Hardly the only problem I had. Closing doors was also a pain in the ass, mostly because the only way to do it was to click on the sprite. And when 95% of the sprite was transparent (letting the click fall to the sprite behind it) it was actually rather difficult.
Basically, doing anything other than moving around was a pain in the arse in the BYOND engine. The farther away from that it got, the more stupefyingly complex the instruction set got.
I mean hell, here's how you hack a locked door:
Assuming the wire-panel is open, you can do the following things with the 9 wires:
- one wire from the ID scanner. Sending a pulse through this flashes the red light on the door (if the door has power). If you cut this wire, the door will stop recognizing valid IDs. (If the door has 0000 access, it still opens and closes, though)
- two wires for power. Sending a pulse through either one causes a breaker to trip, disabling the door for 10 seconds if backup power is connected, or 1 minute if not (or until backup power comes back on, whichever is shorter). Cutting either one disables the main door power, but unless backup power is also cut, the backup power re-powers the door in 10 seconds. While unpowered, the door may be crowbarred open, but bolts-raising will not work. Cutting these wires may electrocute the user.
- one wire for door bolts. Sending a pulse through this drops door bolts (whether the door is powered or not). Cutting this wire also drops the door bolts, and mending it does not raise them. If the wire is cut, trying to raise the door bolts will not work.
- two wires for backup power. Sending a pulse through either one causes a breaker to trip, but this does not disable it unless main power is down too (in which case it is disabled for 1 minute or however long it takes main power to come back, whichever is shorter). Cutting either one disables the backup door power (allowing it to be crowbarred open, but disabling bolts-raising), but may electocute the user.
- one wire for power assist. Sending a pulse through this while the door has power makes it raise the door bolts. Cutting this prevents manual bolts-raising with a wrench from working.
- one wire for AI control. Sending a pulse through this blocks AI control for a second or so (which is enough to see the AI control light on the panel dialog go off and back on again). Cutting this prevents the AI from controlling the door unless it has hacked the door through the power connection (which takes about a minute). If both main and backup power are cut, as well as this wire, then the AI cannot operate or hack the door at all.
- one wire for electrifying the door. Sending a pulse through this electrifies the door for 30 seconds. Cutting this wire electrifies the door, so that the next person to touch the door without insulated gloves gets electrocuted. (Currently it is also STAYING electrified until someone mends the wire)
Playing this game requires an engineering degree, an electrician's license,
and a freaking instruction book.
Now, the first step here requires having the wire panel open. Let me just go get the instructions for that. Oh wait, there's no link for that. Let me just search the wiki for that object.
Screwdriver
Glass
Metal
Headset
Howto:Start the main engine
Sandbox Mode
Airlock
Engineer
Howto:Open an airlock (page I was just on)
Screwdriver tells me I
can access the wires panel, but isn't specific on
how.
The next five are unrelated and simply contained one of the words I searched for.
Airlock does have the info. Why is this page not linked from the last page? Why does it not have a link back?
Holy shit.
The wiki is just as obtuse and as unusable as the game itself! The fuck am I supposed to do, memorize this shit before I play?
