New Map Location Suggestions for further map expansions

[Darkmark8910]

FOLLOW-UP: I've confirmed all of these locations were in the real 1993 Louisville - West Point - Valley Station area except the fireworks store. In a separate post I'll have more generic buildings. 

1) The National Weather Service office of far southern suburban Louisville. Its Doppler radar was installed in early 1994 between West Point & Fort Knox. Images of the older radar office + the machinery is here: Radar History at Louisville (weather.gov) In 1993 the office was in southern suburban Louisville, Jefferson County, per April 16, 1998 Poster (weather.gov) - it's just off the highway near where you'd see offramp highway gas stations and basic stores, so it feels more like a rural town than suburban Louisville. 

    - this website includes lots of old posters which you can freely use in PZ; just ask them. 

 

2) GE Appliance Park, in southeastern suburban Louisville. General Electric's Appliance Park in Louisville, KY (Google Maps) (virtualglobetrotting.com) Appliance Park Map.pdf (geappliances.com) It's a vast campus. Half a dozen of the buildings are for production, and the largest is a massive warehouse. It began construction in the 50s and was finished by the 50s or 60s. These factory floors are for making washing machines, dryers, fridges, microwaves, and so forth - so it'd be near-useless to a survivor too, except for scrapping the production lines for goods. You could also use the name of the wholesale kitchen seller already existing in the game's downtown Louisville. 

 

3) The Sheraton Hotel, today known as the Seelbach Hotel. Seelbach Hotel - Wikipedia This luxury hotel is mentioned by name in the Great Gatsby, and Al Capone used one of its back rooms for his dealings, as he had a secret escape door installed in that back room. Numerous secret tunnels and escape routes exist in this hotel. The hotel's been in three movies: The Hustler (1961), The Insider (1999) and The Great Gatsby (2013). The Seelbach Hilton Louisville, KY This link has 3D virtual tours of some of the rooms & meeting rooms in the building: 3D Room & Floor Plans - The Seelbach Hilton Note this hotel is VERY distinct from the already-existing hotel downtown, as this one is truly luxurious. 

 

4) Any of these plaques and/or locations, all found here: https://www.hmdb.org/results.asp?HistMark=Y&WarMem=Y&FilterNOT=&FilterTown=&FilterCounty=jefferson&FilterState=ky&FilterZip=&FilterCountry=&FilterCategory=0&SeriesID=249&Search=Series 

 

5) Phantom Fireworks, in a small town east of Valley Station: Phantom of Louisville South | Phantom Fireworks Numerous photos of the interior are on its website and Yelp Photos for Phantom Fireworks of Louisville - South - Yelp . It just sells lots, and lots, of things that go boom. Given that the soft start date of the Event is July 9th, there'd likely be 4th of July clearance sales of red, white, & blue fireworks on the 9th. 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Darkmark8910
Added tags & summary

[CannedRat]

Not sure if using brandnames/trademarks would be a solid idea but certainly locations "inspired by" could add some Points of Interest.   Its not that the map is lacking for random industrial locations at the moment, so what would these add that is unique or visit worthy?

 

Fireworks are an interesting idea that has floated around for a while. 

Hydrocraft seems to have firecrackers.  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/changelog/498441420?p=9

 

I think being able to visit a fireworks factory would be pretty motivating for a PZ raid.  Even if its just for supply of powder for ammo.  Being able to "accidentally" chain react the whole place would be pretty spectacular too.  Especially if it was full of Zeds. 

[Darkmark8910]

On 9/1/2022 at 11:59 PM, CannedRat said:

Not sure if using brandnames/trademarks would be a solid idea but certainly locations "inspired by" could add some Points of Interest.   Its not that the map is lacking for random industrial locations at the moment, so what would these add that is unique or visit worthy?

 

Good question regarding the first 4 and good question regarding #2 as well!

For the brandnames & trademarks, I agree using their exact names would be problematic. The Louisville map already has a place called KnoxPack Kitchens a few blocks south of the expo center - that could be the name in lieu of GE Appliance Park. The Sheraton could be renamed after, say, a dev or an icon or a generic posh-sounding name (The Eccentric Appleton? The Formosa? The Simpsonian? Le Douglas De Hotel? The Spiffington?). The National Weather Service I -think- can be used though, along with those very old historical plaques which date from before copyright.

