General improvements to telescience.

[Isaacs Alter Ego]

- Currently you can only hold like 6 bookmarks, I don't understand why this is, there is no real reason for it.

- You can't teleport yourself. I realize this one's probably intentional, in theory it encourages teamwork. In practice, it encourages yelling at the AI and passersby to teleport you until you get fed up and use a portal and drain 99% of the stations power with it.  A telescience PDA cart that allows you remote access of the teleporter, or at least the send and receive commands, would be cool. I know borgs can do this already.

- The whole math equation thing for coordinates seems rather pointless. Most people I feel have a spreadsheet or an app for it, those that don't are left out, why not just cut the whole complicated mess and have the GPS coordinates be the same coordinates the computer uses? I don't really see what the math adds, other than needless complexity to shut out newcomers until they check the wiki or google it or whatever. 


- A lot of the telesci rewards have been replaced with goof rewards that don't do anything, but others haven't, it's all kind of arbitrary which ones have and which ones haven't so maybe a pass to unify this and decide on what is acceptable for players to have and what isn't might be good.  For example there's an AK somewhere that's been replaced with a goof one, but there's still hunting rifles and revolvers in another location. I guess the AK is slightly better, but it still seems arbitrary.

- More rewards that benefit the station rather than the telesci run itself. It would be cool if Telesci adventures could result in the station getting new and improved versions of it's current equipment. People generally ignore telesci  and telesci people generally ignore the round so it would be cool if the two could be connected a little more. People should be glad to see the expedition come back, because they've come back with additional materials for research, new artifacts, strange spices for foods that can be reused, etc. Get people working together for this stuff again rather than just disappearing off because of sol shenanigans and then never being seen again until the shuttle's called. Right now the only "reward" is that the telesci explorer gets to hang on to a giant gun or something and then bust it out when someone starts rampaging last second on the shuttle.

[Superlagg]

Part of the reason behind the math is to make it less easy to pop in a bunch of memorized numbers and steal all the fun things before the rest of the crew even puts on their pants. I know I would.

The process to determine the offsets makes an initial delay between the first dweeb wanting to use the teleporter and them actually using it. Also makes it a bit more evident that some jerk is getting ready to rob the station blind.

The offsets themsel[f/ves] make adjustments less something to do on the fly. Clunky to redirect to a new spot, but great when it gets there. Also to prevent running through a notepad document full of stored coordinates-of-fun-stuff really quickly (though you can still do that, just kinda slowly).

However! I think the AI should be able to bypass the need to use external methods for applying the offsets. It would still need to find the offsets, but once it does, it would just need to put those numbers into a textbox, and the AI would be able to just punch in the actual coordinates just fine.

[NateTheSquid]

you can definitely pretty easily teleport yourself last i checked, by just whacking send and running in, but you do need someone to bring you back unless you've got the port-a-sci.

like superlagg said the offset and whatnot is definitely not a bad thing because it stops instant theft

[Isaacs Alter Ego]

Maybe another system would be best for delaying that doesn't require arcane knowledge from mostly outside the game. Like a loud teleporter activation sequence that sends a notice to the heads and AI or something. I just think the whole method as it is now is gatekeeping. I know how to do it, it's inconvenient but I can, but it keeps anyone new from exploring it unless someone walks them through the process step by step.

[warcrimes]

this is probably smart

[FULLDEMOCRATICCOMMUNISTFASCISM]

Or make two teleporters, one that goes to the starting points of Sol and one that can be used to explore the station and Z5. The draw-backs like a "loud start-up" or whatever would only apply to the second one while the first one can't really be used to loot the station anyway.

[Superlagg]

Maybe another system would be best for delaying that doesn't require arcane knowledge from mostly outside the game. Like a loud teleporter activation sequence that sends a notice to the heads and AI or something. I just think the whole method as it is now is gatekeeping. I know how to do it, it's inconvenient but I can, but it keeps anyone new from exploring it unless someone walks them through the process step by step.

Playing games with the teleporter should stay something fairly gatekept. Its a powerful device that can potentially change the course of a round.

However, it shouldn't be +too+ obvious when someone wants to use it. The teleporter already makes a bunch of loud, distinct noises when in use, no need to call the cops when someone fires it up.

[Frank_Stein]

What if the spot you're teleporting to and from has a few seconds of glowing, to indicate something is about to happen there?

Another idea: Give the teleporter console a grid map, with multiple magnification levels. The map corresponds to the whatever Z-level it's set to, however it's orientation is randomized every round. Going west on the map might end up taking you north, east, or south. The map could even occasionally drift and offset itself even more as things move around in orbit, requiring minor adjustments over the course of a round

Instead of plugging in numbers, click tiles on the grid and adjust the magnification levels to select a precise spot, see where it ends up, and adjust your aim

add a flagging system for grid points to mark places of interest. Eventually end up with map looking something like this

[Berrik]

The math randomization isn't a serious obstacle to preventing people from stealing nice telsci shit at the start of a round. As with the robusttec, if stuff is being abused, it can be moved, nerfed, or blocked.

[Triacontakai]

The math randomization isn't a serious obstacle to preventing people from stealing nice telsci shit at the start of a round. As with the robusttec, if stuff is being abused, it can be moved, nerfed, or blocked.

cant say i agree. it gives at least a small buffer to telesci stealing shit like the captains spare or other valuable station items literally seconds after round start. if you're talking specifically about telesci items, fair enough, but removing the math isnt the right way to go imo

[Roomba]

One idea I had for telesci: add a couple of adventure zone coords saved in telesci at roundstart, with names like [UNKNOWN DISTRESS CALL]. People who absolutely, positively refuse to do the math can still hop in and bumble around in a random adventure zone, and maybe if they like it they can pick up the math.

[cyberTripping]

Telescience needs a facelift because making people use out-of-game tools is awful game design. Maybe back when there were two maps telescience could at least loosely be justified as alright since people could just memorize parts of the map (even though everyone just used map programs anyways), but the game nowadays has too many maps for even this flimsy logic. Effective use of telescience now mandates looking at a map outside of the game and turbonerding harder than genetics (at least geneticists have the window chat is on visible!)

The problem with the math isn't that it's boring, or too hard, or whatever. The problem is that there aren't any in-game means of solving and applying it effectively. THIS is what turns people away from telescience. Imagine a rhythm game, but instead of having music it just listed a bpm to match, so you had to provide your own music outside of the game to then follow. The unnecessary effort expended setting things up on your end is way less engaging and much more of a hassle than the actual process of following the beat. This is what telescience is like.