Artifact System Proposal

[RoboTek]

Goals: 
More skill in researching artifacts
More generally useful artifacts, with less powerful random peaks.
More variation.
Choice about using artifacts.




Basic Structure of an Artifact:


Currently an artifact is a randomized trigger+randomized effect. Both sides can have some weighting to their randomness, but they are basically just separate.


Instead, I propose breaking the structure into a few linked parts.




Part 1: The Activator/Charge method.


Artifacts now will have a 'charge'. When they hit 100% charge, they become 'activated'. When they hit 0% charge, they become 'deactivated' and must be fully recharged to function.


Charge methods have two parts.
Polarity: Does the artifact charge by absorbing energy or outputting it.
Energy Type: What sort of things does it get energy from?


Example Types: Positive/Negative
Thermal: Hot/Cold
Electrical: Shock/(Output power somehow?)
Atmospheric: Absorb Gas/Output Gas
Physical: Impact/Sound
Chemical: Specific Chem/Radiation(water perhaps?)




Part 2: Effect Targeting


Effect targeting will be tied, generally, to Polarity, and Origin. As some example targeting methods, we might randomly select between:


User: Instant (or delayed)
User Facing direction+Distance On Use (or with delay)
User Facing direction+Distance On Use(In Area)
Area around Artifact on Use


So Martian Artifacts that Emit power to charge might target the user.
Martian Artifacts that consume power to charge might target an area some distance away.
Wizard artifacts that Emit power to charge might affect everything in an area around the artifact.




Part 3: Effect


In the same way that Targeting is tied to Polarity and Origin, Effect is tied to Energy Type and Origin, with polarity having a factor.


Each effect, is therefore a set of categorically related effects.


Example Types: (Not inherently tied to positive or negative).
Life: Heal/Harm
Power: Generate Electricity/Emp
Sound: Generate sound/Cancel out all sound
Light: Emit Light(laser?)/Cancel it out
Structure: Force wall/Trapping target in itself
Air: Emitting O2/N2/CO2/Plasma (picks one randomly for each).


The targeting method limits how this might manifest.


For example,
We know Martian Artifacts that Emit power to charge target the user, this round.
We discover, that a martian artifact that absorbed heat to charge was a healing artifact.
We now know. that Martian artifacts that emit heat to charge, will cause harm to the target (The user!).
If we discover such an artifact, we will know (through our science), that it is simply dangerous.
We also know that NO OTHER MARTIAN ARTIFACTS will cause harm to people (directly).




Part 3.2: Power Level (bonus)


Artifacts, in order to add some texture to charging, should also have variable maximum charge.


Effects will have two versions(at least, maybe more depending on targeting), a high power version, and a low power version. All effects scale with the max charge on the artifact - healing stronger, more gas, longer duration wall, etc. When you exceed a certain threshold (100?) the effect swaps. Healing artifacts might be split between a general heal and regrowing limbs, but which is strong and which is weak depends upon the settings at round beginning.




Part 4: Power System Transplantation


Finally, in order to increase control, power systems in artifacts can be transplanted. This would likely, take a powerful cutting tool and a crowbar. When you have the Power System removed, you can relatively simply affix it to another artifact (removing it destroys the core artifact). Doing so leaves all the other properties of your new artifact, but uses the charging method and maximum power of the Power System.


This lets you test (dangerously and with less information) artifacts more easily, and lets you choose a power system that better does what you want from it. Maybe you want to overcharge this sound system until ears bleed, or turn down the wattage on this blinding light until its a nice, easy to charge lamp.




Other Notes:
Of course, none of these ideas are finalized, but I think the general concepts allow for the ability to actually research artifacts in a given round, and the charge system makes activation more important and potentially interesting. Its something that people will continue needing to know about, and will also let powers be powerful - balanced by the need to recharge.


Feedback is, of course, appreciated here.

[Nnystyxx]

Could you possibly give an example of what this would look like ingame? Say, for an enterprising artifact lab scientist, go from seeing/learning about the artifact to activating/testing it and possibly modifying it, with whatever parameters you want. Right now I'm having trouble imagining the gameplay flow.

EDIT: However, I do think this is interesting, I am just confused. Artifacts being a bit more testable and less 100% arbitrary is always good news to me.

[Keelin]

I really like the ideas here. Bit busy right now but i might type up something more exhaustive later.

[RoboTek]

Most of the current setup would remain the same, but I suppose I can give an example.

So, most of the current Art Lab would exist, as current. To make things smoother, I would add an effect to multi-tools to measure Artifact Charge.


