## About The Pull Request
I made this to help me move more towards my goals [laid out
here](https://hackmd.io/XLt5MoRvRxuhFbwtk4VAUA) which currently doesn't
have much interest.
This makes the Destructive Analyzer use a little neat TGUI menu instead
of its old HTML one. I also touch a lot of science stuff and a little
experimentor stuff, so let me explain a bit:
Old iterations of Science had different items that you can use to boost
nodes through deconstruction. This has been removed, and its only
feature is the auto-unlocking of nodes (that is; making them visible to
the R&D console). I thought that instead of keeping this deprecated code
around, I would rework it a little to make it clear what we actually use
it for (unhiding nodes).
All vars and procs that mentioned this have been renamed or reworked to
make more sense now.
Experimentor stuff shares a lot with the destructive analyzer, so I had
to mess with that a bit to keep its decayed corpse of deprecated code,
functional.
I also added context tips to the destructive analyzer, and added the
ability to AltClick to remove the inserted item. Removing items now also
plays a little sound because it was kinda lame.
Also, balloon alerts.
## Why It's Good For The Game
Moves a shitty machine to TGUI so it is slightly less shitty, now it's
more direct and compact with more player-feedback.
Helps me with a personal project and yea
### Video demonstration
I show off connecting the machine to R&D Servers, but I haven't changed
the behavior of that and the roundstart analyzers are connected to
servers by default.
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/assets/53777086/65295600-4fae-42d1-9bae-eccefe337a2b
## Changelog
🆑
refactor: Destructive Analyzers now have a TGUI menu.
/🆑
## About The Pull Request
This PR is half a successor to #77399, and half QOL changes. When I made
the old PR, I originally wanted to add a scanning experiment to the
advanced robotics node, but several people (including at least one
maintainer) had reservations with this idea. My plan was to make the
experiment be completed automatically, instead of needing someone to
wave the scanner around, but as it turns out the experiment system is
just fundamentally not designed for experiments like that.
Now I've realized that there doesn't really need to be a new experiment.
So now the advanced robotics node is just not dependent on neural
programming, and that's it. No cost increase, no experiment needed.
As for the QOL changes, it just allows certain experiments to be
completed earlier than they otherwise would be. Normally, for an
experiment to even be available for completion, you need to get at least
one prerequisite node for one of the nodes the experiment benefits (as
in, one of the nodes it is required for or grants a discount too).
However, this sometimes means that you can't complete an experiment even
if you have the means to do it. Nonhuman autopsy is a good example; you
can autopsy a nonhuman corpse right at the start of a round, but the
experiment won't actually be completed unless biological technology has
been researched. The tier two laser experiment is another example. You
get access to tier two lasers necessary for the experiment by
researching industrial technology, but the experiment itself is locked
behind electromagnetic theory.
Now, the nonhuman autopsy experiment, divergent biology experiment, and
all medium and high grade material scanning experiments are unlocked
round-start. The tier two lasers experiment is unlocked by industrial
engineering.
## Why It's Good For The Game
For the advanced robotics change, I'll just quote myself from the last
PR:
> Robotics should not be dependent on an entirely different department
to access their core job content. Such dependencies encourage tiding and
other toxic interactions between departments.
For the QOL changes, it makes the whole system a lot more
newbie-friendly. For the autopsy especially, its common to see new
coroners autopsy the nonhuman bodies first and the human one second.
This means that, when the nonhuman autopsy experiment is actually
unlocked, there aren't any nonhuman bodies left to autopsy. Now it
doesn't matter which order they're autopsied in.
## Changelog
🆑
qol: Nonhuman autopsy, Tier Two Lasers, and several other experiments
can now be completed earlier.
balance: Advanced robotics techweb node no longer requires neural
programming node.
/🆑
## About The Pull Request
This PR does many things and I expect to be asked to atomize some stuff.
### Oldstation Additions
Oldstation now has their own research server, generating their own
points. To help alleviate major concerns, they have a few stuff to help
with this:
- They now have a pre-built operating computer
- They now have an Autopsy scanner
- They now have access to Experimental Dissection
Experimental Dissection is the old dissection, giving research points in
the form of paper notes on completion. They must be turned in to the RND
server (only works on the Oldstation one, so you can't abuse this) for
points. This was an idea I've had for some time, as Oldstation is used
somewhat as a representation of how ss13 used to be (through its use of
directional windows (before they got removed, but I'd like to bring them
back), old IDs, RTGs, and old engines before they got removed from the
game fully)
Considering there are 11 alien mobs in Oldstation, there is 27.5k
research points to get from alien corpses, enough to bring them up to
speed with whatever they wish to do. This is their 'alternative' for
experiments (which they can still do if they want, but it is very hard
to do, outside of dissection which is needed for the node).
