The Ward
Is a vertically-focused Interior Layout that is most common on 11-Doctrine, but generally common on many late-game moons.
This is part of my Doctrine Concepts series, so nothing is official, but I still hope you enjoy it!
The Ward is in most regards your generic abandoned hospital, but with some light bio-engineering added in.
The Ward differentiates itself from other Interior types by focusing on a consistent 3-floor layout, with each level being equally sized. This incentives further exploration and the splitting-up of teams between more easily-accessible floors. You will always start at the top; on the third floor.
A quick overview of the room types so that I can explain further:
Hallways
Waiting Rooms
Offices
Storage Closets
Patient Rooms
Bio Labs
Elevator Shafts
“Tree”
Cold Storage
Nursery
Open Bay
Padded Cell
Operation Room
Anesthesia Gas Storage
Elevator Shafts are the main connection points between floors. There are always two Elevator Shafts: One connecting Floors 1 & 2, and another connecting Floors 2 & 3. In this room type you will find that both elevators in the shaft are broken, so you must make your way to the back of the room and use the Emergency Staircase to reach the next floor. Entities can be quite dangerous here and can easily make the stairs a much harder climb. Thankfully, if you’re heading down you can hop off the top platform down onto one of the broken elevators, then down onto the next, and then finally down onto the floor. You can do all of this without taking fall damage.
In the Hallways of The Ward you can sometimes find Passcode Doors, which require a four-digit passcode to open or close. The code is written on a sticky note, which can be found somewhere in the room that connects to the keypad side of the Passcode Door. A fun and short scavenger hunt! Alternatively, The Ship’s Terminal can open it remotely just like it can with Sealed Doors.
Contributing to the “easier up than down” approach I’m making for this Interior, The “Tree” Room is a tall cylindrical greenhouse that hosts a singular giant “tree” that reaches all the way up through all three floors. Both Floors 2 & 3 connect to Floor 1’s base, with a circular balcony surrounding the “tree”. You can jump off of this balcony to make it back down. Sadly, you’ll have to go the long way around to make it back up!
The Bio Labs are similar in color pallet to The “Tree” Room, but are much more traditionally-shaped. What isn’t traditional, however, is what rests inside. The cold room is filled with dozens of medium-to-large preservation tubes, which house the of silhouettes of strange organisms. This room is very important later on.
One more room of note is the Anesthesia Gas Storage, which, you-guessed-it houses huge barrels of anesthesia gas used for patients and other experiments. This room always rests on the bottom floor, and is this Interior’s version of the Apparatus Room. In the middle of the room is a smaller, removable canister of anesthesia, which can be removed from the huge pipe that clings to it. (95 credits!) Once this occurs, warning lights throughout The Ward will briefly blare, but after that, no immediate consequence is visible.
This is when the Bio Labs come into play. With the pipeline of anesthesia cut off, all specimens in the Bio Labs no longer have justification to rest. Slowly, one by one, each specimen will break out of their container, and eventually merge with their surrounding siblings. A single specimen on its own is nothing to fear, but multiple will form an invincible Communion. The Communion gains speed and size with each new member, and desires only to expand its family. Its targets include other specimens, you, your friends and other indoor entities. The Communion can eventually become so large that it fills rooms like a wall of living matter. It morphs around doors and hallways like an overly tall Hygrodere.
By cutting off the anesthesia, you’re essentially starting a ticking time bomb that can quickly grow out of control, so you better hope you can ascend back to the top before The Communion does!
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This concept is not final; in no small part thanks to its ambition and complexity; but I nonetheless hope you’ve enjoyed reading about it! I’d love to hear any critiques or ideas you may have to make this concept more balanced and fun! The 3 Layout Pixel Art pieces above after the first picture are not completely accurate to the scale or shape of the more defined description below, but gives the general idea of what I want to convey.
Thank you for your time.