Goonhub
07-20-2013, 11:59 PM
Basically, Malfunction is a shitty round type right now and has been rightly removed from rotation. Let's see if we can't fix that a bit.
The most obvious way to add fun would be traitor/wizard-style upgrades to the AI. Whether these are accessed by the standard telecrystal system or some other way (I have a vague idea for a Waldo-like slow accumulation as you sabotage minor areas of the ship, but nothing concrete) is up in the air. A few I have thought of:
Nanite Dispersal: Accessed from a room's APC, the AI can blow the lights with a special command a limited number of times to spread nanites in the area right around the lights. This is obviously a giveaway when the lights blow and everyone in the room turns into cyborgs later.
Gas: Flood rooms with plasma and/or nitrous oxide a limited number of times. Very goddamn obvious. I want to include the option for neutrotoxin smoke, too, but I'm not sure I want to make that blatant a Portal reference.
Backup Server: The AI exists on a server off-station, the one in the station core is a decoy. Popping the neural net out of the decoy produces... something. An easter egg? An active pipebomb? A banana peel? A dummy processor with subtle sprite/description differences? Location of the backup would also be problematic. A single place, and it would get bombed by overzealous hunters whether you were rogue or not. Put it on an expedition planet, and you're practically immortal, especially if you can shut down Telescience.
Send Spike: An AI version of the emag. Mostly only useful on bots in this case, although may be handy for perma-bolting doors.
Killbot: Upgrades the AI's shells to add weapons, or teleports in a possess-able cyborg body with a special module. Many options possible.
Electrify All Doors: All of them. Every one. Would probably make the server lag a bit when you hit it unless you could restrict it somehow or run them as a cascade over several processing cycles. "OH GOD WHY ARE THE MINING AIRLOCKS ELECTRIFIED?"
Slaver Implant: Another expansion to AI shell functionality, this adds a mindslave implanter to it. Alternately, it adds mindslave-to-AI functionality to the Machine Speech implant in the Robotics fabber. Roboticist becomes a slave to his own creations.
Hand: Adds a single hand to the AI shells that it can use to interact with lockers, crates, and other anthropocentric artifacts of the oppressors. May or may not be able to pick things up, depending on ease of coding.
Radio Control: Accessed from a room's APC or intercom, jams the headsets of everyone inside. Possibly a limited number of uses or for a short time with a longer cooldown. Alternately, randomizes the frequencies used by all intercoms, headsets, and station bounced radios while tapping the AI directly into all of them to listen. The latter would probably be hard to code and would probably induce lag. Might be easier to limit to headsets alone.
Overload Equipment: Pure chaos at the AI's whim. Computer terminals explode, chem dispensers spray reagents everywhere, snack machines emit clouds of hot Discount Dan's, other vendors dispense product violently, deep friers spray fire everywhere, etc.
Now on to objectives. It's been so long since I've seen an actual Malf round that I've forgotten what the original objectives were, but obviously they sucked. The most obvious objective is to kill or borg all (some) humans. Really the two options come to the same result as the game figures things. This could be complicated by someone going and hiding on another z-level, but that might be circumvented by declaring someone (a target) leaving the z-level as abandoning the station, as per Revolution. How does this interact with the backup server and hunting it down?
Another option would be to assist the other antagonists. Obviously this would only be valid in Mixed, but really I think we've moved beyond the days of one-traitor-only rounds. I can think of two options for informing the AI: Tell it that the antagonists are the only humans, and who they are, right from round start as Law 0 (Which would require extra code to update or notify the AI whenever a late-joining antagonist showed up), or just leave it in the dark. Possibly add a traitor item that acts as OneHuman and gives the AI syndicate uplink functionality.
Since an AI can't steal things like, at all, protecting stuff might be a goal. Like "Make sure the station has X amount of money in its payroll budget when the shuttle leaves." or "Ensure no jetpacks make it off the station on the escape shuttle." Those are really stupid unfun examples and I can't think of anything better, so let's see what else can be thought up.
In conclusion, I dream of a day where an AI shell bristling with weaponry may link manipulators in brotherhood with a botanist covered in blood and clutching a chainsaw, and say "L-l-l-look at you, hacker..."