This surgery isn't repeatable, isn't upgradable, and isn't removed by
being healed. It is not mutually exclusive with autopsy (so you can't
ruin yourself doing the wrong surgery).
### Other stuff
- Ninjas now drain RND points from the server they drain from, rather
than always hitting science
- Syncing machines to research roundstart is now a macro, and now
immediately syncs to a server on your Z-level. Machines will
automatically connect to the Science servers if none else are available.
### non-player facing
- Science, Admin, and Oldstation techwebs are now no longer vars on
research, but stored in research's list of techwebs.
- ``get_available_servers`` and ``find_valid_servers`` are now procs on
the research subsystem, rather than the experisci component.
- Oldstation code has been split into separate files.
## Why It's Good For The Game
Oldstation is one of my favorite ruins, but it is also one of the
largest complaints for RND (along with Golems) because they use the
station's Science nodes & points (I recently tried de-hardcoding Science
stuff to help prepare for this, but I didn't get everything in advance).
The complaint stems from these ghost roles, who are meant to be a fun
activity to do while waiting for the next round, using the station's
research points for their own stuff, completely untrackable unless
someone goes out of their way to grief a ghost spawn just for using
points to get things they need. These roles make their own servers to
drain the station, and I find that unfun and quite boring for everyone-
it's also not very flavorful, why would Charliestation know of the
station's RND to take advantage of it?
This hopes to fix those issues, make Charliestation more worthwhile, and
more flavorful.
## Changelog
🆑
fix: Getting a node researched now properly makes it no longer hidden.
fix: Ninjas draining RD servers now drains it from the connected
techweb, rather than sniping Science.
balance: Machines will first try to connect to a techweb with servers on
their z-level, with the Science techweb remaining as fallback.
add: Oldstation RND, comes with their own Techweb and special surgery to
gain research points through dissecting Xenomorphs.
/🆑
How do I play/test/operate this?
Download NT Frontier on any modular computers. It should debrief you on what experiments are available and how to publish.
If you want to do a bomb experiment, make sure it's captured by the doppler array (as usual) and then print the experiments into a disk and publish it.
If you want to do a gas experiment, make the gas and either pump it into a tank and 1) overpressurize it with a "clear" gas like N2 or 2) overpressurize tanks with the gas itself. Make sure you do the overpressurizing in the compressor machine. When tanks are destroyed/ejected leaked gas will get recorded. Print it into a disk and publish it.
For publication, the file needs to be directly present inside the computer's HDD. This means you need to copy it first with the file manager.
Fill the data (if desired, it will autofill with boiler plate if you dont) and send away!
Doing experiments unlock nodes, while doing them well unlocks boosts (which are discounts but slightly more restrictive) which are purchaseable with NT Frontier.
If you are testing this and have access to admin tools, there are various premade bombs under obj/effect/spawner/newbomb
A doc I wrote detailing the why and what part of this PR.
https://hackmd.io/JOakSYVMSh2zU2YL5ju_-Q
---
# Intro
## The Problem(s)
Ordnance, (previously toxins) seems to lack a lot of content and things to do. The gameplay loop consists of making a bomb and then sending it off for credits or using it to refine cores. Ordnance at it's inception originally relies on players experimenting and finding the perfect mix over multiple rounds, but once the recipe for a "do-everything" mix got out, the original charm of individual discoveries becomes meaningless.
Another issue with ordnance is the odd difficulty curve. As a new player, ordnance is almost impossible to decipher, but once you watch a tutorial or read a wiki and can mail a 50k into space, there pretty much isn't anything else to do. Most players will be satisfied at this point without the gameplay loop encouraging them to understand or play more. The only thing you can do afterwards is to sink your teeth in and understand why that particular mix explodes the way it does. This again has a significant difficulty curve, but if you do that, the department doesn't acknowledge or reward that in any way. There are pretty much two huge spikes, with the latter one not really existing inside the department.
TLDR:
* The content being same-y over rounds.
