Goonhub
01-30-2014, 08:57 PM
Okay, I did a brief writeup on the artifact lab equipment and what the readouts actually mean. This is all as it stands now and is subject to change!
Artifacts have a number of variables on them that determine how they react to paticular stimuli from the testing equipment. These are what the equipment check against - bearing in mind also that stimulus can be of variable strength and so what you get back depends on how hard the artifact was hit AND how the artifact reacts to that paticular stimulus.
So, for individual types of stimulus the lab equipment checks for:
Force (Pitching Machine/Impact Pad)
This returns Vibration Amplitude and Vibration Frequency.
Right now these are based entirely off the artifact's origin and thus aren't very useful at all. Something that has low returns for these categories is something that absorbs physical shock well - if its high, its probably made of something that reverberates a lot when struck, such as metal.
Electricity (Electrobox)
This returns Test Voltage, Load Impedance, Circuit Capacity and Interference.
Not very many artifacts actually have this set up properly so you'll just get the same readings from most of them - will change this in the near future.
Test Voltage is just the voltage you have the electrobox set to. I should probably change this to amps to make it more clear how much electricity you're zapping the artifact with.
Load Impedance is how much of the electricity put into the artifact was returned to the electrobox. If you're getting back 100% of what you put in or close to it, you've likely got something that involves electrical charge on your hands.
Circuit Capacity is how much electrical charge the artifact seems to be able to hold. Anything with this most likely has some kind of internal charge it draws on to power itself. The higher this is, the longer the artifact can do its thing without having to stop and recharge. However, sometimes artifacts can contain internal power cells which hold the charge - if this is the case, the artifact may return a very low value since the artifact itself is useless without its battery.
Circuit Interference is how much the electrical charge is being disrupted when ran through the artifact. Something with a lot of this is probably some really goddamn weird thing. It's normal for any kind of artifact to have a little of this though.
Other things can affect these readouts - certain artifact origins can skew the results a little, and if an artifact is faulty it can disrupt the capacity and interference readouts. The best way to figure this out is to take multiple readings and compare them - if your readings are all the same there's likely nothing wrong with it, but if they're inconsistent you might want to be cautious.
Heat/Cold (Heater Pad)
Looking through the code, as it stands now this equipment is borderline useless - it only checks to see if the artifact responds above or below certain temperatures. This is only useful to basically tell you "this artifact will activate if you raise/lower the temperature some more, keep going!". I'll try and think of some improvements for this or otherwise just chuck it out altogether.
X-Ray Machine(X-Ray Machine)
This is probably the most useful test equipment in the current state of artlab. It returns Density, Structural Consistency, Structural Integrity, Response to Radiation and Special Features.
Density is.. well, how dense the artifact's mass is. Readings above 10 mean the artifact is more likely to be something weird or something that can fuck with physical forces. Low density means the artifact is likely built to contain something else or is otherwise hollow/cavity-filled.
Structural Consistency means how much of the artifact's internal structure is solid or similar. The higher this is, the less likely the artifact is to be something useful. Readings will always generally be fairly high though, but ones at or close to 100% are probably worthless. Remember - machines and biological things have lot of complex parts inside so they're not solid!
Structural Integrity is how "solid" the artifact is in terms of construction, is it very damage-resistant and well put together or is it something you could probably crush like a soda can? Very low readings can also indicate the artifact may have something wrong with it, such as it is damaged/malfunctioning/dangerous or what have you.
Response to Radiation is how much the artifact responds to being irradiated. You'll have to play around with the radiation strength setting on the equipment to get an accurate picture of what's going on here - the artifact's origin can muck with this reading sometimes. The stronger the response, the more likely it is the artifact is activated via radiation - you just need to find out the right amount to use.
Special Features details anything that is paticularly unusual about the artifact's shape - these are mostly a hint towards what the artifact does.
Artifacts have a number of variables on them that determine how they react to paticular stimuli from the testing equipment. These are what the equipment check against - bearing in mind also that stimulus can be of variable strength and so what you get back depends on how hard the artifact was hit AND how the artifact reacts to that paticular stimulus.
So, for individual types of stimulus the lab equipment checks for:
Force (Pitching Machine/Impact Pad)
This returns Vibration Amplitude and Vibration Frequency.
Right now these are based entirely off the artifact's origin and thus aren't very useful at all. Something that has low returns for these categories is something that absorbs physical shock well - if its high, its probably made of something that reverberates a lot when struck, such as metal.
Electricity (Electrobox)
This returns Test Voltage, Load Impedance, Circuit Capacity and Interference.
Not very many artifacts actually have this set up properly so you'll just get the same readings from most of them - will change this in the near future.
Test Voltage is just the voltage you have the electrobox set to. I should probably change this to amps to make it more clear how much electricity you're zapping the artifact with.
Load Impedance is how much of the electricity put into the artifact was returned to the electrobox. If you're getting back 100% of what you put in or close to it, you've likely got something that involves electrical charge on your hands.
Circuit Capacity is how much electrical charge the artifact seems to be able to hold. Anything with this most likely has some kind of internal charge it draws on to power itself. The higher this is, the longer the artifact can do its thing without having to stop and recharge. However, sometimes artifacts can contain internal power cells which hold the charge - if this is the case, the artifact may return a very low value since the artifact itself is useless without its battery.
Circuit Interference is how much the electrical charge is being disrupted when ran through the artifact. Something with a lot of this is probably some really goddamn weird thing. It's normal for any kind of artifact to have a little of this though.
Other things can affect these readouts - certain artifact origins can skew the results a little, and if an artifact is faulty it can disrupt the capacity and interference readouts. The best way to figure this out is to take multiple readings and compare them - if your readings are all the same there's likely nothing wrong with it, but if they're inconsistent you might want to be cautious.
Heat/Cold (Heater Pad)
Looking through the code, as it stands now this equipment is borderline useless - it only checks to see if the artifact responds above or below certain temperatures. This is only useful to basically tell you "this artifact will activate if you raise/lower the temperature some more, keep going!". I'll try and think of some improvements for this or otherwise just chuck it out altogether.
X-Ray Machine(X-Ray Machine)
This is probably the most useful test equipment in the current state of artlab. It returns Density, Structural Consistency, Structural Integrity, Response to Radiation and Special Features.
Density is.. well, how dense the artifact's mass is. Readings above 10 mean the artifact is more likely to be something weird or something that can fuck with physical forces. Low density means the artifact is likely built to contain something else or is otherwise hollow/cavity-filled.
Structural Consistency means how much of the artifact's internal structure is solid or similar. The higher this is, the less likely the artifact is to be something useful. Readings will always generally be fairly high though, but ones at or close to 100% are probably worthless. Remember - machines and biological things have lot of complex parts inside so they're not solid!
Structural Integrity is how "solid" the artifact is in terms of construction, is it very damage-resistant and well put together or is it something you could probably crush like a soda can? Very low readings can also indicate the artifact may have something wrong with it, such as it is damaged/malfunctioning/dangerous or what have you.
Response to Radiation is how much the artifact responds to being irradiated. You'll have to play around with the radiation strength setting on the equipment to get an accurate picture of what's going on here - the artifact's origin can muck with this reading sometimes. The stronger the response, the more likely it is the artifact is activated via radiation - you just need to find out the right amount to use.
Special Features details anything that is paticularly unusual about the artifact's shape - these are mostly a hint towards what the artifact does.
