Guide to telescience

Written by Alek2ander, original guide here

You thought it was tricky before? Now it's even worse better!

The basics

The telescience lab is located south of the main Research Hallway, and is protected by an airlock and a set of shutters. The shutters can controlled by 2 buttons: one inside the lab and one in the RD office. The shutters are closed at the start of the shift, so ask the RD or the AI to unlock the lab.

The equipment

   The Telescience Computer - the thing you came here for, that's where you control the teleportations.
   The Telepad - the orange thingie behind the reinforced window where the teleportation actually happens.
   GPS devices - one of the 2 legit ways to determine coordinates of stuff, more on that later.
   Crew Monitoring console - the second way to determine coordinates, also a way to find and retrieve hidden or spaced bodies, and save dying people, provided, of course, they have the suit sensors set to the highest setting.
   Biohazard locker - contains a biohazard suit. Throw it away and use the locker to haul the corpses to genetics without leaving blood all over the halls.
   Emergency locker - contains a mask and oxygen tank, useful if when that malf AI locks you in and starts to syphon.
   Paper, pen, clipboard - for writing down stuff. Really, write down the offsets and leave the paper in the lab, so if you have to leave, someone can use the pad without having to recalculate them.
   Crowbar, wrench - ... what are they even there for? We're working with space-time here, not building stuff.

The computer

Click on the computer and be amazed, all the power of teleportation in 4 simple numbers.

Bearing - the direction where the teleportation will go. 0 is North, 90 is East, 180 is South, and 270 is West. Valid numbers are from -900 to 900, but rotation is periodical, meaning that every 360 degrees we end up having the same direction, so -720, -360, 360, 720 will also point North. It works with non-integers too, but will round all input to the nearest hundredth of a degree. The bearing you input will be offset by a random integer number from -10 to 10, which changes with every calibration. Also, the angles, as you can see, increase clockwise, which is confusing to anyone who studies math.

Elevation - the angle at which the teleporting object will enter blue-space. Valid numbers are from 0 to 90, where 0 will target the pad itself, 90 won't take you anywhere else as well, but take a while to do so, and 45 will provide the longest distance. It's like throwing a ball! 0 means you push it straight, and it falls down immediately. 90 sends the ball straight up, and in a few seconds it hits you on the head comes back down in the exact same spot. 45 will launch it in a neat arc. Non-integers are accepted as well, but will be rounded to the nearest tenth of a degree. The distance of the teleport grows from 0 to 45 and goes back to zero from 45 to 90. There is no offset for elevation, thank god. It's usually better to pick an elevation between 0 and 45, because the teleportation will be much faster.

Power - how far the pad will launch the object. Valid numbers are 5, 10, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 80 and 100. This setting also contributes to teleportation distance. Initially, only the first 3 positions are available. To unlock more, you will need to obtain blue-space crystals (not to be confused with telecrystals, which are cooler), either from xenobiology (bluespace slimes), or a protolathe, requiring Blue-space level 4 and Materials level 6, as well as 1500 Diamond units and 1500 Plasma units for each. The power level you select will be offset by a random integer from -4 to 0, which changes with every calibration.

Sector - which sector of the galaxy do you want to target the coordinates in. This is the Z coordinate, and it doesn't affect anything but the z-level parallel dimension of the teleport destination. Valid numbers are 1, which will target the station itself; 3, where you can find [404 RESOURCE NOT FOUND]; 4, containing the [THIS INFORMATION IS NOT AVAILABLE AT YOUR CLEARANCE LEVEL]; 5, which will target the mining asteroid; and 6, [HERE BE DRAGONS]. You can't reach sectors 2 and 7. You just can't. Don't even try.

Apart from those numbers you can see 2 information windows, which are pretty self-explanatory, and the Recalibrate button. You see, those bluespace crystals can only provide 30 to 40 teleportations before losing their alignment. After that, any attempt to teleport will only fail (the telepad weakly fizzles). Pressing that button will reset the crystals, as well as randomize the 2 offsets, so you will have to figure them out again.

And of course, there are the Send and Receive buttons. You can guess what those do. Yup.

The math

Earlier we had to target cartesian coordinates with offsets. No biggie. Now, those coordinates are polar, and with a twist. If H is bearing, A is elevation and P is power, h is the bearing offset, p is the power offset, X and Y are coordinates of the telepad:

x=X+0.2·(P+p)²·sin(H+h)sin(A)cos(A) y=Y+0.2·(P+p)²·cos(H+h)sin(A)cos(A)

Don't forget to convert to radians if you want to use a calculator here. If we want to know the offset, we can use this:

h=asin((x-X)/√((x-X)²+(y-Y)²)-H p=√(10·√((x-X)²+(y-Y)²)/sin(2·A))-P

Of course, since the coordinates are rounded to integers, the offsets can end up inaccurate. To combat that, try to increase the distance of the test teleportation, but not hit the edges of the universe, which are at 0 and 255.

Most importantly, we can now calculate the settings for the computer, based on required coordinates and the offsets, for each power setting.

H=asin((x-X)/√((x-X)²+(y-Y)²)-h A=½ asin(10·√((x-X)²+(y-Y)²)/(p+P)²)

Unfortunately, the resulting settings, again, do not guarantee the destination will end up to be the one you wanted for some of the power settings, due to rounding. And if the arcsine isn't defined on the argument you get for it, you won't have enough power to reach the desired coordinates at that setting. You might want to double check the resulting teleporter settings using the first system of equations with results from this one, rounded to appropriate digits.

If you're lazy, like me, here's a little something...

The uses

Do I even have to tell you that?

The places

Y = 113 is the centerline of the station. Many interesting things are on that line. The AI, for instance. But keep in mind, the AI core is only able to be teleported when unanchored. Anchored objects, including people buckled into immovable chairs, can not be teleported. A bag of holding will mess up your teleport, sending you to an unintended destination. You can only teleport directly visible items, so people in disposal pipes and bins aren't accesible either. The nuclear authentification disk cannot be teleported, neither is any container it is in. X increases to the east and decreases to the west, Y increases to the north and decreases to the south. Use that, in combination with your GPS, to get coordinates of any visible object.

Knowing the coordinates of items or places in secure locations without ever seeing that item or place in-game, in the current round, with a way to determine coordinates like a GPS, is metagaming! Knowing anything about non-explored z-levels is metagaming! Using telescience while not antag to steal rare or dangerous items without a reason to do so is powergaming! Using telescience to harm or kill people as non-antag is griefing! All of that can get you banned!

TL; DR Telescience is hard. Find another job.