* Odd difficulty curve:
1. A new player is oblivious to everything.
2. Those in the middle can repeat the final goal consistently without needing to understanding why
3. There is nothing to justify spending more time in the department after reaching the midgame.
## Abstract
Scientific Papers aim to add a framework to run multiple experiments in ordnance. Adding more experiments scattered across various atmospheric aspects might allow players of various knowledge levels to still have something engaging to do. A new player should have an easier challange than to mail a 50K. While those that already can make bombs should have an easier time understanding why their bombs explode the way it does. Once they fully understand why, they can set their sights on taking advantage of another reaction to set their bomb off or hone one particular reaction down.
## Goals
* Have some intro-level challanges for new players.
* Have some semblance of late-game challanges for more experienced players.
* Explain the mechanics better for those in the middle of the road.
* Incentivize trying new things out in the department.
* Better integrate Ordnance with Experisci
## Boundaries / Dont's
* Do not incentivize people to learn ordnance by using PvP loots.
* Do not shake or change the reaction system by a huge amount.
* Disincentivize having a single god-mix that does everything.
****
# Main design pillars
## A. Framework surrounding the experiments
### A.1. New experiments
Add new experiments to the ExperiSci module. These will come in two flavours: New explosions to do, and various gas synthesis experiments. Both of these are actually supported by the map layout of ordnance right now, but there is no reason to do anything outside of making a 50k as fast as possible.
### A.2. Rewards for experiments: Cash and Techweb Boosts.
Scientific papers will add a separate experiment handling system. A single experiment will be graded into various tiers, each tier corresponding to the explosion size or amount of gas made. Doing any tier of a specific experiment will unlock the discount for that specific reactions. A single explosion **WILL NOT** do multiple experiments (or even tiers) at once.
On publication, a partner can be selected. A single partner only has a specific criteria of experiments they want. The experiments will then be graded on "how good they are done", with the criteria being more punishing as tier increases. Publication will then reward scientific cooperation with the partnered partner. Players can spend this cooperation on techweb boosts. Techweb boosts are meant to be subservient to discount from experiments and will not shave a node's price to be lower than 500 points.
**Experiments will only unlock nodes, discounts are handled through this boost system.**
This is more for maintainability than anything.
### A.3. On Tedium
*This is a note on implementation more than anything, but I think this helps explains why several things are done.*
Due to the nature of atmospheric reactions in the game (they're all linear), tedium is a very important thing to consider. An experiment should have a sweet spot to aim for, but there should not be a point where further mastery is stopped dead on it's track with a reward cap.
Scientific Papers attempts to discourage this behaviour by having the "maximum score" scale off to infinity but with the rewards being smaller and smaller. The sweet spot is always there to aim for and should be well communicated with players, but on their last submission of an experiment topic players should be encouraged to do their best. There should always be a reward for pushing the system to it's limit as long as it doesn't completely nullify the other subdepartments. This is the reason why there is a hard limit on the number of publications and why the score calculation is a bit more complex than it needed to be.
## B. Gas Synthesis (Early-Mid Game)
Scientific papers will add one new machine that requests a tank to release x amounts of y gas. This will be accomplished by adding a tank pumping machine which will either burst or explode a tank, releasing the gas inside. The gas currently requested are BZ, Nitryl, Halon and Nob.
The overarching goal of this compressor machine is to present a gas synthesis challange for the players and to get them more accustomed to how a tank explodes. The gas synthesis part can always be changed in order to reflect the current state of atmospheric reactions.
## C. Explosion Changes (Mid-Late Game)
### C.1 Cause and effect.
The main theme of the explosion changes is establishing cause and effect of explosions. Reactions that happens inside a tank that's going to explode will be recorded and forwarded to a doppler array. Some experiments will require only a single cause to be present (think of it as isolating a variable). This is currently implemented for nobliumformation and pressure based bombs. Having other reactions occuring besides noblium formation will fail the first one, while having any reactions at all will fail the second one.
Adding more explosions here will be a slight challange because as of now the game has only two reactions that can reliably make an explosion.
### C.2 Tools upgrade.
Doppler array has now been retrofitted to state the probable cause of an explosion, be it reactions or just overpressurization on gas merging. These should help intermediate players figure out what is causing an explosion.
Added a new functionality to the implosion compressor:
Basically performs the gas merging and reaction that TTV does in a machine and reports the results back as if someone uses an analyzer on them. Here to give players feedback so they can try and understand what is actually going on in a bomb.
