Lavaland Compound (new mining outpost+mechanics)

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

Bottom post of the previous page:

And back on the whole "miner seekrit club" thing, even if it's not completely "public access", the very nature of this idea really does necessitate making mining into a hodgepodge of different people, acting like a dinky sub-department version of Command, and making the lavaland roles more fleshed out would only further necessitate that for defense and diplomacy purposes, essentially making it a forward base for the station and NT by extension, rather than just a mining operation

And I believe you are right that lavaland should be expanded on for possible staff roles. I believe doubling the shaft miner base staff from 3 to 6 would, well, double the number of people properly set up to go forth into the hellscape. Then, add in some new roles for mining.

One dedicated security officer, completely with unique mining exclusive gear. A security explorer suit, a low pressure only high ammo gun to keep fauna away from the base.
One dedicated medical doctor, as a dedicated corpse seeker, a surgeon, and someone to keep miners in tip top shape between trips into the wild.
One dedicated xenologist, who's job it to exploit the various relics and buildings out there, to make them more useful for mining and to provide nice bonuses to the station.
The Foreman. The boss miner, who's job is to maintain the base, keep in communication with the miners, providing insight, intel, and to be someone who can do anything on the station the dedicated personnel are capable of, like any proper head on the station. Allow them to grant access to anyone who requests it and they feel would be helpful to mining.

Because the biggest problem I see with making it "Anyone and everyone can come down to Lavaland!" Is the return of the Away Mission bullshit. Everyone who is slightly bored can run down, and rush off into the hellscape for sweet loot and death. We had these back in the day, and they got removed for a very good reason.

[Dagdammit]

From the Sprite thread:

I think Xeno Archaeologist might be less well, uhh metagamey than giving the miners heavy ballistic weaponry

Not that guncrafting is a bad thing.

Depends on the loot drops from it and how they correlate with the station & personal gain (also besides coding in a new faux ore type, it'd be the easiest to do as long as you can provide newish artifacts and recycle some stuff to be artifact drops)

Looking briefly for a moment over at VG station where they have a similar setup but insist on derp-tools and REALLY HIGH SCIENCE CHARTS AND SHIT, some of the artifacts there are stuff or quite large objects not too different from our own anomalous crystal.

/vg/'s artifact system was stolen from bay years ago, and has been pretty much unchanged since
And bay's artifact system was a poor copy of goon's artifact system, with much more of a focus on digging up the artifacts rather than testing and using them

Wow, that is some proper SCIENCE right there, mad props to whomever put it together. I like it alot.

It'd be a pretty ambitious thing to port, probably beyond the scope of this project. Also, I really respect how it keeps the sci-fi flavor without getting into more cartoony (e.g. clowns) or occult stuff, but that also simultaneously makes me think it doesn't quite fit lavaland. In my head lavaland artifacts would sometimes need a chaplain or librarian's assistance.

Or maybe the thing beyond this project's scope is adding the ruins of a specific xeno civilization to lavaland. Right now it's like a bermuda triangle of sorts, all these wierd demonic ruins and crashed/stranded ships and bluespace warp accidents. A lost civilization would be cool, but this definitely works too, yanno?

[letshavecake]

Wow, that is some proper SCIENCE right there, mad props to whomever put it together. I like it alot.

It'd be a pretty ambitious thing to port, probably beyond the scope of this project. Also, I really respect how it keeps the sci-fi flavor without getting into more cartoony (e.g. clowns) or occult stuff, but that also simultaneously makes me think it doesn't quite fit lavaland. In my head lavaland artifacts would sometimes need a chaplain or librarian's assistance.

Or maybe the thing beyond this project's scope is adding the ruins of a specific xeno civilization to lavaland. Right now it's like a bermuda triangle of sorts, all these wierd demonic ruins and crashed/stranded ships and bluespace warp accidents. A lost civilization would be cool, but this definitely works too, yanno?

Goon's artifact system is already sort of built for this
They're split up by civilization, from eldritch bullshit all the way down to wizard federation stuff, though they all generally do the same stuff
And really, since it would be a new system, they can have whatever effects or systems anyone who ports it can be assed to code in, so the supernatural buddy cop movie everyone wants wouldn't be off the table

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

I think the xenologist should be capable of uncursing certain items, and improving on others that are currently in the game, rather than porting over an entire new system from other server.

One thing every miner loves is the Angel Wings. Both for the look, and for the benefits. Instead of having them be RNG for one miner if they are lucky, make it that you can create your own set. I'm imagine a backpack like set up, greatly reduced space and requires a battery to operate. Drains quickly, and gives you ethereal wings. Get a better battery from RnD if you want to float for longer.

