This guide is not only a guide to the basic mechanics of Xenoarcheology, it is also a guide to be an efficient and realistic Xenoarcheologist. If you feel some parts are too much for you, feel free to ignore them, but from an in-character perspective you're far more likely to keep your job and be considered a meaningful contributor to your field if you're following procedure rather than being somebody who leaves tools and finds in disarray, doesn’t analyze their findings, and regularly destroys items of historical significance.
Xenoarcheologist, Anomalist: The Difference The first thing to know is that a Xenoarcheologist is not an Anomalist. While they tend to work together for obvious reasons, and due to the nature of the Sif Anomalous Region there is likely to be some overlap, their exact field of study, methods, and RP archetypes are fairly different.
Xenoarchaeologist A Xenoarcheologist's job is the search for and investigation of artifacts of historical significance. If you want to be pedantic, the investigation of fossil record and Sif's natural history would make you a Xenopaleontologist, but NanoTrasen isn't paying you to be that kind of pedant.
Artifacts are items many would consider useless, or even trash. Cutlery, pottery, ritual objects - if it's old enough, you're here for it. Some may belong to long-dead alien civilizations (Often referred to as “Precursors”), or just earlier planetary colonists. From a gameplay perspective, most of these things are useless, and purely decorative though some may have limited function and may have some technological value in the Destructive Analyzer if you truly have no respect for material culture.
As such, Xenoarcheology is mainly a roleplaying job, where your goal is to make sense of these objects, and try to deduce what they might have been, who might have used them, and how they ended up buried at your digsite. It also quite different from some of the other Scientise jobs: You do not work in a laboratory, you work outside, digging your way through the cold, hard rock of Sif's underground cave networks. Xenoarchaeology is less of an experimental science, and more of a branch of (Xeno)anthropology, which sets them apart from much of the research department who are probably more concerned with the latest breakthrough or invention than the daily life of the long dead.
A core concept in archaeology is that a site can only be excavated once, so the care and accuracy put into doing so has to be as meticulous as possible. There are rarely hard answers from the fragments found at any given site, so preserving context as it is found is vital, down to the exact depth and relative positioning of each object. Artifacts separated vertically could have been buried decades, or centuries apart, not to mention the potential influence of siesmic activity, ground water, or later disturbance of the site.
Anomalist By contrast, an Anomalist is very much an experimental scientist. Their job is to analyse anomalous objects either brought to them by the Xenoarchaeology team, or by Explorers from the wilderness. They may accompany either group on expeditions, but may not be so concerned with the preservation of some potsherds or the exact depth and position their weird doodad was found in. Far more interesting may be “What does this thing do, and how can we use it?”
However, that does not mean the job is totally devoid of an RP element. Some objects may have been rendered anomalous by the Skathari Incursion, but others may simply be alien technology beyond our current understanding, and what better way to expand that understanding than by poking around. How was your anomaly used by the people who made it? How does it relate to the artifacts the Xenoarcheologist found with it? You are not a Xenoarcheologist, but that does not mean you should totally ignore them.
Your Department The Xenoarchaeology department, due to the potential risks posed by anomalous finds, is located a little ways north of the main station. This can be accessed via a surface elevator, or by a dimly lit underground path from the basement level of Research.
The southeast corner of the Xenoarchaeology department consists of a prep room, containing (almost) all of the equipment needed for a successful expedition. Also relevant are the spectrometer room to the left side of the structure, which is used for analysing soil samples, and the small office area near the entrance which may be used for writing up all those juicy reports. A small first-aid locker is situated in one of the hallways in case of an accident. The rest of the building is largely used for Anomaly Research, but you can poke around if you so desire.
In the office area, you will find several items which may be of interest: a camera, a clipboard, a folder, and paper. Feel free to take some of them to do a more thorough job, like taking pictures of your findings, writing reports, notes, theories, etc. Also recommended are latex gloves, in the event you encounter an anomaly these will reduce your chances of accidental activation and your sudden untimely death!
Equipment Now, proper Xenoarcheology equipment. All of these are available in the Prep room, so be sure to look around thoroughly.
MeasuringTape.png Measuring Tape: Tells you how deep you have already dug into a particular rock wall. Useful when you lose track of your excavation. File:GPSDevice.png GPS: Tells you your position on the planet. Not of major importance, but can be useful if you want to keep track of that and can be left at a dig site to find it again later. PickSet.png Excavation Pick Set: Absolute necessity. Contains the small picks you need to excavate your artifacts, they all dig a different depth, detailed later in this guide. TrackingBeacon.png Tracking Beacon: When activated, allows locator devices to locate it by tuning on its frequency. Useful if you are in trouble, or if you simply lost your suspension field generator. CoreSampler.png Core Sampler: Absolute necessity. Needed to take the rock samples you need for spectrometer analysis. Wrench.png Wrench: Needed to set the suspension field generator, which is necessary to collect artifacts. HandPickaxe.png Hand Pickaxe: The largest excavation pick, does not fit in the Excavation Pick Set. Digs 30cm. LocatorDevice.png Locator Device: Locates Tracking Beacons by tuning to their frequency. Blank display: Not set up. Red “?”: Incorrect setup. Black dot: The beacon is very very close. Green arrow: The beacon is nearby. Blue arrow: The beacon is some distance away. Red arrow: The beacon is very far. DepthAnalysis.png Depth Analysis Scanner: Absolute necessity. Tells you if the tile of rock in front of you, contains something for you to dig up, and gives you information about it if it is the case. Detailed later in this guide. File:AldenSaraspova.png Alden-Sarapova Counter: Extremely useful for locating dig sites. Will tell you the exact distance to a detected anomaly (a misleading term, as it refers to both anomalous objects (“Exotic Energy”) and merely foreign objects in a rock wall (“Small Anomaly”), which can be narrowed down by moving back and forth and re-activating the counter. Lantern.png Lantern: A very useful light source. Excavation Belt.png Excavation Gear-Belt: The belt that will allow you to carry most of your equipment. MGlasses.png Optical Meson Scanner: Allows you to see through the rock, and locate dig sites more easily. File:Excavation Hood.png Excavation Suit Hood File:Excavation Suit.png Excavation Suit: Both the suit and hood are absolute necessities. Capable of full EVA with an air tank, protects you against most radiation and partially against exotic particles, should you find an activated anomaly. Note: Anomaly Suits are not vacuum proof, but provide more complete protection against radiation and anomalous particles, if seeking anomalies is your goal.
An oxygen tank, available in the same room, a breath mask also available there, as well as latex gloves. It's also recommended to bring a camera (One is found in the hallway office area) in order to take photographs of your digsites and finds 'in-situ' before you disturb their position, as their relative positioning could tell you as much about their purpose as anything else!
If you bring the listed items, you should still have enough space in your inventory to carry some extra equipment of your choice. Be sure to leave some room to bring your finds home, a crate from the store room may be advisable.
Forward Camp You may desire to set up a forward base (or repurpose one you find deep in the caves). To do so, bring some extra metal sheets in order to contruct tables, racks etc. as you see fit. You could use such a camp to organize your findings, for example placing all material from one dig site on one table or rack. Items worth keeping organized together are rock samples, your artifacts, and, when you have done it, your analysis and other paperwork, like photos and notes.
It is of the utmost importance you establish a pattern on how you organize your dig sites. This is very important, because as you dig out more sites, you should label the sample bags with a number (Dig Site 1, Dig Site 2, etc.) so that, when you go back to the Outpost for your analysis, you know which sample bag and which result belongs to these or those artifacts. So, you need to remember how you placed your various dig sites on your tables. Keep it simple, or find a system that works for you.
Finding digsites It is time to start looking for dig sites. For now, you only strictly need two items: Your normal pick, and your Depth Analysis Scanner.
There are a few simple methods you may wish to follow:
Use the Alden-Saraspova counter device. This clever device can detect both Anomalies nearby (Exotic energy detected…) and dig sites for artifacts (Small anomaly detected…). The readout shows distance to the objects, so use triangulation to locate them. Pick a direction and use your drill to make tunnels through the rock walls until you see some strange rocks. Follow the open caves, you might get lucky and find some strange rocks in their walls. An exposed digsite
Note: Be very careful as you get closer, not all artifacts are visible by naked eye and you might accidentally drill through one of them, destroying it in the process. When you get near the dig site, use your handheld Depth Analysis Scanner on the walls before you drill, if it pings, you're lucky and there is treasure in front of you, waiting to be extracted.
Excavation At last, you have found a dig site, or your Depth Analysis Scanner pinged while you were looking for one. It is time to be precise and thorough.
If you click on your Depth Analysis Scanner, a screen similar to this one will appear.
Xenoarch depth.png
Time: The time at which the scan was made. Only for paperwork purposes.
Coords: Coordinates of the dig site. Paperwork purposes too.
Anomaly depth: The depth at which your artifact resides.
Clearance above anomaly depth: The size of the cavity in which the artifact is. If you dig in it, you will get a strange rock, which I will talk about later.
Dissonance spread: Quite useless, a 1 means it is an artifact, other numbers indicate an anomaly, but in this case, the scan is different enough to render this information useless.
Anomaly material: Tells you roughly what your artifact is.
Now that you have this information, bring the Suspension Field Generator to the dig site. You need two free tiles around the site, so that you can put your generator on one, and be on the other one. Fix it to the ground, and do not activate it yet. For now, what we need is a rock sample.
For that purpose, you will need to dig just before the cavity starts. It means you need to subtract the Clearance from the anomaly depth, and dig at this distance. In the case of the image below, the artifact is at 30 cm and the clearance is 6 cm, so I need to dig 24 cm. Now that you have dug this distance, take your Core Sampler and click on the dig site. The red light will turn green, meaning that a sample was taken.
Note: You only need one rock sample per dig site.
Now you can focus on the excavation. You will need to strike at the exact anomaly depth if you want to directly collect the artifact. Now I activate the Suspension Field Generator, and I dig 6 cm to reach the anomaly. I turn the suspension field generator off, and…
Xenoarch suspfield.png
Here is your artifact, excavated in the most efficient way possible.
Then, repeat the same procedure minus the sample until your Depth Analysis Scanner stops pinging.
