is lljk dead

[Flourish]

Telescience is already pretty easy to operate - utilities just help expedite the process. The guide on the wiki tells it all - it's just algebra. I seriously do not see what's so extraordinary difficult about calculating two equations and plugging some numbers in, even if you don't consider yourself a math person.

Also, from what I've seen, no one has really taken the initiative, aside from a couple telescientists themselves who ask for people to join their expeditions (and often don't receive many responses). At least for me, if I were a scientist, I'd be absolutely happy to drop you off some place and let you explore. Or even explain step by step how to calculate offsets and coordinates. It's just that people rarely ask in game. Even if you've been refused once or twice, it really doesn't hurt to ask again. Lots of people are perfectly nice and willing to help others with these things.

[Roomba]

What I miss from the old days was when you could keep a portal up with telesci indefinitely without a hellburn, so you could just leave it up to the zone of choice, yell for the AI to bolt telesci's public door open, and any bored assistants could wander in to check things out. The change was done to encourage cooperation in telescientists, but ever since then interest in it has been steadily dropping because the anarchic expeditions of the past have been replaced by yelling for intrepid explorers, waiting half an hour for them to gather supplies, having only one guy show up at the end, and then finding out the mainframe is down because no one set up the solars.

Also the actual 'convert X to Y' maths is only a fraction of what makes telesci offputting to the common man. Sure you can work out the maths, but you still have to work out what the adventure zones are and how to get there, you have to learn what tools, items and weapons to bring so you don't get instantly die or get stuck in the first room, and you have to either get your hands on the portasci remote/program or accept the fact that you just might end up stuck offstation through circumstances entirely beyond your control. Sure, all that stuff is stuff that can be worked out from trial and error, but as this thread has clearly established, even getting past the 'basic maths' part is too much of a hurdle for some.

[Maegor]

You just need an artifact powercell, that can keep the portal open for quite a while

[misto]

Telescience is already pretty easy to operate - utilities just help expedite the process. The guide on the wiki tells it all - it's just algebra. I seriously do not see what's so extraordinary difficult about calculating two equations and plugging some numbers in, even if you don't consider yourself a math person.

Also, from what I've seen, no one has really taken the initiative, aside from a couple telescientists themselves who ask for people to join their expeditions (and often don't receive many responses). At least for me, if I were a scientist, I'd be absolutely happy to drop you off some place and let you explore. Or even explain step by step how to calculate offsets and coordinates. It's just that people rarely ask in game. Even if you've been refused once or twice, it really doesn't hurt to ask again. Lots of people are perfectly nice and willing to help others with these things.

well then, if its so easy, then theres nothing being lost in lowering the barrier to entry a tad further

---

Every sane person uses utilities for telsci anyways.

If every sane person uses a utility, why not change the system so it's easier to use?

[Sov]

I like the idea of telescience being more accessible via lower portal energy costs (and less random exploding)

The void portal lasts forever and attracts lots of staff assistants inside. Thats how I even learned about the adventure zones

[Flourish]

well then, if its so easy, then theres nothing being lost in lowering the barrier to entry a tad further

I don't think that's true.

In order to make maxcap canbombs, you first have to understand the basics of how the pumps, valves, and gasses work. In order to make a hellchem mix, you have to understand how different chemicals interact with each other and in the body. In order to research artifacts, you have to understand what to use as stimuli in order to activate then. In order to operate the telescience computer, you have to understand how to do some math. If all the adventure zone locations were just, say, bookmarked in at roundstart, the small amount of work you have to do in order to have access to so many different places would be lost. If people don't even want to do the math, or download a utility that does it for them, then it should be their loss.

In regards to how it often takes lots of preparation or out-of-game-knowledge to find and explore an area without dying - the locations are all there with the distress signals, and the point of going to those places should just be to explore and have fun. Some people speak derisively of Sol nerds who speedrun places and seem to already know everything. But it often feels like they're expecting things just being served to them on a platter. Bring medkits, bring internals, bring tools, bring guns. Send the camera in and take note of what the surrounding area looks like. Yeah, you'll might just end up dying. But that's what happens, and it's a learning process. And as always, you can always just ask around for tips. Lots of people are always open to giving out help.

