User:Racc-Off/new artifacts

WIP

Artifacts

Artifacts are powerful and mysterious items, they are responsible for many phenomena including transforming people into corgis, or spontaneously creating missing persons cases.

Science can research with these items to gain various rewards, including both research and discovery points.

Anatomy

Defining an artifact starts with its material. An artifact's material defines what 'rules' it follows in terms of what kind of traits it can have, and how many traits it can have.

material Type	Info
Bluespace	Bluespace artifacts are generally considered the safest type, as most of their traits and synergies are benevolent.
Plasma	Plasma artifacts are the easiest to weaponize, often containing dangerous traits that synergize together in an offensive manner.
Uranium	Uranium artifacts are even more dangerous than plasma artifacts, having access to most traits with no overarching patterns or pre-determined synergies. Uranium artifacts also start with a malfunction, and gain another later. (See below)
Bananium	Bananium artifacts are wild cards, they have no rules or restrictions regarding trait types.

The next aspect is an artifact's traits. Traits define an artifact's behaviour and characteristics, these traits fall into 1 of 4 categories, of which are-

Trait Type	Info
Activators	These define how an artifact 'activates'. Every artifact will have 1 of these.
Minors	These can define an artifact's physical characteristics, special secondary actions, or artifact function behaviour. Every artifact will have 3 of these.
Majors	These define an artifact's action, what it does. Every artifact will have 1 of these.
Malfunctions	These define what's wrong with an artifact. Most artifacts will not start with these, instead gaining 1 through repeated use without stabilization.

Traits

Trait List (mouse over the sleuth entries for a brief explanation)

Name	Type	Description	Sleuthing	Materials
Sturdy	Activator	This activator responds to, almost, any tactile input. This trait is especially useful for weapons.

Research

As stated earlier, science can research with these items to gain various rewards.

Acquiring

Obviously you'll need an artifact first, before you can begin research. Artifacts can be bought through the Research and Development Listing Console with the science budget, which will deliver artifacts through cargo. Otherwise, artifacts can be 'found', or even made. Artifacts can be found on lavaland, inside maintenance, or during exploration missions. Making artifacts is a little bit tricker, and will require some sleuthing from the player to figure out.

Labelling

Once you have an artifact, you'll need to label it, correctly, for it to have any value whatsoever. This is generally done by sleuthing out what traits the artifact has by examining, weighing, conducting, and generally testing it, which can be done with various items. If you don't want to accidentally activate the ~~bomb~~ artifact while doing this, be sure to wear a pair of anti-tactile pinchers , these will make most interactions safe, but only if they are enabled. Otherwise, activating the artifact, although dangerous, can also help you sleuth out what traits it has.

It's important to be wearing science goggles during this process, as they will generally translate vague hints and effects into exact trait names.

Processing

Once the artifact is labeled, you have several options on how you'd like to process it.

Stabilizing

Stabilizing an artifact stops it from malfunctioning, and doubles any potential rewards gained from it. This is useful for artifacts you want to distribute across the station, without the risk of blowing a hole in the hull, or just maximizing profits before selling it. Successfully stabilizing an artifact will reward science with a small amount of discovery points.

Exporting

Exporting, selling, an artifact through cargo will not only give cargo a monetary kick back for doing your dirty work, it also awards science with research and discovery points.

Tracking

Once an artifact is stabilized, instead of selling it you can opt to 'track' it instead. Tracked artifacts will generate research and discovery points when activated, and, if enabled, will announce their location of science comms.

The Work

The work is a process players can figure out for themselves in-game, and we encourage them to do so, but for those who can't quite figure it out-

How to perform the work

Look at you lmao!

Misc

Defense

Knowing how to defend yourself against particularly dangerous artifacts is a key step to keeping yourself outside medbay. In terms of avoiding the effects of artifacts, certain techniques and clothing will keep an artifact from being able to target you.

The tile directly under arua, timed, flammable, etc. artifacts isn't actually targeted, and is the safest place to be in most cases.

Clothing and armor like syndicate hardsuits and wizard robes have a chance to deflect artifact targeting. Here's a definitely accurate list of which clothings block artifacts, and their chance to do so.

Clothing	Block Chance
Blood-Red Hardsuit	100%
Gem-Encrusted Harsuit	100%
Prototype Hardsuit	100%
Bio Suit	75%
Radiation Suit	100%
Wizard Robe	100%
Fake Wizard Robe	75%