Note: This example is for a precise excavation. If you dig too far, the artifact breaks. But, if you dig too short, and you end up in the cavity of the artifact, you will get this.
Xenoarch cavity.png
This is a strange rock. While not being a total failure, a strange rock is bad. First, because you need to open it with a welder, which is one unnecessary step in the process. But the most important point here is that opening strange rocks quite often breaks the artifact itself, so, try to dig at the exact anomaly depth to avoid these kinds of issues.
When you are done with the excavation, bring your sample and findings back to the Camp, where you may want to organize them in the way you see fit, as I explained in the Camp chapter.
Here is a quick guide to picks and their sizes:
Xenoarch picks.png
Analysis: Spectrometry So! You have spent some time digging and excavating, and now, you have around 6 different dig sites, maybe more. That’s good. Hopefully you organized and labeled them all according to a memorable pattern. Now, take all the samples, put them in your crate, and head back to the Outpost, for the Spectrometer analysis.
Xenoarch speclab.png
Here is the Spectrometry Laboratory. In the room, you see a coolant tank, a bucket, some nanopaste, and three spectrometers. In order to have an organized analysis, I suggest you only use one, most particularly, the upper one, since it avoids the usual back & forth to provide it with coolant. Once it is filled with coolant, take your first sample, take the rock sample in it, and put it in the spectrometer.
Note: Once again, use only one Spectrometer, and start with your Dig Site 1, then 2, etc. The results of the analysis are chronologically numerated, so, that way, you will have correspondence between your samples and your results.
Xenoarch spectroconsole.png
Now, you have opened the Spectrometer menu. Big scary screen at first, but simple to understand.
Scanner: Indicates the progress of the scan, and the “health” of the spectrometer. When it is too low, use nanopaste to fix it.
MASER: The most important stuff. Try to match you Current Wavelength with the Optimal Wavelength best as you can, since it is what makes the scan progress.
Environment / Internal: The speed at which the machine functions, and the heat it endures. The faster it goes, the hotter it is.
Radiation: Sometimes, radiation outbursts happen during the scan. You can enable the Radiation Shielding, but it stops the scan. It's highly recommended to keep your excavation suit on for this stage, since it protects you against it. That way, you can totally ignore this factor.
Cooling: Rather simple to understand. It is what keeps the Internal Temperature low. On this screen, you see I put the flow rate at 2 u/s : It is best to keep it that way, 2 u/s gives you plenty of time before emptying it, and avoids overheat in almost every case.
If you followed these instructions, the only part you need to focus on is the MASER field, since it is the only one that will necessitate you to fiddle with during the scan.
Now, you begin your scan, keep the Wavelength in check, and normally, the scan goes very well without any trouble. The machine pings, ejects your rock sample, and prints the result of the scan.
Xenoarch specresults.png
Now, you have some techno-babble information that will allow you to RP-study your artifacts later.
Analysis: Chemistry Obviously, the coolant in the tank is not enough to last the entire shift. It is generally empty after three spectrometer scans. You can still use water as a less efficient coolant, but here is a better solution.
Go into the room east of the Spectrometer room. Here is the Chemistry lab, which was once used to prepare the samples for the Spectrometer scans, before the system was reworked to be simpler. But it is still of use: Grab the two large beakers of the room, and make coolant. The formula is quite simple:
Oxygen + Water + Tungsten
Now, you have an unlimited source of coolant to keep your Spectrometer working!
Study Now that you have analyzed all your samples, it is time to bring all of this to camp or the office. Put your sample bags and reports in your crate, and drag it back there. Make sure you keep things organized, so that you have all the information you need available.
Xenoarch campcomplete.png
(For the needs of this tutorial, there is only took one sample here, but multiply this by 6 or more to have an idea of what your camp could look like by now.)
Now you have organized all your findings… It's time for a bit of imagination, be creative! Look at your 800 year old weapons from Dig Site 4. Maybe they belonged to the species depicted on this 850 years old bowl, at Dig Site 2? Basically, make logical links between your findings, invent stories, entire civilizations, wars, religions, the possibilities are quite huge. Here you can reference existing lore, or come up with something yourself - maybe it's a fringe theory, or maybe you've made the breakthrough of the century. Maybe when you have enough data, you’ll write a book about it? Xenoarcheology can be a very lonely job, but it still gives you plenty of occasions to make great RP, so just go crazy. Nerd out about it to your friends, or anybody who will listen!
Anomalies But, while you have fun with your trinkets and old plant fossils, your buddies in the Anomaly department are still waiting for anomalies to work with.
They are found the same way you find artifacts: Scan a tile, if it doesn't ping, nothing, if it pings, excavate it. To make your life a lot easier, the Alden-Saraspova Counter can be used to track anomalies. Rather than scanning every tile, this tool will find the closest anomaly and display your distance from it. Every time you change position, you can use it again, getting closer with each scan. Once you're within a few meters, you can begin to scan tiles confident that one of them will ping and contain an anomaly. Generally, anomalies are hidden behind a bunch of artifacts, so finding them is generally a matter of luck. You know you have found an anomaly when your Depth Analysis Scanner tells you this:
Xenoarch depthanomaly.png
At this point, it means you need to dig at a depth of 200 cm. Once you are there, the external rock collapses, leaving a rocky debris. Scan it once again, and you’ll get another bunch of results, which are quite erratic, so don’t focus on them. For the excavation, you do not need your field generator, so just grab a small pick, smaller than 8 cm, and start digging. At one moment or another, the rocky debris will collapse too, leaving you with the anomaly. At this point, you might want to take a photo or something else, to add to your own paperwork.
Then, simply bring back the anomaly to the conveyor belts of the Outpost, tell your coworkers that the anomaly is ready to be brought inside, and let them handle the reception and analysis, so that you can go back to your own work, though they may also appreciate some interdisciplinary assistance.
The field of Xenoarchaeology is, in short, the discovery and proper excavation of artifacts and fossils from a bygone era.
Preparations Required Immense patience. Excavation suit, for safe access to space. Depth Analysis Scanner, for observing the amount of stone to dig away when excavating. Toolpick set, for actual excavating. Hand pickaxe, for rough excavating, when there's too much rock. Pickaxe/Jackhammer/Plasma cutter/Drill, for digging tunnels towards interesting rocks within a sane time. Optical Meson Scanners, for spotting any ores nearby. Suspension Field Generator, for extracting rocks of interest from dig-sites. Wrench, to bolt the field generator to the asteroid.
Optional Mining satchel, for storing rocks, before putting them in an ore box. Ore box, for collecting ores. Tape measure.
First thing you want to do is suit up and grab all the required supplies in the list. Consider taking the optional items with you for your own convenience, they'll make life easier for you. The tape measure in particular will prevent you from making mistakes if you don't have the greatest memory or have a temporary lapse in concentration. After you've gathered your supplies, you want to head on out to the asteroid itself. Be sure to double or even triple check that you have all your goods, as no other job class requires such a ridiculous plethora of items to accomplish so little. It's easy to forget just one tool and have to go back inside the station to get it.
Locating Digsites
The actual process of finding a potential digsite is easy; just use your depth analyzer to scan any rock tiles. If it hums, then move on; if it pings, you're in business. Keep your eyes peeled for those brown rocks with white cracks in them: those tiles will always have something inside of them.
Excavation Tool Excavation Depth Brush 1 cm 1/6 Red 2 cm 1/3 Orange 4 cm 1/2 Yellow 6 cm 2/3 Green 8 cm 5/6 Blue 10 cm 1/1 Purple 12 cm Hand pickaxe 30 cm
This is the process that will rot away the minds of most Xenoarcheologists, as its tedious, math based, and requires exact precision.
Once you find a tile that pings, you'll want to take note on your depth analyzer just the very tile you're looking at (the most recent scan will be at the bottom). Here it will list the Anomaly depth, clearance depth, along with the type of find it is (potassium, iron, mercury, etc). The formulate for getting out the potential artifact is this: Substract the clearance depth from the anomaly depth; this number is the exact amount you want to mine out of the rock. How do you mine out that much, you say? Why with your handpick and pick set of course.
Hand Picks First off, chuck the brush; all increments are always measured in 2, so 1 is being overly sensitive. So, you take out the proper picks or combination and being picking away…for example, if the anomaly depth was 60 and the clearance was 20, then you'd need to dig a total of 40: you could dig with 1/1 3 times, then once with 1/3…4 times with 5/6…the choice doesn't really matter; just pick precisely down to 40 cm. If you forget how much you've excavated, this is where your tape measure comes in handy; it will tell you how much you've cleared so far.
Once you're down to this level, place the generator right up against the rock wall (with the circular disks facing it). Next, bolt it to the ground with the wrench. Swipe your ID to authenticate yourself, then open the menu up. What field do you want to select? Use your depth-analyzer again and look at the “Anomaly Material” section. Here is a list if the correct field usage for the type of Anomaly Material.
Suspension Field Generator Settings
Carbon: Trace organic cells. Potassium: Long exposure particles. Hydrogen: Trace water particles. Nitrogen: Crystalline structures. Mercury: Metallic derivatives. Iron: Metallic composites. Chlorine: Metamorphic/Igneous rock composites. Phosphorus: Metamorphic/Sedimentary rock composites. Plasma: Anomalous materials.
Once you have the right field selected, turn it on. Now get out your depth-analyzer again and check the “Clearance above Anomaly Depth” section. Use the right excavation picks to dig away the clearance, and… Tada! A strange rock or potential artifact is now yours! If you follow this methodology, you will never destroy a strange rock. Now, turn off the generator.
From here, there may be 1 or 2 more potential artifacts in that tile. Just rescan it to see the new depth and repeat the process. (Just keep in mind what you've excavated already for your calculations.)
Now that you've got a stash of strange rocks, it's time to see what's in them. Fortunately, as time consuming as excavating the rocks is, cracking them open is rather easy. Simple pull out a welder, turn it on, and use it on the Strange Rock. Tada, you got your item. On the rare case that sparks fly off the rock when this happens, try some acid on it instead.
Congratulations, you've now learned how to become a proficient Xenoarcheologist.
