Computers for research and fun

[Umbra.Animo]

yes so much yes i think i even asked for this one of my own posts thanks for making a mod. i would keep the data transferring thing it sounds nice

[Blaze1711]

Update 2:
Got rid of the issue I was having with the LUA script. I’ve got a working dummy menu now, which for testing purposes printed messages for every possible selection (browse the web, browse files, play a game and shutdown).

Keep in mind that the figures below don’t represent the final mod, for reasons I’ll specify soon.

Here is the “common laptop” item examine menu:

And here is the laptop’s use menu, along with some test message prints on the log (as expected):

As you can see, for now all the menu does is print messages according to the selected option, for testing purposes.
I made the laptop work like a flashlight (off and on version), so that it would only work (and have the tool qualities for researching and so on) when powered on, and it is also only rechargeable through an UPS - which might have been a bad idea - so I might end up just making it into a single version to work like a hotplate instead (consuming charges per use and per recipes).

I’ll keep on working on the LUA to make the menu useable on the side. If I end up making it work as intended, the recipe format will be obsolete. But for now, it seems fair enough.

[nameless_survivor]

Can you make it so there is a use for all those USB drives with software? I’ve got almost a hundred of them lying around I think, and it would be nice if they could serve a purpose.

[sanches31]

Well now there will be use for solar backpacks. Charge devices like this if you haven’t UPS compatable car or UPS.

[Blaze1711]

@nameless_survivor That’s the idea, to include them as possible data/resource sources for studying and researching, along with many others (files, more USB drives, hard drives, data centers, etc.).

@sanches31 Yeah, it’s going to be a nice addition, and another means of keeping the portable computers going.

[TheZoneWizard]

I know it wouldn’t make a ton of sense. But does anyone else in their head have the sound of those oldschool computers on tape wheels?

I think of this when I see the super computers in labs etc. They seem to take me back to when I was around such machines in real life.

You can hear snippets of these machines in film like Scanners and Alien. That kachuk kachukka chuck chuk chuk TSHHHhhhhh noise is fun. Oh and Blade Runner actually rehashes the noise in the scene where he(Harrison’s character) manipulates that photograph.

[nameless_survivor]

Being able to reconnect to the satellite network or other communications infrastructure with a salvaged transmitter/receiver dish would be a useful purpose for the computer skill as well.

Examples:

• Hack a weather/google/spy satellite to reveal an area of the map.
• Ditto as above but instead using it to locate a particular type of structure on the overmap, like say, the nearest military facility, restaurant, gun store, etc.
• Hack a communications satellite or reactivate a radio station, cellphone tower etc, to communicate with other survivors or factions for recruitment, trading, diplomacy etc.
• Hack orbital weapons platforms to call in an orbital bombardment on a location.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
• Hack a satellite and use its maneuvering thrusters to de-orbit it, causing it to crash at a chosen location. Would act as a crude method of kinetic bombardment, as well as creating a potential source of useful salvage.
• Hack banking networks and transfer funds to your account.

[Umbra.Animo]

i would also say you could add computer tech levels. or more as in makeshift computers, low grade laptops modern laptops (akak the current comercial brand) and hightech laptops ended on top secret prototype. and what you use helps not only with hacking,try hacking a military satellite with a shoddy laptop it’s not going to work, but storage energy efficiency and stuff like that

[nameless_survivor]

Yeah I like that idea. It would be cool to be able to find really high end computers in labs or military facilities. Maybe some that are more like furniture than man-portable equipment. I’d love to pillage a supercomputer and other electronic equipment (centrifuges for example) from a Lab or FEMA camp and set it up in my base.

Something else I’d love to be able to use computers for would be running a CNC mill or similar equipment. You would need heavy equipment to move one, and a vehicle to transport it, but I don’t see that as being impossible for a survivor (or a group) to salvage and use. Have it give a pretty hefty bonus to crafting speed for metal or plastic items, or let you craft larger than normal batches faster.

[gearform]

So we can record our recipes in a computer, instead of carrying heavy books.

