Guest Marlon Phoenix Posted January 3, 2016 Posted January 3, 2016 The foundation of this suggestion is a device that acts like an automated xeno-archaeologist. Keep this in mind! What's the lore? Bluespace was discovered 45 years ago, and despite this we know very little about it. Attempts to jump into this alternate dimension without an exit-point leads to a 100% disappearance rate. And in your travel you're in bluespace for what feels like an instant before exiting to your destination. Early attempts to estimate the length of time spent in bluespace has estimates from a single attosecond (one quintillionth of a second, used in photon research) or even a full femtosecond! (A femtosecond is one millionth of a nanosecond, used in laser measurements.) Wow, a real nerd made up these terms. Anyway, An immense investment of time and resources by Nanotrasen has the potential to revolutionize our knowledge of bluespace! The Nanotrasen Bluespace Probe, or NBP, is a new advancement in bluespace technology that has the potential to take direct readings from the bluespace dimension. What is it? The probe is a pushable/pullable item that takes up a space similar to a locker. It has an internal posibrain (not player controlled, it's to explain how reports can have a personalized flair to them), a telecrystal, and the other fancy science components required in the prolathe, and has the ability to have GPS attached to it(!!!important!!!). How do I work it? The crystal housed inside the probe has been given the ability to be reusable due to extremely expensive research and development. Each individual reusable crystal costs about the same as the entire Aurora station, so don't lose it! The probe is meant to teleport away when clicked twice - the first click turning it on with a little flavor text, and the second click teleporting it away. The machine starts to hum gently, the air around it smelling faintly like a fresh orange. The Probe requires 3 supercapacity powercells and 50 units of solid plasma for each jump, and each of them are depleted completely when the probe returns to its original location*. (This should be extrodinarily easy for science to achieve when staffed, but making it more difficult would be extensive effort for what is arguable little gain) In short, mechanically all you do is fill it up then send it on its merry way. Ok, it teleported away while in telescience and reappeared in Xenobiology. What now? One of the quirks of the machine is that it has a chance to reappear a set distance away from its original location. The maximum deviation should be no more than the tile-length of RnD, whatever that is. 20 tiles? Who even knows. Not even the mappers know. When it returns from a jump, it is able to have a report with its findings printed out. As well as this, each jump should cause artifacts and fossils usually found in xenoarchaeology digs spawn either inside it like a container or around it scattered on the floor. It would also have a much smaller chance of bringing back slimes, a much smaller chance to bring back anomolies, and a minute chance of spawning [redacted]. The majority of the focus would be on the little items brought back and the reports generated when it has its findings printed out. Why do we want this? Xenoarchaeology is an extremely interesting field, but it requires so much investment of time and it's so complicated. This would allow us to play with the goals of xenoarchaeology without belittling the job role itself hopefully, and blending it with telescience. This also lets us explore bluespace without breaking the canon of bluespace being otherwise a complete mystery - thus reinforcing the idea that the Aurora is a state-of-the-art research station that justifies the abhorrent financial hole it never even tries to crawl out of. Who would be qualified to operate the machine? Telescientists, regular scientists, xenoarchaeologists, the RD, and the Chief Engineer in a pinch. Having it be a super specialized device would create the same investment/pay-off ratio. Some snippets for the reports the probe's AI would generate for you when you print out its findings as well as what it brought back. These are not all possibilities. NTBP-038 REPORT EXPEDITION 0XX Appeared in BlueSector 8399291. Photons examined are uniform #0000ff color RGB value (0,0,255) Matching color BLUE. The probe reappeared with no incident and several artifacts. NTBP-038 REPORT EXPEDITION 0XX Appeared in BlueSector 8423322. Heat signatures detected at at 44/12, 1/-100 and 12/12. Photon readings negative. The probe reappears with a single space carp in a tile next to it. NTBP-038 REPORT EXPEDITION 0XX Appeared in BlueSector 8377911. 7 Xenofauna detected by sensors. 3 match known genomes matching entity SLIMES. 4 remaining entities unknown. Expedition duration was not sufficient to gather more information . The probe reappears with scattered artifacts. NTBP-038 REPORT EXPEDITION 0XX Appeared in BlueSector 8292874. Calibration needed for photon readings; Unregistered photonic spin. Cameras and on-board circuitry overheated and fried due to unknown causes. The probe returned with an anomoly! What a jackpot! NT%BP-%0& R#EP&O%R#T EX%&PEDI#%TIO&%N# 0%# App%eared in Bluesector #%#%%##. Informa#ti%on gathered invol%untarily seized and d#el%eted by un#known causes. Memo%ry of expedition wiped while still in BlueS%ecto%r. The probe had returned with [REDACTED] Bear in mind these are examples, whoever actually wrote all the possible reports would be free and encouraged to make them not-dumb but they'd be encouraged to talk to me because I know all the secrets of bluespace to be vaguely hinted at by them. (Like the true location of the Honkmother, for example)
Guest Marlon Phoenix Posted January 4, 2016 Posted January 4, 2016 Is this a dense suggestion? Should I format it better? Include a tl;dr? The lack of feedback makes me feel like this post is seen as an impenetrable ramble of a crazy person.
Mofo1995 Posted January 4, 2016 Posted January 4, 2016 Well, I really like the idea so long as there's a qualifier that it isn't the most reliable, so that Xenoarchaeology is still an elite and respected field. I think it could do with taking up more than just 50 units of plasma though since one sheet is 2000 units and super caps are extremely cheap to make. Sometimes miners drop off upwards of 100 sheets of the stuff. So, I really like it but I think the resource consumption of it should be jacked up a bit.
Guest Marlon Phoenix Posted January 4, 2016 Posted January 4, 2016 Well, I really like the idea so long as there's a qualifier that it isn't the most reliable, so that Xenoarchaeology is still an elite and respected field. I think it could do with taking up more than just 50 units of plasma though since one sheet is 2000 units and super caps are extremely cheap to make. Sometimes miners drop off upwards of 100 sheets of the stuff. So, I really like it but I think the resource consumption of it should be jacked up a bit. The fact it has an aura of danger and uncertainty around it's operations should do just that. Anomolies found by xenoarchaeologists tend to be kept on the outpost, but this would bring them (rarely) straight onto the station. And yeah, I haven't played RnD in ages so I don't know what a good "healthy but not retarded" level of resource consumption is for something like this.
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