The Loot
So just what can you find at digsites? Is it exciting? Is it great? It has to be awesome to be so boring and painstakingly slow, right? RIGHT? Well… here's another reason why even veteran Xenoarchaeologists are hardly ever seen: the stuff discovered is literally worthless junk 9/10 times.
First off, each site is unique and can be one of several types, and each digsite type has unique items. The types, from left-to-right as most common to least common, are:
Digsite Types Forest/Garden/Animal Home Technical/Scientific Temple/Religious War/Battlegrounds Bear traps. Fossils. Plants. Shells. Bowls. Boxes. (Can be deconstructed for cardboard.) Coins. Instruments. (Decorative) Knifes. Lighters. Pens. (Regular or sleep-inducing.) Statuettes. (Decorative.) Metal sheets, rods, or glass shards. Urns. (Fancy looking 50-unit beakers.) Bear traps. Gas tanks. (Can be filled with a random gas.) Handcuffs. Metal sheets, rods, or glass shards. Teleporter beacons. Random tools. Bear traps. Bowls. Claymores. Crystals. Cult blades. Cult robes. Handcuffs. Katana. Knife. Metal sheets, rods, or glass shards. Soul stones. Urns. (Fancy looking 50-unit beakers.) Bear traps. Claymores. Cult blades. Cult robes. Guns. Handcuffs. Lasers. Random tools. A note on excavated items OK, as you can see, the vast, vast majority of this stuff is not that great. It's either decorative, or just an existing SS13 item with a unique description. There's a few standouts, however, that I'll explain:
Cult blades: Fully functional and full damage (30); you'll shake if you wield it. Katana/Claymores: Utter crap; despite claiming to be real, both are replica in nature and deal pitiful amounts of damage; might as well robust someone in the head with a toolbox—damage is only 10. Soul stones: Fully functional. Sleepy pens: You have no way of knowing if it's a regular pen or sleepy pen. Although keep in mind, this is NOT the paralysis pen that the Syndicates use; this is just a pen with a lot of Chloral Hydrate in it. Bear traps: You arm them, someone steps on them and it greatly reduces their movement speed; cannot be removed without assistance. Guns: Basically it's just a revolver with a unique reskin—usually doesn't have bullets; downside is there's only a 33% chance that it can be loaded with current tech bullets. There's also a 33% chance it could come with its own RANDOM number of bullets Lasers: can be a practice laser gun, full laser gun, X-Ray laser gun (!), or Captain's laser gun (listed in order of most likely to least likely to find). Downside here is there's a 5% chance that laser gun will explode when used and a 10% chance it has an unchargeable cell. Additionally, a 15% chance of having a cell with a random amount of energy—elsewise, you'll have to charge it. So really, the only interesting finds are a cult blade, soul stone shard, and guns which have a high failure rate. Worst of all, is its all down to luck where digsites are at and luck on what items will be contained within that digsite. This is why no one gives a damn about Xenoarchaeology, and why no one keeps at it for long.
Caution Once in a while you may mine a tile or improperly excavate it and be temporarily blinded, then hear a keening/thunder/etc. type sound. What does this mean? It means you destroyed one of the most rare artifacts a Xenoarch could hope for. How can you go about mining these consistently? Well, you can't; Xenoarchaeology is bugged and the machines used for them are broken.
Never-the-less, when you excavate a tile, there's a chance you may find some “Rocky Debris”. This is easy to miss as it looks like a bunch of regular rocks glued together. That said, if you find one, be sure to use your depth scanner on it; if hums, just destroy it….that said, if the depth scanner pings when you use it on rocky debris? Take a deep breath and calm yourself, you have found something very rare. Some Xenoarchaeologists recommend just using the 2 cm pick to slowly crack it open; while others will chance it with the analyzer.
Alien Artifacts These are weird relics that possess odd powers; it can take on any number of shapes, but they all do the same thing: when activated, they'll produce an effect. This is why there's all those odd tools in Xenoarchaeology, to test how to activate them. Once you pin down what it does and how to activate it, you may want to extract its energy and put it in an anomaly battery and use it for your own purposes. Be very careful with these artifacts, very few of the effects they produce are beneficial.
For more information about what Alien Artifacts do check this page out Alien Artifacts.
Locating To find these rare artifacts you will only need four tools although it is best to take your normal excavation tools as well, The four necessary tools are:
The Alden Saraspova Counter, this is used to find your artifact. The Depth Analysis Scanner, for finding the exact location. The Pickaxe, for reaching the artifact. The smaller Hand Pickaxe, for excavating the artifact. Once you have all of these you head outside and use your Alden Saraspova counter. It will first check the background radiation. When you use it again it should detect the nearest artifact and give a distance, your objective here is obviously to get this distance as small as possible.
Start by walking around and using your counter at difrent places to get an idea of the direction you should take. Dig in your chosen direction and try to get the distance below 5 meters, you will probably need to change direction quite often. This is where things get interesting as the artifact is probably very close, use your depth analasis scanner to see if a tile contains the artifact you are looking for, if it hums, dig the tile away and move on. If it pings, you have found your goal.
Now that you have finally found the piece of wall, your artifact is hidden under, so it's time to excavate it. Usually these tiles are also filled with one or more strange rocks so if you want to, you can excavate those too; although it isn't necessary. To go straight to digging up your artifact, use your hand pickaxe to dig all the rocks away. Eventually you should find rocky debris. Next, use your hand pickaxe again to carefully remove those too.
Your artifact will appear from below the rubble. Open your champagne bottle and rejoice with your probably non-existant Xenoarchaeology colleagues! These artifacts can do many things and you should experiment on how to use them, some work straight away while others need to be activated. Luckily, the research outpost has a large amount of items used for testing these special items.
Foreword Xenoarchaeology is incredibly easy with the newer toys developed by NT. Your job is twofold: To raise R&D's Anomaly Tech Level to maximum, and to bring back objects and artifacts that might be useful to the crew back at the station to stack yourself up with rare items and powerful weapons for your own profit.
Xenoarchaeologist at work
Anomalist at work
The Xenoarchaologist part of the job itself involves digging anomalies out of the rock. Using small picks and a scanner, you will slowly unearth small finds one after the other. Those finds may include alien guns, medieval weapons, prehistoric seeds, etc… This guide will cover the different types of finds, and how to get those you want. On top of the small “Mundane” finds, there are a number of “Exotic” large alien artifacts hidden on the asteroid. You might find one by chance if you're lucky, but we are now entering the domain of the second part of the job.
The Anomalist part of the jobs revolves around specifically finding and analyzing the Exotic large artifacts mentioned above. Finding them may involve some chemistry, geometry, and patience, while analyzing them will require some know-how a list of what each sentence of the anomaly report means, which we'll provide bellow, although blind experimentation can also be part of the fun. Those large artifacts have effects that can range from boring to incredibly useful, to incredibly dangerous, and guess what, you can harvest their power and release it from the palm of your hand (and your anomaly power utilizer).
Both of those parts are fairly time consuming, so you will usually want to focus on either one (getting small finds) or the other (getting large artifacts), to get the most out of them. Personally I like to start the shift digging some small finds out for 10 minutes while the Anomalous Materials Lab's freezer cools down, and to potentially get a head start on the Anomaly Tech tree before moving on to Anomalist work.
The Research Outpost Arguably one of the main benefits of the profession (except on Asteroid Station where the labs are part of the main station) is having your own mini-station safe away from the tumult of the crew. You don't even need half the rooms up there, so we'll only cover here those relevant to Xenoarchaeology, but feel free to explore the other rooms in your spare time.
Rooms of the Research Outpost relevant to Xenoarchaeology Expedition Preparation This is where you'll often head off right as you arrive on the outpost, if only to secure an archaeology hardsuit if there are more than 2 scientists that want to do Xenoarchaeology. This is where you will find all the tools you need to do your job. You'll usually want to pack everything that's in the Excavation locker inside your excavation belt or backpack.
Anomalous Material Sample Preparation Basically a small Chemistry lab. You will need it to prepare extracted rock samples for analysis, but you may also use it to produce any chemicals you may need for your own use, you hyperzine junkie.
Anomalous Materials Features a small pen with a freezer that you'll want to turn on as soon as possible. The machines in there will overheat if you try to use them at room temperature. Their purpose is to let Anomalists triangulate the location of large artifacts, analyze large artifacts, as well as provide them with all the tools they might need to activate large artifacts. So yeah, Anomalists use this room a lot.
Isolation Rooms Feature some additional analyzers, as well as cameras so you can run experiments without exposing yourself (or the rest of the outpost) to too much danger. More interestingly, the canister connectors and heater/freezer to the left are very useful to create the atmospheric conditions that may be needed to activate some large artifacts.
Long Term Storage This is a room where to set-up a secondary cult base store large artifacts that you don't need right now. It contains a pair of Anomaly Containers: artifacts placed in those immediately shut down their effects, and only scientists can open them (or anyone with an emag). you may order extra containers at Cargo
Exotic Particles Collection Where Anomalists finish their job before sending a large artifact to long term storage. By harvesting the artifact's power into a battery, its effect can then be easily utilized without having to deal with the artifact's often obtuse activation triggers, or size. Extra batteries and utilizers can be printed at R&D. Be mindful to wear your Anomaly Suit though, as the harvesting process emits radiation.
