The 7th Artifact Activator?

[The Grim Sleeper]

So the Artifact lab has 4 devices (each of which has about 1 useful setting) for it's research, and you can hobo up a storm with batons, welders, a toolbox, a helpful borg or even your own grubby mits, but I still encounter a whole host of Artifacts for which I simply cannot find a stimulus, or even a 'faint noise'! And it's not a small amount either, roughly 60% of the Artifacts I drag into the lab are still sitting there, inactive, when the round ends. There is an old forum thread about how 'all artifacts can be activated in the lab', but that is over 2 years old, from before the 'faint noise' feature it would seem.
I've tried basic meta-exploits: eg 'tighten your grip on a small artifact' means it's an artifact water-can, 'inserted into something' usually means artifact powercell of matching size.
I've tried to get creative, put a handheld artifact into a mircowave. Didn't work.
I even went stupid; put the artifact into the oven: Very much didn't work.


At this point I'm convinced I am missing a big part of the Artifact stimuli. Or one of the devices in the lab isn't triggering it's response (looking at you heater-plate).

Anybody have similar experiences or usefull tips? Or is there possibly a very insidious bug in the Artifacts themselves?

[Vitatroll]

My favorite activators are explosions and george melonium.

Or if you like to ruin all of the mystery you could just find out directly.

[The Grim Sleeper]

Ah, the code!
...
That was... surprisingly unenlightening. Everything I learned from it is mentioned on the wiki or the handful of forum threads. Yeah, gradient activation and there is code for 'dummies' but should there really be so many of them?

[TheOnlyRyan]

I've also had a lot of trouble activating artifacts, me Deus talked about remaking the wiki page to make it clearer. Although to do this we need more "expert" opinions on what is the simplest way to go about activating an artifact.

Edit. I also think the percentage of beaker artifacts is WAYYYY too high. People generally don't do artifact research for none hand held artifacts, they're just not worth it. They're either a noise maker, suck everything in or push everything out. Pretty boring.

I like the idea of the station having more hand held artifacts with more interesting abilities. I also think coders and the big wigs should put some brain power into making artifacts great, because at the moment it's pretty terrible.

I go to the satellite every round and find maybe 1 hand held none beaker artifact every 3 rounds perhaps?

[Telegnats]

I've recently started trying to activate handheld artifacts in the hopes of finding a good gun or otherwise, but I've yet to actually activate one. I wouldn't be as irritated with the system if DWAINE's gptio commands weren't such a pain in the ass to use. But inevitably, i'm stuck in artlab for ~20 minutes with an artifact that probably won't activate, until a changeling/some other antag comes in and kills me because hardly anyone ever goes to the artlab.

Also, on the wiki it states the force-activated artifacts usually respond to bullets or explosions. Unfortunately the 7 bullets a shot at the artifact whizzed by and struck a window, which sucked out all the air. Am I doing something wrong, or is this broken?

[TheOnlyRyan]

You can shoot an artifact by putting it on the impact arm, and extending it.

It makes any hand held object solid / hittable

One thing I really hate is how explosions have ANYTHING to do with artifacts, yeah let's just set off a bomb to see if the 2.5% chance that it's activated by it works out.

Streamlining is needed.

[Noah Buttes]

I've recently started trying to activate handheld artifacts in the hopes of finding a good gun or otherwise, but I've yet to actually activate one. I wouldn't be as irritated with the system if DWAINE's gptio commands weren't such a pain in the ass to use. But inevitably, i'm stuck in artlab for ~20 minutes with an artifact that probably won't activate, until a changeling/some other antag comes in and kills me because hardly anyone ever goes to the artlab.

Also, on the wiki it states the force-activated artifacts usually respond to bullets or explosions. Unfortunately the 7 bullets a shot at the artifact whizzed by and struck a window, which sucked out all the air. Am I doing something wrong, or is this broken?

Bullets work, but only on artifacts that they can hit.

Only large artifacts that be walked over can be hit without using the impactpad.

If you put a handheld artifact on the impactpad's STAND, however, you can shoot it with bullets.

Tips for gptio commands:

• You don't have to write the apparatus names with underscores. Typing 'xray' will work just as well as typing 'X_RAY' does.
  
• You don't always have to test both heating and cooling on the heating pad, just do one or the other, and if it comes back as not responding, just stop there. If it DOES respond, you'll have to test both though.
  
• Rigged light bulb explosions are good force testers, just be sure to put a tile's distance between the bulb and the artifact.
  
• The elecbox sucks, but you'll have to deal with it since you have to be THOROUGH with your electrical testing. Sorry.
  

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One thing I really hate is how explosions have ANYTHING to do with artifacts, yeah let's just set off a bomb to see if the 2.5% chance that it's activated by it works out.

Explosions are just typically the most easily accessible method of producing high force stimuli.

Another thing that works well is throwing a crate at an artifact.

[Vitatroll]

...if DWAINE's gptio commands weren't such a pain in the ass to use. ...

You ever use the thing that looks like a powernet networking component in the artlab? IIRC it works quite well. It's nowhere near as effective as writing your own scripts, but the more complex ones can be a pain to enter.

Zamujasa has some good basic scripts for cutting out lots of typing. I would post my fairly automated ones but I'd have to go through 100+ horribly named text files. I mostly just explode things with welding fuel these days anyways. Works remarkably well, honestly. Takes a lot less fuel than people think too.

