Artifact Research

Artifact Research is the branch of Research concerned with the identification and possible testing of dangerous, unpredictable artifacts of extraterrestrial origin. An artifact is a large item of non-Nanotransen origin whose function is unknown. These artifacts are usually dug up by miners, and the station always starts with one in the Artifact Lab.

Running gptio

Discovering an artifact's effects takes more than repeatedly poking it (although this helps in a fashion). Using the DWAINE terminal, you can advance the station's knowledge of artifacts and their properties and make your analysis more precise. To do this, you must:

1. Insert your card into the terminal, and type term_login
2. Type cd /mnt/artlab to move to the default location of the artifact research tape.
3. Type gptio list to list the available research equipment. You'll either need to write these IDs down somewhere, memorize them, scroll back to this output or re-run the gptio list command whenever you need to use a piece of equipment.

Important commands

gptio list

Lists the currently connected devices and their IDs.

gptio activate device-id

Activates a device. This can be anything from shooting an object across the room to irradiating whatever is in the x-ray scanner.

gptio deactivate device-id

Some devices don't automatically deactivate after a short amount of time. You'll need to use this command to make them safe to touch.

gptio sense device-id

Instruct the device to take readings about its state and the state of whatever object is inserted into it.

gptio read device-id

Retrieve the data generated by gptio sense.

gptio info device-id

Show the status of a device, including if it's active, if it's an "enactor" and/or a "sensor" and maybe most importantly what variables it has to mess with.

gptio peek device-id variable-name

Read the value of a variable. Note that most if not all variables can be read on the device itself.

gptio poke device-id variable-name value

Change the value of a variable.

Analyzing Artifacts

The artifact lab comes with five devices: Pitcher, impact pad, electric box, heater and x-ray scanner.

• The pitcher is not for shooting artifacts, though that's fun too. Put your artifact on the impact pad and then fire an item out of the pitcher at the artifact. The pitcher has one setting, POWER, which goes from 0 to 100
• The impact pad is for putting artifacts on. Fire an item at the artifact and then read the sensor data to get the artifact's vibration amplitude and vibration frequency. The pad has one variable, STAND, which is binary (0 or 1). Setting it to 1 extends a stand for putting handheld artifacts on.
• The electric box will run an electrical current through the artifact. It has two variables, WATTAGE and VOLTAGE. Remember, Wattage = Current (in amperes) * Voltage
• The heater will heat the artifact. It has one variable, TEMPTARGET (maximum value 400 Kelvin, starting value 310), which the actual temperature will slowly reach. You can supposedly get a temperature reading from the artifact afterwards.
• The X-ray scanner will irradiate the artifact with x-rays.

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