Silicon latejoin and the fix of the AI job vaccum

[HydroFloric]

Adds the Intelligence Formation Chip, a modified AI neural network that over time creates spontaneous intelligence. AKA if placed into a active cyborg frame or AI core will allow a player on the latejoin screen to join by controlling the brain. Due to only being able to test this by myself there is the possibility that there are some issues I couldn't test for. The code might be horribly done, I don't have much experience in byond so this was my first (sorta) big project. Big thanks to MBC for helping me with this and keeping up with my questions.

This patch also turns off the high priority of the AI job, in an attempt to fix the sucking force that is the AI job vaccum that causes alot of people to either put AI onto unwanted entirely or cause a select few player to get picked round after round for the job even if they have it on low. Though if people think otherwise it will stay on.

The IFC Sprite:

The sprite isn't the best obviously, if you have one you think would be better please send it my way and ill update it.

Pull Request: https://github.com/goonstation/goonstati...6/pull/120

[kyle2143]

Looks pretty good. I did notice a couple real tiny things while looking through it.

- When you insert the new latejoin brain into the head, it just says "You insert the brain.". It should use the name of the object probably.

- You didn't include the actual sprite in your PR.

Also, I'm not sure about turning off the high priority of the AI job. I think that can stay. If you really don't want to play the AI, just put it in your unwanted list.

[HydroFloric]

oh you are right, I forgot to add the sprite, woops. Ill fix that in a hot sec.

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Also as for the high priority job thing, I knew some people would find that odd. But the issue is that some people such as myself like playing AI occasionally but with how the high priority job works, it can end up with somebody getting picked for AI way too often because of the lack of people with it on in their prefs. This then causes more people to put AI into unwanted because they get picked every two rounds and it becomes a viscous cycle of people not being happy.

[aft2001]

I think that adding the latejoin option makes the high priority obsolete, as the issue of no AIs in a round would likely be far less prevalent.

[The Grim Sleeper]

Love the feature. I often deliberatly late-join, as to get a feel for the crew, and always felt this was missing.

I think that adding the latejoin option makes the high priority obsolete, as the issue of no AIs in a round would likely be far less prevalent.

I'd say that since the AI is a rather central figure, this is not a light decision to make.

The AI has a key duty to perform, and having it vacant for any period is a loss.
On the other hand, a willing and capable late-joining is far more fun for everyone then a lost newbie who job-selection is still set to defaults.

[Xeram]

The AI is not vital. The AI does not have key duties that nobody else can complete that will negatively impact everyone else in the round. Many rounds go by without an AI even with 20 players because an absurdly high number of players have it set to unwanted because anything else nearly guarantees you are the AI now and forever.

Can we please collectively agree to quit pretending the AI is anything but a convenience for staff assistants to get into places 95% of the time? The job is honestly not nearly as important as everyone seems to make it out to be. Everything you could ask of an AI can be done yourself or by another player. Many rounds where I decided to try to hop in for AI was spent doing a minute of basic setup, greeting the crew, looking around for things to do, then nobody having any need of me or interacting in any way for half an hour. Looking at it from how an AI typically performs and what the community considers "acceptable' (read: Not being the literal embodiment of unfun), the AI seems to fill the same role IC as mentors do OOC. Most of what they do is assisting players who don't know other ways to get into places or do things accomplish things (or those who do know but are feeling lazy).

Quick edit to be clear: I think we should turn off the all-consuming vacuum that is high AI priority. The actual relevance it has to a round is minuscule compared to just having another person. It never really warranted being so high in the first place imo.

[Flaborized]

I think the AI priority being so high is really bad. It usually forces players who don't want it but don't know to set it off to play the role and with a change like this someone who wants to play AI could come in later to fulfill that role. Other servers have this, with a big announcement that a new AI has been "downloaded" or whatever and that seems to work out okay.

I think the AI is essential to the flow of a round when it comes to noticing actions carried out by antagonists and by being a tool for evildudes. When there's no AI, there's a lot of gimmicky stuff and antagonist stuff that becomes undoable. The presence of an AI changes the round significantly in many positive ways that aren't just "oh now a robot can open doors".

I also think that the all consuming hellvoid of AI priority should be gone. It doesn't provide a lot of good and serves to put new players in what can be one of the more stressful jobs that they don't want.

[NateTheSquid]

i think yes AI shouldnt be forced upon people cause most dont like it, but its still very useful for any round. they open doors yes, but they also track/lock down criminals, call shuttle, use computers for people, etc. also, unpopular opinion but AI is the most fun role in my opinion. so yeah anything to stop new players being shoved into AI and sucking/ignoring laws is good, people who think AI sucks i disagree

[Zamujasa]

Maybe AI should default to unwanted in job preferences? In addition to being removed from high-priority.

The AI is not vital. The AI does not have key duties that nobody else can complete that will negatively impact everyone else in the round. Many rounds go by without an AI even with 20 players because an absurdly high number of players have it set to unwanted because anything else nearly guarantees you are the AI now and forever.

Can we please collectively agree to quit pretending the AI is anything but a convenience for staff assistants to get into places 95% of the time? The job is honestly not nearly as important as everyone seems to make it out to be. Everything you could ask of an AI can be done yourself or by another player. Many rounds where I decided to try to hop in for AI was spent doing a minute of basic setup, greeting the crew, looking around for things to do, then nobody having any need of me or interacting in any way for half an hour. Looking at it from how an AI typically performs and what the community considers "acceptable' (read: Not being the literal embodiment of unfun), the AI seems to fill the same role IC as mentors do OOC. Most of what they do is assisting players who don't know other ways to get into places or do things accomplish things (or those who do know but are feeling lazy).

I don't entirely agree.

As AI:

- You are often one of the only people capable of calling the shuttle, especially when the power goes out / consoles are bombed / heads are dead / etc. It doesn't come up often, but the AI is the only one who can call the shuttle at any time.
- You have the unique ability to view almost everything happening, and if you spend time adjusting intercoms, hear everything. (Some way to set all the intercoms to a frequency of your choosing would be nice for those HAL9000 gimmicks, though.)
- In lowpop situations or cases where there just isn't access, you can make a huge difference by allowing people into places. Players can break in, sure, but not everyone knows how to, and it isn't fast, and often can be destructive.
- Being that you can see almost everything, you can work with people to guide them around potential hazards (or into them, if you're evil).

I may be a little biased as someone who often plays on RP1, though, where the lower population count makes it all the more important.


The AI should probably be more able to do things that are helpful or useful to make it a more interesting role to play when the station is running fine otherwise; this probably should go into a suggestions thread, but being able to assume control over the "small bots" (cleaning, floor, fire, MULE, etc) could make it more interesting. Give a big speed boost to those bots when they're being controlled by the AI and now the AI can be a mobile firefighter/medibot/delivery machine. With the MULE, the AI can also ignore the limitations of beacons and be able to deliver goods wherever (though nothing would stop someone from just stealing whatever was on top of it). And if a traitor emags those bots, well, now the AI has more tools to be evil than just shocking doors.

Or you can be a huge butthole and emag medibots but not tell the AI it's injecting people with poison.


I dunno. AI isn't vital, but it definitely isn't a glorified door opener for assistants, either.

[Vitatroll]

An AI that wants to be an AI is usually a great asset and adds a lot to the game. An unwanting AI thrust into the position due to the lotto is usually the opposite -- in those cases it's better to have none.

Anyways, I'm all for latejoin silicons. Sad I couldn't instantly do it, but I guess that's unfair to the roboticist that we probably actually have during the flood.