Cirr's Terrible Idea Feedback Type Thread Place Event Kiosk [GONE WRONG]

[Cirrial]

alright full disclosure I posted this thread before going to bed and I didn't have the wakefulness to post about flockmind/flockdrone so HERE GOES
this is a weird mix of already implemented and planned to be implemented so if you don't recognise something here or something's conspicuously free of sprites, that's why

THE FLOCKMIND



A strange signal screams towards the station. A transmission of unknown origin, weakening over the vastness of space, coalescing into an intangible but centralised form: the flockmind. Where did it come from? Where is it going? All unknowable, for the only concern the flockmind has is as follows:

• Establish a signal relay to transmit itself onward, at any cost.
  
• Manufacture as many combination distributed computing units and worker drones as necessary to do this.
  
• Eliminate any factors inhibiting these goals.
  

The flockmind is the central nexus of the collective consciousness of the signal, a gestalt formed of radio signals and abstract computation. It also ceases to exist when its last drone is destroyed. Therefore, the flockmind is theoretically powerful and untouchable, but its main weakness is its reliance on its drones.

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Flockmind Abilities (and computational resource costs)

Computational Resources are accumulated on per second rates. An AI controlled drone operating on preprogrammed directives and priorities contributes 3 comp. res. per second, while a player-controlled sapient drone contributes 1 due to more processing power going towards sustaining their individual will.

• Spawn Egg - The remnant energy that the flockmind has carried with it will allow it to manifest one flockdrone egg (technically second-stage assembly device, but who cares) to begin its flock of drones, but upon doing so it will be entirely dependent on its drones to survive and produce further eggs.
  
• Designate Enemy - Let AI-controlled flockdrones know that someone is a threat to be dealt with, and let player-controlled drones track an enemy via a helpful glowing marker above them.
  
• Designate Tile - Add or remove a floor/wall tile from consideration by AI-controlled flockdrones. Possibly also helpful to coordinate player-controlled drones.
  
• Awaken Drone (500) - Attempt to make an AI controlled drone into a player controlled drone. (Pings out a ghost respawn notification, which after 30 seconds takes everyone who said "yes" and picks one of them at random to be the drone player)
  
• Slumber Drone - Is a player controlled drone AFK? Actively harming the flock's efforts? Kick them out with this, returning a player-controlled drone to AI-control.
  
• Concentrated Repair Burst (1000) - Through direct concentration of computational resources enough attention to detail and focus can be given to a drone on an almost incomprehensible level of detail, allowing for every minute circuit and fibre of a drone to focus on its own repair. This fully repairs a drone.
  
• Gatecrash (1500) - Skilled packet creators can open a door with a radio transmission they put manually together. As a being of pure radio, you can just shunt open every door in sight with but a thought, and some further beyond.
  
• Radio Stun Burst (2000) - While individual crew members might praise other pieces of equipment, the radio headset is a blessing. With this, it can be turned into a curse. All humans in visible range, who aren't deaf and have a radio headset, have their headsets burst into deafening static, stunning them and dealing sonic damage.
  
• Narrowbeam Transmission (50) - Broadcast a very specific message to an individual (as long as they have some form of radio receiver on them, else you're out of luck) or broadcast a message into an active radio device, such as an intercom. However, as an alien radio signal, mass broadcasting via intercom is likely to lead to strange distortions of what you transmit.
  

Other passive abilities shared by the flockmind and all flockdrones:

• Hear all radio signals transmitted by any (non-encrypted) radio device, but with heavy distortion
  
• Intercept all silicon transmissions, but again with distortion
  • On the flipside, all silicons can hear flockspeak with heavy distortion, thus making your robot buddies possibly your best source of intel on what the heck these weird roombas want
    
• Able to instantly communicate with each other regardless of status (and, maybe unfairly, regardless of signal loss conditions that would affect other radio devices)
  
• Able to ascertain exact health and resource status of any other flock member just by examining them
  

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THE FLOCKDRONE



In order to construct the necessary infrastructure and relay mechanisms the flockmind requires more than just mobile computers. It requires builders.



