Geosensors for detecting geysers

[chromiumboy]

After spending a lot of time aimlessly (and increasingly desperately) searching for geysers, I started thinking about ways the player could be given tools to find hidden geysers

I'd like to suggest a new advanced tech: the geosensor. This device will begin to beep and light up when a geyser on the map erupts. The urgency of the beeping and the number of lights is related to how far away the eruption is occuring. Build three geosensors, spaced well apart around your base, to triangulate the position of the geyser!

(Note: the player would need to figure out the position themselves from how the three different sensors react to the erruption, they wouldn't automatically pin point it for you)

[AlexRou]

6 minutes ago, chromiumboy said:

Build three geosensors, spaced well apart around your base, to triangulate the position of the geyser!

Won't that only work if the geysers are inside the triangle and thus inside your explored area? And won't it be like very very hard to triangulate anything when all you have are beeps and lights from one sensor? Like I don't think you can zoom out far enough to see all 3. Even if you had all 3 on the screen, how would you know which beep is from which sensor?

[chromiumboy]

1 hour ago, AlexRou said:

Won't that only work if the geysers are inside the triangle and thus inside your explored area? And won't it be like very very hard to triangulate anything when all you have are beeps and lights from one sensor? Like I don't think you can zoom out far enough to see all 3. Even if you had all 3 on the screen, how would you know which beep is from which sensor?

Perhaps triangulate is the wrong choice of word. If you look for sensor that lights up the most, that's the one closest to the geyser. The more sensors you have dotted around the place, the easier it will be to find. Geysers errupt over 10 seconds, that should be enough time. If not, ypu could pause the game and go off the lights on the sensors. The beeping is more to get the attention of the player (so it doesn't need to be too loud)

[AlexRou]

Well I still don't think having a building whose sole purpose is to find geysers is a good idea. I mean it's a lot of work for something that maybe you use for a few cycles and then once you found the geysers they lose all purpose/meaning.

Maybe if it were a UI thing or geysers have a bigger physical impact on the area around them. Like geysers at high pressure would create cracks in the blocks and leak out like liquids do. 

Or maybe make the sensor more general purpose? Like it detects sound/movement so that would include creatures and stuff idk. But for this to be useful there would need to be random creature spawning or something. Some reason to have a movement detector operational for a long time.

[brummbar7]

8 minutes ago, AlexRou said:

I mean it's a lot of work for something that maybe you use for a few cycles and then once you found the geysers they lose all purpose/meaning.

To be fair we don't know at this theoretical stage how much 'work' would be involved.  If it's a standalone sensor, probably not that much.  And it can't possibly be more useless than than the hydrofan.  As for losing purpose/meaning, we already have a couple examples of that in the form of research stations.

[BlueLance]

8 hours ago, AlexRou said:

Well I still don't think having a building whose sole purpose is to find geysers is a good idea. I mean it's a lot of work for something that maybe you use for a few cycles and then once you found the geysers they lose all purpose/meaning.

What are research stations and super computers then XD They are useful for like 10-15 cycles after the research speed update and then you never need them. At least in a future update a Geosensor could also be used to locate possible hidden Geysers behind the wall, which would require players to use them to find these hidden gems. That being said there is no plans or mentions about hidden sources behind the wall, so its unlikely but I can always hope, even if they were temporary and the resource was random id be happy XD

[AlexRou]

@brummbar7 @BlueLance

Well you got me there  

But do we really want another one? We should at least try to make it a little more general or reuseable (mechanic wise).

[Michi01]

I think this would make exploration less interesting, a better way to make it easier to find geysers while also making it more interesting to explore for them instead of it being random digging could be adding hints towards the location of geysers, for example pockets of hot water in the area around a steam geyser and making certain geysers appear at certain depths, for example natural gas in lower regions.

[BlueLance]

i think though even if you knew which way it was, if they made bigger threats to exploring I think it wouldnt be too bad, for instance if you seen a deadly fish or when gasses become dangerous etc It would mean that you have to either go through that area and deal with the threats, or dig around that area and hope you are not gonna bump into another threat.

[brummbar7]

2 hours ago, AlexRou said:

But do we really want another one? We should at least try to make it a little more general or reuseable (mechanic wise).

Well, I still like the idea of ruins sensor stations that point to geysers.  Those buildings are already single-use, so nothing different there.  And by limiting them to ruins you give the player hints, but the player can't spam so many that it becomes easy.  Also maybe you don't know what type of geyser a given sensor is pointing to, so you can't even really use them to triangulate reliably because they may be pointing to different geysers.  They'd just be a very general hint.  But still a lot better than vending machines.  The main thing would be you would only want them to point to geysers the player hasn't found yet.  It'd be a real bummer if they pointed to ones already found.  You could even require the player to power them for them to work.

 

[BlueLance]

I actually think thats a really good idea

[chromiumboy]

I definitely agree that the geosensors would need to be powered (and would continously use power, like light bulbs), that the geyser that triggers the sensor remains unknown, and that the geosensor doesnt pick up geysers that have already been found

[brummbar7]

27 minutes ago, chromiumboy said:

I definitely agree that the geosensors would need to be powered (and would continously use power, like light bulbs),

The thing about that is, once the player has seen the direction, they really don't need to power it anymore.  The information it gives is sort of only needed once, unless the player forgets.  I'd suggest that it takes quite awhile for the sensor to lock on - a whole day or even more perhaps - and a dupe has to sit there running it the whole time, so a pretty good amount of power and time gets used.  This would make tinkering pretty relevant to the task, given the time involved.   Also the player should probably try to make a fairly livable environment there, otherwise the dupe will be constantly leaving due to temperature or oxygen.   The player can turn it off once they get the direction, but if they want to turn it on again, they have to run it for the same prolonged period to lock onto the geyser again.  And it always locks onto the same geyser, so the player can't power it down and re-power it multiple times to find multiple geysers.