Tools Excavation Available at Round Start Archaeosuit new.png Archaeology hardsuit: Sturdy enough to protect you somewhat from the Asteroid's fauna, the helmet's light couples well with your lantern to highlight the nearby finds you have already excavated. Don't forget your magboots and oxygen tank as well! Pickaxe.png Pickaxe: Use to reach a digsite, or to clear out the remains of a fully excavated rock wall. Be careful not to accidentally dig into a digsite or you will instantly destroy the find at the closest depth. MGlasses.png Optical Meson Scanner: Lets you see the terrain through the rocky walls of the Asteroid, allowing you to quickly find digsites and ores. Although it appears at first to let you see in the dark, you won't be able to see items and mobs that are in pitch darkness, so remember to combine it with another light source. Depthscanner.png Depth Analysis Scanner: Your bread and butter, use this rock walls to see if they contain anomalies, as well as their depths and material. Excavationpicks.png Excavation pick set: Those picks let you carefully dig into a wall up to a depth of up to 6cm (each pick has their own digging depth) Brush.png 1 cm Brush: Found in the excavation pick set. Not only lets you dig 1cm into walls as its name suggests, but lets you cleanly extract finds from strange rocks. Handpickaxe.png Hand pickaxe: Too big to fit in the excavation pick set, this hand pickaxe allows you to mine out 15 centimeters of depth at once, which is often useful to bypass an anomaly's clearance depth, as we'll discuss in the following parts. Measuringtape.png Measuring Tape: Lets you measure how much you have dug into a wall. Not that you would need it if you have a great memory. Coresampler.png Core Sampler: Use on a rock wall to extract a rock sliver, which can then be processed back at the Research Outpost to get the ID and distance of the nearest large artifact. Gps.png Global Positioning Device: Shows you your current position, and also makes it visible to everybody else with a GPS. Always use it to keep track of the locations from where you extracted rock samples, and also useful so there's a sliver of a chance your corpse will be recovered thanks to it if you get careless around goliaths. Lantern.png Lantern: For light, necessary if you want to see actual objects on the Asteroid and not lose them when you walk a small distance away. Complements well the Optical Meson scanner, just carry it in your pocket. Obtainable from R&D Handdrill.png Drill: Digs 1.5 times faster than a regular pickaxe. Materials Research: Level 2 Power Manipulation Technology: Level 3 Engineering Research: Level 2 Diamonddrill.png Diamond Drill: Digs 4 times faster than a regular pickaxe. Being able to dig faster is always nice. Just don't get careless and irreversibly bulldoze the large artifact you were looking for. Materials Research: Level 6 Power Manipulation Technology: Level 4 Engineering Research: Level 4 Excavationdrill.png Excavation Drill: Can be adjusted to dig anywhere between 1 and 15 centimeters, making both the hand pickaxe and pick set obsolete and making your job way faster as you no longer have to switch between small picks (you will still need the brush to extract finds from strange rocks though) Materials Research: Level 2 Power Manipulation Technology: Level 3 Engineering Research: Level 3 'Blue-space' Research: Level 3 Diamondexcavationdrill.png Diamond Excavation Drill: On top of being twice as fast as the Excavation Drill, it can be adjusted to dig anywhere between 1 and 50 centimeters! Materials Research: Level 6 Power Manipulation Technology: Level 3 Engineering Research: Level 3 'Blue-space' Research: Level 4 Digsitelocator.png Xenoarchaeological Digsite Locator: Not only highlights every digsite in view (including those invisible to the naked eye), but displays the material of their anomalies, allowing you to deduce the type of digsite you are dealing with, and thus be more likely to get the finds you are looking for. Electromagnetic Spectrum Research: Level 2 Anomaly Research: Level 3 Digsitelocatoradvanced.gif Advanced Xenoarchaeological Digsite Locator: On top of having a regular locator's abilities, this one even detects large artifacts hidden inside visible walls! Greatly enhancing your ability to find them. However to reach the required Anomaly Tech Level, you will need to have either already found a large artifact, or a few of the rarest small finds. Electromagnetic Spectrum Research: Level 3 Anomaly Research: Level 4 Ano scanner.gif Alden-Saraspova Counter: The holy grail of Xenoarchaeology, gives you the distance to the closest large artifact, bypassing entirely the need to do the Chemistry and analysis process again. Best use when combined with the Advanced Xenoarchaeological Digsite Locator when you've gotten under 7 tiles away from the artifact. Materials Research: Level 6 'Blue-space' Research: Level 4 Anomaly Research: Level 5 Anomaly Analysis Anomalysuit.pngChem Glasses.pngLGloves.png Anomaly Suit, Science Goggles and Gloves: You will want to wear that suit when you move on to anomaly work. Not only does it protect you from cold temperatures, it offers perfect protection from both radiations and the effect of anomalies. Gloves also prevent you from accidentally triggering artifacts that activate from touch. Sample Analysis Sliver.png Rock Sliver: Extracted from Asteroid walls by a Core Sampler. Only useful if you remember well the coordinate of the location from which it was extracted. Blender.png All-In-One Grinder: Lets you grind rock slivers into 'Ground Rock' powder. Chem dispenser.png Chemistry Dispenser: On top of letting you produce a wide variety of useful chemicals, you will need it to prepare the lithium sodium tungstate. A reducing agent that will let you separate the analysis liquid from the ground rock. ChemMaster.png ChemMaster 3000: Allows you to extract a specific reagent from a beaker or tray (or almost any reagent container). In our case, we'll want to isolate the Analysis Liquid mentioned above. Tray.png Solution Tray: Though only able to contain up to 2 units of reagent, only those can be inserted inside the analysis machines described bellow. Hyperspectral.png Hyperspectral Imager: By inserting a tray with some analysis liquid in it, you will get the ID of the nearest artifact from where the rock sample that was processed into that liquid was extracted from. Heats up a lot during scanning, will shut down if temperature goes over 400K Fourier.png Fourier Transform Spectroscope: By inserting a tray with some analysis liquid in it, you will get the distance from the nearest artifact from where the rock sample that was processed into that liquid was extracted from. Heats up a lot during scanning, will shut down if temperature goes over 400K Those last two machines however can be upgraded with better scanning modules to let them complete the scanning before they overheat, even when used at room temperature.
Anomaly Processing Scanpad.pngAnalyzer.gif Anomaly Analyser: This is where you will want to bring large artifacts as soon as you have extracted them. Not only will it print information about the artifact, letting you know how to activate it and use it, but it will encrypt anomaly data into an HDD that you can then deconstruct at R&D from previous Anomaly Research. HDD.png Encrypted HDD: Anomaly Analysers produce one of those when a large artifact gets analyzed for the first time. Bring it to R&D and place it inside the Deconstructive Analyzer to raise your Anomaly Research level. You may raise the level up to 6 by deconstructing a total of 3 Encrypted HDDs, but you only need it up to level 5 to unlock every Anomaly blueprints. Scanpad.pngAno harvester.png Exotic Particle Harvester: By placing a large alien artifact on the scanning pad, you can isolate its energies and harvest them inside a battery for use with an anomaly power utilizer. To successfully isolate either the Primary or Secondary effect of a Large Artifact, said effect must either be active, or have been recently activated. Furthermore, the harvesting process emits radiations, be sure to wear an anomaly suit or stand outside the room. Ano battery.png Anomaly Power Battery: Stores the energy harvested from a large alien artifact. Can be fit either inside an Exotic Particle Harvester or an Anomaly Power Utilizer. Anodev.png Anomaly Power Utilizer: By turning it on, you now can freely wield the powers of the artifact you harvested the energy from. Depending on whether the artifact's effects happened by touch, aura or pulse, the utilizer may the same way be used by touching mobs to have the same effects happen to them as if they had touched the large artifact. You may want to wear gloves if the effect being used is dangerous for those who touch the artifact it was harvested from. Anomaly Container.png Anomaly Container: Lets you drag'n'drop large alien artifacts in it for safely moving them around and storing them. Artifact effects automatically deactivate when it is stored, and only players with Science access (or an emag) can open them. Also, you may stick an Anomaly Report paper on it, letting people, get an idea of what the artifact inside is about. Other Arti finder.gif Anomalous Energies Locator: Property of the Research Director and found inside their locker, this device gives you the ID, distance, and direction to the closest active large artifact (or anomaly power utilizer). Lets you track down traitor anomalists wrecking havoc with their newfound powers (assuming they haven't gotten hold of and hidden the locator first). Digsites and Anomalies Digsite Types
Digsites can be identified at a glance with brown and white marks on the rock, but many of the blank-looking surrounding rocks also contain anomalies. You will need a Xenoarchaeological Digsite Locator to see the location of every anomalies without having to individually scan each rock with a depth scanner. From the anomaly materials visible here, we know we're dealing with some Temple Ruins. Main Article (spoilers): Xenoarchaeology Digsites
Just like mineral ores are found in ore patches, anomalies are found in digsites of varying sizes, being as small as only 1 tile, and up to over 20 tiles. Digsites can be identified by brown streaks with white lines on rock walls, though as is explained on the image to the right, not every tile of a digsite is marked by those, so be careful to use your Depth Scanner on each tile when getting closer to a digsite. If it pings, that means the rock contains anomalies.
Depthscanner.png A single tile may contain 1 to 3 anomalies (not counting Large Artifacts) but the depths scanner only gives information relevant to the anomaly closest to the rock's surface:
Anomaly Depth: How “deep” the artifact is embedded within the rock. Clearance Above Anomaly: Shows you how close you can dig to the anomaly without having to perform the extra step of brushing it out of a Strange Rock Anomaly Material: Each anomaly type has a specific material, giving you an idea of the items you'll find once you extract the anomaly.
There are 6 different types of Digsites, with different types of finds, and that can be identified from their most common anomaly materials. They are as follows:
Prehistoric Forest: (most common material: [Carbon]) Mostly prehistoric Plants, with the occasional animal fossil or bear trap. Kinda useless after getting one of each prehistoric seeds. Animal Cemetery: (most common material: [Carbon]) Mostly bones and fossilized eggs, with the occasional plant. Only worth it if you're looking to complete a Skeleton Display. Dwellings Debris: (most common material: [Mercury]) Utensils, toys, bowls, mostly fairly ordinary items save for a few exceptions. Industrial Wrecks: (most common materials: [Mercury][Iron] and a bit of [Potassium]) Tools, stock parts, metal sheets, space suits… beware to not try picking up Supermatter Splinters. Temple Ruins: (most common materials: [Mercury][Potassium] and a bit of [Iron] and [Nitrogen]) Occult items dwell here with a life of their own. A great source of soul stone shards. Ancient Battlefield: (most common materials: [Iron] and a bit of [Potassium] and [Mercury]) If all you want from Xenoarchaeology is free cool looking guns, you probably only care about those digsites. Digging anomalies out of the rock Once your depth scanner has pinged on a wall and you've read the Anomaly's Depth, all you have to do is use your Excavation Pick Set and Hand-Pickaxe to dig down to the indicated depth. If at any point you've forgotten how far you've dug, use your Measuring Tape on the wall. Excavationpicks.pngMeasuringtape.png If you dig into the clearance above the anomaly, it will immediately come out inside of a Strange Rock. If that happens, just use your Brush on it to extract the anomaly. Brush.pngStrange Rock.png However you can skip that step by skipping the clearance and digging straight to the anomaly depth, which is most easily done using the Hand-Pickaxe. Dig using small picks until there's exactly 15cm left over the remaining depth to excavate, then strike with your hand-pickaxe to extract it in one go. Handpickaxe.png
Once you've printed yourself a Diamond Excavation Drill at R&D, you can get rid of your Excavation Pick Set and Hand-Pickaxe. (keep the brush though) Diamondexcavationdrill.png
Always scan a wall again after extracting an anomaly to check for the presence of any further anomalies, or a Large Artifact (identified by the anomaly's material being “unknown” and depth 0).
