# Horizons Edge

# Concept
Horizon's Edge is a concept for a realism-focused fork of SS14, set in an earlier era of Nanotrasen, when it was little more than a startup coroporation, desperate for investor funding. Gameplay mechanics are to be adjusted to better fit a low-tech, realism-focused setting.

The general lore concept is that it takes place in an earlier era of NT, before they had the monopoly they have today. By extension, NT does give more shits about their crew, because they have no way of easily replacing them. Cloning doesn't exist yet, and there's huge logistical challenges with transporting people to such a distant location. The idea is to make the station feel like it's truely on a frontier and nobody's coming to save you if shit hits the fan.

For mechanics, anything that can't be explained without introducing bluespace magic should be removed or reworked. Exceptions should be made for mechanics that would actively detract from the games enjoyment within reason. Presenting realistic concepts should be a priority, but they don't need to be of a realistic scale, similar to how KSP has realistic spaceflight in a scaled down universe.

# Ideas
- Science is reworked into new subdepartments based on exploration and cartography. Tech doesn't unlock new protolathe recipes, but instead is used to gain contracts with investors of NT. These contracts may unlock recipes, but mostly unlock new items for cargo to import.
- No roundstart species besides humans, but they may appear as random events. This is a controversial idea, but it's to make alien species... alien.
- Guns are much more lethal
- The station is no longer stationary, but mobile, and able to fly around and between planets, following orbital mechanics. The hard part would be dealing with the massive floating point numbers involved. May require custom grid and physics logic
- Physical authentication server that antags can sabotage, but which also allow accesses to be revoked remotely. Departments will only have access requirements on the entrances however, internal doors lack access restrictions.
- In place of ERT, you have mercenaries.

## Tech
- MMIs, Borgs and AI don't exist yet, or at least aren't sufficiently advanced to be trusted with managing a station.
- Health scanners and similar equipment do not exist yet
- Laser weaponry is highly experimental, rare and weak
- Self charging power cells do not exist
- Holographic anything no longer exists. Holopads are replaced with landline phones.
- Cryogenics does not exist except in basic forms, but not for living matter. Cryosleep is now replaced with dorm rooms.

### Spacesuits

- Hardsuits are the hardy, heavy duty suits for very particular environments. You won't be wearing them much.
- Softsuits are the standard, and are suitable for most EVA uses. They're heavier than their SS14 counterpart, but more heavily armored, like real space suits.,
- Pressuresuits are the lightest form of EVA wear, which are designed to hold pressure and not much else. They lack much insulation, but are light weight and easy to use.,

Also, space suits would have coolant mechanics and active power usage. Except the pressuresuit, which doesn't need them because it's the technical equivalent of holding a plastic bag over your head - carbon dioxide poisoning included

## Departments
### Engineering
- Gas recycling is done by botany, although gasses can also be extracted from mining operations.
- Engi now has realistic power sources, such as nuclear reactors.
- Pipe and canister colours now follow EN 1089-3 standard for industrial gasses
- Thermal management now matters. *All* machinery passively produces heat which must be extracted and removed.
- Power management. Machinery now has fluctuating power draws depending on whether it's in use.
- Voltage is now a mechanic. Voltage is a function of demand versus supply. Devices slow down when voltage drops. Below a certain voltage they cease functioning. Above a certain voltage, they speed up but take damage.
- Gas state changes and latent heat.
- Devices and machines now have an internal "atmosphere" which conducts with the environment.
- Black body radiation.
- New physical servers
- Finance server (Cargo funds and purchases)
- Records server (Security records and station records)
- Telemetry server (Atmos and power consoles)
- Air alarms are removed and replaced with a simplified version that can only detect basic information about the environment.
- Machine parts are now consumable, and wear out with use. Abusing machines will wear them out faster. The more worn a component is, the more likely it will malfunction.
- The gravity generator is not on roundstart, and must be set up by engineering. It will require maintenance too.

### Logistics
Logistics handles the stations materials and supply, effectively the same job as cargo.
- Mining is now an engi/logi cross department, focusing on building and operating heavy machinery to extract minerals from deposits slowly, rather than mining by hand.

### Fabrication
Fabrication is a new department, a cross between engi, science and cargo, that focuses on manufacturing items using parts. Some parts can be produced on site, but any advanced parts must be imported.

