Remove ghost drone and replace it with something else

[unfunnyperson]

Ghost drones have a problem, A MAJOR problem as of now. They have simply have way too high potential to Greif and it’s incredibly easy to play one. On my stay in the servers here are a few things I’ve witnessed ghostdrones doing. Making a new air bridge for the ai upload when the old one was retracted, attempting to murder crew members with a bible, and destroying parts of the engine.

Now I’m all for ghost roles that actually allow you to have an impact on the round ghost drones aren’t right for it. Another point I have about them is the first law. The law states “Do not hinder the freedom or actions of the living and other silicons or attempt to intervene in their affairs.” Is incredibly vague and impossible to avoid breaking. If I repaired a damaged hole that would break the law, if I put new flooring on a title that would be breaking the law, if I was a ghost drone and just stood still for 30 minutes I would still be breaking the law.

Another issue with ghost drones is how powerful they are with their tools. They have all sorts of very powerful tools like the rcd, ability to phase through doors, full set of construction tools, and magtractor. These tools make doing harm to the station piss easy or if you want to repair also easy. This is frustrating if you just bombed an important location just to have it repaired by a ghost drone. 

So if we decided to axe the ghost drone we should have a good replacement that can have an impact without problems ghostdrones suffer from. One solution proposed by people in the discord was allowing robotics to make hacked siccs that draw ghosts instead of latejoiners. Obviously this would have a few problems mainly due to the fact that borgs are more powerful than drones and have more advanced communication. To combat the first problem we could limit the amount that could be made per round or make them very expensive to make. Second problem with ghost borg communication could be stopped with a law/rule that prevents them from talking about previous lives.

If you have ideas for other replacements and ideas to fix issues please comment them below.

I apologize for bad grammar as this was written in a rush.

[Technature]

The problem here is that ghost drones can grief, but I honestly don't see how making them into something that could murder people easier would help. An engineer Borg can do anything a ghost drone can and more, outside of picking up objects, and limiting ghost borg numbers does nothing positive if one of those ghost cyborgs is one of the ghost drones you're talking about. If a ghost drone is griefing and murdering crew, making them something that can do it more easily is...just bad.

The rule "Don't interact with players" is exactly as it says. Don't interact with players. This doesn't mean "Don't fix the holes they make". You're interacting with the station, not the players. And if an antag REALLY doesn't want you to fix their damage, they can just bop you on the head til you stop moving, which ultimately doesn't affect anyone but the ghost drone player.

If people are abusing the Ghost drone, get the ghost drone number and Ahelp them.

[unfunnyperson]

The problem here is that ghost drones can grief, but I honestly don't see how making them into something that could murder people easier would help.  An engineer Borg can do anything a ghost drone can and more, outside of picking up objects, and limiting ghost borg numbers does nothing positive if one of those ghost cyborgs is one of the ghost drones you're talking about.  If a ghost drone is griefing and murdering crew, making them something that can do it more easily is...just bad.

The rule "Don't interact with players" is exactly as it says.  Don't interact with players.  This doesn't mean "Don't fix the holes they make".  You're interacting with the station, not the players.  And if an antag REALLY doesn't want you to fix their damage, they can just bop you on the head til you stop moving, which ultimately doesn't affect anyone but the ghost drone player.

If people are abusing the Ghost drone, get the ghost drone number and Ahelp them.

The thing is what happens when there isn't an admin online to deal with the drone? The drone can then proceed to depressurize and grief everything with infinite respawns. And for an antag killing the drones they can just respawn with little to no effort invalidating the time it took to get rid of the drone in the first place.

[KikiMofo]

If you see a ghost drone griffing people then you should ADMINHELP it.
Reminder its everyone duty to help keep those horrible things from going mad with power. Only the admins have control over them.

[Froggit_Dogget]

Ghost drones need to go. Every week or so I witness ghost drones doing bad shit. For example 2 days ago a ghost drone dropped a naval mine on me with a cargo tug while I was a wizard. Them doing anything is technically an impact on the round. Ahelping them fixes it after the fact, so does breaking the ghost drone. The issue is in the drones themself, not the people using them. The fact that its an easy mechanic to abuse, cuz lots of people do it, means it should go. The only thing that is cool about them is when they do cool projects, but if you want to do cool projects you can just get borged or ask QM for metal. Also, its no secret that i like bombs. When ever I do bomb the station, i want it to stay that way! However often times a ghost drone starts immediatly repairing the holes that ive created. People say a ghost drones job is to "fix the station" yet every 90% of the things wrong with the station were caused by antags who want it to stay that way. Just like what Buttes said on the thread about removing chem's ability to break floors, it isnt hard to repair places, its just hard to repressurize them.  Why keep it if their only purpose is to fix holes in the station that A. were caused by antags. and B. the holes can easily be fixed by a player. Ghost drones have all the tools to grief and it happens all too often. Of course, im just rambling my thoughts here, but it feels like i see ghost drone grief every week, and their actions are all grey area.

