Emergency Adventure Zone Escape Beacons

[Drasher]

Hello! I just had a simple suggestion to promote conversation to solve a certain metagamey problem with telesci adventures right now. The porti-sci is necessary to escape several adventure zones without relying on the good fortune of a competent AI (and tele science not being either out of power or exploded) and the existence of only one remote to prevent power gaming severely restricts anyone trying to explore without immediately rushing to RD, begging him for it if you can find him, and actually receiving it. So I wanted to suggest that perhaps a "emergency beacon" that can only send you out from an adventure zone (perhaps only one use or with certain restrictions like only being used in certain parts of the azone) could be implemented. Several adventure zones are not calibrated for a world with only 1 porti-sci remote and are inescapable otherwise so this would allow more players to explore/engage in quantum telescope/adventure zones while simultaneously preventing the porti-sci from being abused by power gamers. Feel free to leave your piece on whether you think this concept has any merit or if I'm blowing smoke.

[Cal]

What about tracking implants being able to recall someone? I think Security would abuse this to fuck with valid antags though..

I wouldn't mind if it say.. the beacons did not let you take anything with you or was a backpack slot item so you can explore, something like you cannot bring anything back with you but you can check things out and explore within the zone

it's a hard issue to look at, honestly.

[Drasher]

What about tracking implants being able to recall someone? I think Security would abuse this to fuck with valid antags though..

I wouldn't mind if it say.. the beacons did not let you take anything with you or was a backpack slot item so you can explore, something like you cannot bring anything back with you but you can check things out and explore within the zone

it's a hard issue to look at, honestly.

I wouldn't mind if there was some penalty to using it to prevent the porti-sci from being irrelevant when it comes to azones like you mentioned, not taking anything with you seems a bit severe though, especially since anything you drop (like tools or your beacon) would be trapped in there with no recovery, perhaps it requires you to stand still for 30 seconds to a minute to prevent people from using it to escape boss fights or other azone events?

[Cal]

not taking anything with you seems a bit severe though, especially since anything you drop (like tools or your beacon) would be trapped in there with no recovery

if its not this way at the minimum, smart people will still rush in and grab gamer gear and leave.

[DioChasek]

The other thing is sure you can’t take it with you but you could easily take the good loot closer to the starting area of whatever zone you are in and come back sans beacon to pick up the spoils.

[zjdtmkhzt]

not taking anything with you seems a bit severe though, especially since anything you drop (like tools or your beacon) would be trapped in there with no recovery

if its not this way at the minimum, smart people will still rush in and grab gamer gear and leave.

These emergency beacons don't really seem like a topic related to rushing gamer gear, seeing as you could just as well do it with the port-a-sci remote right now?
IMO the port-a-sci remote change was so that you would have to actually do prep-work *before* getting trapped in a situation, by getting the remote, instead of just being able to send the remote to anyone's PDA when they are already in a bad situation.

Thus I think it would be fine to keep items when teleporting back, I mean, you can already do that with the port-a-sci right now if you are RD or the RD gives it to you.

I think sensible solutions to this azone issue could be
* beacons that can only return you from an azone (like Drasher said), which you would need to take with you. I don't see any problems with letting people keep their stuff with this, seeing as the port-a-sci can already do this.
* something similar to recaller artifacts, which would return the person after a specific time is up, this could take the shape of some stationary recaller object in telesci, or something like a wearable watch that pulls you back to the spot you put it on after a set time period?
* just making the telesci remote start in telesci, so an adventure team can take it, but this would be very prone to some turbonerd scientist just taking it even though they do not plan to go on an adventure.

Long story short, I do not see how this relates to loot from adventure zones at all. You can already bring loot home with you via port-a-sci. If there were a problem with allowing people to escape instantly with loot, we would already have it and the addition of another way to get out would not change anything.

[RGBDeadSilent]

Whatever the plan is, don't make this an instant use ability. There are already enough issues with turbo nerds using the port-a-sci as an instant escape button when you're killing them.

Telescience is hit and miss in the community. Its gated behind MATH (WHO LIKES MATH!?) and once you leave you're sometimes gone for the round. How many times have you been chilling at the bar and you hear "Can someone recall the long range teleporters?" Five or six times in a row? "Can someone hit recieve on Biodome bookmark please?" Yeah sorry Steve, but actually someone DELETED that bookmark, and then reset the mainframe. Coordinates? Different. Bookmarks? Gone.

Being trapped in our PvE content is lame. Having a return method would be neat, but it really needs a lore friendly method. And whatever it is... don't make it instant.

[Crystalwarrior]

Current strat on Bombini for telesci remote is to scan it using the device analyzer, and mass-produce it for the whole adventure crew. Mining telecrystals doesn't take too long but it's not an instant solution either.

As for suggestions to have some sort of mechanism to get the adventurer back while leaving behind their stuff, well that already exists - clone-scanning! You just clone them when they die in their telesci adventures.

Scientists could have a special item or program that is tied to the telesci teleporter pad which is "return to station", pressing it would require the scientist to stand still for 15 seconds uninterrupted. It can be single-use but producible in fabricators, or multiple-use and analyzable by device analyzers. As a restriction it could also only be usable in adventure zone Z-levels, so the item in question is useless for space travel.

That same item could even be part of the scientists PDA instead if inventory space is a problem.

Alternatively, RD computer OR telesci computer could be able to recall anyone with tracking beacons to the science pad - yet again, with the prerequisite that they are currently in the adventure zone Z-levels.

This adventure zone Z-level restriction could also be potentially lifted with an e-mag.... Or not, if it's too busted!

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EDIT: There is another huge problem with port-a-sci. Nothing stops the rogue AI from just crushering the telesci locker, and unlike port-a-med, the locker itself cannot be scanned, meaning it's easy to just eliminate this mechanic from the game entirely.

[Filthy Steve]

Maybe make it some kind of emergency cloner type thing? Like an implant that when you activate it you immediately die and it initiates cloning. Maybe the main cloner, or maybe give telesci a secondary cloning pod just for this that *only* works for this implant.
The implant only triggers when you activate it. So it's not a case of a free extra life.

Just a thought. I like the emergency beacon idea more, but it feels like this is another thing that can work at solving the core issue of 'people trapped in adventure zones.'

[Nidabutt]

In my opinion...

- I feel there is a flaw in the design of some azone content which makes it quick to complete by individual players who have finished them before.

- Azone content should be harder and take longer to complete but be more accessible for players. The ability to leave without the port-a-sci would be very welcome.

- Puzzles will not slow down powergamers who already have solved them, so should not be considered as a way to slow down progression through them.

- Azones should encourage groups of players to take part in them rather than being easily completable by a single player.

- Longer and more difficult azone content could allow for more fun rewards to be kept which would encourage players who simply enjoy the exploration of them (like myself), rather than constantly needing to be nerfed due to people abusing them.

A friend suggested an absolutely fantastic idea for a new type of azone content, but as I have no coding experience I have no idea how much work would be required or if it would be possible at all within SS13. A roguelike azone. Random generation would effectively solve the issue of people rushing the loot, since most parts of the azone would be random and totally unknown - this could also extend to the puzzles which could also be randomly generated each round to ensure that there is a time investment for progression. The loot and challenge could also be scaled depending on the number of players in the group, once again making it harder for individual powergamers to obtain the most powerful loot by themselves. If anyone knows if this would be reasonably possible to code I may make a separate post with this idea alone as I think it would make an absolutely wonderful addition to the game.