## D. Player Interaction
There should be more room for more than 1 player to play ordnance simultaneously. Previously players are also able to split tasks, but this rarely happens because tritium synthesis needs only the gas chamber to be reconfigured. Now, different players can pick different experiments and work on them. Players can also do joint tasks on one single experiment. Gases like noblium will need tritium production and also a cooling module online.
Ordnance can also coordinate with their parent department on what they really need, be it money or research bonuses.
# Potential Changes
The best-case changes that can be implemented if the current roster of content isn't enough is more reactions that can be used in bombs. Eliminating bombs entirely goes against the spirit of the subdepartment, while adding new ones will need a lot of care and consideration.
Another possible change is to implement a "gas payload" bomb. Bombs that has a set number of unreacting gas inside that will increase the heat capacity, reduce the payload, and neccesitates more bespoke mixes.
Adding more gas synthesis experiments is discouraged. The main focus of ordnance should be bombs, with gas synthesis being a side project for ordnance. These are present to ease the introduction to bombs and provide some side content.
There should be a somewhat well-justified goal in adding new synthesis experiments: e.g. BZ is there as a "tutorial" gas, Nitryl to introduce players to cooling/heating mixes, Halon to a more efficient tritium production, and Nob as a nudge to nobformation bombs and mastery over other aspects.
# Conclusion / Summary
Add more experiments to ordnance that players can take, accomplish this by:
1. Making the players perform gas synthesis or make bombs.
2. Have them collect the data, see if it fits the criteria. Explain why if it fits and why if it doesn't.
3. Have the player publish a paper.
Reward them based on how well did they do, give players agency both on the experiment phase and also publication phase.
---
TLDR: Added new experiment to toxins, added the framework for those experiments existing. Experiments comes in gas synthesis and also bombs but with more parameters. Experiments needs to be published through papers, various choices to be made there.
Implementation notes:
Because of how paper works, ordnance experiments are handled outside of experiment_handler components. My reasoning for this is twofold:
The experiments will be completed manually on publication and if the experiment isn't unlocked yet it will still be completed.
Experiment handler datums have several procs which require an atom-level parent, and I figured this is the most sensible and cleanest way to implement this without changing the experiment handler datum too much.
Small change to /obj/machinery/proc/power_change() signal ordering to adjust the state first and then send the signal. Didn't found any other usage of this signal except mine but barge down my door if it broke something.
Rewrote the ttv merge_gases() code to be slightly more readable.
A small code improvement for thermomachine to use tofixed (my fault).
Ordnance have been updated to enable the publication of papers
Several new explosive and gas synthesis experiments have been added to ordnance
Anomaly compressor has been TGUIzed and now supports simulating the reaction of the gases inside the ttv.
New tank compressor machine for toxins. You can overpressurize tanks with exotic gases and complete experiments.
Several techweb nodes are locked and require toxin experiments to complete.
Toxins can purchase boosts for various techweb nodes.
You no longer need to anchor doppler arrays for it to work.
Doppler array and implosion compressor now supports deconstruction, implosion compressor construction added.
Doppler now emits a red light to denote it's direction and it being on. Doppler not malf.
Implosion compressor renamed to anomaly refinery.
Created a new program tab "Science" for the downloader app. Removed Robotics.
Reworked the code for bombspawner (used in the cuban pete arcade game)
Adds a /datum/autowiki template which can be derived in order to create wiki pages and queue file uploads. This is then kickstarted by the new tgs target autowiki (using the AUTOWIKI define) in order to upload these pages.
The pages generated are, in a best case scenario, raw data. This means that wiki editors can decide what the actual theme is without ever having to touch the repository. In the future, MSO will hopefully sandbox the wiki and install Scribunto to let us separate data and style even more.
These will, when done, upload to templates, such as Template:Autowiki/VendingMachines. The actual pages (in this case "Vending Machines") will include this, and thus can write down their own prose and whatnot without ever having to touch repo.
This will also be run on a daily GitHub action, with some secrets setup to link to the account. Currently this is on a bot password (my forum account will not be leaked in the event of a collapse), but at some point I would like to create a dedicated bot account.
This PR adds a Techweb and Vending Machine autowiki. You can look at the Vending Machines one here and the Techweb one here.
I have absolutely no idea what to label this PR (other than note the unit tests I've added). Feel free to add whatever gives GBP 😉
About The Pull Request
Rewrites the entire preferences menu in tgui. Rewrites the entire backend to be built upon datumized preferences, rather than constant additions to the preferences base datum.