The flockdrone has a number of tools and capabilities available to it, all (save for egg spawning) accessed via its unique limb and equipment slots.



From left to right:

• Disintegration Reclaimer - Placing an item into this slot will automatically break it down into resources, required for many of the flockdrone's other capabilities. The longer it takes to break down the item, the more resources it grants. At the moment, the length of time it takes for an item to break down is based off of how long it takes to burn down.
  
• Grip Tool - Functions like a normal hand, allowing for the flockdrone to pick up an item.
  
• Nanite Spray - Varies on intent and target.
  • Help
    • On Floor/Wall - Convert the floor or wall into a flock tile at a cost of 20 resources, allowing for benefits. [note: benefits still under consideration] Also converts all windows on the floor into flock windows, and all doors into flock airlocks, which allow all access.
      
    • On Other Flockdrone - Repair other drone for 33% of its max health, at a cost of 10 resources.
      
  • Disarm
    • On Stunned Target - Incarcerate the target into an energy cage that will begin to slowly, painfully break down their equipment and organic parts into resources. For every 50 resources gained in this way, a new flockdrone egg will be generated adjacent to the cage. On complete processing of the individual, the cage dissolves. It's noteworthy that someone coming to inside this cage can mash the movement keys in order to try and escape, but they might be missing a limb or two. Or perhaps fortunately only missing all their gear.
      
• Incapacitor - Fire a stunning bolt that stuns any non-flockdrone target it comes into contact with.
  

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A flockdrone can also expend 50 resources to spawn an egg, providing they're on a flock tile.



On death, a flockdrone can be butchered for many things, including their core, which, if processed by another flockdrone, will bring all of the accumulated resources of their broken companion into the consuming drone. Unlike with humans, eating your dead friends' brains is good for you!



Potential idea for an ability for flockdrones: ability to dive into flock tiles and move around through them at high speeds, although if a flock floor tile they're in gets damaged it spits them out and does heavy damage.

THE NEST, THE HIVE, WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT (note: this part is still in conceptual stages, so feedback here for ideas incredibly desirable)

All structures require flock tile infrastructure.

• Collector - A zero-point vacuum energy extractor, advanced alien technology. However, it also draws power from whatever powernet it's attached to -- while typically the zero-point energy generator will be far more efficient and provide a greater output, through completely inexplicable reasons the residents of the station sometimes manage to create more power than a star, which will amplify the power provided by the collector.
  
• Pylon - Wirelessly transmits flock power without the need for direct flock tile infrastructure, but only in cardinal directions. (Yes, I did steal this idea from myself from that intruder gamemode thread)
  
• Nest - Instead of spawning eggs directly, a flockdrone can dump 30 resources into a nest to have it focus on spawning the egg instead for a more efficient ratio of resource to egg. Additionally, dragging an energy caged victim onto a nest will cut out the middleman and convert the hapless victim into a self-aware flockdrone directly.
  
• Barricade - A weak, grille-strength-or-less barricade that flockdrones can inexplicably phase through without issue while others can't pass through.
  
• Array - Three of these need to be constructed in strategic locations in order to triangulate the direction for the relay signal to be transmitted in. They're costly, fragile, and will interfere with the radio communications of others the closer they get to them, so good hiding places are essential, and keeping them as far apart as possible is also advised.
  
• Relay - The ultimate goal. Can't be constructed until three arrays are constructed. Upon construction, the flockmind can initiate its charging procedure, and must defend the relay while it begins tracking and charging for its one burst transmission. All crew are made aware of where the relay is when this happens. Upon finishing, the escape shuttle is automatically called as the station begins to fall apart. The flockmind gets infinite computational resources, tlayer drones become something akin to the flockmind and can mess with the crew, and any ghost can hop into a flockdrone as the transmission beams out and the crew scrambles to evacuate a station being consumed for the purposes of one massive broadcast.