/tg/Station 13

Apparently ntsl is being readdedpsudocoding robots are being added, which is cool. Post scripts, ideas, and, of course, feedback. This is seperate from the decentralize research thread.

I'm currently looking into the self looping issue.

Issue not with selflooping, but with cooldown somewhere.

This is exactly the sort of feature that's going to be useless/too complex for >90% of the players, and is probably going to end up abused by a small subset of powergamers to the detriment of the game as a whole.

All of the talk of blueprint registries already has me worried that this is going to turn into NTSL 2.0 Robotics edition. Instead of doing or solving something, you're just copy pasting preprogrammed instructions.

cedarbridge wrote:All of the talk of blueprint registries already has me worried that this is going to turn into NTSL 2.0 Robotics edition. Instead of doing or solving something, you're just copy pasting preprogrammed instructions.

That's why there's a config option to disable the import of blueprints, and I'm pretty sure they will use it once this thread becomes a pastebin repository.

Also, with techwebs replacing rnd and bombmaking probably being moved to atmos, science will need something that only powergamers can abuse efficiently as is tradition.

See when you guys were talking about carrying circuits between rounds I thought you were talking about an actual physical item like genetics data disks and shit.

To be perfectly clear, the "import blueprint" feature is simply unacceptable to me and inconsistent with current game design (if there even is such a thing).

>telescience has to go because it relies on external tools and maps with coords
>RnD has to change because everyone just follows a static recipe of things to deconstruct to reach the levels
>here is a whole new feature that relies and even encourages you to copypaste a recipe to use it efficiently

"B-but I spent 2 hours on my private server to refine my autonomous instakillbot recipe, without the blueprint I have to spend 20 minutes printing and wiring all the parts in-game and I can't even mass-produce them!"
Well geez who would've thought that a complex thing with a huge payoff would require you to invest actual time in game? Let's make a blueprint for a stimulum factory as well while we're at it, am I really supposed to lay down every single pipe myself each round?

Not to mention that most of the cool, non-antag things you can make with circuits are surpassed by basic stuff you can already make with a couple clicks. A machine that recharges things? That's called an inducer. A bot that seeks out people and injects chems in them? Well now that's something I've never heard of!

Grazyn wrote:To be perfectly clear, the "import blueprint" feature is simply unacceptable to me

I cannot disagree more. Your example of stimulum? A week and a half of effort put in, and we can make it in 20 minutes now. We follow an effective blueprint that simplifies the process down to its basest form. But circuits? If you're dealing with basest forms, then indeed all you'll see are pocket inducers, because making anything more complicated takes time to make the connections and debug. You don't handcraft the pipes you work with in atmos. 98% of the time you use the pipes you already have.

And hint, it's not killbots that suffer the most from not being able to clone circuits, but non-antag things, since they don't have the simplicity of "if not owner, kill target". I have built three+ combat related machines in less than a round. All of which could easily be replicated without cloning. I have one civilian design that took me the entirety of every shift across a day to make, and requires extensive effort to complete even when cloned due to the fact it uses a signaler-activated radio, and must be pre filled with meds.

So unless we get shifts that last literal days, the only capabilities ICs will have will be murderous ones, or mundane like a bot that screams and spams smoke.

RandolfTheMeh wrote:

Grazyn wrote:To be perfectly clear, the "import blueprint" feature is simply unacceptable to me

I cannot disagree more. Your example of stimulum? A week and a half of effort put in, and we can make it in 20 minutes now. We follow an effective blueprint that simplifies the process down to its basest form. But circuits? If you're dealing with basest forms, then indeed all you'll see are pocket inducers, because making anything more complicated takes time to make the connections and debug. You don't handcraft the pipes you work with in atmos. 98% of the time you use the pipes you already have.

And hint, it's not killbots that suffer the most from not being able to clone circuits, but non-antag things, since they don't have the simplicity of "if not owner, kill target". I have built three+ combat related machines in less than a round. All of which could easily be replicated without cloning. I have one civilian design that took me the entirety of every shift across a day to make, and requires extensive effort to complete even when cloned due to the fact it uses a signaler-activated radio, and must be pre filled with meds.