- Items are now built using parts, instead of being assembled all at once by the autolathe. Combining different parts together will result in different devices.
- Fabrication also handles materials processing and refinement, usually from mining.
- Machine parts are now consumable, and wear out with use. Abusing machines will wear them out faster. The more worn a component is, the more likely it will malfunction.

### Medical
Medical is reworked to remove the simple damage system, to instead have a wounds-based system, similar to Rimworld. Each part can be wounded individually (although randomly), and wounds are treated individually.

Unlike the current system where wounds are rapidly healed by chems, wounds persist for extended periods of time. Pain management can reduce the drawbacks of wounds, and treatment will speed up healing, but they cannot be rapidly healed.

As apposed to flat damage values, pain is the main metric for discerning whether someone enters a critical condition - although other metrics may also be introduced.

Diagnosis would also be made more complex, requiring use of examination and tools to discern what the issue is.

"You notice their skin is blue"
"You feel an abnormal pulse"
"Their forehead feels hot"

### Botany
- Plants now convert gasses into other gasses as part of their biology. Most plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. Mushrooms convert oxygen into carbon dioxide.
- Mutations are done via radiation exposure.
- Alien plants can be found with random traits and effects. Researching them can net science points.

### Science
Science now focuses on new subdepartments that focus on exploration.

- Xenogeology. Prospect mineral deposits for exploitation. Indentifying deposts and bringing back samples nets research points.
- Xenobiology. Study alien creatures. Identify their traits to net research points. Bringing back live samples nets research points.
- Scientists fill in reports detailing the creature's details. Submitting correct reports rewards research. Submitting incorrect reports penalises research.
- Some research can be done in the field. Some requires a live sample in a lab, but rewards more research.
- Astrocartography. Scan for nearby objects of interest. Map out planets for other departments.
- Telescope minigame, likely similar to Voices of the Void

## Antags
Probably less fantasiful antags, but they would exist.

The syndicate as an organisation doesn't exist yet, but people would have their own reasons to sabotage the station. There just wouldn't be a unified entity who has it out for NT. Cybersun does exist, and may have some interest in sabotaging NT, but not committing to outright corporate warfare.

Pirates and outlaws would be an obvious external threat that would exist.

- Nukeops wouldn't exist, but would have other events of similar threat level, such as hyjackers.
- Antags no longer get items delivered to them directly via uplink, but must have them smuggled in via a variety of methods. Riskier methods are cheaper, while safer methods cost more.
- Some antags have specific roles in facilitating other antags, such as a drug dealer antag who's goal is to sell combat drugs, smuggler antag who must smuggle in materials for other antags, e.t.c.

## Command
Chain of command is heavily reworked into new roles for different departments. Structure is as follows.

- Captain
- Helmmaster (Operates the bridge, pilots the ship)
- Portmaster (Acts as space traffic control)
- Pilots (Space-side logistics)
- Station Chief (In charge of station physical aspects)
- Quartermaster (In charge of managing inventory and funds)
- Logistics technicians (Station-side logistics)
- Chief Engineer (In charge of engineering maintenance)
- Reactor engineers (Maintaining station's reactor and power supply)
- Maintenance engineers (Maintaining station's infrastructure)
- Fluid engineers (Maintaining station's atmospheric infrastructure)
- Janitors (Maintaining station's hygeine)
- Mining foreman (In charge of mining operations)
- Miners (Mine and collect materials for refinement)
- Production Manager (In charge of fabrication and production)
- Fabrication technicians (Refine and produce items for the crew)
- Crew Chief (In charge of station crew wellbeing)
- Chief Medical Officer (In charge of crew health)
- Doctors (In charge of diagnosis)
- Nurses (In charge of general treatments)
- Surgeons (In charge of specialised treatments)
- Pharmacists (In charge of preparing medicine)
- Head Chef (In charge of crew nutritional needs)
- Botanists (Grow crops and food)
- Chefs (Prepare food for crew)
- Bartenders (Prepare drinks for crew)
- Research Director (In charge of research and data)
- Corporate Liason (Secure contracts with NT)
- Scientists (Research and collect data for NT)
- Head of Security (In charge of station's security)
- Warden (In charge of prison)
- Prison Guard (Assists the warden)
- Squad Leader (Direct security officers aboard the station)
- Security Officer (Keep the station safe and secure)