Improving ghost drones/making them more attractive to play

[The Gorog]

I have come to notice that, even on higher pop rounds that have been going on for some time, not too many dead people seem to play ghost drones.
So I tried playing it myself a few times, by joining as an observer early into the round, and quickly had to notice a few things which stopped me from doing what I planned.


When I tried making a new room with a few things that require the mechanics ruckingeneur kit, I noticed that ghost drones have all the tools, but dont have access to mechanics.
I wanted to fix the giant hole in medbay, also no access and everyone had evacuated it.
Tried cleaning the mess of a cloned puritan and a bible farter in medbay, no access to the janitors room and ghost drones cant use sponges properly.
Also I believe that being a ghost drone prevents you from being cloned.

So what I would like to propose is the following:

1. Give ghost drones more access. Maybe not security or head access, but everything else.
   
2. Give them internal janitorial equipment. Using the normal equipment with the magnet is a pain, plus sponges just dont work for them. I also think that one janitor isnt enough for the station, so this would help keeping it clean.
   
3. Let people be cloned while in a ghost drone and people that are set to DNR still be able to become a ghost drone. They cant act on or tell anyone about the AI laws anyways.
   

So, do you guys agree with these changes or do you see problems in them that I didnt think of? Any other ideas on how to make more people play them?
Or maybe tell us why you dont like playing ghost drone. Maybe there are more problems in their current state I didnt see.

Also see this as a general ghost drone discussion thread, since the last one has been locked into the "Good ideas" section.

[SimianC]

Given that ghost drones already have rules governing their behavior, I see no reason not to grant them full access to the station. With their current level of access, ghost drones don't have access to Medbay or Chemistry, the two areas most frequently targeted with explosions. 

Have ghost drones function similarly to ghost critters by allowing them to phase through airlocks, this would prevent players from following ghost drones into secure areas. 

Giving them a built-in flashlight would be a nice addition, having to give up your sole equipment slot just to see better in the dark seems kinda pointless. 

Janitorial equipment would be cool, though I don't think they should get a bucket/beaker. Maybe a sponge/spray bottle or an entirely new cleaning tool?

[Sov]

Have ghost drones function similarly to ghost critters by allowing them to phase through airlocks, this would prevent players from following ghost drones into secure areas. 

Give them kitty cat doors

[KikiMofo]

Drones should have already did the whole squeezing through doors thing.

[The Gorog]

Given that ghost drones already have rules governing their behavior, I see no reason not to grant them full access to the station. With their current level of access, ghost drones don't have access to Medbay or Chemistry, the two areas most frequently targeted with explosions. 

Have ghost drones function similarly to ghost critters by allowing them to phase through airlocks, this would prevent players from following ghost drones into secure areas. 

Giving them a built-in flashlight would be a nice addition, having to give up your sole equipment slot just to see better in the dark seems kinda pointless. 

Janitorial equipment would be cool, though I don't think they should get a bucket/beaker. Maybe a sponge/spray bottle or an entirely new cleaning tool?

I really like the idea about them phasing through doors. The flashlight can actually be taken out, activated and then stored again and it will keep emitting the light.
Although it would be nice to have a button top left to brighten up the drones face light for the same effect.

What speaks against the idea about the bucket though? They can already pick up beakers and such and interact with dispensers. Helped me refill my spray bottle with new space cleaner. And without something like that, they have no proper way of wringing out the sponge, unless they pull a bucket or such behind them.

[Frank_Stein]

Ghost drones should just be like roombas, where they can clean tiles that they fly over. Maybe a scrub mode that eats more power they can toggle

[Berrik]

Nah that'd make it far too easy to clean up lube, chemist horror, etc.

[poland spring]

IDEA: Let players set a ghost drone beacon or signal that tells ghost drones to come to that location and fix stuff

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It could also ping ghosts I guess to prompt them to drone themselves

[Kovirii]

An "AI" or program that tracks and reports areas that are damaged on the station. A map or compass, or maybe just a list of rooms and some kind measure of the damage.

GPS for ghost drones will sometimes take them across space tile - the GPS line doesn't display on space tiles

A separate verb for deadchat (I didn't even know ghost-drones could deadchat for a quite a while!)
Making this capable more apparent would also work.