So unless we get shifts that last literal days, the only capabilities ICs will have will be murderous ones, or mundane like a bot that screams and spams smoke.

Hire some assistants and create a sweatshop in maintenance to mass-produce your special circuit machines. As it currently stands, being able to easily print out whatever pre-made machine you've found is more a detriment to this feature than anything.

I've seen someone create a harm alarm that constantly shouts their user's coordinates when dying/dead, that really isn't something I'd want to see being mass-produced by anyone with a printer with the cloning upgrade. From the sounds of it, I think you were the guy who made it, actually.

MMMiracles wrote:

RandolfTheMeh wrote:

Grazyn wrote:To be perfectly clear, the "import blueprint" feature is simply unacceptable to me

I cannot disagree more. Your example of stimulum? A week and a half of effort put in, and we can make it in 20 minutes now. We follow an effective blueprint that simplifies the process down to its basest form. But circuits? If you're dealing with basest forms, then indeed all you'll see are pocket inducers, because making anything more complicated takes time to make the connections and debug. You don't handcraft the pipes you work with in atmos. 98% of the time you use the pipes you already have.

And hint, it's not killbots that suffer the most from not being able to clone circuits, but non-antag things, since they don't have the simplicity of "if not owner, kill target". I have built three+ combat related machines in less than a round. All of which could easily be replicated without cloning. I have one civilian design that took me the entirety of every shift across a day to make, and requires extensive effort to complete even when cloned due to the fact it uses a signaler-activated radio, and must be pre filled with meds.

So unless we get shifts that last literal days, the only capabilities ICs will have will be murderous ones, or mundane like a bot that screams and spams smoke.

Hire some assistants and create a sweatshop in maintenance to mass-produce your special circuit machines. As it currently stands, being able to easily print out whatever pre-made machine you've found is more a detriment to this feature than anything.

I've seen someone create a harm alarm that constantly shouts their user's coordinates when dying/dead, that really isn't something I'd want to see being mass-produced by anyone with a printer with the cloning upgrade. From the sounds of it, I think you were the guy who made it, actually.

That was me actually, and that thing was a bitch to setup and if you lost power at all it'd drain within seconds.

Plus you have to manually set up the radio system (which is a bitch to do properly) and you lose all ability to turn off your radio, ever. Meaning anyone undercover cant use it.

Additionally, he's 100% correct, the only circuits that will get built without cloning will be generic harm alarms and basic boring powergame crap you can slap together.

All of which can be replicated with a pAI and some RP, btw.

He does make a point though antag kill all kill bots are really easy to make, take it from me.

kevinz000 wrote:He does make a point though antag kill all kill bots are really easy to make, take it from me.

We just gotta remove all the stun stuff (which we did bar the gun module which is shittier than actually using the gun yourself due to the 2 second delay) so that if you want to stun you gotta work hard or rely on shit like stun baton rng

Gun modules need to require special chassis with obvious sprites and not work from your backpack.
I'm not going to spoil too much but trust me you think guncrafting was bad think again.

kevinz000 wrote:Gun modules need to require special chassis with obvious sprites and not work from your backpack.
I'm not going to spoil too much but trust me you think guncrafting was bad think again.

The fact it works from a backpack is a huge issue.

I can't really ever support a system that encourages pre-round prep for in-game effect. Blueprinting and blueprint records just seems to imply that the system is so cumbersome and clunky that it requires substantial out-of-game work to bring about an in-game result and that the in-game result should therefore be two button presses away from printed in-game. NTSL was kinda bad for the same reason. The work done to achieve the in-game effect was obfuscated by a coding system that was resolved through working OOC to craft the script and then use it later in-game via copy and paste to general effect over and over again.

If the problem is that the system is time consuming and requires substantial investment in-game to produce, that means the system is either too clunky to produce the intended results and needs to be reworked, or some other solution needs to be found to implement a similar result. This should not be overcome by "I did it once so I shouldn't have to do it again." shortcuts brought about through OOC databases or pastebin files.

