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+--- Thread: Beefin' up Artlab (/showthread.php?tid=1593)
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Beefin' up Artlab - Sundance - 09-07-2013
After a lengthy discussion on ghostchat, it has been concluded that our much unloved Artlab is rather lackluster. Which is a damn shame, because after the update it seemed like it had a load of potential.
The main issue with it is this: Research and Artifacts.
Research
The research part of it isn't boring, but it is pretty daunting for those that are a bit impatient. A guide, call it "Advancing with Artifacts" explaining what each device does, how to start and how to activate wouldn't go amiss. Sure it might take away from the challenge of it, but that brings me to my next point..
Artifacts
Even if you do know how to work artifact lab, and you find the function and activation of the artifact, most of the time after all that hard work, you get a screamo artifact, or something that help plants. Or that damn annoying forcewall artifact
There really just needs to be more, alot more. And it doesn't need to be ultra lethal (i'm looking at you nuke and infinite laser artifact) either for people who want to invest time into it. Off the top of my head here's a few idea's:
- A handheld artifact when activated acts as an implanter. Depending on origin, it can allow the user to control electronic stuff (robot) give the user a SoulGuard (Wizard) allow the user to knitback himself like a vampire (Martian)
- A large artifact that instantly recharges borgs
- A large artifact that spawns a critter that acts as a guardbuddy when activated
- A large artifact that creates a 5x5 area supplying oxygen and heat
- A handheld artifact that allows you to teleport to a tile you clicked on
- A large artifact that when clicked, gives up the same pop-up as Clairvoyance
- A large artifact that allows you to see and talk to ghosts in a 3x3 area
- A large artifact that creates a portal to an UNKNOWN AREA
- A handheld artifact that when used on a person, gives them various accents
- A handheld artifact that acts as a RCD
- A large Artifact that gives borgs random upgrades
And that's just off the top of my head too. I'm sure y'all can think of more things. Fun things, moving away from lethal, and more useful and fun.
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - ClockworkCupcake - 09-07-2013
Honestly there's just no reason for the test machines to be DWAINE-controlled instead of having, y'know, buttons and a reasonable interface. It's not like having the controls be so obscure and irritating bars people from activating powerful artifacts, so why have it that way?
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - Rob Stark - 09-07-2013
I think a guide needs to be made for Researching artifacts, because I honestly have no idea how to use have those machines in Research.
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - mozi - 09-07-2013
I think I've got the hang of the machines but can't parse the data to figure anything useful out at all. Some clues would be rad
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - Embolism - 09-07-2013
My problem with ArtLab are:
1. Artifacts are generally useless.
2. A lot of the time even when you activate an Artifact you still have no idea what it does (the X-ray scanner sometimes give some clues, such as "Cavity Contents" meaning it's a ranged weapon, but that's so obscure and limited).
3. The machines in the ArtLab are often insufficient to activate an Artifact (I suggested a while ago that a stationary taser/phaser/laser be added).
4. As far as I could tell fiddling with machine parameters does nothing when it comes to activation (if an Artifact is going to be activated by a machine it will do so on the default settings).
5. As far as I could tell the machine readings mean nothing when it comes to activation or Artifact function (I think that the values are similar for Artifacts with the same function, but Artifacts with the same appearance always have the same function anyway so that's useless).
In my opinion, what ArtLab needs are:
1. More Artifact effects/Useful or interesting effects need to come up more often.
2. The machines should give you more of an idea (an actual idea, not a vague arbitrary reading that you only know how to interpret with meta-round knowledge) of what an Artifact does.
3. You should be able to activate all Artifacts in the ArtLab. So, more machines covering every single possible Artifact activation method.
4. To tie in with 3, parameters should matter more. At the moment I don't think it matters at all if all you want is to activate it (either make it important in figuring out function, activation, or preferably both).
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - Swagile - 09-08-2013
Sailor Dave tried to teach me art lab, but when he told me you had to do all this start up crap, and the fact that you don't even have all the tools in the lab to actually activate the artifacts, I gave up.
So if the interface was a bit easer, or things were set up and a book was around telling you how to do it, and all the items needed to activate the artifact were there, it'd be more appealing.
Aka what Embolism said.
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - Marquesas - 09-09-2013
I'm going to relentlessly defend DWAINE here. There is NOTHING COMPLICATED about this. Why do people have a hard time with typing in commands? You don't even have to do the net ID thing anymore, you can just type gptio activate xray wow that is so unintuitive oh my god i have no idea how will anyone ever get that #wow #whoa
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - Spy_Guy - 09-09-2013
In defence of DWAINE, yes, it's not particularly hard to use. However, there are some things that are a bit unclear.
For instance gptio poke heater temptarget 500 gives you a FAILED message, but it does not say why. Did I get the name wrong? Hold on, there's apparently a cap on the temptarget, but it's never stated anywhere. This should be apparent in either poke or peek.
Speaking of gptio peek, it's terrible and awful and bad, why not just have info list all the fields and their values plus any caps.
Why is gptio sense a thing? What does it do? Can't it be implied that I want to sense from the device if I activate or try to read from it?
Want to hit handheld objects with the pitcher? Better gptio poke pitcher stand 1 then, because that makes sense. Wait, no, that didn't work at all...
Hold on, I took a programming course at uni! The true boolean value can be -1! Aha, that worked!
As happy as I was having solved this tiny riddle, it's a bit silly to expect everyone to know these little details, so I bet you it would not be as intuitive for an economics major, for instance.
Now I don't want Streamlined Station 13, but the current system for artlab is terrible, inefficient, convoluted and impenetrable.
DWAINE is alright, gptio sure as fuck isn't.
