[SUGGESTION] Xenoarch Upgrades

[JarielEledan]

So.
Here's the issue.
Right now, unless you just do it for the archaeology roleplay, there's not that much of a point in going out and digging the small anomalies after you covered the big ones. And depending on the round and mining, there are to my knowledge between 1 and 4 big anomalies to uncover on the asteroid per shift, unless we count the ones that can spawn on the main Z level (but those are a bit of a grey area since they can mess up the whole main level if it's the wrong kind.)
This leaves only the small anomalies. And to my knowledge there are 3 or 4 kinds of them, all of which pretty underwhelming. We have:
-The talkers. "The object listens to *x*" and "The object reverberates 'blahblahblah'.*
-The self-filling urns/bowls: Tad more interesting, but they're just a check in the chemmaster to uncover their secrets.
-The vampiric statuettes (also known as bobs). Interesting at first, but after extensive testing has been done shift after shift, they're kinda losing their mistique.

If there are any others, I don't know, never found any. And I played and roleplayed a ton of Xenoarch.

So, here's my proposals to make Xenoarch great again:

1. Either reintroduce seed production from fossilized plants or have us find odd/exotic seeds on house/carbon sites. Bonus points if we can do the same with DNA and reclone critters/mobs/etc. (But that's more difficult I suppose).
2. Reintroduce randomized structures with randomized creatures/loot. This makes mining more exciting too. "Oh, what a nice silver vein. Wait. Dafuq is a wall doing here.". Bonus points if we can make it so some random structures actually need to be powered/pressurized, and have engineering come up and wire the place. Then turns out it's a dormant syndibomb site and we all explode. FUN TIMES. (Same with the critter cloning, probably more difficult.)
3, and here's the big one. Widen the range of possibilities on small anomalies. 'cause yeah, we can go out, dig them out, but if it's all talkers/urns/etc, it doesn't really do much. Here's the chance to go crazy with effects on random handheld items. Some examples:

Good ones:
-Healing touch gloves: you put them on, hug someone, and they heal damage on the person.
-Vorpal blades: Target a limb, hit. Limb flies off. Bloody!
-Hunger suit: Since we're voraphiles, have something enhance the metabolism! A suit or a hat that while worn accelerates the hunger of the person.
-Telekynesis helmet: While worn it changes the genes of the person to have telekinesis. Effect ends when it's taken off.
-For the house sites: Food replicator! Has the same buttons of the big replicator anomaly, but produces food. Might be toxic/poisonous.
Grenades! Guns that actually heal people! Portable forcefields! All sorts of fun stuff. Backpacks too. Crates. You get the idea.
Plenty of ideas like this. Or if we want to be eeeebil, here's some cursed ones!
-Reverse vorpal blade. Like the real one. Only, -your- limb flies off. It's why we keep assistants around after all.
-Mimic helmet: You put it on your head, it tightens. You don't pull it off, your head is gibbed. Nom! I bet now you wanted genetics to give you a husk, didn't you.
-Explosive charge: For the war fields. Weird looking thing, you boop a button. Boom. Might be good or bad.
-Size decrease/increase: Put it on. Enjoy having to avoid people stepping on you. Or step on someone!

I can go on for a while with all sorts of possibilities for new items! But yeah, some of it might help the variety of shifts, help getting more people involved (Xenobotany, Xenobiology, Engineering, Security, etc) and help keeping the round alive for the people on outpost after the main artifacts are gone!

[Aces]

I'd also like to see this discussed further, and possibly added into Polaris main code.

I could also jam in vore mobs here.

[Lobo-Branco]

I've never done any archaeology, but would like to do so, and this would certainly make it more interesting.

[JarielEledan]

More than happy to discuss it either here or on Discord! Just hit me up~
Basically, what I hope for is more variety and especially more inter-department interactions Which means your engi can have a piece of cake, your medics can get a piece of cake ("Mah aaaaarm D:") and so on! I'm still wondering how assistants and residents can though T_T And security. Poor security T.T

[Scree]

2. Reintroduce randomized structures with randomized creatures/loot. This makes mining more exciting too. "Oh, what a nice silver vein. Wait. Dafuq is a wall doing here.". Bonus points if we can make it so some random structures actually need to be powered/pressurized, and have engineering come up and wire the place. Then turns out it's a dormant syndibomb site and we all explode. FUN TIMES. (Same with the critter cloning, probably more difficult.)

fuckin' yes please

give us crates back too

(also put hematite and coal back on the fucking surface so exploration-mining is a viable resource-gathering method, right now if you've got a ripley you're better off just beelining the phoron veins, shipping that back, and buying steel and plasteel sheets)