Half the shit doesn't have adjacency checks and are imvisible combat modules and I'm far too busy to fix shit right now.
Prepare for some refactors and reworks in a week or two when I'm not busy and booked out the ass.

Oh yeah and I have an idea:


Make the circuit pins visible from the assembly main window to make linking easier. Only the pin and current connections, not the type or what's on it. You still have to open the sub component windows to debug it but this will make wiring not a colossal pain in the ass.

One solution would be to allow cloning, but only in-game: the code is saved to a buffer inside the analyzer and isn't actually displayed, you can then load it directly from the analyzer (think multitool quantum pad buffers). So you can still make your OP machine and mass-produce it inside the same round. Or an in-game database of blueprints which carries over between rounds (BUT ONLY if the blueprint server wasn't destroyed/wiped), and prints disks that you can load into the circuit printer (again, without displaying code). You can add your designs to the database in the same way using the buffer in the analyzer.

Shockers have to go or at least be reworked: as it is now, scientists can mass-produce infinite pocket-sized self-recharging permastunners in the first 5 minutes of the round. You don't even need a blueprint, you can strap together a basic thing like this in a couple minutes
this stuns on hit and if you want the target permastunned just press the button, then you can put it into your pocket and it will keep him stunned while you do whatever with him

Hi can we get a wiki page for this also.

Why did we replace the "insert item get science" machine with a glorified idle game and a system that requires I can write and parse psuedocode like a real life programmer, or copy-paste someone's Not-NTSL script for some powergamey shit

Yakumo_Chen wrote:Why did we replace the "insert item get science" machine with a glorified idle game and a system that requires I can write and parse psuedocode like a real life programmer, or copy-paste someone's Not-NTSL script for some powergamey shit

Why are you still being a whiny bitch over it? We get it, you don't like it. Everyone else does. Fuck off.

Consider a component based system like goon has over a scripting based system. Making little moving robots is neat but it should take time to build and be easy enough to mess with intuitively instead of being NTSL 2.0

This is almost as bad as the Chem Compiler or Packet sniffer are on goon. sure they are neat systems but they are so obtuse that only a tiny select group even bothers looking at it. Compared to the mechanic job and the components which almost everyone can use.

Yakumo_Chen wrote:Why did we replace the "insert item get science" machine with a glorified idle game and a system that requires I can write and parse psuedocode like a real life programmer, or copy-paste someone's Not-NTSL script for some powergamey shit

If it helps, the new save format is in JSON, so it's much more readable than the complete nonsense it started out as.
And well, if you can't read json you probably don't have eyes.

Dr_bee wrote:Consider a component based system like goon has over a scripting based system. Making little moving robots is neat but it should take time to build and be easy enough to mess with intuitively instead of being NTSL 2.0

This is almost as bad as the Chem Compiler or Packet sniffer are on goon. sure they are neat systems but they are so obtuse that only a tiny select group even bothers looking at it. Compared to the mechanic job and the components which almost everyone can use.

It is component based. Have you used it?

iamgoofball wrote:

Dr_bee wrote:Consider a component based system like goon has over a scripting based system. Making little moving robots is neat but it should take time to build and be easy enough to mess with intuitively instead of being NTSL 2.0

This is almost as bad as the Chem Compiler or Packet sniffer are on goon. sure they are neat systems but they are so obtuse that only a tiny select group even bothers looking at it. Compared to the mechanic job and the components which almost everyone can use.

It is component based. Have you used it?

Still requires coding and not manually setting links between components with a tool with a handy visual guide. Check out goon's mechanic job to see what I am talking about.

Dr_bee wrote:

iamgoofball wrote:

Dr_bee wrote:Consider a component based system like goon has over a scripting based system. Making little moving robots is neat but it should take time to build and be easy enough to mess with intuitively instead of being NTSL 2.0

This is almost as bad as the Chem Compiler or Packet sniffer are on goon. sure they are neat systems but they are so obtuse that only a tiny select group even bothers looking at it. Compared to the mechanic job and the components which almost everyone can use.

