Ideas for new artifact effects

[Midaychi]

 

Aside: This is all moot and ignorable if xenoarch doesn't end up getting re-added after TG mining.

 

Also

- it might be worth limiting large artifacts to having a single effect instead of having a main system and a subsystem.

- it might be worth copying the artifact power utilizer thingydoodle code from VG, as theirs is fixed up and works properly.

- might be worth having a 'damaged' state to large artifacts. Chance of it coming out damaged, or being damaged by some strong event, that causes it not to work quite as reliably or have negative effects.

 

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Below are some stupid ideas I've come up with for artifacts, some blatantly similar to goon, others not.

 

 

-------Old bluespace artifact used to teleport you into the contents of objects before it was fixed.

Repurpose the oldcode and make some way to escape or get freed, and also allow you to move around as said object? Ie, become an office chair or toolbox or whatever and move about the station.

 

--------- Enhanced Replicator

Currently, the replicator accepts any object as input and has a very small defined list of things you can produce from it.

 

Change it so that it works off materials or something instead, and only accepts sheets/material/meat/plant produce.

Then add a whole lot more item and monster probabilities to it. Huge swaths of things useful and garbage alike. Produce candy wrappers and burgers and energy guns and space carp plushies and ert helmets. Whatever.

 

----------- Enhanced autocloner.

Expand the selection of mobs it can choose from to have the one it prints out,

Make it only power on if wrenched above a knot in a wire,

and make it able to be sped up by screwdrivering it, and slown down by wirecutting it. Speeding it up causes it to use increasingly extreme amounts of power from whatever wire it's on.

then either:

 

Change it so that you have to fill it with synthmeat reagent

or

Change it so that you have to load it with plant/animal fossils

(or possibly both).

 

----- Additional possible thing for the autocloner ----

 

If wrenched down next to a fauna reconstitution console, the console and pod will become enhanced. Any completed fossil grown from the fauna reconstitutor when an autocloner is nearby will query ghosts who qualify to sign up and inhabit the result. You could expand the types of mobs that you could find fossils for too, and have all sorts of crazy spooky aliens runnig around with no cultural identity or knowlege of times before being printed out.

 

Maybe make it so you can inject the autocloner with blood to make the outcome loyal to you, if using with the fauna recon console? That way they'd be like spooky xenobio golems.

 

 

 

-------- More unknown artifact effects (note, these only function if you activate the artifact)

 

-Make some small artifacts small sized and able to be picked up.

Small-large artifacts could be things like:

 

- Reagent Container - random reagent containers

- Physical Container - Some sort of box full of rare loot.

- Battery - random capacity battery

- Weapon - Duplicate the function of a weapon

- Tool - Random tool. Ie, drills, picks, RPD, whatever.

- Wand - Duplicate the function of a magic spell

- Emitter - Emit useless effects or shoot a random icon

- Mini noisemaker - Emits a noise when fired. Can include the admin 'bowink' sound

- Capture device - Works like capture balls, but can capture any mob that isn't the ai or cyborgs/drones. Throw it at mob to attempt capture. If brainless, mob will randomly attempt resisting out depending on how wounded they are.

 

If having a brain/ghost, they will be notified that a capture attempt is in progress and that RESIST in big bold letters can resist out, resist will be pretty successful at resisting out. Best way to capture a person is to either have consent or drug them so they can't resist. Capturing successfully will brainwash target into being loyal to you, and be deployable/undeployable at whim.

 

 

Some effects you could add to large unknown artifacts

 

- Lamp - Emits bright light that's not harmful unless you're sensitive to light or something.

- Holy lamp - Same as above but negatively affects cultists/wizards

- Unholy lamp - Same as above but positively affects cultists/wizards

 

- Darkness - opposite of lamp

 

- Confinement - Sucks you up and holds you (or if an aura, a nearby person after a tickdown timer) for a minute or two before spitting you back out. You're immune to space exposure and fire/cold/bombs while inside.

 

In this case, "human" refers to any humanoid (vox, humans, greys, humans, etc)

- Human2Cyborg - Does what it says on the tin. Boop Beep. Can only be touched by humans

- Human2Drone - As above

- Human2??? - Same effect as staff of change, but on toucher. Can only be touched by humans.