Or the quantum cube. Allow those to be mass produced via the Xenologist and something like a jaunter.

By making the nice toys mining has more like RnD gear, where you need to find the proper research material first, then study it, then you can make awesome toys out of it for general use provided you have sufficient material and skilled personnel to man it.

[kevinz000]

One thing every miner loves is the Angel Wings. Both for the look, and for the benefits. Instead of having them be RNG for one miner if they are lucky, make it that you can create your own set. I'm imagine a backpack like set up, greatly reduced space and requires a battery to operate. Drains quickly, and gives you ethereal wings. Get a better battery from RnD if you want to float for longer.

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/20860

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

Taking up the boots, helmet, and exosuit slot seems a bit much to me. Asking miners to give up their plated explorer suits or ash drake armor in exchange for flight isn't going to happen very often I'm imagining. I like the flight suit, but miners don't need vacuum proof equipment anymore. Sometimes I feel the hardsuit is just a nostalgic throwback, used by miners in the rare times they need to return to the station and shits hit the fan.

[MrEousTranger]

used by miners in the rare times they need to return to the station and shits hit the fan.

>Implying the shit doesn't hit the fan every round

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

What's rare is a miner returning to the station at that point. Plenty of times miners just go "Fuck it" try to steal the ORM and some boards and make Mining into a little island of sanity against the never ending tide of madness back on the station.

[Dagdammit]

I want to ask, just in general... how do people feel about there being stuff from lavaland that it's dangerous to bring onto the station? The following could all make sense from an internal logic standpoint, I'm just not sure that they'd improve the game.

-Chance of contracting diseases. Ash Walkers can carry diseases that are harmless (and maybe non-infectious?) for them but bad news for other species, and maybe vice versa. Both are curable with spaceacillin, so it's generally ignorance or deliberate malice that leads to outbreaks.

Cursed Items (as mentioned previously). In the same way that ill fortune surrounds treasures taken from a pharaoh's tomb, maybe certain lavaland artifacts are cursed and will increase the odds of various negative random events so long as they're on the station.

Spoiler:

-Chaplain and Librarian should both be able to de-curse items; I like the idea that they can both do it solo but function best as a team. Different cases of a cursed item have different ways to de-curse, like with cures for different diseases.
-When sleeping/in cryo/etc. while cursed artifacts are on station, there's a chance to see messages in red saying things like "...spirits howl..." "...thieves unpunished..." "...in [name of the room the artifact's in]..." "...[the thing an artifact's bearer wears in their suit slot, e.g. "Detective's Trenchcoat"]..."
-Examples of possible bad events (say, every minute there's a 5%-per-cursed-item-on-station chance that ONE of these things will happen)
--Revenants and other supernatural-ish midround antags (spiders?)
--Space carp migrations.
--Electrical storms wrecking the lights (localized nearby the artifact?)
--Mice spawn in nearby maintenance shafts.
--Spontaneous use of revenant's "decay" power at random point within 10-tile radius of artifact.
--Meaty ores and meteors.

Contraband (could tie into cursed items). System where Miners are supposed to report and hand over any strange lavaland artifacts they want to take on the station, with security (or mining overseer?) either giving their stamp of approval or confiscating the artifact as dangerous; possession of unauthorized artifacts on station is a crime under space law.
-If this IS a thing, it'd have to be a sane system. My first thought is to combine it with implementing Smart Crates that miners can ID-lock to them personally; give a smart crate one backpack's worth of General Storage. The point of Smart Crates is that unlike Ore Boxes, miners can hand their smart crate over to someone else to unload and know that they'll still get the rewards for whatever's inside- for artifacts this could mean the tagging system, sec can access the general storage but the artifacts they take out will be tagged as being claimed by that miner.

Actually, if we went as far as to implement all special lavaland loot getting some kind of under-the-hood "power" ranking (so stuff that drops when you kill Bubblegum is the highest rank, etc.), then there's a neat way you could encourage miners submitting loot for inspection: Give the ranks values in mining points.
-If anything gets confiscated as dangerous, the miner gets compensated with mining points. NT still wants them to bring those things in for study!
-Any artifacts that get tagged as approved can be traded in for mining points at the loot showcase in Survey module- and other miners can then buy that artifact using their mining points.

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

One thought I had on the considerably dangerous artifacts that have no reason except hurting people (Katana, Meat Hook, Wicker Doll, Mayhem in a Bottle) is to have them be pacified and turned into less lethal, and far more useful to miner items.