[misto]

we dont make people get an ingame pilots license to fly a miniputt and die in the debris field or an ingame forklift operators license to drive the forklift because they are well-designed and accessible. telesci is designed top to bottom to be a secret nerd club for an elite few and most of the nerds of said secret club dont give a shit about it anymore

i have tried to crack telesci without use of spreadsheets several times in the past with the help of wiki guide, and it has consistently taken me ~20 minutes each time to get even one place unreliably accessible, if i havent been slaughtered first, and if theres enough power to run a portal. im old and have mostly forgotten how to do y=mx+b algebra highschool level math because i dont give a shit about it and it isnt relevant to my life outside of ss13.

theres a reason they used to wait for deserted server times to do their telesci exploring and thats because it is highly incompatible with regular round to round play

canbombs and hellchem mixes have a good reason to be a little tricky to get to, because they murder people good and take huge bites out of the station, and even then its just about memorizing a series of steps that dont change every round, unlike the telesci equations.

telesci zones are regularly more of a danger to anyone visiting them than any goodies people may manage to extract from them are a danger to others.

in conclusion stop clutching your precious pearls

[Noah Buttes]

Having thought about my statement some more, I'd like to clarify what I meant.

I didn't mean that the sites would be bookmarked from roundstart. I meant that you could use the quantum telescope, which doesn't require math, to find them and book mark them into the long range telescope.

Yeah, it'd be really boring to just have the telesci stuff available immediately at roundstart.

[Vitatroll]

Every sane person uses utilities for telsci anyways.

TBH I think it's a design problem if you have to use an external program to use the system to it's fullest. I know that utility has the admins blessings, but it still feels incredibly metagamey to me.

If every sane person uses a utility, why not change the system so it's easier to use?

Just to reiterate, my post was designed to show that the 'effort lost' was minimal. It was actually an argument for making things easier; I had just been up around 36 hours and really shouldn't have been posting.

Or, in the very least, make it so the portal can be left open as Roomba stated. Yes, you can do that now, but there's no reason to make people jump through hoops when they just want to help other people have fun.

[Tom Clancy's Gay Ghost]

Or, in the very least, make it so the portal can be left open as Roomba stated. Yes, you can do that now, but there's no reason to make people jump through hoops when they just want to help other people have fun.

Isn't that exactly what needing to do actual algebra and use an outside resource that new people won't know about does?

[Lady Birb]

Wow this turned from "is lljk dead" to "how can we improve telesci" real quick.
Though yeah I agree: Either allow players to use the quantum telescope+long range teleporter instead of having to do algebra, make permportals practical, or both.

[babayetu83]

Wow this turned from "is lljk dead" to "how can we improve telesci" real quick.
Though yeah I agree: Either allow players to use the quantum telescope+long range teleporter instead of having to do algebra, make permportals practical, or both.

telescience is a symptom of the problem

[misto]

tell us of your thoughts on the root cause babayetu, theres no point being tight lipped in this thread of all threads

[babayetu83]

tell us of your thoughts on the root cause babayetu, theres no point being tight lipped in this thread of all threads

what you said a few pages ago pretty much sums up how i feel, a lot of work being put towards content only a tiny fraction of the server will ever see 

my only real issue that i haven't seen brought up is that everything is a chore and a half to do. it doesn't bother me as much since i'm used to it but i think the fact that everything is so frustrating to figure out, and just as frustrating to carry out ingame for a newcomer could have something to do with the waning population

[ZeWaka]

what you said a few pages ago pretty much sums up how i feel, a lot of work being put towards content only a tiny fraction of the server will ever see 

holy shit sol stuff hasn't even really been worked on since last year in march

why do y'all think coders spend 90% of their time working on solarium stuff