[DEVBLOG#141] Ancient vaults and wunderbar structures

Hello and welcome to another mod development diary focused on Vanilla Factions Expanded - Ancients.

This time we will focus on various structures in the mod.

It's important to know following things before we move onto specific structures.

• These buildings cannot be built and can only be found and uninstalled - but don't think they are rare, a singular vault you explore will have dozens of different structures you can take.
• These buildings require power, but are very efficient with it.
• These buildings never break down and don't suffer the effects of solar flares - in fact, some of them receive boosts from solar flares.
• When you start your game as Ancients, you start in a sealed vault containing many of these structures for you to use.
• These structures  are designed to have numerous functions to preserve the already limited space in the vaults.

Without any more chit-chat, lets move onto the cool structures!

Ancient Battery

An old, large battery commonly found in vaults, capable of sustaining the entire compound for a nearly infinite amount of time.

A battery with a very large capacity but also very low efficiency.

Ancient Hydroponic Farm

A hydroponics Farm element with a built in solar lamp. As such, it does not require light to operate, as it provides its own light.

A 3x3 hydroponics basin with a built-in light, doesn't require sun lamps to operate as it generates it's own light.

Ancient Point Defense Turret

A large, 2x2 turret often used to defend ancient complexes. Uses two miniguns to quickly dispose of enemies, but requires a lot of ammo.

A powerful 2x2 minigun turret. It fires at incoming explosive projectiles, making them explode mid air. This can effectively cancel out rockets and grenades.

Ancient Security Turret

A small 1x1 turret. Basic in shape and form, but incredibly reliable.

A 1x1 small turret.

Ancient Cryptosleep Suspender

A bed that slows down bleeding and infection rate of vault dwellers, often found in medical rooms.

A medical bed that slows down bleeding and infection rate but gives cryptosleep sickness. Similar to the one in Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Spacer.

Ancient Vitals Monitor

An old set of monitors to check up on the healing progress of wounded soldiers.

A vitals monitor.

Ancient Cooking Station

A large stove and butchering station connected together to streamline the cooking process.

Inherits bills from the Stove and from Butchering station. Essentially, an all-in-one solution for cooking. It is however slower.

Ancient Workshop

A large workshop containing machining systems with a simple furnace and smithy station.

Inherits bills from the Machining table and from Smithy. Essentially, an all-in-one solution for crafting. It is however slower.

Ancient Heater

A very old heater.

A very efficient heater.

Ancient Cooler

A very old cooler. Isn’t placed over the wall, instead needs to be placed inside the fridge/freezer room.

A very efficient cooler. Has a cooling cell on one side. Has no heating cell.

Ancient Bed

An old-fashioned metal bed frame with a hard mattress and uncomfortable duvet.

A bed. Come on.

Ancient Cryptosleep Sarcophagus

Ancient super-soldiers sleep in the ancient cryptosleep sarcophagi until they are awakened when their watch begins. These devices are a different variant to normal cryptosleep caskets - the process of hibernating is instant, but waking up from the sleep takes a long time.

A cryptosleep casket that takes 5 days to open (you designate one to be opened, and then wait 5 days for the person to pop out of it). Cannot be re-used: Once opened, can only be disassembled. When exploring a vault and you see some of those still sealed, they most likely contain sleeping supersoldiers.

Ancient Educator

A very old interactive machine that’s commonly used in the Vaults to pass the time. Interested participants sit in front of it and get fed knowledge in random subjects, and then are required to pass a test. Successfully passing a test gives them a token to claim an extra portion of Nutrient Jelly.

A recreation item that when used, gives a small amount of XP in random skill.

Ancient Foosball Table

An old relic of the times, foosball table allows players to engage in the long forgotten game of football without leaving the safety of the vault.

A recreation item. Similarly to Pool table, requires some space around it for people to walk.

Wall Lamp

A wall lamp, ideal to light up corridors in a vault.

A light mounted on the wall. Unlocks with Lamps technology.

Vault Wall

A thick, triple-reinforced steel wall. Nearly indestructible.

A nearly impenetrable wall. Cannot be built by the player. Cannot be deconstructed.

Vault Door

A thick vault auto-door, which takes a very long time to open and close, but is nearly indestructible. In the event of no power, the door does not open at all.

A nearly impenetrable door. Cannot be built by the player. Cannot be deconstructed.

