Goonhub
10-23-2014, 08:24 PM
At the moment most handheld artifacts are far more useful to the average crewman than large ones. One of the reasons for this is the fact that large artifacts activate immediately and cannot be turned off, whereas you can "control" the output of handheld artifacts.
My suggestion is instead of most large artifacts activating immediately, make it so that fulfilling their activation condition "primes" them (and maybe give you a clue to their function, although ArtLab readings may or may not already do this), and can then unleash their effects with a touch; or perhaps even a signaller/proximity/timer/whatever assembly of some sort. That way instead of spacing that bomb or gravity artifact you just activated, you can pull it to an optimal location (risking a random assistant rushing over and touching it on the way) and then activate it.
My suggestion is instead of most large artifacts activating immediately, make it so that fulfilling their activation condition "primes" them (and maybe give you a clue to their function, although ArtLab readings may or may not already do this), and can then unleash their effects with a touch; or perhaps even a signaller/proximity/timer/whatever assembly of some sort. That way instead of spacing that bomb or gravity artifact you just activated, you can pull it to an optimal location (risking a random assistant rushing over and touching it on the way) and then activate it.