Ghost drones ideas and discussion

[Arborinus]

Having an internal reservoir of metal/glass/wire would be really nice.

[TheOnlyRyan]

Drones weren't not intended to interact with other players or borgs/AI's. They should keep to themselves. A job shouldn't be added in to maintain them. I do believe the ghost drone factory takes forever to produce a single shell and the time should be shorten, but only that.
If you want to suicide as a drone, you could just hit your self a couple of times. Easy.
If people destroy the drone factory then it removes the existing fun for drones. Drones were created to give ghosts something to do during a long round. Also, a 'destroy all drone' objective wouldn't work as ghosts can re-spawn in the factory, and become a drone more than once. Destroying all drones would again remove the last remaining fun for ghosts.

I do agree with the bee boop noises, but we should make something original so people don't complain about copyrights.

Surely Humans were the ones who designed the drones, and therefor they're a technology which needs to be worked on by a scientific research team or mechanic?

As for no mission to destroy all of them or destroy the factory, then why do we have a mission to make sure no one gets cloned? I guarantee more people prefer to come back as a human then they do as a beep boop robot to repair a station which will always be more fun to dismantle.

It seems way over the top to have 30 people coming back as a drone when someone like Nerdy goes on one of his annoying "lets kill everything round". 

A station with 10 people alive and 30 drones without anyone intending to keep track of them or maintain them seems odd.  They use artificial intelligence to perform their task and It's a humans job to maintain that intelligence. 

I honestly dont like infinite drones being made, I feel it should only work when a human is there to manufacture them, putting in metal, selecting the drone type etc.

[atomic1fire]

I was gonna suggest drone sized vents, but now that I think about it maybe doggy doors or letting them crawl through mail chutes could be a better preexisting option.

Overall I think there's going to have to be a balance between LOW IMPACT, and NOT A HEADACHE TO DO A DRONE JOB.

I think having to let a drone in to repair a floor leak would make drones more noticeable, rather then just having a small hole in the wall that a drone can slip out of.

[Vitatroll]

I'm honestly more in to not letting them have access. If we're needed to fix something, it's up to those with access to let us in. If not, then we either don't need in or can hack our way. If we need access to things then those should be provided in areas we have access to instead of just giving us all access.

Drones seem to be bigger thieves than staff assistants, honestly. Even with the addition of a 'obey human commands' law it could be tedious to keep them from screwing with stuff they don't really have business screwing with.

When consideration is given, it should always be given to the living first.

Your laws:
1. Avoid interaction with any living or silicon lifeforms where possible, with the exception of other drones.
2. Do not willingly damage the station in any shape or form.
3. Maintain, repair and improve the station.

#1 is giving people some trouble. It doesn't mean drones are invisible. It just means that they're supposed to avoid interaction with the living. In meta-sense it means 'You're dead; don't fuck with people's rounds you dead person'. Stealing weapons, attacking things, building obstructions -- all bad. We're just there to fix or create shit as per our directives.

EDIT: Oh, and as for wish lists for things to have access to, I'd like access to a MechComp dispenser without having to break into mechanics. Really opens up the amount of things I can improve. Though I could see some idiots setting up gravaccs or something. As a side request, being able to set the output destination of the dispenser and other vendors would be a huge time saver.

[Wire]

I just want to add that all this feedback is being taken into account and rolling updates will take place over the next few days/weeks/months depending on what we deem is A Good Idea.

[Noah Buttes]

there should be a locker full of hats on the drone station

[SuperbDingaling]

Allow them to wear masks over their faceplate too, maybe?

[Nnystyxx]

The important interpretation I've learned for law 1 is: don't PREVENT damage to the station (thus interrupting what someone was doing), just fix what occurs. Dragging a bomb offstation (which I did) is a nono.

EDIT: Also what happens when somebody opens a door to let a drone in and some crimer comes rushing in? Bam, human impact that could have been saved. Implicit responsibility for someone's round changing severely (getting whomped by a derringer or something the guy was carrying) vs. not. Drones aren't supposed to have to interact with people. They can't even speak to humans or recognize them by voice, for goodness' sake. Don't make them dependent on people, thus interrupting someone else's dynamic to be forced to pay attention to the drone.

[Hulk Hogan]

there should be a locker full of hats on the drone station

I'm not sure about this. I think collecting hats should be a status symbol. Find the rarest hats before everyone else.

