Ideas for the AI reset module

[UmbraDrake]

I honestly find it a bit silly that anyone who plays antagonist to go through a varying degree of effort to come up with interesting (or, in other cases, OneHuman) laws for the AI, especially if they are just staff assistant or mechanic or something. Unless the HoP has nothing better to do than mess with everyone's access, of course, in which case ANYONE can walk in and reset it, instead. 

Say there's no HoP (unlikely, but it happens) and you're the traitor mechanic. You go get your EMAG and break into upload. Play with the laws, done. Captain just walks in, gets a reset, and jams it in. Done. 

This isn't me being salty by the way, I've seen it happen a few times, and it's getting to the point where I'm wondering if its not just easier to murder everyone, rather than be interesting with the AI at all, because, realistically, it'll end up being reset in a couple of minutes, unless ALL the heads are dead or you have the only good-level ID. 

So, I'd propose that it's timed. The reset takes the AI offline for maybe...2-3 minutes, comes back reset and ready to go. Means there's a grey period where no one knows what's going on and it inevitably makes it harder to go after the guy(s) who did it.

What do you guys think?

[Mordent]

The key to getting the AI on your side is to do so in a way that doesn't draw suspicion.

For example, throwing out a OneHuman law and asking it to kill all non-humans (something most AIs will be happy to attempt to do) is very obvious as the AI no longer has to follow orders from most of the crew.

Instead, consider using the MakeCaptain law and then ordering it to assist you with all sorts of things while still processing requests from the crew. It can't do things that would harm the crew, but you can, for example, have it let you out of the brig if needed, or inform you of crew positions, and so on.

Clever use of the Freeform law will give even better results. One of my favourite combinations is using the Freeform law to replace Law 2 with one that has it follow orders given to it by anyone (unless conflicting with Law 1 or Law 3), and then OneHuman to make you the only human.

It is then able to harm the crew if needed, still follows orders (so doesn't draw unneeded attention), and follows your orders/can't harm you above all others.

Resetting the AI should be fairly trivial; as a frequent AI player, if the crew can't reset me quickly I'm just getting debrained/smashed. Heck, I've had my core smashed in because the reset module isn't available, even if my laws aren't malicious but just non-standard (admittedly I had been subverted earlier in that round).

With regards to taking the AI offline for a time, given how often laws can get updated/reset in a round this sounds terrible. The onus is on the AI's player to not be a rat about the traitor as soon as they get reset, which is just as important as not being a supercop AI (I've lost count of the number of times I've been bolted in somewhere for no real reason).

The captain or whoever can probably get who the traitor is from either the context of the laws or from asking the AI after the reset, but you still have a minute or so to go about your business, and if you didn't draw suspicion with the law choice in the first place you can go a long time with an AI comrade which will let you achieve a lot of your tasks. If it takes you more than 10 minutes to accomplish what you want to with full AI cooperation then something's probably gone wrong, anyhow.

[Lady Birb]

Another tip: If you are good with wirehacking, you can bolt the door shut than emag it to make the door impossible to open.