Digging Up Large Artifacts Getting a Large Artifact out once you've identified their location is a two-step process:
Drill the wall down to spawn a Boulder (the wall has to have been excavated of at least 1cm by small picks/drills beforehand, or you will destroy the artifact) Boulder.png Boulders are already excavated by anywhere from 5 to 50cm when spawned. Excavating them over 100cm (or drilling them down) will destroy the artifact. To safely get the artifact out, you must use small picks or excavation drills to get as close as you can from 90cm and then use the 1cm Brush until the artifact comes out (if it hasn't by then). Do not use a Diamond Excav. Drill set to 50 cm. Large Artifact.png Just a word of warning: some large artifacts could be a bit of a handful and in the very worst case they do have the potential of severely hurting you (although this is very rare for a freshly excavated artifact to be capable of such). If the artifact seems to behave strangely when you touch it, or just passively, go back to the outpost to fetch an Anomaly Container and some Latex Gloves to safely transport the artifact back at the outpost. Large Artifact.gifLGloves.pngAnomaly Container.png
Finding Large Artifacts The greatest and most dangerous potential of Xenoarchaeology definitely lies in the random and unbalanced power of the large artifacts hidden on the Asteroid. A random amount of those is generated each round, some having as low as 5-6, others having as many as 20-30. Finding them is usually the ultimate objective of most Xenoarchaeologists, and there are 3 usual ways to go about it:
Luck, just by scanning a digsite for small artifacts you may fall upon one (indicated by an anomaly of Unknown material and depth 0). Highly unreliable, but always happens once in a while. Map Knowledge, Asteroid Station and some vaults have Large Artifacts always generate at the same spots. Using telescience you can get them very early in a round. (Is it metagaming? Maybe, but blame the mappers) Triangulation / Sample Analysis, the “intended” way to find your first Large Artifact. A bit time consuming, but usually faster than relying on luck. We'll cover that method bellow. Of course once you've gotten yourself the Advanced Xenoarchaeological Digsite Locator and Alden-Saraspova Counter, the above methods become irrelevant. If you've found some Temple Ruins and a few Level 4 anomalies that you are ready to sacrifice (and someone did R&D), you can skip the sample analysis altogether.
Triangulation 101 Alright for starters you'll want to open a txt and bitmap file (using MSPaint or any other drawing software where you can display a grid and draw circles, but we'll demonstrate with Paint here.) Actually PJB3005 made a very useful Desmos graph thingy that saves us from the tedium of having to draw circles manually so you should use that.
Making Samples 1. Turn on your GPS Gps.png and find some straight asteroid wall surface 2. Using your Core Sampler Coresampler.png, extract samples from rock walls at specific locations and note down their coordinates on your notepad. A good rule of thumb is to take the samples 10 tiles apart, and in the shape of an isoceles right-angled triangle. Samples.png It is crucial to remember at what coordinate was taken each sample, you may use a pen to write them on the rock sliver if you need. Mark the squares you took the samples from in your bitmap file On the Desmos page that you should have openned by now, set the coordinates of each of your three samples (x1,y1) (x2,y2) and (x3,y3).
Sample Preparation 3. Head over to the aptly named Anomalous Material Sample Preparation and grind your first rock sliver into the reagent grinder.Sliver.pngBlender.png 4. Put a large beaker in the chemistry dispenser and add 10 Lithium, 10 Tungsten, 20 Sodium, 40 Oxygen, producing 80u of Lithium Sodium Tungstate, and mix 5u of it into the ground powder.Chem dispenser.png 5. Using the Chem Master, create a 4u pill of Analysis Liquid produced from the reaction between the reducing agent and the powder, and use it on two analysis trays to spread the liquid between them. Actually the analysis machines don't care about the extra chemicals in the tray, just throw the beakers straight into the analysis machines. You can get rid of the rest of the chemical soup, and put the large beaker back into the Reagent Grinder waiting for the next rock sliver. ChemMaster.pngTray.pngTray.png 6. Repeat steps 4-6 with the two other rock slivers, make sure to separate the trays so you keep track of which trays come from which samples. You should end up with 3 pairs of trays, so 6 in total.
Sample Analysis 7. Move on to Anomalous Materials. 8. Slot your first two analysis trays (containing the same sample) into each machines and Start the analysis.Hyperspectral.pngFourier.png 9. The Hyperspectral machine will give you the ID of the artifact closest from where you took your sample, while the Fourier one will give you the distance to said artifact (with a 1m margin of error, more if the artifact is 30+ tiles away). Repeat steps 8-9 with the other two pairs of trays. 10. Draw circles on your Paint grid, centered around the markers for your samples, and each with the radius to the closest artifact (use another color if there is an artifact of an different ID) Enter the distance to the nearest artifact for each sample on the Desmos graph as d1, d2 and d3 Triangulation.png Alternatively use some paper, a ruler, set square and compass. Are you feeling like a scientist yet? If all 3 samples share the same ID, then jackpot. The above example is kind of a best case scenario, sometimes, the artifact is over 30-40 tiles away and you may have to perform another analysis at a closer location.
11. What are you waiting for? Go where the circles intersect and get that large artifact already!
Large Artifacts and you Large Artifacts mainly fall into two categories, which we'll call “Familiar” and “Exotic” for the sake of this guide. There is about a 50% chance of getting either a familiar or exotic large artifact.
Familiar Large Artifacts
This section currently only applies to the /vg/station servers.
Main Article (spoilers): Xenoarchaeology Familiar Large Artifacts
Check out the above article for a detailed explanation of each of the artifacts bellow.
Common Half the large artifacts on the asteroid are usually one of those, so you can rely on getting your hands on at least a few of them, several times the same ones even.
Mysterious Pod.gifMysterious Pod (aka “Auto-Cloner”) Gigadrill.pngAlien Drill (aka “Gigadrill”) Hover Pod.gifHover Pod Essence Imprinter.pngStrange Stone (aka “Essence Imprinter”) Replicator.pngAlien Machine (aka “Replicator”) Communication Artifact.pngAncient Device (aka “Communication Crystals”) Duck Lord.gifRobot Duck Rare Construct Shell Old.pngConstruct Shell Very Rare Potentially round-ending stuff, in more ways than one.
Warping Claws.pngWarping Claws Supermatter.gifSupermatter Singularity Beacon.gifSingularity Beacon Extremely Rare Don't rely on finding those as they rarely if ever spawn at all, for good reason.
Syndbeacon.gifSyndicate Beacon Stone Mask.gifStone Mask Pamphlet.gifCult Pamphlet Changeling Vial.pngSecure Vial (aka “Changeling Vial”) Exotic Large Artifacts If the large artifact you found doesn't look like any of the familiar ones above, then you've found an Exotic Large Artifact, the best kind of artifact really.
these are just a fraction of the possible sprites that exotic artifacts may have These structures have a random primary effect picked among 32 (as of now) possible effects. Some of them even have a secondary effect on top. Those effects also have obscure triggers most of the time. So how are you gonna figure those out? let alone finding out what the effects are? Thankfully we have a place where to start, and that is the Anomaly Analyser back at the Research Outpost. Be sure to be careful in bringing the artifact back, follow the instructions given above.
Artifact Analysis
Practice safe sci. and always use protection! Analyzer.gifScanpad.png
Back at the outpost with your artifact in tow, head over to either the Anomalous Materials lab or an Isolation Room equipped with an Anomaly Analyser. Push the artifact over the scanpad and begin the analysis from the adjacent console. After a dozen seconds, both a stamped paper and an Encrypted HDD will appear. Paper.pngHDD.png
The Encrypted HDD can just be brought back at R&D to be deconstructed so you can print better tools (specifically the Advanced Xenoarchaeological Digsite Locator and the Alden-Sarspova Counter).