 

Fireworks would be delicious. I'm so used to using Hydrocraft that I thought they were in the base game (ooops...), and I hope they make it in someday. They make brilliant sound distractions. 

 

 

For the GE Appliance Park / KnoxPack Kitchen Emporium Park, it wouldn't be one industrial building in an industrial area. It'd be *its own fenced-in mammoth industrial area,* the size of all of West Point or larger. 

What makes the GE Appliance Park in real life unique is its vast size. It's bigger than the Louisville airport which, fun fact, is what some former racetracks in the Louisville area were turned into. Given its sheer size, and that it's one complex of eight-ish buildings, it could make for its own adventure. We don't get colossal buildings that aren't zombie-infested nightmares, so having a few might be a nice change. 

 

Imagine the potential of a factory building the size of the first floor of the Mall. Chances are over half the building would be one colossal room. Below is GE Appliance Park in 1963. See that line of cars? In 1972 over 20,000 people worked in the building complex - that's five times the combined population of real-life Muldraugh, West Point, and their environs. Over half that number, around 11,000, worked there in the early 90s. Imagine the below parking lot, half full, in PZ. 

From Assembly Magazine (A Century of GE Appliance Manufacturing | 2017-03-29 | Assembly Magazine | ASSEMBLY) 

Quote

"Today, Appliance Park covers some 920 acres and employs approximately 6,000 people. It has 12 miles of paved road and 20 miles of railroad track. It even has its own ZIP code. The park’s 40 buildings include several assembly plants, an R&D center, warehouses, a health and fitness facility, a training center, a water treatment facility, and a fire and security department. The complex is so large that, during the ’50s, GE provided radio-dispatched taxis to transport workers from building to building."

 

It has its own police and fire departments. It has its own railway, railyard, and an official arboretum at the main entrance. It has over 45 miles of conveyer belts. In the 90s around 11,000 worked there. It's the largest private employer in Kentucky. In the 1980s they had ~200 robots on site to automate its lines, especially the dishwasher line. 

 

Of the main buildings, each one has a specialty. One specializes in laundry washing machines, one in laundry dryer machines, one in stovetops, one in air conditioning units & water filtration systems, one in dishwashers, one in refrigerators & freezers, and so forth. There's 7 in total. 

 

From Assembly Magazine again (A Century of GE Appliance Manufacturing | 2017-03-29 | Assembly Magazine | ASSEMBLY): 

 

Quote

"In 1971, the park’s R&D Center was completed. It featured a 5,000-volume technical library and 182,000 square feet of laboratories."

 

 

 

So just imagine a complex that huge in PZ. Tons of industrial hardware, each building similar in design yet different on the factory floor, with factory lines going all over the place. 

 

Advantages:

 - it's fenced in

 - it's basically its own town, minus all the suburbia housing & schools

 - if you cleared one of the buildings, you could grind your electronics & metalworking easily

 

Disadvantages:

 - it's fenced in, but the size of the railyard, so the fence may not mean much

 - since it's basically its own town, it'd have a town's amount of zombies. Imagine 1/7th of Muldraugh's population in one factory, half of that number in a single massive factory-floor room. 

 - "clearing" one of the buildings is not easy, given they're humongous; good luck barricading all the pedestrian doors, the delivery doors, the loading docks, etc. 

 - nowhere near the variety of loot you'd get in a proper town or a proper industrial area, given they're 7 buildings with 7 specialties. All those specialties involve appliances. Not much opportunity for other items like farming equipment & trapping gear & axes. Imagine 7 buildings akin to McCoy Logging Co but just metalworking & plumbing & electronics. 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Darkmark8910
answering second question, adding images & quotes

[getstoopid]

The GE factory would be an interesting location I agree, not so much to be really useful but just tempting to loot *g

[Tails]

maybe a ford assembly plant in Louisville , KY since that place is where the ford Explorer was made during the  early 90's maybe could see some brand new Ford SUV that came off the assembly plant since in PZ we have the Franklin All terrain.

 

Also would be a good place for some car parts for your heavy duty class vehicles.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Tails