Would like to see an artifact where you can sense everyone in an area (if you are also in that area).
This already exists as class skills.
Every class? I don't know enough about the rest to speak for them, I know Nanoseer has it. But there are several artifacts in Achaea that replicate class skills.
BEAST has it, it's implied that Fury may be getting one, though that might be entirely wrong.
Engineers are asking to have the area wide scan as an expansion of one of their skills.
At least it wouldn’t end up with everyone wearing fake noses, but I’m still not really into homogenizing classes. We have four, which seems like few enough to keep really distinct. As much I love my utility artifacts, I’m not sure they’re a great idea. That said, between those or sheer power artifacts…
For engineers: "Wireless Charger" or something that attaches to QPC. Passively charges your turret in the same room. Basically like the QPC mod, but in-room range only...
Since I'm sure something like it will be made/suggested anyway:
Superposited Power Cell:
- At any time, this QPC is both installed and not installed on any given turret. Even when installed, you may still install it into another turret.
- QPC mod in turrets no longer requires a QPC, but will consume a QPC if you have one.
Titanium Workbench:
- Now your toys can incorporate Titanium!
- Replaces the normal workbench
- Gadgets, bots, and turrets constructed last 25% longer but require 10% more parts.
Parasteel Workbench:
- New and improved!
- Replaces the normal workbench, upgrade of the Titanium Workbench.
- Gadgets, bots, and turrets constructed last 50% longer but require 15% more parts.
- Bots (but not turrets) have 10% extra health.
Transteel Workbench:
- Simply the best materials around.
- Replaces the normal workbench, upgrade of the Parasteel Workbench.
- Gadgets, bots, and turrets constructed last twice as long but require 25% more parts.
- Bots and turrets have 10% extra health.
Flame-bait:
- Throwing Flame-bait out causes the tracking sensors on a nearby turret to focus on it for a moment, requiring the turret to reacquire its true target after the bait has been annihilated.
- THROW BAIT to use. Requires, but does not consume balance.
- Absorbs one hit from a nearby turret, then forces that turret to spin up on the current target again.
- Resets to owner after 1 hour.
Come one, come all W'hoorn, to the Cultural Exchange where we can talk about being catbird klingons!
With retirement enabled, I notice a less than plentiful amount of interesting artifacts available for purchase. I understand that there's hesitation to bring anything that may unbalance the game, especially at this early point in it's development, but how do we plan to entice people to "buy in" to Starmourn? I'm sitting here with my retirement credits and I see little reason to transfer them during the retirement window other than hopefully something new develops later.
Some artifact ideas to contribute:
Multiclass - I'm very hesitant to try a new class where I either have to lose a chunk of my lesson investment or start an alt. There's certainly a segment of the population that doesn't do alts. I feel that myself and others would keep more interested in our characters if Multiclass was immediately introduced. I wouldn't be opposed to Multiclass being an artifact power. Daily/Hourly restrictions apply.
Ship Discount - Discounts the cost of ships purchased from the forge by some x/y/z percent. I would hate to see ships purchasable with credits as that could potentially alter the economy. But a mere discount would keep the marks flowing back out into oblivion while offering some real savings over a lifetime. Ships sold back onto the player market would require a payback of the marks discounted from the initial purchase.
Proximity Beacons - Can be dropped off in space. Sends an alert to the owner if anyone comes within range of it. Can be destroyed. Possibly running into it destroys it as well. Respawn rates and battery life apply. Maximum ownership of QTY 3. Perhaps there's a Shipforge version and this artifact power just allows you to use more at once or increases the sensor radius. Ideal for watching strategic objectives.
Space Probe - A space probe which travels off ahead of you. Reports back beacon information. Is instantly lock-able and destroyed in one hit. Destructs upon impact or after running out of fuel. Maximum ownership of QTY 1. Respawn rates apply. Again, perhaps this is a Shipforge item and the artifact power increases how many may be carried or "interfaced" with your ship. Ideal for scouting strategic objectives.
Distress Beacon - Automatically alerts all your allies or faction members if your ship explodes, sending co-ordinates. This can be configured off by anyone to not receive these alerts. I would think this one should be relatively cheap.
Positronic INR - Mindsim Scan recovers full XP loss from death. Normal XP gain for anyone else.
Elite HETE Contract - Priority Access to HETE Cloning services. Cloning times and costs are reduced by 25%.
Hitchhiker Card From a station, you can ACTIVATE CARD and a nearby transport vessel of the Breakaway Rescue Station will allow you to board. It will then drop you off at a random, non-factional station in Starmourn.
You cannot be in combat in order to activate the card. The initial use will cost 100 marks; subsequent uses increase the cost by 100% each until the turn resets.
Level 2 would bring down the cost increase to just 75%, then 50% for level 3, then 25% for level 4, then 10% for level 5.
Mereas Eyrlock "They're excited, but poor." - Ilyos (August 2019)
Junkpile- Lets you make IEDs without needing junk, usable X amount of times per RL day. (I get why it is now junk based, but i don't know about choosing between money or bombs, personally)
Extra pockets - Doubles storage in bandolier (since apparently for some people 2000 of every bomb is not enough room for boom)
Has additional tiers.
Extended mags - (not sure about this one)
Increases PIECE ammo count from 8 to 15, go full Rambo on some poor fool!
Compact toolkit- Wearable toolkit, no more do you have to have a PIECE in one hand and a toolbox in the other (no matter how hard i try to imagine it as something else i just can't do it)
I forgot I was going to call myself Ike while in chargen, so now I'm Zarrach.
Graffiti Canister - Write a colored message on the walls of an indoor room. Adds a
bit about paint splotches (displayed with the actual color) to
the pose of the writer, as well as their 3rd person movement message. Message lasts 1 IG month. Has a CD of 1 IG month. Low credit cost.
