Telescience Bugs and Reworks

[Fox McCloud]

 

First off, let me first make sure I have a proper understanding of Telescience (Bay/TG):

 

-You recalibrate a teleporter and it gains a random number of uses (between 8 and 12) before it becomes uncalibrated.

-When calibrated, the teleporter will teleport an object/mob on the pad to the X+Y+Z co-ordinates input, but with a random X and Y offset (which is off by -10 to +10); Z-level is constant.

-Inputting and invalid co-ordinate (or z-level) will make the pad fizzle, irradiate, start a fire, or spawn hostile mobs.

-There's a random chance (even with good co-ordinates) that the teleporter will fail and do one of the above.

-Basic gist is to set a unique tag on a GPS, send it through, note how off it is, then correct for this and you can teleport to any location until you have to recalibrate.

 

Suggestions:

 

-Remove limited amount of uses before recalibration event is called.

-Remove recalibration as something the user can do.

-Reformat irradiate to flash+knockdown instead of irradiate--this has a chance of calling the recalibration event if it happens.

-Malfunctions only occur if an invalid co-ordinate is input (negative numbers and numbers outside the map range would be an example of invalid)

-X and Y scrambling are random, but not as easily solveable; would be great if solving for t=mb+c is how to get the offset (T = the results, M and C are constants, and B is what you input) . (further explanation here: http://wiki.ss13.co/Teleporter_Lab#Oper ... teleporter). If a player can solve it, then the teleporter will put an item/mob at the EXACT precise location every time without worry of malfunction.

-Add recharge time for sending and receiving so players have to wait a bit between uses.

-Sending/recieving leaves a small temporary glow at the sent to location so quick stealth grabs are obvious if someone walks into the room.

-Ability to save co-ordinates to a buffer and name them so they can be easily selected again.

-Ability to open/close a portal on the teleportation pad; this creates a portal to the location you specify and creates a portal that leads back to the teleport pad at the destination you arrive. This rapdily drains power from the APC where the Telescience computer is; if the telescience computer runs out of power, the portal closes and it calls the recalibration event.

 

This removes the random frustration of telescience malfunctions and ties the ability to use telescience to mechanical+mathematical skill; additionally allows for more creative and consistent use once a player has figured out how the teleporter works.

 

[Roland410]

Yes please, if someone could do the math, don't change it for that round though, and no radiation if possible, mob support would be welcome too, and possibly, z-level teleports, this could be a constant though, but just a suggestion.

[Fox McCloud]

 

Yes please, if someone could do the math, don't change it for that round though, and no radiation if possible, mob support would be welcome too, and possibly, z-level teleports, this could be a constant though, but just a suggestion.

 

The constants that you solve for should change if the player messes up or makes a mistake and rolls for the flash event (and that in and of itself rolls for recalibration).....or if you leave the portal open too long.

 

Mobs can already be teleported and received, and different Z-levels can be entered (some are restricted for obvious reasons).

 

After several bits of testing, the only real risk with telescience, currently, is the random malfunctioning events--otherwise, it's merely sending one thing through, noting the offset, then bam, you can instantly solve+correct for (with mere substraction/addition) the offset for the next 7-11 teleports.