In my previous mod, Dissolution, I made the decision to design maps as though they were real places. This means designing layouts and mapping out rooms because they would have an in-universe function. This is in contrast to designing routes and decorating them afterwards to look like real places.
Lunar Descent is expanding on this principle, but placing more emphasis on making the various areas unique and interesting. The aim is to not only have every room have its own in-game purpose, but also its own story.
However, there is a need to motivate players to explore these rooms for reasons besides story. Plenty of players will play Lunar Descent and be entirely uninterested in the environmental story-telling. For these players, the optional rooms will just be pointless dead-end rooms... unless they hold some other value.
The remainder of this development blog update can be found on the official Lunar Descent development blog. You can follow all of our updates on ModDB, our development blog and Twitter.
Good strategy!
I wouldn't mind more audio logs and/or stuff to read in those side rooms.
Audio logs (or equivalent) will be present -- I just want to ensure that we're also giving players a gameplay benefit from exploration. :)