[The Grim Sleeper]

You ever use the thing that looks like a powernet networking component in the artlab? IIRC it works quite well. It's nowhere near as effective as writing your own scripts, but the more complex ones can be a pain to enter.

I used to use it all the time, but switching between the very highest and very lowest setting is a pain. Then I found out about scripts.

Zamujasa has some good basic scripts for cutting out lots of typing. ... I would post my fairly automated ones but I'd have to go through 100+ horribly named text files.

I personally prefer an extended version of UmmonTL's research scripts. They don't use the space-bar. But I very much would like to see those big automated scripts you wrote.    
Spoiler!

So I've been spending a bit of time with artifact research lately and since I also recently figured out how the guardbuddies work I remembered that there was this bit about scripts for Dwaine terminals on the wiki. Long story short, typing the same commands into the art-research computer over and over is a pain so I made myself some scripts to make things more convenient and thought I'd share them here.
[spoiler]echo #!|ngptio poke xray radstrength 1|ngptio activate xray ^./xr1
echo #!|ngptio poke xray radstrength 2|ngptio activate xray ^./xr2
echo #!|ngptio poke xray radstrength 3|ngptio activate xray ^./xr3
echo #!|ngptio poke xray radstrength 4|ngptio activate xray ^./xr4
echo #!|ngptio poke xray radstrength 5|ngptio activate xray ^./xr5
echo #!|ngptio poke xray radstrength 6|ngptio activate xray ^./xr6
echo #!|ngptio poke xray radstrength 7|ngptio activate xray ^./xr7
echo #!|ngptio poke xray radstrength 8|ngptio activate xray ^./xr8
echo #!|ngptio poke xray radstrength 9|ngptio activate xray ^./xr9
echo #!|ngptio poke xray radstrength 10|ngptio activate xray ^./xr10
echo #!|ngptio read xray ^./xr

echo #!|ngptio activate heater ^./ha
echo #!|ngptio deactivate heater ^./hd
echo #!|ngptio read heater ^./hr
echo #!|ngptio poke heater temptarget 200 ^./htm
echo #!|ngptio poke heater temptarget 400 ^./htp

echo #!|ngptio activate elecbox ^./ea
echo #!|ngptio deactivate elecbox ^./ed
echo #!|ngptio read elecbox ^./er
echo #!|ngptio poke elecbox voltage 1 ^./evl
echo #!|ngptio poke elecbox voltage 100 ^./evh
echo #!|ngptio poke elecbox wattage 1 ^./ewl
echo #!|ngptio poke elecbox wattage 50 ^./ewh

Each line creates one script file in your current directory, you just have to navigate to /mnt/artlab first and then enter them one by one. The bit at the end is the filename, modify it to your liking but I wanted them as short as possible so I just used one letter for the device, one for the command and one for additional distinction. Should be pretty self-explanatory what they do, for the xray I combined setting the value and activating because it deactivates by itself and this allows for quickly scanning through all strength values. I didn't bother with the pitcher because I never use it but feel free to make your own.
I also tried making a script that would go through the voltages/wattages at increments of 10 but there is no delay command so it seems to just process about 4 commands at once. Also unless there is a way to upload a file instead of manually entering it the character limit means you have to break up the script into about 20 lines you have to enter one by one. Wasn''t there a paper scanner on the station somewhere? maybe with that, anyways have fun.

echo #!|ngptio poke pitcher power 100|ngptio activate pitcher ^./sh

I mostly just explode things with welding fuel these days anyways. Works remarkably well, honestly. Takes a lot less fuel than people think too.

Do you have any recommendations for rooms which are durable/expendable? I tried the secure chemlab, but a 50u welding fuel pipebomb still blew out most of the walls.

[atomic1fire]

I've also had a lot of trouble activating artifacts, me Deus talked about remaking the wiki page to make it clearer. Although to do this we need more "expert" opinions on what is the simplest way to go about activating an artifact.

Edit. I also think the percentage of beaker artifacts is WAYYYY too high. People generally don't do artifact research for none hand held artifacts, they're just not worth it. They're either a noise maker, suck everything in or push everything out. Pretty boring.

I like the idea of the station having more hand held artifacts with more interesting abilities. I also think coders and the big wigs should put some brain power into making artifacts great, because at the moment it's pretty terrible.

I go to the satellite every round and find maybe 1 hand held none beaker artifact every 3 rounds perhaps?

Handheld teleporter artifacts are dope, especially if you have a means of expanding your field of view. (Although that might be an exploit)

[Noah Buttes]

Handheld teleporter artifacts are dope, especially if you have a means of expanding your field of view. (Although that might be an exploit)

Wait, you can expand your field of view?

[medsal15]

Wait, you can expand your field of view?

How to see more: Inject/activate X-ray.

[Vitatroll]

I think he's talking about masons -- maybe even cameras too. I forget if the latter still works. I honestly hate masons, but they're almost required with those artifacts or when you want to shoot deeply into a blob or kudzu mass with a flamer.

[Noah Buttes]

Wait, you can expand your field of view?

How to see more: Inject/activate X-ray.

I think he's talking about masons -- maybe even cameras too. I forget if the latter still works. I honestly hate masons, but they're almost required with those artifacts or when you want to shoot deeply into a blob or kudzu mass with a flamer.

OH.

I thought he meant that it was possible to expand one's vision radius beyond the current maximum of 7 tiles away from the center.

[Frank_Stein]

There used to be a bug with pods that let you do that but I reported it and it got patched