Give up your one of a kind meat hook, a sexy and deadly weapon capable of stunning, damaging, and dragging targets to you? Get a Hook Shoot. Same range of projectile, but far, far less damage, and pulls YOU to THEM. Also works on walls, allowing you to hook shoot over lava, chams, quickly bypass hostile mobs.

Katana? Study it and learn it's secret million fold metallurgy method, and create upgraded boot knives for miners. Suddenly, you have a reason to use that besides a last ditch weapon or to skin monsters. Maybe have the old vidya game logic of "You run faster with a knife" Apply to it.

[kevinz000]

PR opened for rapid terraforming device.

[D&B]

Trying to implement a system where you turn in your rewards is inherently stupid.

It wasn't done with the asteroid, what makes you think people will turn it in now that the planet is deadlier to loot?

Mining points are useless after the 10 minute mark. A pseudo sec officer trying to confiscate stuff will end in a distressed miner at least, or a massacre at most.

[kevinz000]

Trying to implement a system where you turn in your rewards is inherently stupid.

It wasn't done with the asteroid, what makes you think people will turn it in now that the planet is deadlier to loot?

Mining points are useless after the 10 minute mark. A pseudo sec officer trying to confiscate stuff will end in a distressed miner at least, or a massacre at most.

This is true I dont see a single officer with standard gear being able to touch miners with loot.

[Dagdammit]

Trying to implement a system where you turn in your rewards is inherently stupid.

It wasn't done with the asteroid, what makes you think people will turn it in now that the planet is deadlier to loot?

Mining points are useless after the 10 minute mark. A pseudo sec officer trying to confiscate stuff will end in a distressed miner at least, or a massacre at most.

Not convinced it's a good idea yet myself, but it seems feasible. Mining points become more useful if people are trading in spare loot. If you found 3 cool swords and 2 hardsuits, you trade in the spares and spend the points to buy that cool artifact another miner didn't want.

And I do like the idea of having the choice to A: register your loot (risking confiscation of something you wanted to keep, though at least you'll get points) or B: smuggle it onto the station, which is a crime if you get caught. (And you can potentially break into contraband if it does get confiscated, I can see miners setting up false walls preemptively before they head out.)

Like, in general smuggling things into the compound/onto the station seems like a potential fun challenge to throw at players. Stowing away in the mining shuttle's cargo hold is tricky but possible, and the guys in Processing can even load you in a crate and ship you onto the station via the automated system.

[Dagdammit]

A pseudo sec officer trying to confiscate stuff will end in a distressed miner at least, or a massacre at most.

This is true I dont see a single officer with standard gear being able to touch miners with loot.

If we eventually did this the lone officer would be in the checkpoint office, and have switches to drop the shutters on the compound's main entrance (and to lock down all the windows in the perimeter wall and whatnot). I'm not saying we SHOULD build the infrastructure to outright force miners to comply, but a checkpoint that they can't completely ignore (when it's manned) would be reasonable.

And it's really not meant to be something where security must duel miners in order to literally force them into compliance. It's only on the station that posssession of unregistered artifacts is a crime, and not normally a permabrig one (unless you were caught smuggling a nuke onboard or something idk). The point is that the POSSIBILITY of getting in trouble with sec over the loot gives miners incentive to cooperate instead.

All I know about contraband & trading in loot for mining points is that if we do the former we GOTTA do the latter. Taking away miner's hard-earned treasure with no compensation is bullshit.

[DemonFiren]

If we eventually did this the lone officer would be in the checkpoint office, and have switches to drop the shutters on the compound's main entrance (and to lock down all the windows in the perimeter wall and whatnot).

>dropping shutters on miners
[youtube]DJQ_7jKIm24[/youtube]

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

The contraband should be listed as "Forbidden on station" not "Alright, you've returned, fork it over."

Having a Meathook can be a life saver. I've used them to pull allies away from megafauna after they got KO'd to stabilize them and move them away from the horrifying monster so the Survival stim can get to work. A katana works against Colossus knives, and having a possessed sword (Which needs an upgrade for the Lavaland version. Give them unlockable powers based off how many things they kill/butcher) can make a tedious mining day into a nice little social moment, bantering with your blade.

Also, there should be a new point system added solely for artifacts. "Oh, you returned with X, well here 2000 mining points. Enjoy the hardsuit, or pair of KA upgrades" Yeah, no. Give me something in exchange that is worth the risk that comes with fighting megas.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Good, all we need now is to borrow the RD's cream suit every round, the detective's hat then somehow turn the telebaton into a whip to make the archeologist psuedo profession based at the compound in backroom of a public service museum area with some display cases.

