Make Law-restrained, AI-linked IPC frames creatable in robotics

Suggestions
21

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Trying to make everything appeal to everyone is how you get a bland and homogenous experience. Cyborgs are clearly enjoyable to silicon mains.

Having hands is the single most powerful thing a mob can get, if silicons get widespread access to hands they will have to lose something else to maintain balance.

I am not against IPC being something the station can produce and even place posibrains in, but I will crusade hard against having a silicon law humanoid. They should be free and normal crew members that take jobs and access like any other crew member.

6 Likes
22

Your well founded argument if all find and dandy but it is nothing against the weight of how shit it is to play a cyborg and that being almost the only option of you getting back into a round.

I think lawed humanoids sound awesome. Why are you so against it?

23

I’m against silicons with automatic, irrevocable AA and not only a license, but frequently a compulsion to valid-hunt having access to hands. Even if the IPCs need an ID this will produce problems.

I’m not against the station being able to produce more crew bodies at all, I have long held that cloning should be a way for players to get back into the round with a new identity, not just for someone with their body found. Robotics being able to produce ordinary IPCs is fine.

5 Likes
24

This is the apex take.
This is what I should have been saying from the start.
Who gives a shit about greentext.

25

What if lawed IPCs have a mental block against holding weapons? (all guns, all security equipment)?
Could even be an in-universe story element, maybe it’s after a robot uprising or something.
Eager to see what other reservations you have on the subject.
You raise fair reservations, and it makes sense to get these sticking points out of the way early.

26

Still much more efficient at any task. Where a mediborg/engiborg can only do one job and has to get remoduled, an IPC could do engineering, then medical with little efficiency loss. Restricting them to individual jobs by making them lesser crew is the way to go, in my opinion.

27

If they had forced pacifism + a permanent law zero against causing harm that would greatly reduce my worries, but they would still be at least as problematic as the sec borgs that had to be removed on top of what Joe just said.

Someone proposed a hand module at some point I was mostly okay with because it was a single hand with only that single hand’s worth of storage space and an inability to throw, access bags/storage items or use guns. But I just don’t think it’s possible for normal hands and storage to be given to a silicon while silicons are in the role they currently are.

28

@Ruko and @joelogbybolb
Sorry, I’m having trouble understanding just what your misgivings are.
To be clear, im suggesting an ipc, like a crew member, except that it has laws and an AI link.
it sounds like you don’t want borgs to be like crew because they have AA and are encouraged to validhunt, correct?

If they need an ID like everyone else, it’s up to ic command what access they get, that solves the first issue.
If they have a mental block against using weapons, that solves the second issue.

Apologies if I’m being dense but what are the blockers?

29

This is the misgiving right here. I want anything with hands and humanoid capability to be culpable to all the same rules the rest of crew have to face and answer to, and not have an easy excuse in the form of laws to explain fairly awful actions.

Silicons get enough hate for this as it is despite it only being a smaller portion of them. Imagine giving someone with a silicon “get out of jail” card all (or most of) the capabilities of a humanoid.

This is only true to an extent - Silicons are not required to obey command at all when it comes to their laws. AA can be taken by force if necessary for anything, and even then it isn’t 100% necessary because an AI will always open a door for their fellows.

A slaved silicon is not beholden to a single location or job regardless of ID being required to open the door for themselves.

1 Like
30

I think I understand. Your position is that the silicon policy and laws are just as much of an increase of freedom as a limitation, even when taken separately from the AA borgs get, because it means they can ignore space law and other such limitations that crew are ic limited by.

Without saying I agree or disagree, would you say that that is a fair assessment?

31

Mainly the RP and escalation limitations, but yes I’d say so overall. A silicon isn’t really beholden to escalation at all and is forced to treat their laws as an absolute when conflicts do happen. Even if this is non-lethal or non-weapons, this has produced an extremely bad issue in the past which resulted in the removal of sec borgs.

They are restricted from causing large scale griefing, but the role attracts people with valid-hunting mentalities for a reason.

1 Like
32

I will throw in a few more minor reservations overall though:

  • Crew has no way to tell a silicon IPC apart from a non-silicon to act accordingly around them for whatever reason which results in a lot of player confusion.

  • This almost entirely removes the reason to be a borg at all because almost anything a borg can do an IPC can do better, with the only real exceptions being certain borg tools that automatically refill and the repair module and borgs won’t require direct assistance from the AI or AA to fill their role effectively

  • Somewhere, somehow this is going to result in either major inconsistencies that require some serious snowflake code to fix (such as the weapons restrictions since we know pacifism alone won’t work due to disablers), or it’s going to require entire extra sections of silicon policy or both.

  • There are innumerable things a humanoid can do that a silicon can’t currently beyond just wielding weapons that will only come to light later. This is a minor point because nothing comes immediately to mind as being a major issue.

4 Likes
33

So just to map out the tradeoffs that occur to balance borg gameplay:

Positives(things that allow borgs to do more):

+Not having to follow escalation policy OOC.
+not having to follow space law IC.
+All Access built in.

Negatives(things that allow the borg to do less):

-Laws restrain behaviour to actions that are in line with them.
-Modules/Upgrades restrain what equipment a given borg has access to, as well as what a borg can physically do. (ie, no hands!)
-Borgs cannot shift-pull to tiles.

Am I missing anything?

As an aside, I appreciate the help. I believe that we might be able to design something here, I just think the first step is actually having a clear delineation of what the tradeoffs actually are for borg gameplay.

34

What if it was a different lawset?

And you could only change it if you were an antag?

The perfect lawset that would not allow you to valid hunt.

35

But this like, to me, is why its such a great idea.

