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Revert AI lawracks
#1
Title says it all.

I think this change was not a good one, and after playing with it for a while, I think we are better off with the old system. The current one it too confusing for newer players, takes too long on both ends to do anything related to the laws, and is also incredibly tedious and relies on the AI willing itself to be rogued, rather than it just happening. I would like other peoples inputs of what they think is wrong with the new system if they have problems, which is why I am posting this thread.
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#2
I think the biggest problem I've personally noticed is that adding a freeform in can be unintuitive for new and old players with regards to how the laws are ordered.

To be more specific, I guess. Let's say Law 1 is overridden. First, only a few people know to pulse it with a multitool to fix the original board. Second, people at least ha e some awareness when trying to replace/fix laws that removing Law 1 even for the brief time to fix, though corrupted, probably isn't a great idea (all of the ion storms I have seen have corrupted the laws in a way where they do not replace the text of the law but rather just sort of tack onto the end of it; so even if Law 1 reads weird, removing it when it explicitly has a protection clause in it isn't the greatest when you're just trying to clean it up. Most people realize this and don't!)
Which leads to the next point, and that is that people will often slot in freeforms of a temporary Law 1 until they can fix Law 1 proper. The problem...most people, antags or otherwise, that I have seen try to use the law rack system don't intuitively understand that the top law on the rack interface (and bottom law on the sprite) IS law 1. Which leads to standard laws being listed as law 2, law 3, and law 1, in that order. Or a big bad Syndicate will put their cool freeform in and remove law 1 but not realize that if they don't slot their law into the first spot, they aren't roguing it with full effectiveness and how they *probably* intend to.
There's been a couple times now where AIs have stated laws and will state something like Law 1, Law 2, Law 3, and Law 5, and everyone is confused where Law 4 went or thinks the AI is now rogue and has a law they can't state when in reality, someone just jumped a slot when putting in their "Act like a clown" law.
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#3
I really think some instructions should be included and they should not be able to be built with mechanics. I don't think multiple law racks is intuitive, honestly.

Like, I didn't know you could multitool a cardtrige to reset it until I was told on discord.

I -do- love the feedback of doing it all manually, though. Screwing it in, welding it in, and putting the tape in gives me a nice feeling for some reason.
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#4
i actually like it, it takes time to do so but you can make multiple rouge laws now with specific things, maybe a faster law change since it takes a couple of seconds to remove or add new laws to the rack
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#5
(03-26-2022, 12:49 PM)Cal Wrote: I really think some instructions should be included and they should not be able to be built with mechanics. I don't think multiple law racks is intuitive, honestly.

Like, I didn't know you could multitool a cardtrige to reset it until I was told on discord.

I -do- love the feedback of doing it all manually, though. Screwing it in, welding it in, and putting the tape in gives me a nice feeling for some reason.
Nex wrote a book about AI laws for a contest one time and it was a really good guide for new players and I think someone is rewriting it or wants to rewrite it to suit the current system and if that gets merged it'll be really easy to put a copy of that book in every upload.
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#6
I'll just post what I said on discord.
Not really a fan of multiple law racks. We already get confused with the multiple AI stuff now
Now its multiple AIs with their own laws
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#7
(03-26-2022, 02:13 PM)KikiMofo Wrote: Not really a fan of multiple law racks. We already get confused with the multiple AI stuff now
Now its multiple AIs with their own laws

We already had multiple law racks essentially before, with Syndicate cyborgs and emagged cyborgs representing two other 'law sets.'
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#8
Yes we already had those two. Why more?
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#9
I have no strong feelings about the details of the implementation, but I do really like the more physical and clearly visible aspects of how laws work now that they are tied to physical items. There may be room for improvement with how laws are fixed, the time required to pull them out or put them back in, or any other details, but I think those can be fixed without just tossing out the whole new system. If we wanted to make it fast, that could be as simple as removing any timers or steps beyond taking things out and putting them back in.

Again no strong feelings myself about which way to balance things, but I do like the general idea of the new system.
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#10
I really like the changes, it can let roboticists and mechanics do some gimmicks with some specialized borgs on a different lawset. It could use some tweaking and small changes but I really like it.

Keep it
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#11
Here's an idea... "PUT AI IN STATIS" button.
This is something the captain can only have or HOS?
It can only be used once and puts the AI in Statis for 2 minutes.
Borgs can still give work, but this stops a rogue AI for 2 minutes.
More then enough time for a compitent team to break into AI and fix the laws.