The paper report however is where you'll get your first clues as to what your artifacts can do. But first, put on your Anomaly Suit and Hood to protect yourself from most artifact effects. Anomalysuit.pngChem Glasses.pngLGloves.png
Here are some guidelines to make sense of it without going too much into spoiler territory:
If there is only one paragraph on the report, that means your artifact only has a primary effect. If there are two, your artifact also has a secondary effect. The first part of each paragraph helps you determine the effect type (note that some effects have several possible descriptions) concentrated energy emissions: something gravity or projectiles related. intermittent psionic wavefront: something that affects the mind of those around it, or maybe converts the floors and walls. electromagnetic energy: something that affects cell and SMES battery, silicons, or possibly EMPs among other things organically reactive exotic particles: this one has the most possible effects, often the hardest one to figure out. It could involve healing or hurting carbons, plants, emitting radiations, stuff involving organic life in general. interdimensional/bluespace? phasing: this one tends to involve materializing stuff into existence. It could be gases, temperature, or even airborne pathogen. Or projectiles even. atomic synthesis: mostly similar to the one above low level energy emissions/radiations: other miscellaneous stuff that doesn't quite fit into other categories. Next you can determine the emission type: interspersed throughout substructure and shell: the effect only activates for a brief moment. Also often guaranties that the effect activates by touching the artifact bare handed (you may want to push a monkey into the artifact first to check if it's safe) emitting in an ambient energy field: means that the effect pulses every second like an aura. emitting in periodic bursts: means that the effect pulses once anywhere from every 3 seconds to 2 minutes! Longer charge time may also imply larger range and stronger effect. Finally you get some hint as to how to actually activate the artifact: Activation index involves physical interaction with artifact surface means that one of the following will trigger the effect: touching or bumping into the artifact bare-handed (having the artifact bump into you also works). Any carbon life-form can trigger it this way. (use the dropper in Anomalous Materials lab for those bellow) splashing with either some water or hydrogen splashing with either some sulphuric acid, polytrinic acid, or diethylamine splashing with either some plasma or thermite splashing with either some toxin, amatoxin, cyanide or neurotoxin touching and them paying money from your ID as if you were using a vending machine inserting a coin (rarer coins add more activation time) inserting space credits (more money adds more activation time) Activation index involves energetic interaction with artifact surface means that you can trigger the effect by touching the artifact with a multitool, activated stun baton, emag, energy weapon projectile, or emitter beam. Activation index involves prolonged energetic interaction with artifact surface means that the artifact has to be on top of a powered wire with at least 7500 W in the power-net. There doesn't have to be a wire knot under it. Activation index involves precise local atmospheric conditions means that one of the following will trigger the effect: there has to be some nitrogen in the air (this one is pretty dangerous as it may trigger as soon as you bring the artifact at the outpost) there has to be some oxygen in the air (this one is pretty dangerous as it may trigger as soon as you bring the artifact at the outpost) there has to be some plasma in the air there has to be some carbon in the air temperature has to be over 375 K (101°C) temperature has to be under 225 K (-48°C) pressure has to be over 150 kPa pressure has to be under 50 kPa (this one is pretty dangerous as it may trigger as soon as you excavate the artifact) Activation index involves specific ocular conditions around the artifact means that one of the following will trigger the effect: having a conscious non-blind mob look toward the artifact having nobody look toward the artifact Secondary Effects have 75% chance to appear in artifacts, however they only have a 25% chance to trigger even when the proper trigger is used. Furthermore, Primary Effects cause the artifact to visibly animate when they activate, and emit some sound as well, while secondary effects do not.
Furthermore, you can identify whether a primary or secondary effect activated from the messages you get:
Primary Effects when they activate will cause the artifact to either: glow brightly distort slightly flicker slightly vibrate shimmer slightly and when they deactivate: grow dull become very still become very quiet Secondary Effects when they activate will cause the artifact to either: rumble slightly shake blink start to whirr and when they deactivate: quiet down settle to a stop let out a single beep go dark As for what effects there actually are, those are best discovered by yourself but for the sake of allowing science to make better use of those artifacts, those effects will be listed in the article bellow:
Main Article (spoilers): Xenoarchaeology Exotic Large Artifacts Effects
Should you accidentally activate a very problematic artifact, you can throw it back into an anomaly container to shut down its effects. Anomaly Container.png
Do not hesitate to write your findings on the report. You can then slap the report onto the container so anyone can just examine it. Only scientists can open those containers (or anyone with an emag)
Exotic Particles Collection Because Artifact Effects are often bothersome to trigger, and you may want the rest of the crew to benefit from your artifacts without giving handing over the artifacts themselves, Nanotrasen has refined the science of Exotic Particle Collection to allow scientists to gather and emit artifacts effects from the comfort of an easy to carry and use tool (though with a limited use time).
You can harvest either the primary or secondary effect of an artifact. Head over to the titular room of the Research Outpost where you'll find both the Exotic Particle Harvesters, and the Anomaly Power Utilizers and Batteries. To isolate either effects you first need to activate the artifact's effect you want to isolate. The Exotic Particle Harvester will be able to isolate an effect if it has been activated in the past 20 seconds.
Once isolated, you can fit a battery on the Harvester and proceed to harvest the particles. This process emits radiations. Wear a full anomaly suit or you're gonna have a bad time.
Scanpad.pngAno harvester.pngAno battery.png
Once the battery is full, you can eject it and plop it down into an Anomaly Power Utilizer. Those devices let you activate an artifact's effects at will. You can also set them to automatically turn off after a set number of seconds. Please note that the effect will keep working either by touch, aura, or pulse as it did while in the artifact, so touching the utilizer bare-handed will cause you to suffer an effect that triggers by touch. Alternatively, you may also touch or throw an activated utilizer at someone to have the effect trigger on them.
Finally, keep in mind that the RD's Anomalous Energies Locator can help him locate both activated artifacts AND power utilizers, should you decide to have some fun. Arti finder.gif
For The Admins The Artifacts Panel Artifacts Panel.png This panel tracks every artifact in the world that is either still buried, is inside a boulder, has been razed (either while in a wall or a boulder), has been extracted, or has been destroyed after being extracted. You can teleport to the artifact's location (or rather the one it had when you opened the panel), or in the case of destroyed/razed artifacts, its last known location. You may as well check the artifact's type, get a shortcut to VarEdit it or just mark it, as well as check its primary and secondary effects in the case of Exotic Large Artifacts. You will also notice that the effects of those are only roll'd when said artifact gets excavated.
If you manually spawn an Exotic Large Artifact it will immediately appear on the panel as well. However if you spawn a Familiar Large Artifact such as a Replicator, Robot Duck, etc…, it will only appear in the panel if it has been either analyzed at an Anomaly Analyser, or has been destroyed.
If a player asks you to check an artifact's effects at round end/after they're dead, this is the easiest way to check it out.
A guide to VarEditing Exotic Large Artifacts Activated: 0,1
Charge level = X Chargelevelmax = X Effect = X effect_type = X Trigger = X Type = /datum/artifact_effect/X
Reminder that “possible artifact sprites” only matter for the primary effect.
Cold Possible Descriptions:
organically reactive exotic particles interdimensional/bluespace? phasing atomic synthesis Possible Artifact Sprite:
Anomalies.png Anomalies Martian.png Possible Emission Types:
Touch Room temperature drops by 5 to 50 degrees at every trigger Aura Room temperature drops by 1 degree every two seconds
Bad Feeling Possible Descriptions:
intermittent psionic wavefront Possible Artifact Sprite:
Anomalies.png Anomalies Eldritch.png Possible Emission Types:
Touch Toucher has a chance of getting worrying messages and becoming dizzy Aura Mobs in the area of effect have a chance of getting worrying messages and becoming dizzy Pulse Mobs in the area of effect have a chance of getting worrying messages and becoming dizzy
Cell Charge Possible Descriptions:
electromagnetic energy Possible Artifact Sprite:
Anomalies.png Anomalies Ancient.png Anomalies Precursor.png Anomalies Reliquary.png Possible Emission Types:
Touch Recharges the power cell of silicons who touch the artifact, as well as the cell inside the suit or heart of humans who touch it. Aura Every mob, SMES, or other machinery with a cell in the area of effect sees their cell get recharged every second. Pulse Every mob, SMES, or other machinery with a cell in the area of effect sees their cell get recharged at every pulse. Longer delay between pulses means more charge.
Cell Drain Possible Descriptions:
electromagnetic energy Possible Artifact Sprite:
Anomalies.png Anomalies Ancient.png Anomalies Precursor.png Anomalies Reliquary.png Possible Emission Types:
Touch Drains the power cell of silicons who touch the artifact, as well as the cell inside the suit or heart of humans who touch it. Aura Every mob, SMES, or other machinery with a cell in the area of effect sees their cell get drained every second. Pulse Every mob, SMES, or other machinery with a cell in the area of effect sees their cell get drained at every pulse. Longer delay between pulses means more drain.
Clockify Possible Descriptions:
intermittent psionic wavefront Possible Artifact Sprite:
Anomalies.png Anomalies Ancient.png Anomalies Precursor.png Anomalies Reliquary.png Possible Emission Types:
Aura Convert tiles around it up to 3 tiles away to Clockwork tiles every second Pulse Convert tiles around it up to 20 tiles away to Clockwork tiles every pulse
Cultify Possible Descriptions:
intermittent psionic wavefront Possible Artifact Sprite:
Anomalies.png Anomalies Eldritch.png Anomalies Wizard.png Anomalies Reliquary.png Possible Emission Types:
Aura Convert tiles around it up to 3 tiles away to Cult tiles every second Pulse Convert tiles around it up to 20 tiles away to Cult tiles every pulse
Darkness Possible Descriptions:
low level energy emissions / low level radiation electromagnetic energy high frequency particles Possible Artifact Sprite:
Anomalies.png Anomalies Eldritch.png Possible Emission Types:
Aura Pulse In reality, regardless of emission type, the artifact will create darkness in a radius around it as soon as it activates, and stop when it is deactivated.
Dark Revive Possible Descriptions:
low level energy emissions / low level radiation intermittent psionic wavefront organically reactive exotic particles Possible Artifact Sprite:
Anomalies.png Anomalies Eldritch.png Anomalies Wizard.png Possible Emission Types:
Touch If a human touches the artifact near another dead human player, the dead player will be revived, but the activator will mutate into a shadow person, taking damage in the light, and healing in the darkness. Some human species cannot activate the artifact. Namely Plasmamen, Skellingtons, Adamantine Golem, and Manifested Ghosts. Monkeys cannot either, unless grown into humans first. Shadow persons cannot activate the artifact a second time either.
Dead Harvest Possible Descriptions:
low level energy emissions / low level radiation Possible Artifact Sprite:
Anomalies.png Anomalies Eldritch.png Anomalies Wizard.png Possible Emission Types:
Ok this one is pretty wild so here's some info first. The artifact's main mechanic is that it gather points from gibbing mobs that it uses to spawns monsters. The types of monsters that can spawn is decided when the artifact spawn. There are 4 possibilities each with 25% chance:
Just boring old zombies and skeletons Stronger zombies, including crimson, putrid, and rotting ones Fucking necromorphs of all kinds the artifact goes “fuck it” and instead of spawning undead picks from 3 to 7 mob types among EVERY SIMPLE MOB TYPES IN THE GAME to spawn. This can be incredibly dangerous, lame, or any in-between. Also note that mobs spawned by the artifact cannot be harvested back by it.
