AI an Cyborg should be late-join enabled.

[Zamujasa]

Basically, title. In the event that the 3 starting Cyborg positions and AI are not filled at round-start, they should be available for late-join as well.

[KikiMofo]

What I say is to make it so roboticists can put Late Join Chips into borg heads and set up the borg suit that people can late join in. I don't know about AI though.

[Adhara In Space]

i like this idea please make it happen

[SimianC]

This has been brought up before and received a lot of support, I would love to see this happen. I know there are some players, myself included, who will late-join and immediately set off to make roburgers.

To springboard off of Kiki's post, my suggestion was to create a "late-join chip" similar to the AI interface board. Roboticists construct cyborgs and insert these chips, allowing late-join players to enter the shell once activated. This would also give Roboticists more to do during those slow rounds without cyborgs to maintain or brains to borg.

In the event that there is no roundstart AI, spawn an AI Core inside the AI Upload with a late-join chip installed, allowing players to join as an AI mid-round.

When discussing the idea of late-join borgs/AI, the topic of suicide laws eventually crops up. As someone who plays AI/borg rather frequently, I have received a suicide law maybe once or twice, it's such an uncommon occurrence that I don't think it's really a concern. Furthermore, if there are no cyborgs or AI on station to begin with, I find it hard to believe that someone would go out of their way to upload an unnecessary suicide law.

[Frank_Stein]

When discussing the idea of late-join borgs/AI, the topic of suicide laws eventually crops up. As someone who plays AI/borg rather frequently, I have received a suicide law maybe once or twice, it's such an uncommon occurrence that I don't think it's really a concern. Furthermore, if there are no cyborgs or AI on station to begin with, I find it hard to believe that someone would go out of their way to upload an unnecessary suicide law.

I feel like the best way to handle that would be if the AI is dead but with suicide laws in place, A late join taking over the AI role should be considered as the AI doing a hard reset

A new player takes the role, laws are set back to default, a big announcement is made of the fact, and we continue like normal

The hard reset could work automatically, or maybe need an ingame event to happen before it becomes available again. Either way, I think it's perfectly accomplishable while still keeping the gameplay balanced

[The Gorog]

I feel like the best way to handle that would be if the AI is dead but with suicide laws in place, A late join taking over the AI role should be considered as the AI doing a hard reset

A new player takes the role, laws are set back to default, a big announcement is made of the fact, and we continue like normal

The hard reset could work automatically, or maybe need an ingame event to happen before it becomes available again. Either way, I think it's perfectly accomplishable while still keeping the gameplay balanced

But how would you recognize a suicide law? Just by looking for keywords or them all being dead? 
Looking for keywords would be too unreliable. What if all silicons are dead, but someone is being borged. Would the laws stay or be reset?

I personally dont like the idea of them being able to latejoin with already changed laws being in place.
So my idea would be a timer before laws could be changed, during which people are still allowed to late join. Something around 10 or 15 minutes.
A downside to this would be that you also couldnt upload a good law that would help the crew, like "Wizards arent human" and the likes.

[Vitatroll]

If there's less than four borgs then let them latejoin. I forget if killswitches are persistent, but just make them so if not. You latejoin as a borg and you're testing your luck. If you want a sure be you should just take the 5 minutes to do it the 'right' way.

[SimianC]

I feel like the best way to handle that would be if the AI is dead but with suicide laws in place, A late join taking over the AI role should be considered as the AI doing a hard reset

A new player takes the role, laws are set back to default, a big announcement is made of the fact, and we continue like normal

The hard reset could work automatically, or maybe need an ingame event to happen before it becomes available again. Either way, I think it's perfectly accomplishable while still keeping the gameplay balanced

But how would you recognize a suicide law? Just by looking for keywords or them all being dead? 
Looking for keywords would be too unreliable. What if all silicons are dead, but someone is being borged. Would the laws stay or be reset?

I personally dont like the idea of them being able to latejoin with already changed laws being in place.
So my idea would be a timer before laws could be changed, during which people are still allowed to late join. Something around 10 or 15 minutes.
A downside to this would be that you also couldnt upload a good law that would help the crew, like "Wizards arent human" and the likes.

Unlike Captain and other roles, I don't think AI should become a late-join option once the position becomes "vacant"; It's availability should be limited to rounds where there is no roundstart AI or when a Roboticist constructs an AI Core with the late-join chip. Some antagonists will go out of their way to eliminate the AI to prevent them from getting in their way, for the AI to come back suddenly because someone late-joined would feel pretty bad. It would also eliminate the possibility for the shutdown AI to be reset. 

On the topic of late-join silicons and law subversion, I think these concerns are also overstated as late-join borgs and borged crewmembers are fundamentally the same. If the crew is aware that the AI is subverted, the Roboticist can dissemble the late-join borg shells just as they would abstain from borging crewmembers until the AI is reset. If the crew isn't aware the AI is subverted, the Roboticist will most likely continue borging crewmembers or creating late-join shells; the result is the same: a player (re)enters the game as a rogue cyborg. 

I do realize this could be considered a buff to the traitor Roboticist. Creating late-join shells and stowing them away after subverting the AI, waiting for their robotic army to activate. I think this would be damn cool though.

[Frank_Stein]

I feel like the best way to handle that would be if the AI is dead but with suicide laws in place, A late join taking over the AI role should be considered as the AI doing a hard reset

A new player takes the role, laws are set back to default, a big announcement is made of the fact, and we continue like normal

The hard reset could work automatically, or maybe need an ingame event to happen before it becomes available again. Either way, I think it's perfectly accomplishable while still keeping the gameplay balanced

But how would you recognize a suicide law? Just by looking for keywords or them all being dead? 
Looking for keywords would be too unreliable. What if all silicons are dead, but someone is being borged. Would the laws stay or be reset?

I personally dont like the idea of them being able to latejoin with already changed laws being in place.
So my idea would be a timer before laws could be changed, during which people are still allowed to late join. Something around 10 or 15 minutes.
A downside to this would be that you also couldnt upload a good law that would help the crew, like "Wizards arent human" and the likes.

The laws would reset when the AI late joins, regardless of what the laws currently are or even if they hadn't been changed at all. Update is applied to borgs as well. There's a meta rule about not mentioning what the previous law was, because everyone has been hard reset and no longer has the memory.

I understand how that might effect a traitor's plan, hence why adding an ingame switch to turn this on an off might be a good idea. Like disabling windows autoupdates

[KikiMofo]

Late join AIs are cool by me but if an AI dies during a round the only way to get a new AI should be to build a new one.

[NateTheSquid]

Late join AIs are cool by me but if an AI dies during a round the only way to get a new AI should be to build a new one.

yeah this is my thinking. late join borgs via a special brain replacement, and late join AI's only if there was no AI to begin with