User:Powerfulbacon/unified exploration and mining

Unified Exploration and Mining

This page is intended for development. To see player-facing changes see the wiki sections: user:PowerfulBacon/gateway_exploration

Overview

This is a unified system for exploration and mining, aiming to fix many of the woes present with both system while still making content that is unique, and introduces some fun variation into rounds.

Key Goals

• Player controlled dungeons: Allow ghost players to have influence on the events happening in dungeons.
• No job restrictions on exploration: Science will head the exploration missions, but the missions themselves will be performed by volunteers from the crew, including expendable assistants.
• Consider Low Populations: If there are 6-7 crew-members, we need to be able to have a playable game.
• Not afraid of danger: The system shouldn't be held back by mechanics being boring. We need ways to keep players in the game, even if they are going to be dying. Dungeons will regularly spawn survivors.
• Not afraid of giving players power: Getting lucky and becoming powerful can be fun. Let's not be afraid of creating one-of rounds where you find something amazing, however we should put some thought into making it so that anyone can get this and not a single player who knows the 'meta'.
• Better integration with antagonists: We aim to improve the integration with antagonist players by making the away-mission team a voluntary role rather than a job role.

Key Objects

• Mission: Has a randomly generated name and a risk level which is either low, medium or high (No specific values, just general).

Development Plan

• Delete the exploration and shaft miner job roles.
• Remove space ruins in their entirity. (Do we want to keep these as exploration waypoints?)
• Completely remove lavaland and all associated code (Freeing up the gateway)
• Rewrite the ruin generator, the current code is absolutely awful. We want to be able to have multiple generation modes which have unique tilesets.
• Remove exploration research points entirely.
• Remove exploration mission points.
• Re-introduce free money generation for station budget cards (this will be a very low amount and not enough to actually do anything with)
• Balance money somewhat, generally just reduce the amount of money that can be obtained through things like bounties and make it harder to reach a point where you don't have to think about what you are purchasing.
• Create a new TGUI window for a gateway control panel. This will be a wide panel split with 2 things: A side menu that has card-style buttons showcasing 3 different missions. These will show the name of the mission and the risk level. The right side of the screen gives an overview of the type of minerals at this location and the depth of the mission. No other information will be displayed until the first person enters with a probe.
• Create new rooms around the gateway for storing explorer's equipment. There should be enough for a reasonable amount of people to enter. Create some kind of yellow hazmat style-suit for the people who go through first to setup the analysers. There are 3 rooms/equipment closets which are created in an air-lock style where people can be locked in once they enter:
  • Pointman: The most dangerous role, the person who enters the gateway without knowing what is on the other side. They get a lot of equipment and probably are going to die:
    • CBRN Armoured Hazard Suit: A yellow suit with a plate carrier attached to it. Protects against environmental hazards that may be present in the gateway.
    • Double barrelled shotgun: A lethal loaded shotgun for use in the gateway. Comes with extra-shells for reloading.
    • Long ranged transmitter: A worn radio for communicating directly with a specific intercom/panel on the station.
    • Data Analyzer: A machine which analyzes the gateway data, giving detailed views of the gateway's threats on the station's UI. This informs the rest of the team what equipment they need to take.
    • GPS
    • Anomaly Sensor: A sensor which beeps when anomalies are nearby.
  • Mining Team
    • Appropriate suit for mission type
    • Standard mining gear
  • Explorer: Gear to explore and collect anomalies.
• Integrate the ruin generator with the gateway. The ruins should be underground in a rock-like environment. (Similar but z-clear will clear to a specified tile and not necessarilly space)
• Replace the ruin rooms with a new style that make more sense for being underground (Mineshaft/science base/etc.)
• Create a new TGUI computer that scientists can use to send out requests for volunteers to the crew. They can choose the amount that they will pay for the mission.

Milestone 1: Gateway exploring complete. Next milestone: Loot/content

Milestone 2: Loot/content. Stretch goal: Maintain orbital flight since its cool