Touch Ok so there is another random factor here: When the emission type is Touch, there is 50% chance that the monsters that spawn in fact be “controlled”. If that is the case, the first person who touches the artifact becomes its “controller”, while anyone else who touches the artifact (including the first person if the monsters cannot be controlled) will be instantaneously gibbed, granting points to the artifact. IF HARVESTED IN A POWER UTILIZER THIS BECOMES MORE BROKEN THAN MOST ADMIN TOOLS, IT'S BASICALLY EI'NATH WITH NO COOLDOWN (except silicons, who are immune to this artifact). The controller if there is one just gets to be ignored by the monsters that spawn, but cannot actually make them follow him. The existence of this artifact effect is a good incentive for xenoarchaeologist to not wait until after the artifact is excavated to wear gloves. Aura Every second, the artifact has 50% chance to gib dead mobs in its radius, granting itself points, as well as 10% chance to try and spawn a monster. Pulse Every pulse, the artifact gibs dead mobs in its radius granting itself points, while giving bad thoughts to living mobs, it also tries to spawn a monster.
DNA Switch Possible Descriptions:
organically reactive exotic particles Possible Artifact Sprite:
Anomalies.png Anomalies Reliquary.png Anomalies Wizard.png Possible Emission Types:
Touch When touching the artifact, humans have 75% chance to have their appearance randomized, otherwise their genes (super powers/disabilities) get randomized Aura Every seconds, humans in the artifact's radius each have 30% chance to be affected. If they do they have 50% chance to have their appearance randomized, otherwise their genes (super powers/disabilities) get randomized Pulse Every pulses, humans in a static 200 tiles radius each have 25% chance to be affected. If they do they have 75% chance to have their appearance randomized, otherwise their genes (super powers/disabilities) get randomized
EMP Possible Descriptions:
electromagnetic energy Possible Artifact Sprite:
Anomalies.png Anomalies Wizard.png Anomalies Ancient.png Anomalies Precursor.png Anomalies Reliquary.png Possible Emission Types:
Pulse (duh) Triggers an EMP over the artifact's effect radius. The inner half of the radius suffers a stronger EMP.
Floors Possible Descriptions:
intermittent psionic wavefront Possible Artifact Sprite: This is currently the only effect that only uses Goon sprites.
Anomalies Wizard.png Anomalies Reliquary.png Anomalies Precursor.png Possible Emission Types:
Aura Transforms floors in a small 3×3 radius around itself every second. The floor type being created changes every second. Pulse Transforms floors in a radius up to 11×11 around itself every pulse. The floor type being created changes every pulse.
Xenoarcheologist, Anomalist: The Difference The first thing to know is that a Xenoarcheologist is not an Anomalist. While they tend to work together for obvious reasons, their field of study, method, and RP archetypes are quite different.
A Xenoarcheologist looks for artifacts. Artifacts are those things most people think are useless, like fossils, alien spoons, bowls, those kinds of things. And, on a gameplay point, they are, indeed, mostly useless: Most of them do not have any function except decoration, and the few that do have a function are not very useful. Xenoarcheology is mainly an RP job, where you give story and sense to these objects. It also quite different from the other Scientist jobs: You do not work in a laboratory solely, you mostly work outside, digging through rocks in the cold hard environment of the asteroid. You may work in a Laboratory during analysis (Spectrometry, Anomaly testing). So Xenoarcheologists are a strange breed amongst the Research team, with a very different set of goals and line of work.
An Anomalist studies the anomalies Xenoarcheologists bring to them. They are much more of a Lab worker than the Xenoarcheologist, do not spend much time outside, etc. This job is less of a pure Roleplay one, and much more closer to the rest of the station, with significant testing and gameplay to fiddle with. However, that does not mean you should not try to put some RP into it: How was your anomaly used by the people who made it? How does it relate to the artifacts the Xenoarcheologist found buried with it? You are not a Xenoarcheologist, but that does not mean you should totally ignore them and that your work does not relate.
So, know the difference between the two roles, and roleplay accordingly. Anomalists are quite dependent on Xenoarcheologists in that they expect them to find Anomalies, however, there is an extra Suspension Field Generator in the Xenoarcheology department, so Anomalists could retrieve their own anomalies. This should only be done if there is nothing to analyse or the Xenoarcheologist is missing, not in the round or otherwise busy. Work with your Xenoarcheologists just as they should work with you.
A Xenoarcheologist/Anomalist can do both roles in the absence of a partner. This guide is not only a guide to basic Xenoarcheology and Anomalies, it is also a guide to playing an efficient and believable Xeno-researcher. So, if you feel some parts are too much for you, feel free to ignore them, but it is still appreciated to work with a believable coworker rather than someone who leaves all their stuff on the floor, doesn’t analyze their findings, and barely even does their job.
As a final note you should always wear gloves while testing and transporting Anomalies. Moving an anomaly without gloves runs the risk of activating it and can be deadly for yourself and coworkers.
Xenoarcheologist A Xenoarcheologist is a professional Scientist specialized in researching the remains of Alien Civilizations. Their gameplay is centered around unearthing Artifacts and Anomalies and linking them together to form coherent stories. They play more similar to Mining than a regular Scientist, in contrast to an Anomalist who plays much closer to the other roles in the Science department.
Gearing Up You start in the Research department. You however work within the Research sublevel and will have to take a lift down. You should stock up on anything you believe you need in preparation for your work. However most essential tools and devices are present within the Sub-level so you will not need to gather anything. Be sure to put on your Mesons goggles, gloves, breath mask and your Magboots before you exit. There are some less crucial tools there that can be used, such as a Camera, Folder, and multiple Gas types.
If you wish, you may still be creative: What do you think a Xenoarcheologist would use on an excavation? You will work in quite a large place, so do not worry about space, and impress your department with very complicated procedures and the like. A Universal Recorder and labeled Folder with Paper inside tends to create a believable atmosphere for a Scientist.
Now, it is time to speak about the proper Xenoarcheology equipment. All of these things are available in the Xenoarcheology department, within the Anomaly and Xenoarcheology equipment rooms, so look in the lockers, on the tables, and the racks.
Measuring Tape: Tells you how deep you already dug into your site. Useful when you lose track of your excavation. GPS: Tells you your position on the asteroid. Not of major importance, but can be useful if you want to keep track of that too. You can get a callsign using this, and it increases your chance of being found when dead. Excavation Pick Set: Absolute necessity. Contains the small picks you need to excavate your artifacts, they all dig a different distance, detailed later in this guide. Tracking Beacon: When activated, allows locator devices to locate it by tuning on its frequency. Useful if you are in trouble, or if you simply lost your suspension field generator. Not a necessity at all and mostly a waste of space. Core Sampler: Absolute necessity. Needed to take the rock samples you need for spectrometer analysis. Wrench: Needed to set the suspension field generator, which is necessary to collect artifacts. Hand Pickaxe: The largest excavation pick, does not fit in the Excavation Pick Set. Digs 30cm. Locator Device: Locates Tracking Beacons by tuning to their frequency. As useless as the Beacon. Depth Analysis Scanner: Absolute necessity. Tells you if the tile of rock in front of you, contains something, and gives you information about it if it is the case. Detailed later in this guide. Alden Saraspova Counter: Absolute necessity. You click this and it tells you how far the closest Anomaly is from you. Use this information to progressively move closer. Make sure to scan rocks using the Analysis Scanner when within 20m. The last thing you want is to destroy the anomaly and the artifacts along with it. Lantern: A very useful light source. Helpful, but not necessary. Activate your excavation hood. Excavation Gear-Belt: The belt that will allow you to carry most of your equipment. Optical Meson Scanner: Absolute necessity. Allows you to see through the rock, and locate your precious dig sites. Excavation Suit Hood Comes with a built-in flashlight. Click in the top left. Excavation Suit: Both the suit and hood are absolute necessities. Needed to go EVA, protects you against radiations and partially against exotic particles, should you find an activated anomaly. Note: Anomaly Suits are not vacuum proof. Excavation suits are the only non-space suits on the Station that allow you to go EVA.
Now, you probably know the rest: An oxygen tank, available in the prep room, a breath mask also available there, and the gloves you were told to take earlier. You’ll notice we also have a camera, which is generally used to take photos of anomalies, and other rare things like skeletons (a combination of alien fossils) and the like. If you organize your equipment properly, you have enough space in your inventory to carry some equipment of your choice.
I, however, advise you to leave free slots in your backpack, to carry the artifacts you find back to your camp or the Station. Once outside, you will need to use the Alden Saraspova Counter to locate a digsite.
Going to your Destination Now that you have your gear, you will of course want to go to work. This usually means joining the miners as you'll both usually want to be going to the nearest asteroid, so be sure to ask them to wait for you before they launch or see if Command is able to call them and teleport you aboard if they're nearby. Alternatively, you can ask Command for transit via the Intrepid, in which case they might assign a bridge crewmember to fly you down.
Clearing The Way As for how you will mine, you will not have a mining drill unless Research prints you one from R&D. Instead, Xenoarcheology is outfitted with Mining pickaxes.
To mine efficiently, you will need to wield your pickaxe in two hands. (Pictured below)
Wielded Pickaxe.jpg
You can achieve this by clicking the icon at the top left corner of your screen while holding a Pickaxe, the Pickaxe will have to be selected. When wielded, it will look like this. (Pictured above)
Further, to avoid destroying the very artifacts you intend to excavate, you will want to carry a Depth Analysis Scanner along with you. When you are in range by 10, you should scan Rocks before you clear them. If you fail to do this, you will get a message that says 'Object shatters!' where object is replaced with whatever item it was, which means you have destroyed an artifact. There is a small chance for it to survive this, however.
Excavating The lists for the different field types for the generator and the different excavation picks are at the end of this chapter. A usual dig site.
At last, you have found a dig site, or your Depth Analysis Scanner pinged while you were looking for one. It is time to be precise and thorough.
If you click on your Depth Analysis Scanner, a screen similar to this one will appear.
Xenoarch depth.png
Time: The time at which the scan was made. Only for paperwork purposes.
Coords: Coordinates of the dig site. Paperwork purposes too.
Anomaly depth: The depth at which your artifact resides.
