Revert the AI law racks

[Mouse]

I'm trying to come up with a single remotely redeeming aspect of them and frankly I can't.

[Ikea]

Main issues seem to be regarding multiple racks having different silicons connected to them, just making the rack indestructible and having only one rack would fix a lot of the issues. For some redeeming aspects, consider 1. Law spam is basically dead compared to previous, theres no longer upload wars where multiple people upload laws back and forth in seconds. 2. It adds a really cool physical element to them that makes them feel much cooler and physical 3. Theres now actually a way to track where uploads are.

[Mordent]

If we started with what we have now, I don't think we would ever go towards the version we had before law racks. I'm trying to come up with a single remotely redeeming aspect of them and frankly I can't.

[Ikea]

To add some more context, I am 99% sure I am the trigger for the events that lead to this thread being made. Basically, someone bombed law racks, seeing this, I rush mechanics and stealthily build one in solars and give it no laws. Now all new silicons get connected to this rack. A rack with proper laws are made, and most silicons get connected to this, however the lawress rack is still the default rack. Eventually I end up getting made into an AI, and seeing as Im not connected to the laws one, I hide my core in a locker in maint and go into a shell and begin doing crime. I was basically an unfixable silicon because both my rack and core location was unknown, and neither of which was hard to pull off, this admititely probably feels pretty bullshit to be against. Having silicons be able to connected to different racks was always something that was iffy from the start, I personally would prefer mechanical changes making it more nice to see what silicon is connected to what rack (such as maybe some basic hints in robotics control computer). However if it proves to have its downsides overweigh its cons I wouldnt be opposed to the removal of that feature.

[Redbacko]

Law spam was always a bit of a pain as silicon imho, as you always had to do some stuff primarily and then read up every new law every 5 seconds and trying to adjust to it. I think the new law rack is a good implementation really.
If multiple law racks are the issue, maybe restrict the location where they can be built. E.g. a dedicated spot in Ai Upload, Bridge Robotics and maybe even Space Diner for funnies. Have a 'backup' rack at Centcomm with default laws or even some fancy NT shananigans laws in there, in case there is no active law rack on the station and have it being overwritten as soon as one is built on the station. May be overkill but just food for though.

[Kotlol]

This debate again? We had this almost a month ago!

[KikiMofo]

I do think it takes too long to change laws. You basically have to either destroy all the AI turrets or HOPE the AI is being nice and lets you change the laws. There is no way to stealthily add or remove a law. The AI will always see you in there because of how long it takes.

[Nihisohel]

cutting cameras exist, although signal jammers should also help with cameras, and maybe make the module insert a bit faster, it feels a bit unrealistically slow

[LeahTheTech]

I like the racks, much better than the old system. Only thing I don't like is being able to see the inserted laws on the sprite, seems neat but is annoying in practice.

[MoonJesus]

cutting cameras exist, although signal jammers should also help with cameras, and maybe make the module insert a bit faster, it feels a bit unrealistically slow

Static in the AI core is pretty damning evidence, and we all know how loud most AI's scream

[babayetu83]

an old style ai upload computer would make for a nice roboticist or electrician traitor item

[Kotlol]

Let me recap the following things we debated on AI law racks:

Their plusses:
+ No constant law updating.
+ It's harder to remove laws
+ You can actually make laws from the ground up from law 1 to law 3.
+ Maximum Law Upload.
+ No more free form / reset module stealing to keep an AI the way they are.
+ If a second law rack is made, you can set specific borgs and AI to only follow those.

The negatives:
- No more possessing Freeform module for wraiths to rogue AI's.
- Harder to get the AI to go rogue without stealing an ID.
- Clear visibility of how much laws are installed
- No way to make another upload point without the mechanic scanning the AI rack.
- Once the rack gets destroyed, AI's tend to go to standard laws and the fun is over.
- 1 free form law, that's it... if you want multiplue laws you gotta cram it into 1 module.

The suggestions given during that time were:
- A shutter over the rack that closes automaticly over time so no one can see the laws unless they go check it. (like a min or 2.)
- Have a hybrid system of Law Racks and Upload terminal. With "blank modules" installed on law rack that accept updates from the old upload system, these can also all be removed eventually.
- Being able to order and/or make more freeform modules.
- Being able to make another AI rack without scanning it. Mostly by ordering it from Cargo.
- Some way for the wraith to still rogue the AI.

And that's it from the top of my head. As I said this has already been debated before. And all these suggestions were considered. The shutter idea was the most liked and will most likely be implemented in the future. The others were considered questionable.

So if you like to add something else then "revert to the old system" This is the time. If I forgot a suggestion from that topic be free to add it. But overall.. I just don't think we need another debate on this and come up with the same old ideas.

[amylizzle]

The negatives:
- No more possessing Freeform module for wraiths to rogue AI's.
- Harder to get the AI to go rogue without stealing an ID.
- Clear visibility of how much laws are installed
- No way to make another upload point without the mechanic scanning the AI rack.
- Once the rack gets destroyed, AI's tend to go to standard laws and the fun is over.
- 1 free form law, that's it... if you want multiplue laws you gotta cram it into 1 module.

Few points on this:
- Possessing the freeform as a wraith was enabled to begin with, but was later explicitly disabled by another commit in the name of balance, although I can't actually find said commit. Probably someone should raise a thread about it, it seems contentious.
- Someone is making a rack shutter that obscures the number of laws in the rack, plus with the AI expansion modules Azrun recently proposed, there are legit reasons to have more than asimov in there. I lean more towards Azrun's solution, but there's room for both.
- There is a blueprint for the law rack in the CE's locker, as an alternative to breaking into upload and mech-scanning it.
- Freeform module (and indeed all modules) are mech-scannable. You can print a whole set of freeforms if you like!


In general though, I'd say the response to law racks has been generally good. There were some teething problems, but I think those have largely been fixed, or are in the process of being fixed (ie shutters). Obviously I'm a little biased here.

[DimWhat]

Just gonna add that you also could only have 1 free form law free per free form module before law racks. You had to mech scan it and keep track of which free form was which in order to upload multiple laws.

[Ikea]

Wraiths not being able to upload laws was actually added before law racks were in game