[PR] AI Eyebot rework

[Love]

I'm not really going to touch future plans, because that's not really the scope here.

I love this PR. For what it does on its own.

Really just because variety is always appreciated in the silicon existence, more than anything else. Without the capability to just up and do anything or equip or use anything, silicon'ing can get samey.


If there's worry about roundstart eyebots being too useful, lock the default ones into a module at the start. Like giving them the engineering one. Or make a 'Budget' module preinstalled in roundstart eyebots that just gives the current eyebot supplies, but disallows choosing. If you want an upgraded eyebot, you have to bother a human. It'll be worse than a cyborg shell, but also quicker and cheaper.

But I actually really, really hope the screenbot and eyebot with brain and SICC changes happen. If just because it lets you be the silicon equivalent of a staff assistant. No great capabilities, so no great expectations. Back when Ghost Drones were more robust, I used to love just bumming around the station to do silly little projects, like making a ghost drone soda bar in the Cog 1 medsci router or something. And I'd love to recapture that by being a the cyborg's department's little bro/sis. And just being a mildly helpful little silicongnome.

Though maybe consider giving the engilites a 0 stack of metal. To make walls or tables, but needing to hoover up an existing metal stack, or bother cargo, to use it.

Plus, it gives something different for the good roboticists to make or offer SICCs for. Because there's literally zero reason for any roboticist to ever make an eyebot, currently. I've never made one, in my whole career, and I miss nothing for having not done so. The two roundstart ones are what they are, little tugbots for when your roboticists are negligent or nonexistent, or when you need to boop a door. It seems like a wasted thing.

The worry about people borging crimers or whatever into eyebots as punishments is a real one. But that might be solved at the back end. Put a note in a few places on the wiki to discourage this, that's all. NT would probably prefer to get full value from its convicts.

[Cal]

I actually don't like the screenhead bot, looks like a floating TV and awkward.

[Love]

I actually don't like the screenhead bot, looks like a floating TV and awkward.

Awkward TV Style is very in this season, with AI and ghost drones and buddies and chef bots!
NT's Cybernetics and Robotics Division loves awkward CRT TVs!

And I kinda love the zeerust backward technology of the clunky, chunky things, myself.

[Paai]

Or make a 'Budget' module preinstalled in roundstart eyebots that just gives the current eyebot supplies, but disallows choosing. If you want an upgraded eyebot, you have to bother a human. It'll be worse than a cyborg shell, but also quicker and cheaper.

Ooh, I might do that- that seems like a fun solution to allow more customizability without making drones too powerful at roundstart.

The metal sheets thing- Hm, could do that, especially if only constructed drones get the modules and not roundstart ones, yeah.

And yeah, the SICC/brain was.. the main reason I made the PR so I really hope it gets cleared, having more customizability options is always nice on that front.

[Cal]

the big square TV doesn't look good floating around imo

not a dealbreaker or anything it's just less sleek than the eyebot

[Kotlol]

Why not have a hologram AI shell that projects a screen on it?
Same as our normal shells but with a "hologram" module installed?

This way you can project an expression and at the same time give the shell a label to show what rank module it has!

[Ikea]

I generally speaking have the take of if a feature at its best is just kinda mediocre and not really enjoyable, and at its worst just ruins rounds, and there's no way to rework it to improve its flaws or dampen its flaws, then why should that be a feature. I think non AI eyebots fall under this category for me.

At its best, its just kinda neat that you can do it, but like its not something anyone would want to do frequently outside of the novelty. Eyebot gameplay is just borg but worse, this works in the context of AI because its designed to compliment AI gameplay, but without that AI gameplay there eyebot is just a more mechanically uninteresting borg. The best case scenario is someone latejoining into an eyebot for a round out of curiosity, having an okay time with it, then just not playing it again because why would they.

At its worst its just kinda an invitation to make borging as punishment worse. Borging already has several flaws as some players really dislike being borgs. If a player has been a massive pain as an antag, a secoff may go "Well, they could be a really big pain as a rogue borg, lets make them into borg but worse".

This isnt exactly a player issue because the player isn't doing anything wrong, playing the game is generally regarded as more fun then not, and like its a punishment, it doesnt need to be the most enjoyable thing in the world. Not to mention the intent of the secoff isnt malicous, theyre just trying to protect the station. By all means they are following the rules, but yet it still leads to negative consequences. Since eyebot without AI is just borg but worse, the person who got "eyebotted" will generally speaking have a less interesting and engaging time then if they were to be playing as a borg.

Best case scenario it leads to someone having a mildly novel but overall mediocre round, worst case scenario it leads to a round being not nearly as interesting as it would be otherwise. I just dont really see the justification for why brain/latejoin eyebots should be a thing.

[Paai]

At its best, its just kinda neat that you can do it, but like its not something anyone would want to do frequently outside of the novelty.

It's definitely not something I see being too common, but I've gotten a lot of people saying they'd use it for EXACTLY that reason. It's another silicon subrole, that's distinct enough from borg to be its own thing. I can definitely see it having its niche.

(And speaking purely for myself, I have three borg characters I would never play full cyborg on again if this were an option. Not everyone plays the game purely for the mechanics of it, and as such people might make more use of this than you would expect.)

At its worst its just kinda an invitation to make borging as punishment worse. Borging already has several flaws as some players really dislike being borgs. If a player has been a massive pain as an antag, a secoff may go "Well, they could be a really big pain as a rogue borg, lets make them into borg but worse".