Clearance above anomaly depth: The size of the cavity in which the artifact is. If you dig in it, you will get a strange rock, which I will talk about later.
Dissonance spread: Quite useless, a 1 means it is an artifact, other numbers indicate an anomaly, but in this case, the scan is different enough to render this information useless.
Anomaly material: Tells you roughly what your artifact is. Depending on this information, you will activate a specific field on your suspension field generator to collect the artifact.
Now that you have this information, bring the Suspension Field Generator to the dig site. You need two free tiles around the site, so that you can put your generator on one, and be on the other one. Fix it to the ground, and do not activate it yet. For now, what we need is a rock sample.
For that purpose, you will need to dig just before the cavity starts. It means you need to subtract the Clearance from the anomaly depth, and dig at this distance. In the case of the image above, the artifact is at 30 cm and the clearance is 6 cm, so I need to dig 24 cm. Now that you have dug this distance, take your Core Sampler and click on the dig site. The red light will turn green, meaning that a sample was taken. Taking a core sample is optional.
Note: You should only take one sample per dig site.
Now you can focus on the excavation. You will need to strike at the exact anomaly depth if you want to directly collect the artifact. Here, the Depth Analysis Scanner tells me the artifact contains traces of Organic Cells, so I activate a Diffracted Carbon Dioxide Laser, and I dig 6 cm to reach the anomaly. I turn the suspension field generator off, and…
Xenoarch2.png
Here is your artifact, excavated in the most efficient way possible.
Then, repeat the same procedure minus the sample until your Depth Analysis Scanner stops pinging on contact with the artifact.
Note: This example is for a precise excavation. If you dig too far, the artifact breaks. But, if you dig too short, and you end up in the cavity of the artifact, you will get this.
Xenoarch cavity.png
This is a strange rock. While not being a total failure, a strange rock is bad. First, because you need to open it with a welder, which is one unnecessary step in the process. But the most important point here is that opening strange rocks quite often breaks the artifact itself, so, try to dig at the exact anomaly depth to avoid these kinds of issues.
When you are done with the excavation, bring your sample and findings back to the camp or to the Station.
Now, here are the two lists for the various excavation picks and the different fields of the generator.
Xenoarch picks.png
Xenoarch table.png
You’ll notice some of the fields are missing: It is because they are useless. The last line, Unknown, is linked to anomalies, which means it's safe to clear with your handpick without breaking Artifacts.
Anomalist An Anomalist is a professional Scientist. They specialize in researching ancient alien technology and other abnormal Scientific subjects. They work in the Xeno-Science wing alongside the Xenobiologist and Xenoarcheologist. Their gameplay is more similar to the Phoron Researcher in that they mainly stay in their lab and experiment with what the Xenoarcheologist brings to the Station.
A lot of the same rules apply to the Xenoarcheologist as to the Anomalist when it comes to roleplay. you should still be creative: What do you think an Anomalist would keep notes with? You will work in quite a large place, so do not worry about space, and impress your department with very complicated procedures and the like. A Universal Recorder and labeled Folder with Paper inside tends to create a believable atmosphere for a Scientist in general.
Anomalies An Anomaly is an ancient piece of technology unearthed on the Asteroid. No Station personnel knows their origin– That's what you are meant to research and find out. There are multiple types of Anomalies, I'll classify them as; Static, Dynamic. Static Anomalies are always the same, they serve one purpose and have no random effects at all. Dynamic Anomalies have their effects determined by RNG. I will explain the Dynamic Anomalies, you will have to find the Static ones ingame and research them yourself.
During your work researching Anomalies, you will have to activate the Anomaly to know what effect it has. These effects are numerous and vary from extremely dangerous to extremely helpful. Or both. This will be influential in deciding how to explain the Anomalies function in Alien society and its origin. These Triggers and Effects will be graphed below.
As for equipment, you will use multiple objects for the below testing, but the most important is to wear Gloves and an Anomaly suit.
Triggers Here is a graph of the random Anomaly triggers.
Triggers I suggest you keep a list and go through all of these. Trial and error is part of your job. Touch: Touching the Anomaly with an ungloved hand. It's important to wear gloves when handling Anomalies. Water: Splash some water on it and see if it activates. Acid: Splash some acid on it and see if it activates. Volatile: Try percussive experimentation, hit it with blunt objects. Maybe a crowbar? Energy: Try to hit it with an activated Stunbaton, and try to shoot it with an Emitter. See if it activates from either. Heat: Increase the temperature in one of the Anomaly Isolation Chambers. Cold: decrease the temperature in one of the Anomaly Isolation Chambers. Plasma: Put it in a room with Plasma in the air. Concentration level is unknown. Oxygen: Put it in a room with Oxygen in the air. Concentration level is unknown. Carbon Dioxide: Put it in a room with CO2 in the air. Concentration level is unknown. Nitrogen: Put it in a room with Nitrogen in the air. Concentration level is unknown. Whether this is N2O or just N2 is uncertain. Effects Here is a graph of the random Anomaly effects.
Effects When you finally trigger an Anomaly then you receive at least one, maybe two effects from the Anomaly. If you are lucky it won't kill you immediately. EMP: The Anomaly releases an Electromagnetic Pulse and is one of the worst (Or best) finds due to it's damaging nature. Bad for Synthetics and anyone with a mechanical organ. Cold: Makes the room colder. Cell Charge: Charges all Battery cells within range, very good for Synthetics. Cell Drain: Drains all Battery cells within range, very bad for Synthetics. Radiation Emitter: Emits large amounts of radiation which will irreversibly alter your DNA. CO2: Releases CO2 Gas in to the air. Nitrogen: Releases Nitrogen Gas in to the air. Oxygen: Releases Oxygen in to the air. Phoron: Releases Plasma Gas in to the air. Good Feelings: Emits brain altering waves that make you happy. Bad Feelings: Emits brain altering waves that give you anxiety. Heal: Heals People. Hurt: Hurts People. Robot Heal: Heals Synths. Robot Hurt: Hurts Synths. Sleepy: Makes everyone Sleepy. May also release N2 sleepy time gas. Stun: Temporarily Stuns people. Teleport Randomly Teleports people within the vicinity of the Anomaly. Harnessing An Anomaly Anomalists are able to siphon effects from an Anomaly into an 'Anomaly Power Battery', when slotted into a device capable of utilizing this battery called an Anomaly Power Utilizer, it will discharge the effect. Creating these tools are where the trigger and effect comes into play beyond the roleplay elements. To begin charging an Anomaly Power Battery, you will have to activate the Anomaly and put it into the Exotic Particle Harvester pad, place the Battery into the Harvester as well, and then activate it. It will fill the Battery with the effect. However, many Anomaly effects will drain the Battery at an extremely quick rate, you may have to use them carefully, and they work best for demonstrating the Anomaly to your coworkers.
Study Now that you have analyzed all your samples, it is time to bring all of this to the Station and stow it away. Put your Artifacts in labeled crates, put your valuables into a locked briefcase, etc, and drag it back there. Then, put them on their respective locations, so that you have all the information you need available.
Now you have organized all your findings… think, look at the reports, be creative! Look at your 800 years old weapons of Dig Site 4. Maybe they belonged to the species depicted on this 850 year old bowl, in Dig Site 2? Basically, make logical links between the findings, invent stories around them, entire civilizations, wars, religions, the possibilities are massive. Maybe when you have enough data, you could write a book about it? Xeno-research may be a very lonely job, but it still gives you plenty of occasions to make great RP, so just go crazy.
Analysis: Spectrometry So! You have spent some time digging and excavating, and now, you have around 6 different dig sites, maybe more. That’s good. Hopefully you organized and labeled them all according to a memorable pattern. Now, take all the samples, put them in your crate, and head back to the Station, for the Spectrometer analysis.
Spectrometry.png
Here is the Spectrometry Laboratory. In the room, you see a coolant tank, a bucket, some nanopaste, and three spectrometers. In order to have an organized analysis, I suggest you only use one, most particularly, the upper one, since it avoids the usual back & forth to provide it with coolant. Once it is filled with coolant, take your first sample, take the rock sample from inside it, and put it in the spectrometer.
Note: Once again, use only one Spectrometer, and start with your Dig Site 1, then 2, etc. The results of the analysis are chronologically numerated, so, that way, you will have correspondence between your samples and your results.
Xenoarch spectroconsole.png
Now, you have opened the Spectrometer menu. Big scary screen at first, but simple to understand.
Scanner: Indicates the progress of the scan, and the “health” of the spectrometer. When it is too low, use nanopaste to fix it.
MASER: The most important stuff. Try to match you Current Wavelength with the Optimal Wavelength best as you can, since it is what makes the scan progress.
Environment / Internal: The speed at which the machine functions, and the heat it endures. The faster it goes, the hotter it is.
Radiation: Sometimes, radiation outbursts happen during the scan. You can enable the Radiation Shielding, but it stops the scan, so I rather suggest you keep your excavation suit on yourself, since it protects you against it. That way, you can totally ignore this factor.
Cooling: Rather simple to understand. It is what keeps the Internal Temperature low. On this screen, you see I put the flow rate at 2 u/s : It is best to keep it that way, 2 u/s gives you plenty of time before emptying it, and avoids overheat in almost every case.
If you followed these instructions, the only part you need to focus on is the MASER field, since it is the only one that will necessitate you to fiddle with during the scan.
Now, you begin your scan, keep the Wavelength in check, and normally, the scan goes very well without any trouble. The machine pings, ejects your rock sample, and prints the result of the scan.
Xenoarch specresults.png
Now, you have some techno-babbling informations that will allow you to RP-study your artifacts later.
Analysis: Chemistry Of course, the coolant in the tank is not enough to last a particularly busy shift. It is generally empty after three spectrometer scans. You can still use water as a less efficient coolant, but the real stuff is a better solution.
If you run out, you can ask for access to the Research Chemistry dispenser, they should have no reason to refuse. The formula is quite simple:
Tungsten + Acetone + Water
Now, if you get afew beakers of that, you should have plenty of Coolant to keep your spectrometer working!
The Anomalist will also have need of Sulfuric Acid for testing Anomalies, this is where you will get it.