Uses for Rare High Tech Levels

[MrMagolor]

There are some tech levels which are rare to get, but are useless outside of tech disks.

Examples include:

Anomaly cores have a tech value of 7 in one of a random few categories such as Engineering and Power Manipulation, which can get you to level 8.

Certain Abductor tools can also get you to level 8s, such as Materials 8 and Biology 8.

Nuclear Operative items (some of which, namely Donksoft weapons, can also be gotten from Sol Traders) generally have Illegal Tech level 6.

Of course, these high tech levels have no real reward for achieving them.

For anomaly cores, it could be made a choice between getting a Phazon or some fancy new tech.

Alien tools are already enough of a reward, so Abductor stuff isn't as big a deal.

Things that require Illegal tech cap at requiring Illegal 3.

I have some ideas, but feel free to make your own.

Power 8 could let you make the artificial equivalent of a yellow slime cell.

Materials 8 could let you make Synthetic Diamonds from a large amount of plasma.

Biotech 8 could let you make Artificial Xenomorph Organs (except egg-laying of course).

High Illegal tech could let you make e-shields(which would not be lockboxed, as teleshields are not), and/or "energy broadswords": they are still lockboxed, and they also have a larger handle than normal eswords, preventing desword creation, and also being unable to be stored in pockets.

[Jazz]

Would like you add you can't make anything with power 7, engineering 7, or Data 7.

[davidchan]

Add inductors would be neat, I believe tg code has them where they can transfer power from a cell in the inductor to another object, be it an APC, SMES, Borg, Stun Baton or other battery powered equipment. Could split it up so power 2 or 3 gives a low efficiency one that only passes 50w per 100w used, a mid level one at power 5 that does 1 for 1 and power 7 could be a bluespace inductor that can remotely transfer power to anything in line of sight.

Engineering 7 could be an Advanced RCD, 'Clone Tool' that could scan and detect an area up to 5x5 tiles and then build it somewhere else.

As for Data 7, hard to say what would be applicable. A remote body/surrogate system perhaps, VR-like pods where you build an IRC or similiar body then hop in the pod and control it remotely, good for allowing crew to work on radiation or toxic hazards without putting themselves at harm, though obviously leaving the controller completely blind and oblivious to any dangers around their actual body. Or a pAI implant that allows you to directly install one into your head and chat privately chat with them in psuedo-telepathic whispers (think Cortana plugged into Master Chief's helmet in Halo.)

[Dinarzad]

7 hours ago, davidchan said:

Or a pAI implant that allows you to directly install one into your head and chat privately chat with them in psuedo-telepathic whispers (think Cortana plugged into Master Chief's helmet in Halo.)

I've long wanted an "Advanced pAI" item, something that takes high research an more expensive materials, but is actually useful to have around, beyond simply shrieking over general chatter anyway.
It's data jack cable instead becoming a wireless transmitter, It's medical suite giving far more information, like a portable body scanner or Health Analyzer with the augment, etc.

The concept behind a pAI is great. Be someone's personal Cortana an be more or less a sentient smartphone. The execution of them, leaving so limited, makes them of dubious value beyond just someone to talk to. An Advanced shell/pAI Upgrade can be locked behind much more stringent requirements to balance out the additional utility it provides, since not everyone is liable to get one.

[davidchan]

Another idea for Data 6+ item(s):

Advanced Departmental HUDs.

Adv Med Hud would allow the wearer see a person's health stats on examine (Brute, Burn, Oxyloss, Toxin) as well as any sign of broken bones and such. An optional overlay for the Health HUD could be added for Adv models that shows what kind of damage and gives a more real time representation of that user's declining or improving health, or a clever coder/spriter could attempt to make overlays that would highlight body sections or limbs that are damaged or suffering internal injures.

Adv Diagnostic HUD would work like the Medical but for robots, allowing the wearer to see component damage, if any, upon examination.

Adv Meson Scanner would add material scanner to the meson vision, allowing the wearer to see items through walls and darkness. This could also be used to examine machines to see status of internal wires (cut or what lights/functions are active) or even immediately highlight which wires control which functions for hacking, as well as allowing to them to examine cabling, pipes and tanks to their contents (how much power is in a wire, how much gas is in a pipe and composition, ect...)

Adv Security Hud would likely just be relegated to showing a person's intent while moving around, or even flag automatically anyone carrying a weapon or dangerous contraband level item

I don't really know how you could improve Science and Hydroponics HUDs except perhaps to see the tempature of reagents or the last reagent, if any, that was in a container, or the age of the plant and estimated time until next stage/when it will be harvestable or die.

Beyond that, a combination HUD might be in order, such as a Med/Sec HUD or Meson/DIagnostic HUD

[Jazz]

21 minutes ago, davidchan said:

Beyond that, a combination HUD might be in order, such as a Med/Sec HUD or Meson/DIagnostic HUD

I already coded a thing that combined huds, and it got rejected.

[MrMagolor]

8 minutes ago, Jazz said:

I already coded a thing that combined huds, and it got rejected.

I think that was because that PR was bloated with a good few OP items.

If you made the multi-HUD its own PR, and made it require i.e. engi 8, it would hopefully get accepted.

[Pennwick]

7 hours ago, davidchan said:

I don't really know how you could improve Science and Hydroponics HUDs except perhaps to see the tempature of reagents or the last reagent, if any, that was in a container, or the age of the plant and estimated time until next stage/when it will be harvestable or die.

An upgraded science HUD could maybe read the contents of the RPED in your hand and put a marker by machines upgradable with the parts inside.

[MrMagolor]

Another thought, though this might be a bit OP:

Bio 8 and/or Alien 4 and/or Bluespace 8 would let you make a "Recall Implant" very similar to the ones that Abductors use: before implanting, you use the implant on a tracking beacon to "scan" it, and then the implant will be able to teleport you to that beacon with a long cooldown. Bags of Holding would still interfere with the teleport, and EMPing the implant would make you do a short-range teleport similar to the reactive teleport armor.

[MrMagolor]

On 3/7/2019 at 5:05 PM, Pennwick said:

An upgraded science HUD could maybe read the contents of the RPED in your hand and put a marker by machines upgradable with the parts inside.

Adding to that, an upgraded hydroponic HUD could let you view plant stats simply from examining the tray.

[MrMagolor]

Actually, thinking about it: most of the HUDs could be upgraded to have the same effect on examine that their portable ones do: i.e. medHUD would be health analyzer, diagnostic HUD would be cyborg analyzer, etc. This should probably be a toggleable effect, so that your chatlog doesn't get clogged from examining people.

Advanced mesons could just be x-ray/thermal goggles, though that's pretty iffy given that there's already ways of getting x-ray/thermal through R&D. Alternatively, you could just be able to make the "Material Scanner Goggles" or w/e they're called, that allow you to see everything but turfs (and maybe mobs) through walls.

The advanced secHUD could just be HUDsunglasses: they'd be like the R&D hand drill/jaws of life, where they have a high cost to produce, but have low R&D values.

Advanced Science Goggles could also tell reagent temperature at a glance, which would coincide well with the Goonchem update that Fox is doing.

Important to note that these advanced HUDs would also not  be night vision.

Edited March 19, 2019 by MrMagolor
Elaborating greatly, new ideas, important note

[Calecute]

I'd really like a blueprint hud actually

[MrMagolor]

I also had an idea for a "magnification HUD" that would act like the sniper scope. Though this would probably require SOME illegals, in addition to Data 7/8.

[MrMagolor]

Also, power 7 could let you make a PACMAN2-type portable generator, that you could switch between operating off of plasma, uranium, or diamonds, or possibly have hoppers for all three.