See, I think with this, silicons already have laws so the person wouldn't be able to do damage either way, and borging is already used as a punishment (which is a whole situation I'm not going to get into).
Borging someone already effectively neutralizes them as an active antag- For the purposes of this discussion, I wouldn't count roguings. Those are specific and not something that people should be CONCERNED ABOUT ENOUGH to the point they'd refuse someone the ability to be a full cyborg, even if they WERE an antag before borging. It'd be like not putting modules into the rewriter, or turning off self-service on docking stations, because 'what if they go rogue!?'
So, I'd say it's absolutely a player issue. It'd be Bad Manners-- if not the putting them in a drone in the first place, then the refusing to transfer them to a full cyborg if they ask.

[Ikea]

Borging someone already effectively neutralizes them as an active antag- For the purposes of this discussion, I wouldn't count roguings. Those are specific and not something that people should be CONCERNED ABOUT ENOUGH to the point they'd refuse someone the ability to be a full cyborg, even if they WERE an antag before borging. It'd be like not putting modules into the rewriter, or turning off self-service on docking stations, because 'what if they go rogue!?

I mean, concerning yourself with if borgs will turn rogue is very reasonable to do on classic. Like thats already something people oftentimes actively consider when borging on classic because a rogue borg on classic is a hell of a thing.

[Paai]

I suppose so-- but I don't think that invalidates the point I was making. Refusing to transfer a drone borg you made into a cyborg is still bad manners- It'd be like if when you borged a criminal, you gave them no limbs on the same grounds as you've justified locking them into drones.

The reasoning of "techically they could do lots of damage if rogued, and thus we should not only borg them, but also cripple them even further and refuse them basic courtesy," doesn't really feel like something that should need to be accounted for mechanically to me, because that's 100% a player issue. That's not an attitude people should be having.

It's also something people COULD do already, anyways-- with the thing I'd mentioned about limbless borgs-- and don't, because it'd be bad manners.

(Also, to point out- roundstart borgs could cause equal amounts of damage if rogued as borged criminals would. Stressing about that point specifically when borgings are used as punishment is kind of odd to me?)

[Ikea]

Making someone into a borg with no limbs is going out of the norm to be cruel, just putting them into a robot that the game implicitly implies is fine to put people in as you can do it isn't. Its not bad manners if its just playing the game in a regular fashion.

Not to mention, even if we assume this feature is used in a way that's always positive, making the AI eyebots not exclusively AI just seems eh. It means that if you see an eyebot moving around, chances are it isnt the AI, and I feel like that dampens loads of interactions.

[Paai]

Oh, no-- not borging someone to a drone in general. Borging them into a drone, and then refusing to transfer them to a cyborg if they ask you to would be, though. Which is an important distinction, I feel. Of course it's to some degree of interpretation, but I see it as a situation of 'this player cannot remedy X thing without my help, it's not unreasonable of them to ask, and I am the reason X thing is an issue to begin with- I should help them.' If the person who borged them knows they would prefer a cyborg shell and refuses to help with that despite it, I would class that as going out of the norm to be cruel.

There shouldn't be an issue of readability with it-- AI drones still have the "SHELL/[AI name]" naming scheme to clearly differentiate them, plus examining will mention if a drone is an AI shell or not... Unless you mean it makes drones feel less special, which- I guess I can see it? I don't neccecarily agree-- but that's something that's entirely up to a matter of personal opinion so that's fair enough.

Either way, I also feel drones being available to nonAIs creates a lot of new potential situations and interactions in exchange for drones being less exclusive. It's a bit of a tradeoff.

[Ikea]

Unless you mean it makes drones feel less special, which- I guess I can see it? I don't neccecarily agree--  but that's something that's entirely up to a matter of personal opinion so that's fair enough.

Refering to specialty yeah, I dont think this will be something we can come to an agreement on, but I like it how when an eyebot wanders by, you dont even need to examine them to go "oh thats the AI!". There's a certain novelty there that makes that interaction special, its like "what are you doing here telepathic sir in a physical body", I feel like removing that identity from the eyebot just makes the eyebots feel much more generic.

[junori]

Balance and mechanics issues aside, just from the perspective of an RP player, I would really love to see this change happen, and some way to make it work. It's basically like a ghostdrone but you get to actually interact with crew and that is something I've sort of been wanting. Of course, the key issue I'm noticing is in fact the AI not being differentiable enough, but that could easily be remedied with an AI drone sprite (for when you put an interface board instead of a brain in) and a regular player sprite (for when you put a brain in).

I absolutely adore this conceptually. I can't really see its use on classic, and I doubt many players will care about making drones *on* classic or sometimes even on rp, but people already *don't* make eyebots and I feel like this actually gives incentive. Plus eyebots are cute, and seeing more around wouldn't hurt.

I would really love to try to help settle balance changes and disputes here, because I SEE Paai's vision in my brain mind and I also want to see it in game now!

[Paai]

Re: Differentiating AI controlled drones-- I don't think DIFFERENTIATION is the issue, nececcarily-- if it were, sure, I can see the benifit locking the drone appearance appropriately, but I don't think it's an issue-- the AI being differentiable by the name prefix SHELL/ has worked fine for AI-controlled cyborgs, I don't see why it couldn't work fine for this too.

The issue Ikea outlined is more one of remarkability, if I understand it right- AI drones were fancy and only AIs could use them, so when you saw a drone it was an instant Notable Thing (One which is already significantly undermined by the existence of AI cyborg shells, as those have the same unremarkability issue as seems to be the problem here- but I digress.).
It's not something I'm sure can be remedied exactly by an AI-exclusive reskin- nor is it something I think needs remedying? The issue of remarkability is an inherent downside of allowing drones to be brain or interface-- one that I think is outweighed substantially by the positives, but other people might disagree.
With that in mind, I personally feel trying to patch over it with a skin only AIs can use and one only cyborgs can use is an awkward compromise which limits customization significantly and only partially succeeds in leaving AI controlled drones as remarkable.