In that time the AI can still watch though, just all their actions are disabled for 2 minutes.
Just an idea.
Other wise.. this update has some kinks!
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#12
(03-26-2022, 02:56 PM)Kotlol Wrote: Here's an idea... "PUT AI IN STATIS" button.

Would just like to point out that you can turn the AI on after killswitching it by using your empty hand on it to flip the reset button.
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#13
(03-26-2022, 03:10 PM)Cal Wrote:
(03-26-2022, 02:56 PM)Kotlol Wrote: Here's an idea... "PUT AI IN STATIS" button.

Would just like to point out that you can turn the AI on after killswitching it by using your empty hand on it to flip the reset button.

Really? But that still requires you to get to robotics core wich sometimes is next to the AI wich is heavily fortified. This is more a distance 1 time use OOH SHIT BUTTON!
Well that works too!
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#14
the more i've seen how law racks function from an in-game perspective the more i dislike the changes

- gives a concrete place for what was a previously invisible game system
--- this comes with the disadvantage that now they have a physical representation that has to be responded to
--- e.g. if you destroy the law rack, something has to happen. this isn't a problem before
--- this also means that to interact/observe an ai's laws, you have to find its law rack; before, you could build ai consoles anywhere for read/write capability
--- this removes the "guy walls him off in space with a computer and constantly uploads a law" play, which is good

the effects of that kind of cascade through multiple systems
- it's difficult to tell at a glance what lawset a given silicon is attuned to
--- suggestions include overlay-granting glasses for roboticists
--- if you hear about rogue borgs, it's far easier to assume they're all rogue rather than risking finding out
--- players aren't sure when to adminhelp due to ambiguous law situations

- the options for how to handle rack destruction aren't great
--- the current solution is that any attached robots no longer have laws
--- silicons attune to a newly-created law rack if they don't have one yet
--- note; i'm not sure what happens if law rack A is destroyed, as a borg on set A, if law rack B already exists
--- a few ideas involved "backup law racks" that would kick in after x minutes
----- this kind of turns into whack a mole and provides uncharacteristically high redundancy; not even the mainframe gets copies
----- silicons without laws would almost certainly try to deactivate/destroy these the instant the original one goes down
----- alternatively, if their laws stay intact but go away after x minutes, they still have a very strong incentive to soft-grief and prevent the backups from working
----- how would a backup even work when laws are supposed to be physically-seated modules?

- the physical requirements of modules changes a few things too
--- the "use a module and run away with / destroy it" play is gone, since they have to be in the machine now
--- ordering is now a manual action based on placement rather than various automatic, inscrutable rules
----- a "law 0" law is no longer really a concept...
--- the original modules can also be removed and replaced
----- this is something that wasn't specifically possible before
----- alternate law sets exist, like robocop or other ones
----- a potential solution to this for the old system would just be a 'core ai directive reset' that rewrites the main three laws or whatever
--- possessing modules as a wraith has its potential funniness lowered since you can't possess a module that's already inserted
--- ion storms can no longer insert new laws, only change existing ones (a new module can't suddenly warp into existence)
----- before, ion storm damage to the core three laws was a big deal usually requiring a special law to replace the broken one; resets wouldn't fix core laws, only remove extra ones


my ideal based on what i've seen would be to revert to the old system of modules and a unified intangible law set, with the following changes:
- "core law modules": changes the core laws (e.g. "aismov core laws", robocop, emergency/marital law, stored in the armory; could make a syndicate one like a robot suit, but maybe enable traitor-o-vision for the AI)
- robotics consoles have a log of law changes, with the id card identity of the uploader, gps coordinates, and law text
- ai upload console has a global cooldown of 1min per type of module (so no freeform law change spam, mostly a player qol feature)
- a way to fabricate additional law / reset modules somehow, possibly as a robotics fabricator hidden item


i'm stoned so my post might not make sense. i think law racks were an interesting idea but i feel like there are too many shortcomings and not enough benefits
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#15
Personally, i'm a big fan of the law racks, but I think the tedium of changing laws with having to weld and screw on an action bar put a lot of people off. Would hate to see it reverted, as our AI gameplay is pretty barebones. Another option is keeping the old system of only being able to use one type of each law, because now freeforms are just openly the strongest and there's no other reason to use anything but them. That and there's so many types of law module types that it's gotten a bit bloated.
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