---
# System prepended metadata

title: Telescience / Teleportation

---

# Telescience / Teleportation

i'm sick of writing primers
rework draft for teleportation
implementation starts when holopads are complete.

## mechanics

### portal-pairs

some teleportation mechanics open "portal pairs" you can look through. both sides can cross over.

rare mechanics may allow opening non-paired portals but this is going to not be much of a thing.

paired portals intrinsically enable *some* counterplay in chases.

### telegraphs

some mechanics may telegraph with graphics, sounds, etc, so that the receiving side knows something is coming through. this additionally forces a decision to make of not teleporting near people as it will be harder to surprise them when using telegraphed mechanics.

### disruption

objects like bags of holding may:
- disrupt instant/non-portal teleports by throwing the user off
- disrupt some forms of teleports by malfunctioning and refusing to work
- disrupt portal teleports by moving the portal or throwing the wielder off

### math

no more math mechanics, ever. this is horrible design, the game should not OOCly require calculators.

## items

starting off strong with the bandage tearing and salt generation

- translocators are unsalvagable and are removed
- wormhole (not normal) fultons are unsalvagable and are removed
    - normal fultons to work anywhere outdoors on the same sector, and be able to scan in a larger radius around a beacon. they will be buffed accordingly.
    - shuttles in non-multiz maps will count as an outdoors area, to fluff the shuttles as having fulton catchers
    - secure fulton beacons that require pairing before usage
    - fulton balloons should be way better in return, perhaps a portable remote controller/remote beacons (?)
    - remote pickup beacons on people/objects, sending balloons to fetch them instead
    - TBD; fultons redone either on this PR or on mining rework PR, likely on this PR
- teleporter beacons are removed. this PR is really looking like a hard nerf, right? read on to find out.

### new energy cells (keek give me sprites)

new device-tier energy cells of varying sizes and capacities. TBD, either this or next update.

### hand teleporters

hand teleporters: limited, powerful. recharges, maintains portals with energy.

- portals are pairs.
- station starts with 2: facility director & teleporter room

locking modes:
- random to location around you
- lock to a nearby bluespace telescience pylon (decreasing accuracy as you get further away)
- lock to a nearby bluespace beacon (requires it to be powered though)
- potentially in the future being able to "piggyback" on recent teleports to go to the same location

### bluespace harpoons

- research director & event / trader exclusive
- uses power cells
- with a small telegraph, shoots user to locations **in or out of view**. 
- no longer cares about dense objects on turf
- has a mode to temporarily for making an one way jaunt tunnel you can voluntarily enter

### portal guns

new R&D / event exclusive: exactly what the name implies. creates linked blue/orange portal pairs at a high energy / maintenance cost.

- ZAS-compatible for all your portal 2 ending needs.
- high portal creation cost, low maintenance cost
- contains internal buffer for cell swaps, uses new cell system

### emergency jaunters

this is what wormhole fultons and mini translocators are replaced with

- fits in belt or backpack (normal sized item)
- moderately pricy (maybe less than a wormhole fulton, which is cheap as fuck for now but will be more expensive later; 1k points?)
- pairs to bluespace beacons; the beacon can be unpowered.
    - you will be warned if the bluespace beacon is destroyed.
- binds to user on activation. if dropped without cancelling, it will not actually drop. 5 seconds before jaunt. **can be cancelled**
    - jamming will make this longer. someone can forcefully yank it off of you in that duration.
- can link with each other for synchronized jaunt
- works while embedded inside people.
- works if you somehow impale/stab something/someone with it.
- works if you manage to tape it onto something (once we port tape)

## 'regular' machinery

tl;dr anything that isn't telescience

### bluespace beacons

tiny item-sized beacons are no longer a thing
teleporter beacons are now stationary gigabeacons, sprite pending

- requires active power for discovery
- respects overmaps distance - uses more power the longer dist you want to go
    - for the first implementation as we won't be on a ship map with transporters yet this'll be *somewhat* lenient
- only compatible with teleporters and emergency jaunters
- mining base, station, shuttles, etc, will all have roundstart ones
- **jaunters can go to these without requiring it to be powered.** this way miners/explorers aren't screwed.
- difficult and time consuming to construct, requires a hard-wired node.
- bluespace beacons can have access codes
    - only teleporters with the right codes can access it
    - hand teleporters and telescience ignore this, as they have their own mechanics to discourage "shotgun teleporting"

### teleporter

teleporters are your usual ones

- locks to powered bluespace beacons only
- **extremely** accurate, but the above makes it hard to utilize / adapt
- teleporters can intrinsically function as a beacon if enabled
- teleporters support encryption codes.

### quantum pads

quantum pads form portal pairs at extreme energy costs.
sorry, not sorry. they shouldn't be more powerful than the rest.
quantum pads will be moved to techwebs when those are done.

- quantum pad keycards from main: temporarily causes a quantum pad to open a portal to another quantum pad rather than the one it's linked to while inserted. fun for supervillain escape hijinks!
    - you pull the card out behind you as you go through

#### leap pads

leap pads are a dumb map mechanic and stay unchanged. they really shouldn't even exist but we need it for lavaland so.

