Guide to Telescience
What is this strange place?
Telescience is a single room at the south end of the Research department hallway.
This area focuses on teleportation, both sending and receiving. It is equipped with a Telepad, a secure room to teleport people and things in and out of, and several handheld GPS readers.
Telescience is relatively easy complicated, and in the right hands can be a great aid... or detriment to the station.
How to telescience
Telescience has two barriers preventing you from doing whatever the hell you want: maths and bluespace crystals. Without math, you'll be randomly opening portals to nowhere useful, and without additional bluespace crystals, you'll be limited to teleporting about 60 squares in any direction.
Numbers and stuff, or why is this even fun
Firstly, the maths. Telescience works on a ballistic or parabolic trajectory - it may be helpful to imagine you're firing a cannon at the location you wish to teleport from/to.
You have four variables: Bearing (direction), power, elevation (angle from the ground), and sector (section of space).
The bearing is in degrees, and is the direction to your target from the telepad. It will randomly have an error from -10º to +10º that you will need to compensate for.
Power is selected from a series of defined power levels, which can be unlocked with bluespace crystals. It has a random error from 0 to -4 applied to it.
Elevation can be set from 0º to 90º, and represents the vertical angle you are firing your imaginary cannon at. You can see that if you aim close to vertically, you'll get a high shot that lands close to your origin. If you aim at 45º, you'll get an optimum long shot that goes as far as possible. If you fire at less than 45º, your shot will hit the ground earlier.
Sector is which 'level' of the game map you're zapping about on. This will usually be 1 unless you're screwing with the mining outpost.
To successfully teleport, you need to know the following: - Location of the telepad (x₁, y₁) - Location of the target (x₂, y₂) - The bearing offset (b) - the power offset (p)
This allows you to calculate the distance between them: x₂ - x₁ in a north/south direction, and y₂ - y₁ in the east-west direction, let's call that Δx and Δy. The straight line distance can be found using pythagorus's theorem:
distance D = square root of ( (Δx)² + (Δy)² ).
To figure out the bearing to your destination, you'll need to do one of the following calculations, depending on if Δx and Δy are positive or negative:
| Δx is positive, Δy is positive: | arctan(Δy/Δx) |
| Δx is negative, Δy is positive: | arctan(Δy/Δx) + 180º |
| Δx is negative, Δy is negative: | arctan(Δy/Δx) - 180º |
| Δx is 0, Δy is positive: | 90º |
| Δx is 0, Δy is negative: | 270º |
Some calculators will have an atan2 function that will use the correct function from the above table for you automatically.
Once you have the angle, adjust it by the bearing offset as required.
So you now have the correct bearing, and need to find the power level and elevation to use.
The lowest amount of power required to do this teleport would be a perfect 45º shot, so we need to figure out the next available power level above that.
Through some magic maths, the minimum power you require is equal to the square root of (D × 10). Pick the next highest power level P from the console, adding in the power offset if required.
You'll also need to know the maximum range possible with the power level you just selected:
Dmax = square root of ((P - power offset) × 10)
You now have the bearing and power level, and just need the elevation.
Elevation = (antisine of (distance required divided by the maximum possible distance)) ÷ 2.
To figure out the bearing and power offsets, teleport a GPS at 45º at bearing 0º, and reverse the calculations to work out how far off it was from where it should have ended up.
Examples:
Calibration at Power 20, Elevation 45º, Bearing 0º:
The GPS should travel 40 squares north. However, it went -3 squares in the x axis and only 39 squares in the y axis, travelling just 39.1 units.
We can work out the equivalent power level: Square root of ((10×distance travelled) ÷ sine of ( 2 × elevation)) = power of 19.7, which is close enough to 20 that we can say there is probably no power offset.
The GPS was actually sent on a bearing equal to the inverse tan of (-3 ÷ 39), or about -4º, which gives us our bearing offset.
Getting an item from (-45, 16y):
That's a straight line distance of 47.76 units, at a bearing of -70.4º. Adjusting for the offset, i need to aim for about -74º, or 286º as a positive angle.
It'd take 21.8 units of power to reach it at a 45º shot, so I'll choose 25 power units for my Dmax, which works out to be 62.5.
The elevation I need is therefore the antisine of (47.76/62.5) ÷ 2, which is 24.9º.
Setting up your lab
1. Grab a screwdriver and a Multitool.
2. Screw drive the telepad open.
3. Tap it with the multitool to upload that teleporter's information.
4. Screw drive the telepad closed.
5. Tap the Telepad Control Console with the Multitool.
Congratulations you have just synched that teleporter console to that telepad.
6. Add the 3 blue crystals to the Telepad Control Console.
Next, you'll want to put on a Radiation Suit found wherever you can get it. Ask Engineering. The Telepad will emit random radiation waves that will Irradiate anything in the room.
Depending on if you wish to enter and exit the Telepad room, you may set the two portable scrubbers at max power in the chamber. Overtime, the Telepad will generate Plasma gas and catch fire. In order to properly cool off the room after a scrubbed fire, you may require to setup a cooling system. Some will bug the Atmospheric Technician to install a Air Alarm, whilst others will simply remove the wall to Toxins Storage.
Still on the subject of scrubbers, you may want to borrow the two Huge Air Scrubbers in Toxins Storage and turn them on using the Area Air Control computer. It'll help speed the process.
Using your lab
Now that you've got your equipment on, you're ready for action! Take one of the GPS devices on the table and go put it on the telepad. Make sure to remember it's ID! Now go to that fancy purple console and bring it up. You'll see multiple buttons. Begin by clicking "Recalibrate". You should see a "Calibration Successful" message.
Sadly, every 30 to 40 teleportations (the exact number is randomized every calibration) the Telepad will decalibrate. This means you can teleport one more time, and any further teleportation attempts will fail, causing fires, hostile mobs spawning, and radiation. To avoid this, you need to click Recalibrate and start from step 1. Learn to recalibrate quickly, or you may end up in a heap of trouble.
Leave handy beacons around the station, and GPS units at interesting locations in space, and you can easily find them again. It's worth putting something down in the Medbay so you can quickly send the wounded and the dead there. A good thing to consider is to build a crew monitoring computer in the telescience room, or get an engineer to build one for you. That way, you can directly obtain the coordinates of any dead or dying crew, and teleport them directly to Medbay or Genetics.
Challenges for the Robust in All of Us
- Be useful and teleport dead bodies to Genetics for cloning, or injured crew straight to Medbay for treatment!
- Teleport an Engineering Cyborg straight to a hull breach!
- Borrow all the Chef's donuts!
- Teleport the last remaining revhead into the Brig for implanting!
- Find the remaining Bananium ore and construct a H.O.N.K. mech for the Clown!
- Teleport the Nuclear Device around during a Nuclear Operatives -round! Bonus points if it's right after they stick in DAT FUKKEN DISK and before they input the code! Double bonus points for teleporting it to the derelict! 8x points if you TELEPORT IT TO TEH ABR!
- Teleport a bomb onto a malfunctioning AI's core!
- Teleport the Woody's Got Wood reader into LORD SINGULOTH!
Traitor Usage
You're a syndicate and you've been assigned as Scientist. You see a lot of potential for your objectives. You're damned right! Amongst countless things, here's a few useful ideas.
- Teleport your target to a whole entire different Z-level that you just populated with xenomorph queens and the supermatter crystal.
- Steal that locker and take that precious jumpsuit then send it back. Unseen, unknown.
- Flood the chamber with N20 and teleport in anyone with valuable objects.
- Teleport harmful artifacts into the brig. Disable that shitcurity!
- Drop in a !FUN! surprise in that meeting of the heads.