Let ghost-drones either pass through doors (the "ghost" part) or teleport instead of having to break into areas to repair them. (as above)

Also ghost-drones can't place objects at specific locations on a tile for aesthetic arrangements, as the magtractor doesn't allow placing or throwing.

[The Gorog]

Nah that'd make it far too easy to clean up lube, chemist horror, etc.

But rule 1 would not allow you to do this, wouldnt it? An do chem puddles even apply any effects?
I was thinking more of cleaning all the blood, gibs and vomit that fills the station at some point.

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IDEA: Let players set a ghost drone beacon or signal that tells ghost drones to come to that location and fix stuff

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It could also ping ghosts I guess to prompt them to drone themselves

Even though ghost drones can already listen to the radio, as do ghosts, I think this is a nice idea.
I'm just not sure if this is something that people won't forget that it exists, like that emergency function on the PDA.

An "AI" or program that tracks and reports areas that are damaged on the station. A map or compass, or maybe just a list of rooms and some kind measure of the damage.

...

A separate verb for deadchat (I didn't even know ghost-drones could deadchat for a quite a while!)
Making this capable more apparent would also work.

...

Also ghost-drones can't place objects at specific locations on a tile for aesthetic arrangements, as the magtractor doesn't allow placing or throwing.

I'm not sure how the current objective tracking system for damaging areas works, but maybe that one can be used. I heard it only tracks the damage of the APC.

I believe the initial pop-up tells you that you can use :d to talk to deadchat. Wouldnt mind if drone chat would just be removed and merged with deadchat. Not sure why we still have both, but I know that deadchat was added later on.

The magtractors could use some slight improvements on interactions, but I dont think they need to be able to throw things.

[Zamujasa]

Being able to clean up floors in some way would be nice, not being able to use a sponge really sucks when you want to clean up some blood/gibs. Doing the door squeeze thing is a nice idea, but having some way to open airlocks would also be good since you can make a space tile underneath one via RCD and then you'd be unable to do anything about it.

I'd also really like to see the flashlight and t-ray scanner becoming 'built in' options that don't require the item to be out, and to have that for borgs as well. I know you can currently get around it as a ghostdrone by activating it and putting it away, but that seems like a goofy bug.

A floor tile generator would also be nice. While the RCD can create new floors, there's no way to add flooring to plating without fetching a stack of tiles and carrying it around. Something similar for light bulbs and tubes would be neat, as well -- click on a light tube to swap it with a new one and recycle (delete) the old one. Bonus if there's a way to pick colors.

Basically, more stuff to be able to repair more of the station into good condition.

IDEA: Let players set a ghost drone beacon or signal that tells ghost drones to come to that location and fix stuff

Perhaps give ghostdrones the ability to send a request to the AI? "Automated message from Drone WTF-71: Please advise on locations needing repair.", with an option to reply like PDA messages.

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Also -- and I know this is probably really controversial -- but I would like to see there be two modes for ghostdrones; "ghost" mode where drones get the static overlay and see chat as "human", and "observer" mode where they see mobs and chat normally (but still cannot interact with them in any way). Personally I feel the chat-name blocking is a bit silly since you can still tell who's around by emotes or flipping next to people, but eh.

But I say this as someone who habitually observes, waits for something to happen, and then jumps in a few minutes later to start cleaning up the mess.

[The Gorog]

Can you not use the "interact floor" action on a space tile to create a floor tile with the rcd, even when its covered by a door?

If there were a system for measuring the damage to a room already, that one might be better than having to rely on someone to respond or send out a ping to ghost drones. But as far as I know it only tracks the damage to the APC of the room. But areas are designated in the map editor, which the syndie nuke probably uses to determine if it is in the target area.

The names being obscured is probably to prevent ghost drones from doing biased things, and them showing up when doing emotes is probably not intended either.
Ive also been thinking about something like an observent mode for the drones, where they still only see humans as these outline and names being obscured, so that they can scout out the station for things in need of repairs.

[Kovirii]

This is probably outside the scope of ghost-drones, but when tiles are covered by fluid you can't build/fix them/etc.

[The Gorog]

This is probably outside the scope of ghost-drones, but when tiles are covered by fluid you can't build/fix them/etc.

You can rightclick, select whatever the floor is, and then press "interact floor" still. But doing that for every tile would be annoying.