(Part of the miner clubhouse?)

Also why do you need a armoury? As much as I hate to admit it, the miners will be doing a good enough job with KA's etc. rather than typical munitions which hit much much lighter against mobs on lava-land.

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

Chain of command would work for a whip. Or if the miners REALLY like their researcher, the meathook.

[Dagdammit]

Also why do you need a armoury? As much as I hate to admit it, the miners will be doing a good enough job with KA's etc. rather than typical munitions which hit much much lighter against mobs on lava-land.

Stuff the Mining Overseer starts handing out (to sec and anyone else he conscripts) when compound's under attack by a megafauna, or hostile ash walker tribe, or the traitor xenobiologist's army of pink berserker goliaths. Depends what exactly we put in there, but odds are the miners won't benefit from it the way compound staff does. (With the notable exception of fighting indoors. Smart ash walkers might circle around via lava boats, go straight into the modules and make those with KAs come inside to get them.)

[FantasticFwoosh]

snip)

I think its over the top, and besides it'd be a LITERAL death sentence to walk in there from sec and a huge target because not many people may be actually stationed on the compound at any one time. Too hugboxy, if the place falls from tragic circumstances, it falls and miners are already over-equipped to deal with pretty much anything.

Emag your way onto compound & emag into the compound armoury = free guns with even less sec.

You've sort of pointed out yourself that there's a sort of a mall cop & staff heads to defend everything locally by putting down the shutters/blast doors and lightly beating up intruders. My counter suggestion would be to have the pre-set geothermal engine wires running outside under faux (also you need to ensure that wires can run over catwalks) colored floor tile protections leading into buildings that can be cut.

> Ashwalkers or future miscreants try to get inside and fail, instead they circle in the boats to get inside the central bare area, dig up the ground wires and at risk to their own health with electrocutions, begin cutting the wires and waiting for the APC's inside to power down before crowbarring past the now de-powered shutter defenses. They might go raid or loot some of the unprotected buildings and damage the external machinery.

> The local staff & heads either evacuate or hide locked inside the buildings, as the security and overseer starts to shut down the compound, there is a great big button saying DO NOT TOUCH, that powerlessly dispatches a SOS on a cooldown to the station alerts to let the station know that they need help since telecomms might be brought offline by damages. In a move towards 'buying time' rather than actively putting themselves at risk.

[Cobby]

If you're going to get that indepth why not just make a lavaland-based map

[FantasticFwoosh]

If you're going to get that indepth why not just make a lavaland-based map

Don't leap before you hop, this is just on top of the existing mining site to make it a bit more 'basey' , though TBH it doesn't need to be as self sufficient as the current detailed map makes it out to be.

[Cobby]

If you're going to get that indepth why not just make a lavaland-based map

Don't leap before you hop, this is just on top of the existing mining site to make it a bit more 'basey' , though TBH it doesn't need to be as self sufficient as the current detailed map makes it out to be.

Kor says he gets a lot of negative feedback when it comes to lava land because it "takes away from the station". Having a legitimate base with staff would definitely purport those people's dissatisfaction UNLESS you made it into a map.

I like lava land, but dislike how the game hands you everything you need without much work.

[Dagdammit]

If you're going to get that indepth why not just make a lavaland-based map

Don't leap before you hop, this is just on top of the existing mining site to make it a bit more 'basey' , though TBH it doesn't need to be as self sufficient as the current detailed map makes it out to be.

Kor says he gets a lot of negative feedback when it comes to lava land because it "takes away from the station". Having a legitimate base with staff would definitely purport those people's dissatisfaction UNLESS you made it into a map.

I like lava land, but dislike how the game hands you everything you need without much work.

Look, when it comes to the risk of "taking away from the station" the spirit of what I intend is this:

Spoiler:

That's why the shuttle changes (public access, departing for lavaland AND for station every 3-5 minutes) are so non-negotiable. The station and the NT operation on lavaland should be much more interconnected. Lavaland attacking the mining outpost & breaching all the way into station proper should be a challenging but doable undertaking with multiple possible strategies (comparable to breaking someone out of perma).

The lavaland compound is not the full-on deadly lavaland experience, but it's still got hazards and challenges you won't face on the station. Scientists, sec officers, engineers, cargo techs and doctors who are game for shouldering that extra bit of difficulty can do so voluntarily. Access is a crucial part of the gameplay in Space Station 13, and the question of how to get something/someone from station to compound to lavaland proper (or vice versa) is another interesting challenge to be overcome.

