Guide to Telescience
Here, you can do what every scientist has wet dreams about: Teleporting crap in and out of specified coordinates. Anything not bolted down, from pens to people, can be teleported through this machine.
This is Where it Gets Complicated
However, telescience isn't exact: Every teleporter has to be calibrated, as they have a slight drift from the true coordinates. However, with a little Math- SIT DOWN IT ISN'T THAT BAD.
As long as you are just using coordinates obtained from devices in-game, such as those GPSes you have on your desk, it's a simple matter of subtraction to get what you want.
Getting Started
Run up to your pretty blue computer and mash “recalibrate”. Your pad will spark, that's normal.
Grab a GPS, label it “TEST” or something and chuck it onto the pad.
Set coordinates to 100, 100, 1 and hit SEND.
Grab another GPS and use it. Write down the X and Y coordinates of TEST.
Hit receive without changing the coordinates on the screen and put your probe back on the table.
Drift
Now it's time to figure out what your drift is. Drift is two-dimensional, meaning it only affects your X and Y coordinates, so, let's figure it out: (Xa and Ya being where your GPS ended up, and Xd and Yd being your drift)
Xd = Xa - 100
Yd = Ya - 100
So, if your probe ended up at (95, 106), your drift would be (-5, 6).
With that figured out, you can easily and accurately target shit.
Caveats
Areas with valuable supplies and/or high security are jammed. This includes the Bridge and AI Core. You'll know when you target a jammed area because your telepad will buzz. With sufficient tech, research will be able to make portable jammers.
You can bypass jamming by inserting a bluespace crystal into the teleport pad (screwdriver it open, insert crystal, screwdriver closed). It will destroy the telecrystal after the teleport completes.
The telepad must be recalibrated every dozen or so teleports. You'll know when you need to do this when the pad fizzles or does something horrible like teleport in armed Syndicate agents or wizards.
If a teleport fails for some reason (such as if some numbskull enters invalid coordinates, or if you fail to recalibrate), there's a small chance you can teleport in tons of radiation, monsters, etc. For this reason, keep the doors closed when fucking with the telepad and keep a can of phoron nearby to pump in if something goes wrong.
Medium-Range Teleportation
Teleporting from deck to deck is relatively easy; simply set the Z-modifier to +1 per deck upwards or -1 per deck downwards. Don't overdo it, though, as the best consequence is beaming in a vacuum, and the worst is beaming in some unintended consequences…
Long-Range Teleportation
This is necessary for boarding enemy ships, teleporting from ship to planet, teleporting to far-off places, and all the really fun things that can be done with teleporting that don't involve being a dirty thief/traitor. To do this, you need a 'target lock' using the Quantum Telescope, which feeds data to the teleporter regarding a target it has found. When a suitable nearby target (ship, planet, adventure zone, etc.) is already in range, the Quantum Telescope can set a 'target lock'; otherwise, it can set a 'target lock' on any target it searches out.
Welcome to Telescience, the science where you teleport things/people/bombs you aren't supposed to have into places said things/people/bombs aren't supposed to be, or use it for legitimate purposes if you're a good Scientist
Tha' Hell is This New Fangled Telescience Stuff That Runs on That Electricial-Tricity?
To work with telescience, you'll need a Telepad, a Telepad Control Console, several telecrystals, a secure room to teleport people and things in and out of, and several handheld GPS readers.
Telescience is imprecise, but potentially extremely useful. Try teleporting GPSs to see where they go, and then from there you can move objects or people back and forth from your lab. Like all science, experimentation is key!
Holy Shit, I Will be the Ruler of Space and Time!
A word of warning. Telescience requires math. Of course, as a scientist, you have a good understanding of mathematical knowledge and projectile trajectory, right?
The telepad console has 4 variables that can be set:
Bearing (measured in degrees, can have a value from 0 to 360)
Elevation (measured in degrees, can have a value from 0 to 90)
Power (measured in integer units, can have a value from 5 to 100 provided you have enough Bluespace Crystals on hand, power levels from 5 to 25 are available by default)
Sector (defines the z-level which will be teleported to/from, default is 1, corresponding to the main station z-level).
Together, these 4 settings define the coordinates whatever or whoever is on the telepad will find themselves after you push the Send button on the console via the following equation:
where
In dummytalk, Bearing specifies a direction from the telepad (with 0 being North, 90 - East, 180 - South and 270 - West) and Elevation and Power specify how far from the telepad the target will travel.
First things first, the telepad needs to be linked to the Telepad Control Console. To do this you'll need a screwdriver and a multitool. Use the screwdriver on the telepad to remove the maintenance hatch, then use the multitool on the telepad to save it's linking data into the multitool buffer. Screw the maintenance hatch back in and then upload the telepad data to the control console by using the multitool on it.
At first, the telepad will be calibrated. That means the following: the Bearing setting will be offset to a random value between -10 and 10 degrees, and the Power setting will be offset randomly from -4 to 0. After calibration, there are somewhere between 30 and 40 uses before it will have to be re-calibrated. When recalibrating, the bearing and power offsets will be re-rolled. These values do not stack, so they will always be within these ranges. To find out these offsets, you will need those little gizmos called GPSes. Grab two, place one on the telepad and the other in your pocket.
Now this next part requires some math and a calculator supporting square roots and inverse trigonometric functions, specifically asin() and atan(). If you're incapable of math, ask yourself what the hell are you doing in the Research Division of the most high-tech space station ever built, and apply to Head of Personnel for the Clown's job.
First, let's find the power offset. It is most simply done by setting elevation to 45. Elevation set to 45 sets the sin(2*elevation) to 1 so the equation for the distance simplifies to (power^2)/10. For example if you teleport something with power 20, it should be (20^2)/10 = 40 tiles away. That's where the power offset comes in, as the GPS will actually be in 1)