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - Sundance - 09-09-2013
Quote:DWAINE is alright, gptio sure as fuck isn't.
The bare-bones of it really. Like I said, dwaine is fine. I'm currently toying around with dwaine and for someone who has never took programming, it sure as fuck is hard but rewarding when shit starts coming together. But this gptio where it gives back garbled information even when I put on my thinking cap and take some stims irl I get relentlessly frustrated with.
If there is going to be a manual, the manual should contain an example how to activate an artifact, as well as explaining a good portion of the shit that goes on.
Embolism raises a good few solid points, all of which I agree with.
Quote:3. You should be able to activate all Artifacts in the ArtLab. So, more machines covering every single possible Artifact activation method.
4. To tie in with 3, parameters should matter more. At the moment I don't think it matters at all if all you want is to activate it (either make it important in figuring out function, activation, or preferably both).
Addendum: I'm going to be naughty and suggest something people may not like.
Get rid of manual activation altogether.
When people see an artifact, they beat it, stun it, heat it with a welder and if none of that works they walk away.
Tying in with points 3 and 4 (concerning the parameters) this would make people actually use the machines and fiddle with the parameters.
If we streamline all of this, as in make it so when mining sends an artifact to research people will want to work with it and it won't be hit and miss and painfully slow to activate what you now realize is a useless artifact, and add some new artifacts, just maybe then will artlab be worth all the hassle.
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - Katznelson - 09-09-2013
Spy_Guy Wrote:so I bet you it would not be as intuitive for an economics major, for instance.
I took a a few programming courses and I am an econ major. There was this nice program called Stata which mimics gptio to a fair degree. I used what I know about UNIX and Stata to help ease my use of gptio.
Aside from that it took a good deal of patience to deal with gptio especially at its current form which seems to me very:
1) Clumsy.
2) Gives lots of garbage data that tells you what the artifact responds to but no way of knowing how much it needs.
3) Outstanding inconsistencies with command syntax between different machines.
4) If its current form is final, then some adjustments could be done for formatting and display.
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - APARTHEID - 09-09-2013
If I've got one gripe, it's this little tidbit that the X-ray scanner returns 90% of the time: FUNCTION: COMPLEX.
Yeah, that's great. I'll just beat the artifact until my arms fly off in bloody arcs or just leave it alone to contemplate its own COMPLEXity.
A tad bit more description would be nice! COMPLEX separates the beakers from the borgers, the healers from the screamers, and the lasers from the forcewallers.
ALL THE DAMN ARTIFACTS ARE COMPLEX IN CONSTRUCTION! It's why we all have to research their uses in the first place! It's redundant!
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - ClockworkCupcake - 09-09-2013
I'm gonna say again that there's no reason whatsoever for this to use DWAINE because it doesn't add anything. Most of the gptio functions are things that you could handle with a single button and an intensity high/low switch - all that you get out of having to go through gptio is, well, you're forced to copy in long commands for every single thing you want to do.
I agree that it would benefit from a greater range of artifacts, but I really think the whole activation process needs a complete overhaul. I'd love to see the current trial-and-error-until-you-get-bored-and-give-up replaced with a series of console-run puzzles to activate the artifact.
I'm going to just assume programming any changes will be hellish since this is BYOND and just run with my ideas here.
What I'm thinking is that for each artifact it could be broken down into three major steps:
1. Determine the type/origin of artifact (wizard, martian, etc - heck, it could be cute to have it state an object type too - wizard cologne bottle, martian banana peel)
2. Determine what effect the artifact has
3. Determine how to activate (and deactivate if applicable?)
I think some kind of logic puzzle might be fun. Something like you get a description of something significant:
Quote:This object is oblong and covered in many-colored nodules. It hums quietly. (for step 1?)... with a bank of random, researachable traits linked to backgrounds/effects/etc, starting with a small selection so you don't have to sit around waiting for everything to research.
When a drop of water falls on this object, it sizzles and evaporates. It smells like burnt toast. (for 2 or 3?)
So for that first example: maybe your research base tells you that martians and extraplanar beings both love to make things covered in nodules, but martians hate things that are oblong. You can determine that it's of extraplanar origin and move on to the next step, which gives you another cue.
Though I'm not sure how you'd prevent people from just guessing every single thing... maybe make it so you have to determine three things for each step? (Maybe more for the activation of really powerful ones?) So for the origin you'd have to figure out what species created it, how old it is, and... I dunno, something else, maybe what part of the galaxy it came from. That way if you've worked out part of it legitimately it's not too hard to guess, but you have to at least try first.
I don't know, maybe this would be completely infeasible, I'd just much prefer to add something fun and puzzly instead of pasting commands into DWAINE.
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - atomic1fire - 09-09-2013
I think it would be neat if some artifacts could be used to replace certain items.
e.g This artifact emits a small flame (igniter/welder maybe)
This artifact releases a high pressure gas (fire extinguisher, maybe self-refilling foam)
Also some artifacts that alter gameplay, like one that could either kill you or give you a random superpower.
Basically like promicin or that strobe thing from alphas. stuff that either makes you more superpowered, or kills you.
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - VictorMAngoStein - 09-12-2013
Space traders should pay more for researched artifacts. That way if you're useless then at least you can unload them on someone else.
Re: Beefin' up Artlab - LunaticLawyer - 09-12-2013
VictorMAngoStein Wrote:Space traders should pay more for researched artifacts. That way if you're useless then at least you can unload them on someone else.Maybe have different payouts based on size/power/etc.? Perhaps even more if you actually researched it, but it's just an incredibly useless artifact. Since it'd be worth more since "they" don't need to put time into it to research it.