Mending station

A station with various apparatus used to fix weapons, armor and apparel. It’s a long process. Such stations are a must-have in the vaults to prevent the equipment, such as guns and tools, from needing replacement.

A workbench with a ‘Repair weapon’ and ‘Repair armor’ and ‘Repair apparel’ bills, that allow you to specify what weapons or armors will be repaired just like the normal bill menu does it. They are then brought to the bench where the pawn will slowly increase their HP all the way to 100%. It’s unlocked with a custom research project. Comes with a Fueled (Wood) and Powered (Electricity) variant. Of course they can be operated without power but with a huge speed penalty. Each repair job will require some resource that was used to craft such an item. An Assault Rifle would require for example some steel, while a devilstrand duster, some devilstrand. Of course it’s nothing compared to the cost of making a new one. Job type to use it is crafting, but with lower priority than crafting - as in, pawns will prioritize everything in the crafting category before repairing stuff.

ANCIENT JUNK

Not everything in the vault can be used. Some things are just made to be deconstructed into components and steel. These items are categorised into Ancient Junk, and are as follows:

Ancient Monitor Bank

A small set of old computer screens.

Ancient Broken Defensive Turret

A destroyed defensive turret top.

Broken Busted Turret Platform

A destroyed platform for a turret.

Ancient Fuel Tank

A large fuel tank that can be deconstructed for fuel.

Ancient Input Terminal

A station with buttons and levers.

Ancient Transmitter

A transmitter used to send signals over long range.

Ancient Machinery

A set of old machine blocks. Their purpose, if they ever had any, has long been forgotten.

Ancient Water Filter

A large water filtration system.

Ancient Computer Desk

An old, no longer operational computer desk.

Ancient Shuttle

An ancient, no longer operational shuttle that can be disassembled for scrap.

SPECIAL DEVICES

These devices exist only in the vaults and cannot be deconstructed or uninstalled. Once they are broken, they are gone forever.

Ancient Supply Slingshot

Often found in ancient vaults, Supply slingshot is a complex mechanism that catapults a supply crate across huge distances. It’s programmed to send the crates to the nearby occupied vaults. The location data is encrypted and noone other than the targeting computer knows the location of these vaults. These slingshots are often used by ancient supersoldiers to share resources they don’t need with other complexes.

A large structure that can be loaded with supplies you don’t need. When pressing a button, an automatic system will catapult the supplies off the map. In return, after 7 days pass, a supply crate with other random items will arrive. These items will have the same wealth as the items you catapulted out. Cannot be disassembled or uninstalled.

Large Locked Door

A large Vault door, often found in the entrance room. Due to self-preservation mechanism, the door is permanently locked and requires some degree of hacking to open.

A 3x1 door structure with hacking spots on one of the sides. Once hacked, it disappears completely. Cannot be deconstructed or claimed, and takes a very long time to break due to high HP.

Pipeline Junction

A large underground chemfuel pipeline connects to an exterior port in this place. When hacked, it yields large quantities of chemfuel, but hacking itself can take a while and even summon infestations.

A large fuel pipeline. Contains an Open graphic. Once used, it turns to Open graphic for a period of time during which it can’t be used again. That period of time is 7 ingame days. After that, it turns back into the normal graphic and it can be used again. When used, it yields 250 chemfuel.

Ancient Broadcast Station

An old long range communication station often found within the ancient vaults. It can be hacked in order to find a location of the next vault.

A station that’s hacked to pinpoint the location of the next vault.

Large Supply Crate

A large crate with some building resources and components. Hacking it takes a short time and there is no risk of danger. Upon completing a hack, it turns into an Open variant.

Alright. That's about it for this devblog. I wanted to cover lab equipment here too, but it's already quite long so I shall leave it for the next dev blog.

Let me know what you guys think. I think I did great job adding interesting new structures for the vaults, hopefully serving as an incentive to raid them.

If you however don't want to leave your base, there is a new event that can yield you random uninstalled vault equipment.

Supply drop

A large, 2x2 crate slowly descends with a parachute down onto your local map. When it lands, it has an interaction cell and needs to be activated in order to be opened. Player receives a warning that opening it can trigger a raid. The chances of triggering a raid are 50%. 

Upon beginning the hacking, a pawn will have to stand on the interaction cell and perform an action (a progress bar will show up) that takes 6 ingame hours. When it opens, the raid either occurs or doesn’t.

It can yield any number of Ancient tech structures, uninstalled, as well as some basic survival resources.