Lavaland Geothermal Power - New Station Goal

[Charliminator]

Goal - Send X amount of power back to CC

Setup method

Clear a large area on lavaland. And place down drills a distance apart from each other, and activate them. These drills could be orderable from cargo or the machine boards orderable and require science to build them? These drills would then start a timer until they complete. During this time, they would disturb the local wildlife. Hoards of lavaland fauna would attempt to attack the drills, and destroy them. It would be the miners and engineers jobs to keep the machines defended and repaired with nanopaste.

After the drills have completed drilling, pumps would be placed over the drill holes. These pumps would pump plasma deep underground superheating it, and producing power. This power would be routed into a “power beamer” of sorts, which would blast this concentrated energy back to CC for cargo points. The power beamer’s machine board would be ordered from CC then constructed using high tier science parts.

Balancing

The more holes you drill, the more power you make, at the cost of disturbing the wildlife each time. Drilling a new hole creates a massive surge of mobs to fight, maintaining a power plant would create a small trickle of mobs. This means that a few powerplants are easy to maintain, however they will complete the goal slowly. Setting up lots of power plants produces more power however you might get overwhelmed with mobs.

New lavaland fauna

The burrower. A snake like creature that lives underground. Rarely surfaces, unless there is an earthquake or a disturbance in the ground… such as drilling into it.

They don’t “move” instead they pop up out of the ground then dig back under, getting slowly closer to their target. They do high damage, however they have low health so you have to shoot them in the brief periods in which they surface.

Why is it good for the game?

It adds more variety to rounds, giving miners and engineers more to do. Also, @AffectedArc07 wants his argent.

Rewards and such are up for discussion.

[S34N]

I LOVE this idea. You could even give atmos something to do by having them take pipe exported plasma and run it through some sort of new process to "purify" it or something before generating power for CC.

[Sirryan2002]

Might be a good chance for people to start investing in turrets. Bring some tower defense to the game lmao.

[MattTheFicus]

Thoroughly love this idea. The thought of Mining Tower Defense with this while also dealing with the usual Lavaland issues sounds AMAZINGLY fun. Hell, you could hire Civilians to put on the front lines to help defend too.

[Viz]

A use for combat miners? An excuse for assistants to go unga in a controlled way? 

Love it.

[Starmarine3355]

Brilliant idea! I am especially keen on the idea of an instant response from the wild fauna in comparison to the harvester goal which requires nonsensical amounts of power for defense to even be discussed. Will be fun to see this project develop!

[MattTheFicus]

Also, this is quite literally the plot to Doom 

Edit: I’m dumb and didn’t even see the argent note :honk:

Edited July 1, 2021 by MattTheFicus

[Longpipe23]

You should totally have it need filters that are necessary for it to produce power. THEN, have it be a traitor objective to sabotage the aforementioned filters; could totally get S. Hayden from the Syndicate Communique to say, "We are only temporarily disabling the towers; you need to remove each lens individually. Carefully release the hinges..." 

[robveelben]

I like the idea but it sounds a lot of work for the coders

[Charliminator]

15 minutes ago, robveelben said:

I like the idea but it sounds a lot of work for the coders

That's why I am here. I am proposing this idea to see if people, heads, maints, like it before I start work on it.

[maxfromsweden]

I like it! Could also lead to interesting interactions with the natives on Lavaland. I feel they've been quite underutilized.

[Veterankyl]

I really like this idea myself, too. I'm always up for new station goals, and this one would really encourage a lot of cooperation among the crew.

 

[PacifistDalek]

Love it! If you wanted to include another department, perhaps botany could make better filters out of durathread or the like? Something that isn't necessary, but would help the output? 

[Veterankyl]

A few potential ideas for rewards I've thought of for this goal.

Unlockable Cargo Crates

A couple of select cargo crates that only become available after certain point thresholds are met. The first few could be ones that aid in further drilling, such as Oupost Defense crates with gear for fighting off enemy swarms or defending existing pumps. Later crates could be things like exotic material crates containing diamond and bluespace crystals, to make up for mining being distracted by defending the drills.

Uncovered Artifacts

While drilling, there could be the possibility of unearthing valuables and treasures. The most common would be mined materials, but there could also be a chance of unearthing Necropolis Chests, and in extremely rare cases, a boss chest.

Rare Enemy Spawns

Drilling could increase the chance of rare fauna spawning, giving those xeno-collectors a fun time trying to catch 'em all (And then force them to defend the very thing they sought to destroy.)