Relative Ore Direction (ROD) device, progammable with up to 250 million ore density gradients! Find that pesky titanium needle in a cosmological haystack. (goes DING when there's stuff)
I forgot I was going to call myself Ike while in chargen, so now I'm Zarrach.
Hyperspace Drive - Increases maximum ship speed to 4k when toggled. Weapons are disabled while toggled and cannot be used for two hours after toggled off. (This is to prevent a ship from abusing the mechanism by simply flying away, then rejoining a space battle. Once you're out, you're out. It would also be a way to lessen the time it takes to gather resources).
Huge bags cater to people like Albion who uses peruse alot and judges you on how many items in your held inventory. Also probably for those people who beat RPGs with 99 of everything because they might need it later.
I forgot I was going to call myself Ike while in chargen, so now I'm Zarrach.
I also like to have my II not be multiple pages long (especially when I'm playing secretly at work and have the client in a tiny window)...and considering how many promo items don't let you put them in bags (anymore), I tend to have a lot of slots that are essentially permanently filled...
How about an arti bag for only promo items, to safely stick in all the stuff that won't go into normal bags? The whalest of whale purchases, to show off how whale you are. (And also you can use the items from the bag? Please?)
I dislike how much stuff I end up carrying. I would very much like to be able to organize things into various containers, or better yet, not have to wear/carry 17 different containers to store things more 300 items on my inventory.
Yeah, I really just want it for inventory management. (My pack is filled with chips; I am that gremlin.) I think other games have systems to organize your inv, but not sure.
I think a good artifact is a quality of life feature or a very min/max bonus that doesn't substantially increase the gap between you and players without it (pay to win).
Things that probably shouldn't be arties:
Other classes' skills. Unless they have heavy limitations, like one use per <reasonable time period> ala the rezz auction arti (which is still highly questionable, to be clear), these arties just build more capabilities into classes that were balanced around not having those capabilities and de-incentivizes synergizing with other people who have other classes. One person should definitely not be able to do all things by themself.
Trivializing conflict mechanics. Anything that gives an individual a substantial and overt boost in conflict mechanics can be interpreted as pay to win. I'll directly address the suggested power for this one. The 30s harvest timer is built into the system to provide a minimum for conflict event length, and it gets shorter with each additional person you have harvesting. Making this faster would exacerbate this issue, reducing opportunities for interested parties to engage with a cache. I understand that it could give an advantage to disadvantaged parties who could theoretically run around and harvest more crystals before they're detected or whatever, or provide some relief to people who stumble on uncontested caches, but the advantage it would give to the people on the other end of this spectrum is just going to make their plight more difficult. The tl;dr here is that if a conflict mechanic legitimately has issues that need to be addressed to improve engagement, then it's something that should be re-balanced for everyone, not just those who can afford it.
Altering population perception. I think this has already been confirmed by Ilyos to not be a thing SM is going to do, but I'll clarify why this is bad. When you entirely remove people from WHO/QWHO, what you're really doing is shrinking the visible playerbase for newcomers and returning players. Even if they can see at the bottom that the total people online is greater than what they're seeing, it makes the world feel emptier, which is a problem during times when there are already few people around. In addition, it gives individuals a way to completely disengage with the rest of the playerbase if they so please by removing proof of their being online, which is similarly hazardous to the game's health. There are IC methods of masking (literally) your presence or even imitating someone else, but these don't impact the game in nearly the same way.
Interfering with the balance of wetwiring. I'll be honest here, I'm not well-versed in the use of wetwiring, but I think the balance implications of paying to be able to use it more efficiently are probably pretty severe, and therefore don't have a place in the game.
I'm definitely not trying to make anyone feel bad about their ideas here. I just think it's important that we continue to try to keep these sorts of things in mind when considering new artifacts so that we don't wind up with gross power disparity years down the line that's based on the amount of wealth a player has instead of the amount of skill, knowledge, or experience they have.
Comments
"Wireless Charger" or something that attaches to QPC. Passively charges your turret in the same room. Basically like the QPC mod, but in-room range only...
Some artifact ideas to contribute:
From a station, you can ACTIVATE CARD and a nearby transport vessel of the Breakaway Rescue Station will allow you to board. It will then drop you off at a random, non-factional station in Starmourn.
You cannot be in combat in order to activate the card. The initial use will cost 100 marks; subsequent uses increase the cost by 100% each until the turn resets.
Level 2 would bring down the cost increase to just 75%, then 50% for level 3, then 25% for level 4, then 10% for level 5.
- Ilyos (August 2019)
Junkpile-
Lets you make IEDs without needing junk, usable X amount of times per RL day. (I get why it is now junk based, but i don't know about choosing between money or bombs, personally)
Extra pockets -
Doubles storage in bandolier (since apparently for some people 2000 of every bomb is not enough room for boom)
Wearable toolkit, no more do you have to have a PIECE in one hand and a toolbox in the other (no matter how hard i try to imagine it as something else i just can't do it)
(goes DING when there's stuff)
TradeNet_Artifact
Whatever you need, wherever you are.
operate autofactories remotely without the need to be present on the location
Tax Accountant 2000(tm)
an illicit tax accounting software that reduces your autofactory and refinery taxes
Also probably for those people who beat RPGs with 99 of everything because they might need it later.
Things that probably shouldn't be arties:
I'm definitely not trying to make anyone feel bad about their ideas here. I just think it's important that we continue to try to keep these sorts of things in mind when considering new artifacts so that we don't wind up with gross power disparity years down the line that's based on the amount of wealth a player has instead of the amount of skill, knowledge, or experience they have.