[nameless_survivor]

I actually use a mod that adds a book scanner and the ability to read e-books on the e-ink tablet pc. I love it.

The one thing though is that you can’t passively craft with the recipes in the scanned books, like you can with physical books sitting nearby, you have to actually use the menu option to craft with scanned books on the e-ink tablet.

Bookscanner mod

Hello! I made Bookscanner mod written in Japanese a few weeks ago and uploaded to Japanese wiki. In these days, kindfully, Regularitee translated my mod.(Thx!) bookscanner(GitHub) Features of this mod Digitize your books and save to your e-tablet Craft items with digitized books (Reading digitized books is current not supported, because of LUA support is insufficient…)

[TheZoneWizard]

Book scanner is good. Should be added to core game.

Would be great if we could hack the military national guard robots to…not kill us? =D

[Umbra.Animo]

oh going off of my computer tech levels what about modding the laptops for things like improved battery or better heatsink and systems to run things or do tasks better.
also computer and laptops should be diffrent things with computers being more powerful but stationary and laptops are mobile but weaker

[Blaze1711]

@nameless_survivor

Being able to reconnect to the satellite network or other communications infrastructure with a salvaged transmitter/receiver dish would be a useful purpose for the computer skill as well.
Examples: …

All great ideas, and ones I considered too. I’m legitimately thinking about forking the source to work with the main source code instead, since I believe LUA will give me some limitations in most of these aspects.
For now though, as a proof of concept, I’ll stick to what LUA can do.

@Umbra.Animo

i would also say you could add computer tech levels

Yep. That’s the idea. Add different types of computers with different qualities.

@TheZoneWizard

Would be great if we could hack the military national guard robots to…not kill us? =D

Possible, but I’m not sure LUA supports it currently. Might need a source PR.

@Umbra.Animo

oh going off of my computer tech levels what about modding the laptops for things like improved battery or better heatsink and systems to run things or do tasks better.

Sounds reasonable. Using the tool modifications’ structure (as done with UPS supply mod, battery mods, etc.)

[nameless_survivor]

Would be great if we could hack the military national guard robots to…not kill us? =D

You already can. Use a control laptop. Shard made a mod to let you turn off the robots from the base game and the national guard base for storage as well. I’ve got roughly a hundred of them sitting in a closet in my base.

Disable hacked bots

If you can hack it, you can turn it into an item form. Exception: Broken cyborg. (Base game + national guard camps) Can add to an existing world by modifying the save’s mods.json and adding “disable_bots” for base game, and “disable_bots_natcamp” as well if you have national guard camp to the list, with a comma behind every entry except the last. Get it on github

If you are talking about hacking them all at once, I don’t know if that would be reasonable. If I were a military robot designer I would not make it possible to reset their IFF systems from a central system. That is the kind of vulnerability which leads to catastrophic hacking attacks by the enemy. MAYBE it would be possible on a squad level, but not all of them at a base at once.

[TheZoneWizard]

Cool.

As for hacking. People irl are using systems all the time that are vulnerable. Hospitals are a REALLY serious place that often need to update their computers. Yet. Nopareno, they don’t. Even in the branches of military. They don’t often update. Yes. I know that it is foolish. But even the military can get hacked.

Sony got hacked. Other major giants in industry. It happens.

[nameless_survivor]

Of course things can be hacked, and there are always vulnerabilities, but you don’t design a system like this to allow for the possibility that an entire robot army could be turned against its owners simultaneously. So while you could hack individual robots, or even squads, there would be some degree of isolation from the whole to prevent something like that. It would be retarded not to set it up that way.

[TheZoneWizard]

Oh I agree with you. But I am pretty certain we could google a bit and find a few of those situations

[Umbra.Animo]

in all likelihood the mainframe for the robots would be cut in to nodes for long distance control those could be hacked but would take lots of skill and good gear

[TheZoneWizard]

Now that may be a reasonable idea. Make it very difficult and require a good device + skill.