It is component based. Have you used it?

Still requires coding and not manually setting links between components with a tool with a handy visual guide. Check out goon's mechanic job to see what I am talking about.

I've played goon mechanics.

This is goon mechanic except that everything is in 1 item instead of spread out.

iamgoofball wrote:

Dr_bee wrote:

iamgoofball wrote:

Dr_bee wrote:Consider a component based system like goon has over a scripting based system. Making little moving robots is neat but it should take time to build and be easy enough to mess with intuitively instead of being NTSL 2.0

This is almost as bad as the Chem Compiler or Packet sniffer are on goon. sure they are neat systems but they are so obtuse that only a tiny select group even bothers looking at it. Compared to the mechanic job and the components which almost everyone can use.

It is component based. Have you used it?

Still requires coding and not manually setting links between components with a tool with a handy visual guide. Check out goon's mechanic job to see what I am talking about.

I've played goon mechanics.

This is goon mechanic except that everything is in 1 item instead of spread out.

Hmm, would simply changing the UI to add visuals be possible? I can see the similarities but right now it is confusing as to what I am doing wrong when I try to make something more complicated than a flashlight. It would make learning the system a lot easier.

Has it occurred to you the only people supporting & formally enjoying without complaint in this thread are those with prior advanced coding experience. I've done a little bit of coding myself and i could learn via a guide how to circuitry/goon mechanic but its scary as fuck for first-timers.

This is math nerds & telescience again, i shouldn't require to go to real life college to learn the basics of this shit to play your mainstream game, and its going to be used for select groups of metagamers. You learnt nothing from the last time you tried to put in a technically complicated piece of science equipment/mechanic, and it will over time due to complaints and under-use have a severe likelihood to be downgraded (like the quantum pads)/removed.

The sad thing is that Fwoosh isn't wrong.

FantasticFwoosh wrote:Has it occurred to you the only people supporting & formally enjoying without complaint in this thread are those with prior advanced coding experience. I've done a little bit of coding myself and i could learn via a guide how to circuitry/goon mechanic but its scary as fuck for first-timers.

This is math nerds & telescience again, i shouldn't require to go to real life college to learn the basics of this shit to play your mainstream game, and its going to be used for select groups of metagamers. You learnt nothing from the last time you tried to put in a technically complicated piece of science equipment/mechanic, and it will over time due to complaints and under-use have a severe likelihood to be downgraded (like the quantum pads)/removed.

did you even try circuits

Advanced stuff may require math and coding knowledge but it's mainly an exercise in time while you wire and debug. If you learnt to play ss13 you can learn circuits as well

Grazyn wrote:

FantasticFwoosh wrote:Has it occurred to you the only people supporting & formally enjoying without complaint in this thread are those with prior advanced coding experience. I've done a little bit of coding myself and i could learn via a guide how to circuitry/goon mechanic but its scary as fuck for first-timers.

This is math nerds & telescience again, i shouldn't require to go to real life college to learn the basics of this shit to play your mainstream game, and its going to be used for select groups of metagamers. You learnt nothing from the last time you tried to put in a technically complicated piece of science equipment/mechanic, and it will over time due to complaints and under-use have a severe likelihood to be downgraded (like the quantum pads)/removed.

did you even try circuits

Advanced stuff may require math and coding knowledge but it's mainly an exercise in time while you wire and debug. If you learnt to play ss13 you can learn circuits as well

It is just obtuse enough to be intimidating to learn. This is a problem that can be solved by better UI. How to design it I dont know.

Playing the game doesn't require me having a field of knowledge that i can't learn effectively in game, i learnt my own limited coding experience contributing outside the game on github/IRC coderbus over a LONG time, and im still not very good at it.

