[CLOSED PR] Remove RCD from ghostdrones

[aft2001]

A separate RCD charge that isn't based on your internal battery, as well as significantly increased price of deconstruction of floor tiles, seems like a more reasonable solution. As an addition/alternative, just make deconstruction have a long cooldown, AND/OR give it a very noticeable progress bar and a longer (maybe 10 second) time period for you to have to stand still to delete a floor tile.

[GORE]

This is the same debate as the construction worker.

Shitheads ruining two perfectly fun roles for those not shitting about.

Building stuff got nerfed so hard throughout this year - I do not even bother with building fun rooms or anything like that anymore.

- - -

However here is my input for the ghostdrones.
Limited lives.

Getting destroyed by players two times...does that not warrant enough reason to not let them respawn a third time? After all there are plenty other options to pick to choose what to do while idling for the next round.

[Brixx79]

Limited lives and hooking them up to the main comp system so they can be remotely self-destructed would help a lot I think.

[Sov]

Consider letting them carry a stack of metal sheets, glass sheets, floortiles, and rods in their bot inventory like borgs already get

[Lady Birb]

Add multiple consoles in public areas that let anyone instantly killswitch ghostdrones.

[GORE]

Add multiple consoles in public areas that let anyone instantly killswitch ghostdrones.

BAD.

I don't mind security having one for ghostdrones, but the clown, the tider? Nay!

[Kamikaze Mongoose]

Why not make Ghost Drone a whitelist role? Instead of waiting for people to abuse it and get blacklisted, have a process to get in that filters shitters from helpers. Griefers don't need the RCD to grief; you could say the same thing for fixers, but it's a lot easier to grief than it is to fix when you're restricted to basic tools and a hand slot. Removing walls and windows only takes hand tools and requires no waiting to pick up and drop objects, so you're punishing the helpers here more than anyone else.

And if we do remove the RCD, the next problem will be ghost drones abusing the light tool and making everyone's eyes sweat or taking apart things by hand or making blockades with steel sheets. By the end of this trail of removing items, you're just gonna end up with a critter or a removed role. The problem isn't the tools, it's access to the role being open to anyone for the power it provides. When crew jobs enter this area, they have a whitelist process or a play requirement to try. Why not do that for ghost drones?

[Technature]

Limited lives.

Getting destroyed by players two times...does that not warrant enough reason to not let them respawn a third time? After all there are plenty other options to pick to choose what to do while idling for the next round.

I think this is the best option.  If you're enough of a shit head that different people need to kill you (or the same person needs to kill you twice), then you shouldn't have the role anymore.

Granted it means antags can also permanently get rid of ghost drones with enough effort, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

[Mouse]

Would it be too much overhead/whatever the word is to give turfs created by ghostdrones a special flag and then limiting the ghostdrone RCD to only being able to deconstruct stuff with the flag?

[aft2001]

Honestly? Both Mouse's idea and GORE's idea (specifically of limited lives) are both appealing, and then if those were implemented, removing some previous nerfs to ghost drones that were originally designed to limit their grief capabilities would help reduce the unnecessary punishment that people who just wanna build get.

[Brixx79]

I normally wouldn't recommend giving mentors special treatment, but idly ghost droning and doing fun building jobs is usually when I do the most mentorhelps. Giving those that have already been vetted access to a superior ghost drone would be one method.

[edward]

Don't ghostdrones technically have limited lives already via a cooldown to be a ghostdrone again? I don't see it anywhere in the code. If not, why not? Critters have a cooldown, too.

Also, ghost drones DO already have a round limit of 20 - if you've not played 20 rounds you don't get to be a ghost drone.

There's also a "lives" limit on how quickly the ghost drone factory spits out drones. It is limited in the number of drones it can create.

[Technature]

Ghost drones have a cooldown based on how many ghost drones are built and ready to go. Unless a large number of people wanna be one at the time, Respawning as a ghost drone has very little wait time.

[Varali]

I'm on the fence here. I love ghost drones, it's the role I started out playing as when I came to Goonstation, helped me learn a lot of controls and mechanics in a pretty relaxing way. Due to Goonstation being public, there's always going to be a new idiot who removes floor tiles or windows, it's just inevitable.

My favorite solution is definitely what Frank_Stein said, but it involves actual developer time and effort.

2. Make ghost drones more equivalent to borgs, with roughly the same rules but no chance of being rogued or emagged. Just a robot that can be built that any ghost can hop into and do what they already do now. If one is acting out of line, have a method like kill switching to permanently boot them from any new drone bodies for the rest of the round.

This would put them in line with Cyborgs and give Roboticist more to do, which I believe they desperately need. Perhaps stations can start with one built ghostdrone and any further will have to be built manually. 

My second and third solutions that I like are both band-aid fixes. Removing the RCD and giving them the standard construction materials, sheets, rods and such like Cyborgs is a fine solution, if a bit slow compared to an RCD. Alternatively, why not just.. disable the ability for ghostdrones to deconstruct at all with the RCD? I rarely ever deconstructed stuff, and you'd still be able to do walls manually with some work, but you wouldn't be able to just delete flooring and walls. They're here to repair after all. If you want to deconstruct large areas and build cafes, I believe a Cyborg would be better suited both mechanically and rules-wise.

[Chickenish]

A possible alternative would be to use the Realistic Cardboard Device PR'd here (unmerged): https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/4047

Cardboard RCD code is now updated for ghostdrone use: https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/4639