Goonhub
11-01-2014, 04:34 PM
It always makes me really sad when I join a match in progress and can't play as the AI. Eventually, I got to thinking: If the Roboticists can construct AI shells, why not take it a step further and go onto AI cores? You could save the life of an AI whose core is badly damaged or even completely broken by performing a neural processor transplant into a new body, you could build a new AI in case the old one is somehow dead and lost forever, and you can give players the chance to be the ship's AI even if no one signed up for the job originally! All one would need to do is make the frame (probably made up of metal, glass, a power core, an AI interface board, and looootsa cables), place the player's brain into the frame, and bring the new AI core over to the upload to "install" the AI core to the station's network!
But I can already hear you ask: What if you build an AI core when an AI core is already installed on the ship? What happens then? Well, I have two ideas on this. The first one is that the upload just flat-out rejects the installation of a new AI so long as there's already one on-board, requiring the dismantling of the old AI to make room for the new one...and the second one is something more interesting: Whenever an AI core is installed, it "replaces" the original AI, leaving them without the ability to interface with station controls! I foresee that this would result in many an "AI war", in which two (or possibly even more) players struggle to get their respective AIs into the station's network and cut off the other one. Definitely an interesting possibility, if you ask me.
But I can already hear you ask: What if you build an AI core when an AI core is already installed on the ship? What happens then? Well, I have two ideas on this. The first one is that the upload just flat-out rejects the installation of a new AI so long as there's already one on-board, requiring the dismantling of the old AI to make room for the new one...and the second one is something more interesting: Whenever an AI core is installed, it "replaces" the original AI, leaving them without the ability to interface with station controls! I foresee that this would result in many an "AI war", in which two (or possibly even more) players struggle to get their respective AIs into the station's network and cut off the other one. Definitely an interesting possibility, if you ask me.