Grazyn wrote:mainly an exercise in time while you wire and debug

No i haven't tried it personally to clarify but the points seem pretty obvious, there's more than enough detail floating around from people's comments (not just here) to discern how it works generally however. How would you like me to create a science department for you that exclusively relied on quantum physics then argued that you can work it out with enough time designed by a quantum physicist for quantum physicists to use primarily easily & in advanced ways. it is as it sounds a extremely arrogant assumption.

Its bias by the coding community that everyone is as competent at coding basics as they are because they are blind to the ability of normal players, and instead normal players just copy paste code & don't learn how to play the role at all. Metagamers holding secrets of circuit functions (perfect/improved deathbots) will break the system, like we see with max-cap & extra-large bomb mixes in toxins.

DoctoreMad wrote:

MMMiracles wrote:Circuit assemblies can't be broken via weapons #32904
Since the circuit assemblies are items instead of objects, this means you can't actually break them short of blowing them up/picking them up and using a crowbar to open it and snatch the cell.

Also abusable since you can put guns inside of drones and have them shoot people

That didn't take long, goodbye circuits i hardly knew ye.

i guess it's a good thing nobody listens to fwoosh

Local secborg removal pull maker in favour of circuits.

Because near indestructible robots that shoot everyone are fine if he makes em.

I would honestly prefer they had hands and were unable to use guns.

Quotation yanked from a thread on the ideas forum from gunsmithing v circuitry.

pathofchaos1 wrote:The circuits is in because it lets coders waste time in game to code some more. They are even complaining about the time sync, and wanting to include a save state/library/import system so they don't even have to waste time.

Gun smithing was cooler, because it allowed people to make more interesting weapons, and useables besides just whats available. It also allowed mech integration, and more comedic fun. With gun smithing you could slam gun parts together and make something *fun* while with this I have to learn to code. You know what wasn't fun for people? Telescience. No one, but the people who are innately good at it, or people just pulling from the copy paste library/using the tele-sci calculator. Also see Telecoms scripting. Though that had its own Byond related issues.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmhmm.

iamgoofball wrote:i guess it's a good thing nobody listens to fwoosh

I don't even play anymore and this is spot on to you right now.

pot calling the kettle black

So I like the idea but the implementation and use case seems lacking.

Couple ideas

Tie upgrading systems to making circuits optimized.
- Instead of researching Super Matter bins I have to take the Matter Bin circuit and add x,y,z optimizations and then I unlock the ability to mass print super matter bins (or any of the upgrade components)

Tie the Deconstructor to reverse engineering circuit parts or code bits
-I throw in a flash light and get the flashlight circuit code bits pre-made for mass production.
-I make a custom circuit and toss it into the deconstructor and get a copy breakdown to help with producing more.

Right now in its raw form the system is not inviting to those that have little or no experience with coding. There should be more controlled api style of building. Ive been teaching my kids to code with a more drag and drop approach for set functions. Maybe a similar system would help invite others to try this more in earnest.

Also documentation needs to be beefed up. In game screenshots along with examples. Help people see the potential use cases.

kevinz000 wrote:pot calling the kettle black

Says the cast-iron watering can, you're the creator & primary source of the problem as a RD/science main, coder & if i remember correctly as it was a while ago, telepad science enthusiast that led to the culture that got it so abused it was removed. (* even if it wasn't you a legacy of metagaming players which you are usually counted amonst the ranks for playing science hard.)

delaron wrote:Tie upgrading systems to making circuits optimized.
- Instead of researching Super Matter bins I have to take the Matter Bin circuit and add x,y,z optimizations and then I unlock the ability to mass print super matter bins (or any of the upgrade components)
-I throw in a flash light and get the flashlight circuit code bits pre-made for mass production.
-I make a custom circuit and toss it into the deconstructor and get a copy breakdown to help with producing more.

delaron wrote:Right now in its raw form the system is not inviting to those that have little or no experience with coding. There should be more controlled api style of building. Ive been teaching my kids to code with a more drag and drop approach for set functions. Maybe a similar system would help invite others to try this more in earnest.

