User:PowerfulBacon/gateway exploration
| MISCELLANEOUS STAFF | |
  Exploration Team |
Access: N/A Additional Access: N/A Difficulty: Hard Supervisors: Scientist Duties: Volunteer as an assistant to get extra credits, explore the gateway, recover artifacts, attempt to survive. Guides: None Quote: What was that? |
Explorers are regular members of the crew who volunteer to explore the gateway to earn some extra funds (and maybe sneak some artifacts out). There is roundstart job role for explorers and the teams are comprised of the crew, meaning that the best way to become an explorer is to sign up as an assistant. There are multipler roles that you could be given:
- Pointman: The first person to explore the gateway. Gets an armoured CBRN suit and a shotgun for protection. You are the first person to enter the gateway and your duty is to gather data so that the remaining members of the team can prepare appropriately. You will most likely be going alone.
- Mining: Your job is to collect minerals for the station, which will most likely involve mining near the entry point or following other explorers to find a safe spot to mine.
- Research: Your job is to explore the gateway and recover artifacts for the science department. These artifacts sell for a good amount of money and produce research points, but they are also capable of granting the user with great powers so illegally sneaking some out might be a desirable risk for you.
Volunteering
When the scientists are ready to start a mission, they can assign a bounty which will be distributed to the crew via the radio. Any member of the crew can then put a proposal up to join the team.
Scientists themselves can always join the crew, but cannot recieve bounty payments for participating in the expedition.
Personnel Request Console
- Used by scientists to request crew.
- Create a request by setting the maximum amount of personnel and the reward for joining the team.
- The funds will be taken from the research budget and held until the mission is cancelled or completed.
- When crew request to join the mission, you will be given a list of participants who have applied for the mission.
Research Bounty Console
- Used by all staff to request to join the expedition.
- They can submit a short note about themselves and set their role preferences.
- You can file a request at any time, even if science is not currently requesting anyone to partipate (this will notify science on the radio channel).
- If the scientists approve you, you will be notified and can head to the gateway.
Preperation
Mission Selection
As a scientist, you have a gateway console in the control room for the gateway.
When the gateway is closed, you will have 3 missions to select from:
- A low-risk mission
- A medium-risk mission
- A high-risk mission (Requires the RD to approve)
You will also be able to see a list of the materials that the gateway will contain. Higher tier materials will be available more commonly at the higher risk missions.
This is all the information you get while you select the mission, you will not know the exact details of environmental hazards until someone enters the gateway and deploys an analyzer. This is the duty of the pointman.
Analysing the Gateway
Once you have selected the gateway, it will prepare to open. There is a short timer before the gateway opens for the gateway team to prepare.
During this time, you need to get the pointman into the airlock'd gear-room so that they can equip their special armoured CBRN suit. This suit is a special suit which protects from all hazards in the gateway. The standard issue suits are much more mobile, but use modules to be protected from specific environmental hazards. Since you don't know which environmental hazards are present in the gateway, you need someone to enter with the armoured CBRN suit to analyze the gateway.
Once the pointmen enters the gateway, they simply need to place the analyzer. The analyzer can only be placed in certain locations, but these usually aren't too far from the entry point of the gateway. The pointman is equipped with a radio which they can use to communicate with the control room and a double-barelled shotgun to scare off any threats they encounter.
Required Gear
Once the gateway has been analyzed, the control room's console will display the environmental hazards and what equipment is required to deal with them. It will show some various stats about the location of certain anomalies and the hostile threats that may be present in the gateway.
These are the following environmental hazards that you may encounter:
| Hazard Type | Counter |
|---|---|
| Near-zero Temperature | Thermal Regulator |
| Extreme Temperature | Liquid Cooling |
| Radiation | Radiation shielding |
| Extreme Pressure | Pressure Suit |
| Low Pressure | Pressure Suit |
There are other hazards present in the gateway, such as monsters, darkness and anomalies, but these hazards require specific equipment to deal with them.