[Noah Buttes]

there should be a locker full of hats on the drone station

I'm not sure about this. I think collecting hats should be a status symbol. Find the rarest hats before everyone else.

I didn't say rare hats, I just said hats.

Gotta have SOME headwear for all drones.

[misto]

disabled cameras should be highlighted in their vision for them to fix. this may be unwelcome in the event of rogue ai, but theyre still part of the station infrastructure

should also be able to go over/under tables like monkeys

[Sundance]

I'm writing up the wiki, please give feedback into this, it ain't going live until I
A) finish it
B) Make sure the laws and explanations behind them are concrete.

Here is a breakdown of the laws, which is being put on the wiki:

1. Avoid interaction with any living or silicon lifeforms where possible, with the exception of other drones.

Avoiding interaction is a cakewalk. You are only able to distinguish the outlines of other lifeforms appearing as formed shadows, and are unable to recognize the black mass who is asininely spouting nonsense, appearing simply as Human or Silicon. Nor will they understand you, your speech only being understood by the drone hivemind. Even if your ghostly consciousness recalls the being before you by recognizing their actions or mannerisms, you are physically unable to touch/hug/stab/feed them, as your safety overrides will kick in. So how exactly would you break this law? A human can't order you; your are not bound by them. Doing so breaks law 1. Listening into the comms for requests to fix things on the other hand is fine. Constantly following a human around and farting would be another example of breaking this law. Building a 3x3 cell around someone and removing the ground so that person suffocates to death is definitely breaking this law. This law is fairly black and white, the only way you would be breaking this law is if you really tried.

2. Do not willingly damage the station in any shape or form.

This law is not so black and white. Yes, letting off a gas of plasma would no doubt be recklessly damaging the station. But being trapped in a room where the only way out is through hacking a door open would not be damaging the station, if you fix the door afterwards. Removing a wall or deconstructing a girder in a breached area to get at the vacuum that lies beyond it is also not damaging the station. So this law is based on intent; if you are maliciously or recklessly damaging the station, then you are breaking this law.

3. Maintain, repair and improve the station.

Your third directive cannot be any more straight forward. Attempt to have the station the same as it was at round start. Sure that's a bit of a stretch, but a drone can dream. Failing that, or if the station is in considerably (or relatively) good condition, renovations are always fun if you have a bunch of drones working with you. The station is a shithole to start with anyway.

Please note my interpretation of law 2 may not exactly fall in line with what Wire/Haine may of envisioned, which is why I'm posting here so it can be smoothed out/clarified/perfected whathaveyou. That said I do think intent is the key word.

[Vitatroll]

The biggest confusion I've seen people having with law #1 is what Nnystyxx mentioned.

The concern people have with #2 is usually about hacking into places. I have yet to be yelled at for doing so, and I haven't seen anybody else yelled at, so I'm guessing it's fine so long as you don't leave all the doors shocked/open.

I haven't seen anybody have a problem with #3 yet.

The addendum I have for the laws is usually the line I gave above: 'Don't fuck with people's round; you're dead'' along with 'Avoid picking up or moving what you don't have to' or 'Imagine yourself a traitor, and the guy you just blew up came back and removed your other bombs after ghosting around to find them'.

We're like improved floorbots, really.

[Mageziya]

What's curious curious about Law 1 is that there's a planned feature for ghost-drones to be wearable as hats. It's one of those things that sounds adorable and I definitely want as a feature, but at the same time it sorta doesn't do anything. Ghost drones can't talk with you, they're not supposed to interact with you, and they probably won't be able to repair stuff from your head. It's sort of an odd planned feature.

[Wire]

What's curious curious about Law 1 is that there's a planned feature for ghost-drones to be wearable as hats. It's one of those things that sounds adorable and I definitely want as a feature, but at the same time it sorta doesn't do anything. Ghost drones can't talk with you, they're not supposed to interact with you, and they probably won't be able to repair stuff from your head. It's sort of an odd planned feature.

Well that's because that isn't the entirety of the planned feature. The actual goal of the hatting is to make the drone of a sort of portable AI that is allowed to work for the player wearing them. Obviously this sort of thing will require yet more laws/rules and literally none of said feature is coded/design doc'd yet so we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.