[Brixx79]

Add a decent limit before you can play as ghost drones like some jobs have.

Realistically, griefers are going to find one way or another to do it. Ahelping is the only long term solution to trouble players. I think ghost drones are a fun part of station play and love building projects with them, but perhaps limiting bad players options would be useful.

[pali6]

Ghost drones already have a limit of how many rounds played you need to become a drone.

[Technature]

The thing is what happens when there isn't an admin online to deal with the drone? 

I could make the same argument with why literally every single rule on the server is bad.

[unfunnyperson]

The thing is what happens when there isn't an admin online to deal with the drone? 

I could make the same argument with why literally every single rule on the server is bad.

Yes people can break some rules without an admin to stop them but we have a security force to deal with those people. Ghost drones can just respawn after you deal with them then proceed to greif using their wide array of tools.

There is a problem with ghost drones that can’t be fixed by only admin helping the bad ones.

[Eagletanker]

Move them to the asteroid belt and that’s the only place they can be. Ez

In all seriousness don’t remove ghost drones. It’s really the only role left that can just ignore the station and go build with a RCD and make something cool. It’s a problem that’s the same as construction worker, where it’s the people that abuse it, and not the role that’s the problem. I’m sure The Football Field doesn’t take up much room, so you could throw them on that Z in a little buildable area where ghosts can hang out and stuff

[Technature]

The thing is what happens when there isn't an admin online to deal with the drone? 

I could make the same argument with why literally every single rule on the server is bad.

Yes people can break some rules without an admin to stop them but we have a security force to deal with those people. Ghost drones can just respawn after you deal with them then proceed to greif using their wide array of tools.

There is a problem with ghost drones that can’t be fixed by only admin helping the bad ones.

Blow up the ghost drone factory.

[Froggit_Dogget]

exhibit 25210A: https://imgur.com/a/vPm6Gzq



I blew up escape so that nobody could make it onto the shuttle. 30 seconds later a ghost drone makes a bridge to it. If something is this easy to unintentionally abuse it needs to go.
(i took this snip during a round delay)

[Lady Birb]

exhibit 25210A: https://imgur.com/a/vPm6Gzq



I blew up escape so that nobody could make it onto the shuttle. 30 seconds later a ghost drone makes a bridge to it. If something is this easy to unintentionally abuse it needs to go.
(i took this snip during a round delay)

I remember hearing that the official policy is that ghostdrones are allowed to repair damage cause by antagonists, even though it technically is getting involved in the affairs of the living. If you want to blow shit up as a traitor and don't want it to be repaired then blow up the ghostdrone factory.

[THISISANICEGAME]

the ghost drones rules do state they shouldn't interfere with human stuff, even messes made by antags. Here is a quote from the wiki wich makes a good point.

"1. Do not hinder the freedom or actions of the living and other silicons or attempt to intervene in their affairs.

This is the law people usually break, so pay attention. It's first for a reason. Without this rule, the whole antagonist-crew dynamic would be thrown into unfun chaos. Could you imagine killing someone, only for them to come back as ghost drone to harass you, over and over? You could fight back, sure, but is destroying a tiny robot with an even tinier hitbox and free, basically infinite lives your idea of a fun time? Sure, there's a cooldown period in-between ghost drone lives, you might be able to adminhelp it, and you can totally just bomb the Factory, but you'd have to do it. Every. Single. Round. It'd get unfun quickly."

Anyways, I do think ghost drones should be either gone or changed to something more in line with their rules, all my experiences with ones have been them screwing me over somehow, my first one was them welderbombing bombing robotics. Yes, I did ahelp it, but ghost drone grief still happens every other round, it is simply a role wich leads to grief, a powerful role put in the hands of people who are dead and a lot of dead people are salty, so they come back and try to kill a traitor or fix the mess one made etc.

[unfunnyperson]

exhibit 25210A: https://imgur.com/a/vPm6Gzq



I blew up escape so that nobody could make it onto the shuttle. 30 seconds later a ghost drone makes a bridge to it. If something is this easy to unintentionally abuse it needs to go.
(i took this snip during a round delay)

I remember hearing that the official policy is that ghostdrones are allowed to repair damage cause by antagonists, even though it technically is getting involved in the affairs of the living. If you want to blow shit up as a traitor and don't want it to be repaired then blow up the ghostdrone factory.

Ghostdrones are allowed to repair damage if a certain amount of time has passed. A ghostdrone immediately going to repair a hole an antag made would definitely be breaking the policy.