Splits game preferences into its own window.
Antagonists are now split into their individual rulesets. You can now be a roundstart heretic without signing up for latejoin heretic, as an example.
This iteration matches parity, and provides very little new functionality, but adding anything new will be much easier.
Fixes#60823Fixes#28907Fixes#44887Fixes#59912Fixes#58458Fixes#59181
Major TODOs
Quirk icons, from @Fikou (with some slight adjustments from me)
Lore text, from @EOBGames (4/6, need moths and then ethereal lore from @AMonkeyThatCodes)
Heavy documentation on how one would add new preferences, species, jobs, etc
A lot of specialized testing so that people's real data don't get corrupted
Changelog
cl Mothblocks, Floyd on lots of the design
refactor: The preferences menu has been completely rewritten in tgui.
refactor: The "Stop Sounds" verb has been moved to OOC.
/cl
Discount experiments have been decreasing required points for nodes indefinitely, resulting in research costs being like Industrial Engineering here:
Curiously, this didn't mean free research points for reasons unknown to me.
I believe this has been going on for the entire lifespan of Experisci and nobody reported it. Yet here I am, an RnD main fixing something that's my lifeblood.
Discounts aren't supposed to grow into 1450%+ discounts over time.
RnD discount experiments now reduce the proper amount of points needed instead of gradually growing into a 100% free tech node.
Done using this command sed -Ei 's/(\s*\S+)\s*\t+/\1 /g' code/**/*.dm
We have countless examples in the codebase with this style gone wrong, and defines and such being on hideously different levels of indentation. Fixing this to keep the alignment involves tainting the blames of code your PR doesn't need to be touching at all. And ultimately, it's hideous.
There are some files that this sed makes uglier. I can fix these when they are pointed out, but I believe this is ultimately for the greater good of readability. I'm more concerned with if any strings relied on this.
Hi codeowners!
Co-authored-by: Jared-Fogle <35135081+Jared-Fogle@users.noreply.github.com>
* Squashes Commits, has BEPIS, Techs, TGUIs, Rewards, and fixes.
* Makes rewardable techs a variable in all_nodes, and removes RnD Points rewards from the minor reward pool.
* Fixes conflict with pubby and beam icon.
* Review comments and basic cleanup A
* Review Comments and basic cleanup B, also cleans up icon states to work fluidly.
* Map Update
* Indentation, flipped Update_decal_path, and rebuilds tgui
* One last clean up of icon_state, adds the last bit of changes from review, and that should be everything.
* Alright last change for real I swear 105%
* Last change, adds simple sanity check for silicons.
* Moved Human and card variables into ui_interact.
* Fixes map conflict
* Alright Review Round 2 Part A, Fixes Grammar, splits polycircuit into it's own file, UI QOL improvements, Withdrawing credits, changes from arbitary values on the mini RLD, etc.
* More review bits, Part 2:B. Easier returns for less processing, Defines, fixes the merge conflict and updates the UI with new buttons. Just need to figure out Button Mapping for the UI and Duplicate prevention.
* Implemented duplicate tech protection. Yeet.
* Get back in there you
* Alright why are you breaking on me god damnit.
* It's optimized, closer to god, nearly perfect, all together it's ready to ship.
* Cleans up all of the decal painter, shorter, cleaner, works around all the turf_decal quirks.
* Tab spacing on github will look fucky
* More review changes.
* Uses use_power == ACTIVE_POWER_USE instead of powered except for the UI
Several of the greps were missing the `-P` switch which caused them to
fail to match things. The EOL grep also wasn't working right so I
replaced it with the one I added to TGMC.
Adds a new abductor themed shuttle to the game, available for 8k
credits! The shuttle is only unlocked after alien technology has been
researched!
The shuttle offers some unique items and layout compared to others
currently available. Two singular entrances with the brig in the back
means security needs to walk prisoners to the brig area to secure them.
Unique unlock mechanism encourages either bringing alien tech back from
Lavaland or stealing some from an abductor.
A few unique items aboard, including alien tools, the experimental
cloner, and a void core can provide interesting opportunity if utilized
in the window of time that the shuttle is on station.
Yeah yeah I know no opening too many WIP PRs but this one's [ready] and I want to make sure any furthur techweb development doesn't keep using the old reference system which will make refactoring it harder, and this makes it easier for coders to do stuff in theory (at least for me), standardizes getting a node/design, and makes stuff actually GC properly.