I really don’t like how you can so easily die and be forgotten here and never come back to the round except as these limited things. You’re either a midround antag or a borg. Borgs are appealing to Borg players. People who don’t play borg roundstart would rather not play it. I just think they should have the option. I hate going into a posibrain and being chucked wordlessly inside a borg because that’s the only thing the roboticist can do with the brain.

2 Likes
36

This is why I made this thread, yeah. Maybe we can design something that compromises on these positions.

1 Like
37

Just copy paste the rules of the server as a lawset. ez

2 Likes
38

Easy solution is just make them normal IPCs that are fresh crew instead of jumping through silicon loops. I don’t understand the fixation for making them part of team silicon when they would be fully functional with no special changes beyond being possible to construct.

The only reason I have a horse in this race is the fact this is suggesting a major disruption to silicon status quo.

This still functions as a way for players to jump back in and is more widely appealing than being forced to obey laws to most folks who dislike silicons anyhow.

3 Likes
39

In theory I do agree with the idea proposed.

And naturally I do wholeheartedly agree with the noble sentiment behind it.

But in practice I am adamant against this. And for quite a simple reason. It doesn’t matter how finely tuned this idea will be implemented(if it will be implemented), it won’t solve the critical issue behind borging.

The incredible heavy impact it has on one’s RP.

You see, I love to rp as Zajcev. And Zajcev is too much “human” to be able to roleplay him in any other way, under any other premise. He is too flawed to be able to be roleplayed otherwise. That’s why I punctually almost always refuse even any augmentations and I do absolutely forbid any cyborgification, even if partial like an aliment pump.

For me the problem was never to be borged in the first place. The loss of mechanical interactions does bear almost no weight for me. For me is the loss of my freedom to RP as I wish to, that kills this idea. As I said once to Marthin in dchat, to be the grumpiest person on station you need to be most stubborn too.

And sure as hell Zajcev does fit the description.

I have 0 problems roleplaying him weakly, cowardly, desperate or as such. Other players, and antagonists especially, should have the power to heavily influence your round and consequently your RP. Just yesterday @Tamus has completely taken into his hands my whole round, roleplaying as a nightmare that knew about my niece, Nylaa Narin. And it was quite the lenghty round! In which Zajcev was unable to do much, aside crying while hoping to see the inquisitor ERT he asked for arrive, employing a space ninja as Agent 0 to try to kill that spirit and finally asking the local chaplain too.

And that was the quite intese and stressful, but very much welcome, experience!

If you completely brainwash me or force me to consider a lawset, for as lax as it could be, as my lighthouse for rping, you have done worse than round remove me. You have effectively killed Zajcev’s soul AND you’re forcing me to play his twisted husk. And that’s not something I would enjoy. And not because I don’t like roleplaying him while he’s losing(quite the common occurrence!) but because he would already be dead and now you’re asking me to roleplay something that shares only his name and maybe some aesthetical similarities to him.

I do remember when miners could get a healing holopara back then when it was possible, and I always enjoyed roleplaying as an ancient guardian spirit, born from within the land. Once I was summoned by a local lizard and I helped him become the chieftain of the tribe, starting him on roleplaying as the chosen one! “The only one who, chosen by the land, will lead the land to its former glory. Free from these outsiders and free from the dissidence they are sewing between the tribes! Because there should be only one tribe, gathered behind one will, following the one truth of Lavaland. The Legion’s one!” The only time I didn’t enjoy it was when I was unluckily invoked by someone who didn’t like to talk at all that just asked me to avoid talking and continously healing. Because I was bound to obeying him that was… one of the poorest experience possible. I was reduced to be his sentient auto-clicker mostly and good lord… it was a miserable experience!

Now ,we have a very decent playerbase and even with brainwashes and borgifications I’m sure many players would still let you RP, but the problem is just that this kind of thing doesn’t leave the victim with any choice but to obey. So if there’s the bad kind of gamer around, you’re pretty much screwed.

If I’m not wrong I was just brainwashed once years ago and maybe it was Melody Baker that did it, using Nylaa, having brainwashed her too, to let me lower my guard. The first thing I said to her was that it didn’t matter how hard she would have tried, but she would have never been my 5th wife because my bank account would never be able to afford a 5th divorce. She laughed it off, just asked me for AA(I was the hop or the captain) and then she let me pretty much going my way. I offered to help her consequentely but she didn’t need it if I recall correctly.

Now I have no problem with a brainwash like this because it lets me continue to play as my character, the only thing that forces upon me its an allegiance. But if I have the wiggle room to still say mine, or grumpily complain about it while still complying, then it’s more than welcome!

One time when we still had those pinky things, the hive minds, Catherine Brown took me as HOP and forced me to give her AA. I complied and I was even able to snatch a laser rifle from the armory for her. But once knowing her targets, I kinda told her that this old man isn’t fit for the battlefield anymore and that he would have killed to defend her, but not attacked. Or at least not willingly nor effectively(I’m quite unrobst as everyone knows!).

She understood my complaints and let me off the hook.

Anyway I suppose I have, hopefully, effectively shed a light on the fundamental problem with any mechanical implementation regarding limiting another freedom to RP.

I’m not against any RR, I was RRed plenty of times in the past even just after arrival’s hallway. And if that’s what needs to be done for some reasons, I’m more than ready to welcome my doom and wish the best for my killer.

But I wouldn’t feel the same if I was forced to not rping my character at all!

P.S. = Once again I get where you’re coming from Orion and I commend you for the kind intentions behind this suggestion! It’s just that as you said, being the phenomenal ai named Raincaller that you are, you don’t get why someone else might very well not just dislike, but fundamentally hate what you love. That’s why I tried to give you as much insight into another player’s mind and taste, in this case, mine!

4 Likes
40

It’s mostly for the purposes of assassinations. An option to “recruit” the player (not the character so much) allowing for a nicer way to assassinate someone.