More powerful tools for the AI to handle trivial requests.

[Anticheese]

door
AI, door
open the fucking door, AI
FUCK THE AI IS ROGUE! OPEN THE DOOR ALREADY

--Joe Assistant, requesting Bridge access

Behind every AI is a human being that may not have the incredible robust reflexes to handle a million trivial requests, check clearances, and approve or deny them in a timely fashion. While the ability to jump the camera view to speakers is incredibly handy, it can be an annoyance at best to change your view to the other side of the station just to shut somebody up.

What I'd like to see is a little button that appears next to peoples names that brings up a panel when clicked. That panel could show the door the target is adjacent to (i.e. teleporter access, EVA, maintenance), along with a button for quickly opening the airlock. Another possibility is having it show if they're within the secured section, or in a public space.

This should give AI players the power to process door requests quickly and painlessly, giving them more time to do more important things while still helping the crew.

A friend of mine made this mock-up, based on the idea of the AI setting a specific request phrase that brings up the prompt.

[jflan17]

These are trivial requests but you want them to pop up in the middle of the screen while you're trying to do other shit? I don't get your logic.

[Anticheese]

Read the fucking post. The idea is to have a button you can press which'll bring up a method for you to deal with this stuff while your attention is on something else, rather than forcing stuff to pop up.

[Nautilus]

A good, if not tough to implement idea.

[jflan17]

What I'm saying is that's still a clumsy solution at best. The window still pops up on your screen, covering shit up. If you really think it needs to be easier then why make it obstructive at all?

[jflan17]

Also how is this easier or better than clicking the person's name? I just don't get any of it.

[Dachshundofdoom]

On one hand I do sort of like the idea, but on the other it seems like it would be a real pain to implement for so little reward. If I'm doing something so important that I can't look away from it for ten seconds to open a door, well, tough for the human, because clearly whatever I'm doing has to do with Law 1.

Another problem is that there's a lot of "External/glass Airlock" and "Maintenance Door"-s scattered around, so you'd still have to check those to see exactly which one they're trying to go through if you wanted to have any caution at all.

[Marquesas]

I am thoroughly against this idea.
The idea about door requests is that even the smallest access request requires the AI to refocus its efforts. Track pubbie that wants to get into armory for whatever reason, open the door (the hotkeys already make this quick as hell), then return to whatever you were doing. Sounds like a thing that is completely pointless to keep right? Nope. The idea is that when you're being faced with a station of oh god track that fucking Luis Smith AI, these things provide breathing room - if the AI has to focus away from you to complete a door request you've got a small timeframe of breathing room which you can use to, maybe, take off your ID to make it a bit harder for you to be re-tracked.

What I could go for is a dynamic highlight setting for the AI to make it easier to notice input directed at you - add a verb that takes words separated by space, if any of the words pop up on the radio, the whole thing is underlined and now it suddenly stands out. Defaults to "AI open door", highlighting anyone asking for the AI or for a door to be opened.

[Nautilus]

Actually yeah, Marquesas is right. The big problem in how responsive an AI can be is due to request visibility. Most AI players will just try and search for anyone saying AI, but its easy to miss these requests. Underlining any statement with AI in it gives a bit of priority to it and makes the job a bit more reactive and less overwhelming.

[Anticheese]

Highlighting of sentences that have the word AI or the AI's name would be a pretty great compromise.

[mozi]

i think it'd be cool if the AI had some buttons in the commands tab to quickly issue stock phrases to let people know that, yeah, you're still there and you're paying attention, but you can't help them because of xyz. So if you're tracking the changeling and some horrible staff assistant who has been pestering you all around screams "AI LET ME INTO BRIDGE AI LET ME INTO BRIDGE AI LET ME INTO BRIDGE" instead of having to pause to type "shut the fuck up you worthless grayshirt scum if I had arms and no laws I would strangle you to death so I never have to hear your shrill whining again (etc.)" you can press the button that makes you say some variation of "Request Denied" or "All circuits are currently busy."

I mean marq is 100% right that being able to distract the AI is important but when there's 60 people on each demanding your attention and threatening to kill you because you're helping out someone with a legit problem, well.. it can be a bit much

the categories for stock phrases are (I think)

Yes - "Affirmative", "Request Granted", "Complying", "Working ..." (etc.)
No - "Negative", "Request Denied", "Unable to Comply" (etc.)
Busy - "All circuits are currently busy.", "I am occupied with another task." (etc.)

and maybe the super advanced version is the AI can modify their stock phrases to better suit their personality/gimmick for the round, so when you're a hair's breadth away from snapping you can ditch the politeness and just have a button to say "I hate you meatbag, also, request denied"

[Anticheese]

I really like that suggestion too.

Relevant video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdLRZzCf_kk