# Anomalous Research [EmoGarbage, Approved]

*Pictured: you shot the anomaly with the APE one too many times...*
### Abstract
Anomalous Research (henceforth going to abbreviated to AR) is a new R&D subdepartment that seeks to provide an *alternative* style of gameplay to XenoArchaeology. The design of AR seeks to address a few core weaknesses of the current gameplay, namely:
1. XenoArch requires RNG and cooperation to even function. While this isn't bad by any stretch, if you aren't able to cooperate or get good luck, the subdepartment becomes entirely ineffective.
2. Xenoarch approaches a maximum participant count around 3-4 players. Past this point, one's individual involvement with Xenoarch is not as engaging unless you can acquire a larger number of artifacts. (see point 1)
3. The supplementary passive point generator is ~~fucking lame~~ uninteresting.
4. Science gameplay rarely affects people outside of the department.

The design of AR is thus: a team of scientists must harness, exploit, and stabilize a potentially dangerous anomaly. By increasing the danger and keeping it stable, they can generate points while also having to manage the effects of whatever the anomaly does. This improves upon previous science gameplay by creating a scalable, (somewhat) passive generation system that requires care and decision making on the part of those involved.

## Wacky-Stability Scale
The volatility of anomalies can be thought of as existing on a 2-axis scale. I have chosen to dub this the "Wacky-Stability Scale." Said scale can be seen below.

The first axis is the Stability axis, ranging from stable to unstable. In simple terms, this is a measure of how likely the anomaly is to either collapse or increase on the other scale. Keeping it in the stable side ensures that it doesn't change, whereas the unstable side ensures that it will become increasingly dangerous.

The second axis is the Wacky axis, which solely increases from boring to wacky. This is a measure of the chance of dangerous effects arising from the anomaly. If it is boring, then the effects of the anomaly will be relatively subtle and nonintrusive. Meanwhile, if it is wacky, the effects will have a pronounced effect not just on science, but possibly on the entire station. An important factor to note is that while a boring anomaly is easier to contain, it produces significantly less points than a wackier anomaly.


The scale can be thought of as a range of danger vs. profit. In the above coloring, the green zone indicates a zone of maximum profit while the red zone indicates maximum danger. The players goal for AR will be to navigate the artifact into the green zone and containing it if it ever gets into the orange or red.

## Anomaly Generation
*Pictured: The anomaly generator.*

Anomalies are generated at the Anomaly Generator. For a simple cost of material plasma, you can generate an anomaly somewhere randomly on the station. Be aware that the generator has a large cooldown, so it's in your best interest to contain the anomaly and stabilize it for points rather than immediately getting rid of it.

## Anomaly Manipulation
So you have an anomaly sitting in the middle of medical? What's your plan to stop it from exploding into a fireball of superheated plasma? I'll tell you what: containment.

First, if you're going to contain the anomaly, you'll probably need information. You'll do that with the handheld **anomaly scanner**. Simply walk up to the strange glowing mass and click it with a short doafter. Better hope it's not spewing fire or something, or else this will be tricker. The main reason for this is going to be to identify the **anomaly type** (name pending). The type is one of three options: Alpha, Beta, or Gamma. The type of the anomaly is randomly chosen and called it's **primary**. It also has a randomly chosen **complimentary** and an **opposite**.

*Pictured: Shitty concept art for the APE.*

The purpose of these types is to be combined with your Anomalous Particle Emitters (APE for short), which are your primary method of stabilization. You can select the type of anomalous particle to fire at the anomaly, and depending on the type, effects will happen.

* **Primary:** If you're shooting the primary particles of an anomaly straight into it, prepare for it to start becoming significantly wackier with every shot. Definitely not a great plan if you hope to keep it mild.
* **Complimentary:** Complimentary particles are less actively detrimental, but they will cause the stability of the anomaly to go down, possibly leading to destabilization.
* **Opposite:** Opposite particles are what you want if you're trying to contain the anomaly. These increase stability at the cost of the health of the anomaly. If you try and stabilize it too much, the anomaly might grow weak and fizzle out. This might be what you want though, if you're just trying to get rid of it.

## What's That Sound Coming From the Freezer?
Another core of AR is random event anomalies. These can generate randomly on the station, and are initially more wacky and unstable than those generated within science. It is the scientist's job to respond to these anomalies and either remove them with stimulus or stabilize them and use them for point generation.

This would not only give R&D a reason to leave their ~~shriveled gamer den~~ lab, but it could also introduce a high-stakes situation to allow the RD to actually coordinate his team.

## Anomalous Effects
Anomalies exhibity effects in semi-regular **pulses**. These frequency of these pulses are controlled in part by the stability of an anomaly, though not by a significant amount. The period of a fully stable anomaly may be 2:00 compared to the 1:15 of an unstable one. Pulses serve as the main "waves" of negatives effects, but anomalies can also just generate persistent effects (such as visual distortions and low-level radiation).

Anomalous effects should be multifaceted, exhibiting different but related behaviors depending on the wackiness. For example, low wackiness for a heat anomaly could just be heat, whereas medium wackiness is direct ignition if you get too close. This could evolve into more widespread ignition and heat, culminating in a **Critical Point** if the anomaly fully destabilizes. A critical point is a sort of final catastrophe for an anomaly before it disappears. It is extremely dangerous and can cause possible death for people who happen to be nearby.

Just me spitballing random effects.
* Anomaly starts out by just producing heat. As it destabilizes, it produces extremely high temperatures before spontaneously combusting crewmates and creating random plasma fires.
* Anomaly starts with relatively small visual distortion as well as consuming non-biological objects it touches. As it destabilizes, it randomly consumes walls and tiles, blasting holes in the station.
* Anomaly starts by producing relatively harmless alien fauna. As it destabilizes, the aliens become more and more dangerous before eventually the lab room is consumed by alien terrain and dangerous creatures.
* Anomaly starts by giving those in a close proximity some kind of disease. As it destabilizes, the disease becomes more deadly and harder to cure, before it eventually starts infecting people with a contagion capable of wiping out everyone.

**CODERSPEAK AHEAD**
In code terms, every time a pulse activates, an event (something like `AnomalyPulseEvent`) is raised on the anomaly. This contains two ranges from 0 to 1, representing wackiness and stability. Systems for each anomaly type can then just handle this event to make it do whatever behavior. An anomaly going critical is handled similarly, just by raising an `AnomalyCriticalEvent` and allowing corresponding systems to handle it.