Grey Goo

[Frank_Stein]

Should be limited in some way, perhaps requiring a lot of energy to use

I could imagine a couple of limiting factors

• Materials: Goo needs base components to make things. Breaking down things gives it raw materials, and the raw materials are used for construction and certain actions. Kinda like manufacturers on the station use maxuite to make a variety of tools
  
• Configurations: The Nanobots that make up the grey goo are multiple tiny machines built for a single function. The bots that build are different from the bots that deconstruct things. You'd need bots of multiple types, or a way to reconfigure the ones you have to a new task. That's something that'll take time.
  
• Fragility: The Nanobots are individually weak, making them easy to break in different ways. Freezing, burning, or electrically overloading a swarm of Nanobots would be enough to put them out of commission, granted you got them all before they could rebuild themselves
  

I imagine using grey goo as the AI being really similar to playing as a blob. A Roboticist makes some nanobots as a kind of liquid chem and deploys them, forming a grey goo tile. From there the AI spreads it out, using up the units of Nanobots orginally deployed as a resource. It can also build special nodes to perform tasks similar to blob special tiles. Similarly, the grey goo could deconstruct things to add to it's material count, creating more specialized nodes or more Nanobots to increase it's size.

Unlike the blob, the AI could destroy grey goo tiles to regain materials, and be scooped back up into a container.

Players could delpoy the AI to an area to put out fires, handle repairs, restore atmosphere, etc in a good situation. In a bad situation, you've basically got a man made blob

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I also think it would be interesting if the Nanobots could also be injected, providing huge symbiotic benefits to the player but putting them at risk if the AI I'd turned against them.

For instance the AI could enhance your stamina, strength, defensive capabilities. It could heal you, or give you upgrades similar to the ones cyborgs have. But at the same time it would always be able to track you, or put limitations on what you can do if not outright kill you