Also documentation needs to be beefed up. In game screenshots along with examples. Help people see the potential use cases.

If we can reach a medium that hopefully isn't so obsessive about the difficult aspects of code even if it requires a hugbox approach rather than a crash course narrated by Mr Mekhi over here like some washed up college proffessor doing a seminar that is the only outlet to make yourself useful, then intially fine. If you can teach children to code (good initative), then you can teach mainstream players to code but it shouldn't be made to appease coderbus and if anything it should be designed to frustrate coderbus with how simplistic it is to discourage them adding more IC coding and stick to OOC bugfixing.

Im not saying these ideas quoted should be thrown out, but the main issue of lack of potential involvement for mainstream players needs to be addressed as it will alienate a portion of jobroles to the point where they may as well not exist for late-join or form psuedo whitelisted jobs (EI - only mekhi knows how to play circuits so we'll deny the slot until mekhi gets here/takes over)

Otherwise please no, else science will just become a complete brick-wall to newcomers if you tangle a nessecity to code to everything which remains only relevant to a select group. I will petition to remove the science department on grounds of coders & lore being unfaithful to the accessibility & premise of science's goal to work on plasma & benefit the station. (since i can't quit the server twice over conflicts of interest & principles)

The only thing imposing about circuits is how barebones and weird the menus for it are. When you get into it there's really not much difficulty.
Of course you wouldn't know this because you don't play.

Is someone still working on the guide?

SpaceInaba wrote:The only thing imposing about circuits is how barebones and weird the menus for it are. When you get into it there's really not much difficulty.
Of course you wouldn't know this because you don't play.

If you are gonna put in pseudo coding features for edutainment at least finish the guide.

I've had a peek and I don't even know how lists work in these things are they stored on list related chips? Do I store lists in memory? How do we format data to input a list ourselves anyway?

Any tips on how references types for sensors outside the machine work? Seems to be purely on names so looks like only the advanced list locator is usefull for interactinh with people if you copy the roster and input it into a list via other components because i don't think the debugger can write lists.

Was sort of hoping they could work off type paths parents etc in the actual code.

1.I am planning to make circuits distingush types.
2.about menus,I'll try to stick there HTML5 block scheme redactor. Not sure, if I'll win.

RandolfTheMeh wrote: And hint, it's not killbots that suffer the most from not being able to clone circuits, but non-antag things, since they don't have the simplicity of "if not owner, kill target". I have built three+ combat related machines in less than a round. All of which could easily be replicated without cloning. I have one civilian design that took me the entirety of every shift across a day to make, and requires extensive effort to complete even when cloned due to the fact it uses a signaler-activated radio, and must be pre filled with meds.

This but unironically

The only reason I want printing is because it makes the actual labour possible to build something productive instead of people running around with their ebin smoke/kill/grief machines

The best example as to why it is necessary is that the effective complexity in making a helpful circuit without printing would be like rebuilding a replica of half of the station perfectly with machinery/cabling/wiring. You are not capable of doing it in the average round. It would take hours to build the basics let alone the more complicated stuff. The shuttle would be called. Punishing people who are trying to use the feature to make cool advanced botany robots, healing robots,delivery robots, and more crazy shit instead forcing them to make grabber/thrower killbots or smoke machine grief bots/bots that spam chat until the game lags/the scientist gets lynched.

The only genuine issue they have is that the mobile variants arent considered mobs, they are items so mobs can't aggro and kill them resulting in the mob itself dying, and that you can make lethal versions you hold in your backpack which automatically kills anyone filling a certain requirement close to you

It's only reason, why it was added.
Well not only.As I said, useful means demanded.So I tired to make one device every single round.It is just irrirating.

How difficult (or overpowered) would it be to have a component that can use items on things? I am keen on finally making the AutoDoc idea a reality. I can already make a bot that grabs stuff, then throws that stuff at other stuff, but not one that can *use* stuff on other stuff.

Less OP than current ranged options really.
The circuits can trigger grenades and ttvs in a number of ways so they can already work the most potent of items.