Need some opinions and critism.

[Darkshifter98]

Okay, so. I am making a map that looks similar to City 17 in atmosphere, but its not mind you, its another City. Just similar to City 17. So I'm working on the Citadel (yes, Citadel) and its going pretty well so far, however, I've come across a small snag when building the med-bay. I don't know what to put in it. Currently the Med-bay is one floor, upon reaching the floor the first thing you notice is a room with a combine door in it. When you open it you see a cabinet full of health kits nad nothing else, and its a pretty decently big room. I want to know what you would expect a Med-bay to look like. Would you put beds? Would you put cold, hard, examination tables? Ect. Any other ideas for the Citadel/city would be apperciated. Sorry if this is at all vague, I'll try uploading pics soon.
Thanks!

The floor itself:


The empty med room:

[Phalanx]

It's better than what I would do but it's kinda a boring room; You should add some beds like in C8 and add seperate walls inbetween each bed; For example, Bed A is on the left side of the room and it is 3 feet(?) Wide. Next 3 feet comes a wall then 3 feet away from that wall is bed B. Continue this,with some variety but not too much.
I would make some tables near the bed for rping putting medical supplies on there. Make the floor tile and avoid the whole inside is combine metal alloy thing
A little bit of constructive critism, do what you want and tell me what you think about this.

[Retro]

I suggest sketching your building plan before starting, get some reference pictures, and then go from there. Think of what a normal medical bay in a current hospital would look like, then Combine that shit up.

[Darkshifter98]

Thanks Retro and Phanlax, I'll go see what I can do...

[Retro]

That's alright budday.

just remember this, our mind physically won't perceive something if we can't relate it to a real world experiance. Perception is infact shaped by learning, memory and expectation.

So for example - You enter a door expecting a medical bay, and you've created something that doesn't have the feel or look of one, the player will sense the room as feeling incomplete and for lack of a better word " shit ".

Our perceptual systems of our brain make us see the world as stable, you do something that unbalances it such as creating an unrecognisable enviroment, it throws it off balance and thus negates the effort you put into mapping it.

Another example of where an unrecognisable enviroment still feels right is if you were to create an alien planet, players would still feel like it's complete and be able to comprehend it because of the expectation.

I'll leave you with a visual example I love to show. I'm sure you've all seen it.

[Snapster]

If the room is big and empty, just make the room smaller and/or add some extra detail in the room also? Like maybe add 8x16 support columns on the inside for detail with maybe 96, 128, 192 between each one. Both of those will also fill in the room to make it "less boring". I would also add beds in the room, more detail is the better.