## jamming / disruptions

### disruption

certain items like bluespace bags of holding and other things either disrupt the person they're on, or people around them.

disruptions cause:
- inaccuracy for translation mechanics
- longer times for any locking mechanics
- instability for portal mechanics (as they won't have inaccuracy)
- all kinds of fun stuff to happen

### jammers

certain items like subspace jammers and later on one-use bluespace disruption grenades will jam teleportation in an area.
some event or admin areas have intrinsic jamming.
BLUE_SHIELDED is removed from most areas, as it's a dumb flag.

- jamming in an area has a certain strength
- if an area is jammed by normal devices, only extremely powerful transmits like from telescience, or two directly linked teleporter hubs/transporters will be able to function
- if an area is hard-jammed by adminbus/other rare sources nothing will function

## telescience

- telescience added as a roundstart subdepartment to **science**
- telescience **will not be upgradeable for the time being.** the stock parts upgrade system is fucking stupid.

### pylons

pylons supply locking points for telescience.

- science gets a number at roundstart (and more buildable) of bluespace pylons
- they are 100% mobile and can be dragged around while fully operational (wrench to anchor/unanchor)
- do not require power; power can be provided **from cells only** to buff the process
- they are **fragile** and easily damaged / sabotaged

### pad

3x3 to 5x5 sized pad

operates in multiple modes
- portal-link: forms a link directly to a pylon. no offset
    - for a higher energy cost, this can **negate bluespace disruption from bags of holding and similar**
- translation: after a charge-up, sends a 1x1, 3x3, or 5x5 to destination. bigger sizes are far harder to displace further away. retrieving from destination to pad is much, much more difficult. 
- containment: for a very high energy cost, can suspend the entire area of the pad in a containment bubble. only translation can be used while in this mode, not portal-link

pads link with capacitors for energy storage.

### energy / capacitors

capacitor banks installed within a 7 tile radius of the pad can be drawn upon during teleportation
- capacitors are charged via grid power directly
- capacitors will get a small refactor to be modular for usage in future features/projects

teleportation requires a **massive** amount of power.

### controller

pad is linked to control console via multitool

**remote controllers** are available from cargo. the research director also gets one by default.
- remote controllers can be locked onto, if within range of a pylon. this gives a slight accuracy buff, so retrieving yourself or others with one is *slightly* easier.

### mechanics

- telescience is experimental. you get one of this lab. if you lose it, good luck getting another.
- telescience pad has a certain range falloff calculation, amplified by pylon falloff calculation
- telescience takes time and energy to lock onto a pylon at a certain strength and maintain that lock
    - locks are stored, and you can go to the same pylon at a reduced cost with this discount falling off over a few minutes
    - powered pylons are much easier to lock onto
- telescience is less of a "handshake" between devices as much as the teleportation pad locking onto signals and forcefully sending people through
    - pylons are **relatively** easy to lock to, compared to bluespace beacons. pylons also have relative strengths, and certian immobile versions used in event maps can have extremely strong and easy-mode signals.
    - can even lock to weak signals (it's time for the ADVENTURE ZONE, GAMERS)
    - some signals do not support some functionalities like portal pairs or offsets, or god help you, being able to retrieve who you just sent.
    - some signals are evil and will not warn you that they do not support said functionalities. good luck.
- telescience distances are based on overmaps (or hardcoded distances for "adventure zone" like signals). single sector teleports are fixed cost and decently cheap.
    - energy costs are quadratic based on distances
- portal mode
    - bypasses inaccuracy
    - becomes unstable with damage (or if too many people with bags of holding enter)
    - becomes unstable when jammed/disrupted
    - **only works on pylons that are not suffering level jamming and some safer signals.** telescience on portal mode is the safest method of teleportation in the game.
- translation mode
    - suffers from inaccuracy
    - suffers more from jamming/disruption
    - can go in 1x1, 3x3, or 5x5 modes
    - allows a x / y offset. the weaker the signal, the more inaccurate this can be. for some "adventure zone" signals, expect being thrown off by potentially half the map, if you're super unlucky.
    - inaccuracy is both per-teleport and per-atom. think of it as "shotgun blasting" a teleport as opposed to portal mode's "building a bridge". teleporting 5x5 of items and people will quite literally shotgun them into a radius around the final per-teleport destination after inaccuracy is computed.
    - this is usually fine, as even 5 tiles of post-destination inaccuracy results in everyone arriving in mostly the same room. however, for dangerous signals (or super long distance pylons, potentially across sectors), it's not going to be pretty.
    - **receiving:** massive penalty for receiving. don't expect to be able to do it without a very strong pylon and without much of an offset. destination will get a telegraph.
- containment field
    - energy cost comparable with a long distance portal. you will not be able to maintain this for more than 10-15 minutes, tops.
    - when up, **completely** isolates everything inside the pad from the outside. it is basically holding you in bluespace gay baby jail. in code this just means you can't move in or out, and all teleportation attempts into/out of the bubble fail automatically.
    - this is going to be a modular effect for later usage in other projects.
    - you can use translation mode **only** when this is enabled, though you don't need to. this makes it a pretty useful emergency containment generator in general.
- projection field
    - allows you to view 5x5 of the destination without teleporting in.
    - **the destination will be alerted by the presence of a visual and audio telegraph, just like during all teleportations.**

## transporters

overmap transporters (3x3 aka 96x96 px sprite and hitbox)
**will not be added in this pr.** too complicated.

- links to other ship transporters
- requires large amounts of power, bit of a charge-up, etc
- can potentially beam up/down from exterior surfaces (for ships it means the outside of the ship)
- can salvage debris like crates (or any "salvage" overmap entity)