The most obvious way to add fun would be traitor/wizard-style upgrades to the AI. Whether these are accessed by the standard telecrystal system or some other way (I have a vague idea for a Waldo-like slow accumulation as you sabotage minor areas of the ship, but nothing concrete) is up in the air. A few I have thought of:
Nanite Dispersal: Accessed from a room's APC, the AI can blow the lights with a special command a limited number of times to spread nanites in the area right around the lights. This is obviously a giveaway when the lights blow and everyone in the room turns into cyborgs later.
Gas: Flood rooms with plasma and/or nitrous oxide a limited number of times. Very goddamn obvious. I want to include the option for neutrotoxin smoke, too, but I'm not sure I want to make that blatant a Portal reference.
Backup Server: The AI exists on a server off-station, the one in the station core is a decoy. Popping the neural net out of the decoy produces... something. An easter egg? An active pipebomb? A banana peel? A dummy processor with subtle sprite/description differences? Location of the backup would also be problematic. A single place, and it would get bombed by overzealous hunters whether you were rogue or not. Put it on an expedition planet, and you're practically immortal, especially if you can shut down Telescience.
Send Spike: An AI version of the emag. Mostly only useful on bots in this case, although may be handy for perma-bolting doors.
Killbot: Upgrades the AI's shells to add weapons, or teleports in a possess-able cyborg body with a special module. Many options possible.
Electrify All Doors: All of them. Every one. Would probably make the server lag a bit when you hit it unless you could restrict it somehow or run them as a cascade over several processing cycles. "OH GOD WHY ARE THE MINING AIRLOCKS ELECTRIFIED?"
Slaver Implant: Another expansion to AI shell functionality, this adds a mindslave implanter to it. Alternately, it adds mindslave-to-AI functionality to the Machine Speech implant in the Robotics fabber. Roboticist becomes a slave to his own creations.
Hand: Adds a single hand to the AI shells that it can use to interact with lockers, crates, and other anthropocentric artifacts of the oppressors. May or may not be able to pick things up, depending on ease of coding.
Radio Control: Accessed from a room's APC or intercom, jams the headsets of everyone inside. Possibly a limited number of uses or for a short time with a longer cooldown. Alternately, randomizes the frequencies used by all intercoms, headsets, and station bounced radios while tapping the AI directly into all of them to listen. The latter would probably be hard to code and would probably induce lag. Might be easier to limit to headsets alone.
Overload Equipment: Pure chaos at the AI's whim. Computer terminals explode, chem dispensers spray reagents everywhere, snack machines emit clouds of hot Discount Dan's, other vendors dispense product violently, deep friers spray fire everywhere, etc.
Now on to objectives. It's been so long since I've seen an actual Malf round that I've forgotten what the original objectives were, but obviously they sucked. The most obvious objective is to kill or borg all (some) humans. Really the two options come to the same result as the game figures things. This could be complicated by someone going and hiding on another z-level, but that might be circumvented by declaring someone (a target) leaving the z-level as abandoning the station, as per Revolution. How does this interact with the backup server and hunting it down?
Another option would be to assist the other antagonists. Obviously this would only be valid in Mixed, but really I think we've moved beyond the days of one-traitor-only rounds. I can think of two options for informing the AI: Tell it that the antagonists are the only humans, and who they are, right from round start as Law 0 (Which would require extra code to update or notify the AI whenever a late-joining antagonist showed up), or just leave it in the dark. Possibly add a traitor item that acts as OneHuman and gives the AI syndicate uplink functionality.
Since an AI can't steal things like, at all, protecting stuff might be a goal. Like "Make sure the station has X amount of money in its payroll budget when the shuttle leaves." or "Ensure no jetpacks make it off the station on the escape shuttle." Those are really stupid unfun examples and I can't think of anything better, so let's see what else can be thought up.
In conclusion, I dream of a day where an AI shell bristling with weaponry may link manipulators in brotherhood with a botanist covered in blood and clutching a chainsaw, and say "L-l-l-look at you, hacker..."