 

- Mutation - Instead of randomly mutating, it will choose a single mutation when created and grant that mutation to whoever gets caught in its effect or touch or whatever. Can be any mutation.

 

- Prickly - Picks up to three random reagents, and will inject anyone who touches with them.

 

- Noisemaker - Emits a random noise with pitch shifting almost constantly. Hide near important head's office for maximum delight.

 

- Container - Is a larger version of the small containers. Functions basically as a water/welder/whatever tank.

 

- Wormhole - Touching this will generate a wormhole nearby and another wormhole somewhere else randomly on a non-centcom zlevel. The wormhole will stay open as long as the artifact is active. Deactivating and reactivating the artifact will make a new random wormhole.

 

- Bomb - An explosive device with a random strength. Activating it will give an obvious notification and begin a countdown. You can disarm it with some effort and creativity, but are better off ejecting it into space.

 

- Laughter - Causes anyone caught touching it or in its aura to laugh uncontrollably, often falling over helplessly.

 

- Meteors - Summons a meteor storm. Self explanatory

 

- Singularity - Similar functionality and warning to bomb, but instead of exploding it cascades into a singularity instead.

 

- Chicken Eater - All chickens nearby will be dragged into it and gibbed into a poof of feathers. If enough chickens are consumed, it will shoot out a golden egg. If this golden egg is hatched, the resulting chicken will lay gold coins instead of eggs.

 

- Swapper - Swaps the consciousness of nearby mobs.

 

- Machine - Duplicates the functionality of a machine with max tier components, but isn't constructible. Might need to be wrenched down to connect to other machines.

Some examples; Exosuit fabricator, clone pod, chem dispenser, cyborg charger, etc.

 

- Mech - Is actually a bizarre looking mech. Picks randomly from all the normally constructible station mechs, and just looks like a weird artifact.

 

- Disrober - Causes the jumpsuits of any mob nearby to suddenly fly off a few tiles away.

 

- Cleanser - Cleans places around it slowly and cleans any tile it's dragged over. Can fight kudzu.

 

- Corruptor - Cultifies nearby places

 

- Matter eater - Eats anything you specifically throw at it (besides projectiles). When it has eaten enough, it pulses and outputs a random new item.

 

[Taaketa]

 

I had some thoughts on this too:

 

The Power Loss Crystal - Change this so it requires charging before it causes powerloss. After reaching charge it changes colour from green to say to glowing orange or something.

 

After charging it the emitter once every 10 minutes fires out a pulse that drain's 10% of a systems power reserves, APCs, SMES, Borgs etc.

Using an emitter on the crystal forces it to over charge changing from orange to red to purple. At purple the crystal will pulse power loss of 100% to all APCs, SMES and Borgs. It will also explode, similar to that of the supermatter. A fully charged crystal would take up to somewhere between 40-50 minutes. So plenty of time to notice for an AI or RD to inspect.

The 100% pulse or any pulse for that matter can be disabled by using a signler and analyiser on the crystal finding the frequency and pulsing it. The frequency will change every time the crystal 'evolves' into a higher power pulse.

 

 

Alien Gun - Findable object on the asteroid. Simply name "An alien device". Trying to fire it without messing with the settings will produce an empty clicking noise similar to empty lasers.

 

The settings on the weapon will have 5 triangles. Pressing them in the right order will activate the weapons lethal abiltiy, stun ability, self-destruct function and disable self destruct after activating it. The Self-destruct will have a destructive force similar to a syndicate gernade.

Using a multitool on the weapon after each activation of a button will give an indication of the weapons current state. For example the lethal / stun option could look something like this:

 

"It appears the power core is now online."

"The power core begins to hum."

"The power core changes to a red hue / blue hue."

"The weapon's targetting system turns on."

"The weapon hums with a disconcerting noise."

 

 

Self destruct could be.

 

"It appears the power core is now online."

"The power core begins to shine brightly."

"The power core changes to purple."

"The weapon begins to vibrate."

"The weapon begins to make a worrying beeping noise."

 

Just a couple of ideas.