So, as an artifact scientist, you might start off with a couple artifacts. Lets say both are Eldritch to start (gives a bit more meat to the starting research).
You decide to experiment on one of them a bit, and after hitting it with things and burning it you discover that its charge goes up when exposed to fire, but it is pretty slow.

That is pretty threatening, powerful artifacts can cause a lot of damage. You throw it in the fire in toxins to let it charge, and work on the other one more instead.

You discover it charges when you wash it with water, and pretty fast too. You poke it and electrifies you, but its pretty weak so you get up quickly. You make some notes.
Eldrich: Chemical -> Power. Absorbing-> Targets user. Chemical Emit = Emits Power

That means the thing in the other room doesn't target you directly, at least. Good odds it targets somewhere far away then.

You drag it back to the lab and poke it. Nothing seems to happen. Almost 20 squares away, people start complaining about this giant wall that is blocking off the hallway. You investigate a bit, and discover you can deploy them by poking the artifact (most active use is by poking it), and it will deploy in the direction you are facing.

This thing is pretty juiced, the barriers are lasting a couple minutes, and after playing around with it a bit, you discover the artifact turned off - out of power.
Some guy incinerated Toxins, so you aren't using the fire to recharge this. Screw this, your other artifact just shocks you. You drag your shocker-artifact in front of the PTL, and ask the engineers to crank it up for a second. The artifact becomes slag. 

You use a crowbar on the wreck, and get a Power Core. After walking back to your long range wall-maker, you jam the core in it (no tools required!). You splash some water on it to test, success, this thing is now super easy to charge.

The walls now last 10 seconds, but you figure its worth it because it runs on water.



Alternatively:

If that was an acid or some other form of 'Absorbing' effect, the second half might have gone like this: 

That means this thing that just finished charging in toxins? It is going to target the user. After thinking about it a bit, you drag it out into the hallway and pay an assistant to poke it for you.

If this was a harm effect, he would probably explode, but instead he gets a glowing shield around him. This looks like its a force-wall style effect, and he runs off thinking he is immortal (it will wear off sooner or later).
You make a note: Eldritch: Thermal -> Barriers.

You sell this to security, and tell them they will need to recharge it by using wielders on it a ton, or bringing it back to science so you can throw it into the fire.




Now, in practice, that shocking effect might have also recharged gear on you (just shocking a target direct is a bit lame), but that scientist never really investigated. They now know the targeting for Eldritch artifacts, and can (somewhat) safely test them. Both are the sort that needs to be used to be activated, so the entire line is safe. They will also have some good guesses about what cold/chemical charging artifacts will do, if they are Eldritch.



Was that clear enough?

[amaranthineApocalypse]

I must say i am a HUGE fan of this idea.

If i may, i'd like to suggest an idea. Allow power core output rates to be modified after being removed somehow, and have artifacts do different things depending on what the power output is.

Lets say for example, you took the core from that water powered eldritch shock artifact you had there, and decided to put it into a directional lighting artifact. You could set the power output to be relatively low, so that the artifact isn't very bright but it lasts for a long time on one glass of water. Or you could set it to be relatively high which would result in a nice, bright light that only lasts for about two minutes.

But lets say we manage to get our hands on a super capacity power core and turn up the output even beyond that. What if that resulted in a beam of light so intense that it sets fire to things that are directly in front of it (A la the SX-16 Nightsun). Or if you set it even higher, what if it ended up producing a power transfer laser beam.

Or what if you used a noisemaker artifact, instead of making annoying loud noises it could end up bursting eardrums shattering windows or even gibbing people due to sheer volume.

Or say you somehow manage to identify an artifact bomb...

I think it would be a really cool thing to be able to do, and would make artlab actually viable for traitors.

[Nnystyxx]

Okay I am super signed on for all of this. 5stars

[medsal15]

Hell yes. Allow us to nullify all sounds on the 3 z-levels. So you can't hear your PDA beep, your AI say there is a rampager, your captain ask for booze or ghosts yelling at each other.

[misto]

artifacts have lagged behind other research fields for a long, long time. steps to rejuvenate it will are positive in my book

[babayetu83]

i like some of the ideas here but i don't like some of the things that make it needlessly complicated

[Vitatroll]

I didn't read it because I've got 10 things going on right now, but anything to bolster artifact research is generally positive. It's one of those areas of science that has large amounts of untapped potential.

[RoboTek]

i like some of the ideas here but i don't like some of the things that make it needlessly complicated

This was as simple as I could imagine making it, while keeping some real variety in artifacts, and allowing scientists to do actual research on it.

If you have recommendations on where it can be simplified, I can certainly listen. I just hope they wouldn't result in something as bland as selecting from a random list, like the current.