Mission
The data has been analyzed, you have configured your suit to survive the threats and you are ready to go. It is time to complete your duties...
One thing to note about missions, is that they get more dangerous the longer you are in them. After an infinite number of time, things will always become too chaotic so you always need to be prepared for extraction and keep up good communication.
The radios you are equipped with are capable of talking to everyone in the gateway, but only personnel with specialised long-ranged radios can talk to the control room on the station (and vice-versa). This is important, because the control room has a computer which can detect the location of artifacts which are in proximity to any personnel inside the gateway.
Mining
All gateway missions take place in facilities underground. Most of the time you will be able to mine the walls to collect materials.
It is important to note that ore generates in clusters, rather than spread out. You may need to explore the gateway to find rich deposits of ores.
Once you have filled a box full of ore, you can send it back to the station. The ore-box fulton cannot be used on players, but can send your mined resources back without needing you to return to the station yourself.
Artifact Collection
Artifacts sell for a lot of money, can be used to generate a lot of research points but can also grant the user with powers.
Artifacts often come with anomalies, or may contain anomalies in themselves. These can be dangerous environmental hazards that you want to watch out for. A common anomaly is the Gravitas. It can be identified by its distortion effect and will throw items around, force players into the ground and trap mobs. Getting caught in it may delimb you.
Anomalies work based on a system called 'affinities'. To activate an anomalies power, you need the affinity. There are 6 affinities and you have a a 20% chance to have each and everyone one (which means you can get 0, or get multiple).
The affinities are related to the effects and are as follows:
- Force: Effects relating to motion and the application of force on an object.
- Radiance: Effects relation to light, radiation and other forms of emissions.
- Anima: Effects relating to life-force and the soul.
- Psionic: Effects relating to powers of the mind.
- Entropy: Effects relating to randomness and decay.
- Space: Effects relating to spatial positioning and concepts of the void.
Monsters
Extraction
Shuttle Extraction
Once you have got everything you need from the gateway, or things have started to not go to plan, it is time to call for extraction. All gateway missions will generate with a designated landing zone for the shuttle (though sometimes multiple will generate).
A normal extraction consists of calling for extraction over the long-ranged radio. The control room operator can send the shuttle to any of the designated landing places which are marked by a letter and a number visible on the ground as a large decal.
If there is nobody operating the control room, the distress beacon is also capable of calling the shuttle and will call the shuttle to the closest landing site, however this makes a loud sound and can attract hostiles to your location. All crew are equipped with a distress beacon.
If you fail to locate the landing site, upon the shuttle landing the HUD of the CBRN suits will display an arrow that points towards the location of the shuttle.
The shuttle can be sent at any time after landing, however in the event of a distress beacon it will automatically leave 4 minutes after landing.
Failing to extract
Should you fail to extract, you will remain at the location until a new gateway mission is generated at which point you will fall asleep and wake up as a survivor at the new location. If this happens, you may end up deep inside the gateway and in a hazardous place, though you may encounter other survivors along the way.
Side-Hustles
Sometimes, the payout science offers alone isn't good enough and you aren't afraid to bend a few laws to pocket some of the extremely valuable and powerful artifacts that you can encounter in a gateway.
Since artifacts sell for a high-price, they are extremely valuable to cargo. Usually, science and cargo would work together to sell these, however you might be able to get away with a private deal.
If money isn't your thing, artifacts can also provide a great deal of power to the wielder; if you have the right affinities. Affinities are different per-character so you might find some artifacts that give you magic-like powers, or you might find someone that is willing to take it off your hands.
You need to be sneaky though, all of the equipment rooms are secured via an airlock-like system where you cannot enter while the door to the gateway is open. In addition to this, security is authorised to search anybody coming out of the gateway for any stolen goods (though they don't always have the time or capacity to do so). If you want to go down this route, you need to find a way to hide items during a search or act at a time when you know security will be slacking off.