Having both the compound and the space station also just... well, broadens the palette? If a game has bright & sunny days AND dark & stormy nights, the flavor of both stands out more. When you go into the bar and there's a cargo tech who's been active on the station all shift, and another who's got his storm shawl on because he's been busy down on lavaland, that's an interesting distinction. Personally, I really dig that stuff.

[Dagdammit]

So for the Mining Overseer's lavaland armory, what kind of compound defense & anti-megafauna weaponry would be good to have?

I've had some thoughts on new content- mainly something called a "shock tether". Description would be "Electromagnetic tether used for emergency shuttle docking maneuvers. This one's been modified to target large organisms." You plant it like a landmine, it goes off when a megafauna is within 4 tiles. For a bit the megafauna basically has a tesla lightning bolt going between it and the tether; this does some burn damage (nothing massive) and keeps it from moving more than 4 tiles away. Bubblegum won't use his charge attack and ash drake won't use the flying slam attack. After 6 seconds game says "the shock tether overloads!" and effect ends.

No silver bullet by itself, but it works well when you're also shooting the hell out of the megafauna and would be priceless for finishing off the Ash Drake. Armory would have like 3 of them.

[Saegrimr]

Asteroid Station incorporated mining into the """same""" z-level as the rest of the station.

[FantasticFwoosh]

You could literally catapult from asteroid and back again.

Had its flaws (which i try to address here *SHILL SHILL*) but it had its novel moments too

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

So for the Mining Overseer's lavaland armory, what kind of compound defense & anti-megafauna weaponry would be good to have?

I've had some thoughts on new content- mainly something called a "shock tether". Description would be "Electromagnetic tether used for emergency shuttle docking maneuvers. This one's been modified to target large organisms." You plant it like a landmine, it goes off when a megafauna is within 4 tiles. For a bit the megafauna basically has a tesla lightning bolt going between it and the tether; this does some burn damage (nothing massive) and keeps it from moving more than 4 tiles away. Bubblegum won't use his charge attack and ash drake won't use the flying slam attack. After 6 seconds game says "the shock tether overloads!" and effect ends.

No silver bullet by itself, but it works well when you're also shooting the hell out of the megafauna and would be priceless for finishing off the Ash Drake. Armory would have like 3 of them.

A restraining device would be useful, but not as a means to fight, but as a means to "SHIT! IT SAW US! RUN!" item. Can't tell you the number of times I've been tunnel mining from point to point, not looking at my GPS, broke a wall and saw Bubblegum chilling three hexes from me. If it stopped them in place for a good six seconds, that'd be more than enough time to RUN AWAY and get out of their aggro range.

Make that a potential research item. Be useful, certainly.

A high power, limited ammo, low pressure only (But not zero pressure) rapid fire gun would be useful. One of a kind, very limited ammo. Maybe causes the monster to instantly lose aggro and retreat, or even teleport away if you hit them with X rounds. The Foreman's job is to ensure the safety and security of their crew and the base, not to get the Megafauna hunting rifle. Although a "Umumba, grab my Ash Drake Rifle" scene would be hilarious. More so if it's with a civilized Ashwalker.

If anything, proper megafauna hunting equipment should be locked behind research, requiring miners to start off small if they want to get a distinct upper hand over the megas later on. Remember, all hunting is done with repurposed mining equipment. Making some proper "This kills giant monsters DEAD" equipment would be a nice treat to miners who go through the full rote of "Minerals first, megas second"

If you want a unique Foreman only weapon... Shattershot KA. Fires three charges in a short fan. Good for convincing rampaging ashwalkers to FUCK OFF, and makes killing local fauna a lot easier. In exchange... It can't mine rock, and it vaporizes corpses, so no easy plates or watcher diamonds for you!

[kevinz000]

I really hope there's more coders onboard with this as I have serious limitations with my stuff as I still can't do tgui as I never spent the time to learn it. Honk.

[Dagdammit]

What Kevin said- I can pseudocode all the hard details of everything in this proposal, but I don't think I should be allowed near the actual code.

Also, I think I have a solution to the issue of murdering people by crushing them under mining shuttle. Have a chain of gravitational "Push" effects go off in the landing zone a second before the mining shuttle lands, flinging any loose objects out of the way as a side-effect of the shuttle's zero-point gravitational landing repulsors.

[Dagdammit]

Wrote out the hrd design details of the xenobio rework (each xeno injector effect, plus what analysis level & color of slime you need to unlock it). I'm wondering if I should make a separate thread for that instead of posting it here.