An unholy union: Robotics & VR

[babayetu83]

so i was thinking what a lot of you probably are: "man, robotics doesn't have much to do. very few people like getting borged and you aren't guaranteed any work because you can either have a lot or little to no people coming in for limb/organ replacements. and the devs don't want to add anything resembling the mechs on other servers, so, what else could robotics bother with?"

the idea i had was inspired by cyberpunk's ripperdocs and also the presence of the net. if something like this were added, robotics could specialize in technological surgical implants and transplants, while the doctors deal more with flesh. so to preface i'm gonna kinda use the words "net" and "vr" interchangeably since VR now sort of already accomplishes what i'm describing: your mind is moved into a digital plane and you can do fun and interesting stuff there.

even if VR as it exists in the game in the code as some massive lump of spaghetti code, i think there's potential for roboticists to build and maintain some manner of conveyance to vr/cyberspace and also surgically modify individuals to be more suited towards doing shit in vr. like cyberpunk. exactly like cyberpunk.

the idea i kind of have is like a marriage between megaman battle network (where you enter cyberspace and interact with computers, machinery, and other objects in the real world) and system shock (where you hack and you gotta fight off the cyberspace defenses). you could enter a sort of vr/cyberspace version of the station where you could find lost data (that could give you credits/goodies/some kind of buffs for cyberspace)

this could spice up antagonists as well. for example, nuke ops could launch a cyberattack on the station's systems and give themselves an edge when they deploy the nuke (at the cost of having one dude back manning the vr thing somewhere on the station which could necessitate a response from station/security netrunners  to protect its systems and what not

[TDHooligan]

VR does need some love, but its going to be a huge volume of love to make its minigames good. Spending even more effort to make it into a place where players might sit for extended times is risky as odds are, players won't regularly be in there to interact with you. it'd be like the genetics world for robotics.

[Dhaidburt]

While it does honestly sound like fun, I can't help but shake the feeling that this would be like another Azone rather than the cool cyber playground that's being proposed. Maybe if a new station was tapping into the digital world for multiple things (digital power lines somehow powering the station APCs for example) we'd be able to integrate something like this as-is.

[Frank_Stein]

VR does need some love, but its going to be a huge volume of love to make its minigames good. Spending even more effort to make it into a place where players might sit for extended times is risky as odds are, players won't regularly be in there to interact with you. it'd be like the genetics world for robotics.

That's the biggest problem with VR, it separates from the rest of the round and they don't even get spectate you like they could if you were boxing in the ring or something

[Lord_earthfire]

VR does need some love, but its going to be a huge volume of love to make its minigames good. Spending even more effort to make it into a place where players might sit for extended times is risky as odds are, players won't regularly be in there to interact with you. it'd be like the genetics world for robotics.

Unironically, any system that involves VR should not even slightly care to what VR is right now. Building on this mess would only create problems.

This means we should remake a system entirely. This also gives us the possibility to implement it in a way that brings some engagement with other people into it.

[Waffleloffle]

I think it would be neat if roboticists got access to this lore element, though I think that working with VR as a separate space from the rest of everything is... counterintuitive, I think? the main draw of the game for many IS the human element, which is a big chunk of why VR doesn't really have a niche in round-to-round play. being put in a space where you can't interact with others easily and they can't interact with you is difficult to pull off well

however, I think there's potential to have that sort of experience without having to take someone out of a round for a while. perhaps there could be things on-station that only people with the right implants or such could see, create, or interact with? rather than a fully virtual reality, an augmented one? conceptually, it might be a bit too advanced for the setting's current technical frontier, but it's sort of in line with the sort of opt-in exclusive access that robotics can deliver with the machine translator implant

[Kotlol]

however, I think there's potential to have that sort of experience without having to take someone out of a round for a while. perhaps there could be things on-station that only people with the right implants or such could see, create, or interact with? rather than a fully virtual reality, an augmented one? conceptually, it might be a bit too advanced for the setting's current technical frontier, but it's sort of in line with the sort of opt-in exclusive access that robotics can deliver with the machine translator implant

We already have AR elements in a way with the SecHUD, Meson Goggles and such.
We can always go futher and create AR stuff for Robotics to work on.