to fish. (I’ve never been there, and I think they are IDIOTS, but guys go there and fish on occasion.) New Kensington, PA, has a lot of old WW2-era aluminum plants connected by extensive underground tunnels. They don’t connect with the sewer systems, and flood after it rains, but I’ve seen tons of people go in there for various practical reasons. (usually related to utilities, subsidence, flooding, or somesuch.) They are easily big enough to walk in. Parts of Pittsburgh still have coal mines under them dating to the early 17th century… and thats entirely ignoring the plethora of abandoned train tunnels which you can find in pretty much every part of the NE, including dense urban areas. Even NYC has those.

Thats one unfortunate side effect of the ‘mines as exotic dungeon’ part of the grid. Probably it would be fair to have a number of towns (past a certain size) - have disconnected, long-abandoned mines or tunnels underneath them. It really isn’t uncommon in coal country or the rust belt in general. Your looking more at the southern and western parts of the ‘northeast’ - but those small to mid-sized town areas are more representative of the game as it now is, anyways, and could give plenty of inspiration for areas.

Like, off the top of my head for areas/rooms/etc.

Stormdrains (with variants that have collected dead zeds and other such things)
Decades to centuries abandoned mines. (Variants: Partially Flooded)
Utility closets (Variants: Electrical, Plumbing, Cable).

and so on. I mean, this is probably overboard and I’m sure you’ll find it silly, but it is actually kinda realistic for the area, if you really wanted to cut back on the ‘walking sewers’ and find more realistic alternatives, as several have commented on.

Grandpuh_Ty · 2017-03-11T01:16:20.000Z

Oh please, that sounds amazing