/tg/Station 13

I think it is important for non-policy feedback on Drones be collated here so they can be improved. If you want to discuss any policy related issues about Drones (such as the impact of their laws), please visit this thread: http://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1468

I like Drones a lot, but I do have some suggestions/feedback to give.

• Drones need a way to communicate with one another via radio. Even if its just someone else to talk to.
• I don't want any Drone body to exist on station at round start, while I am not against allowing players to play as a Drone at round start, it would cause a rush to spectate and get to those Drones.
• The Drones "internal storage" should just be a backpack, inventory management for Drones is even worse than Janitors.
• I'm concerned that with the research requirements to be able to make Drones, and that Robos will be making Cyborgs and Augmenting themselves, that we will rarely see Drones after a week or so. I suggest either the requirment to make Drones is lowered, or there is a Drone control that allows ghosted players to enter it to become a Drone, and limit the amount of active Drones at any time.

Overall, Drones are cool, and I think any feedback would help refine them.

:EDIT:

Drone Laws are..
1. You may not involve yourself in the matters of another being, even if such matters conflict with Law Two or Law Three, unless the other being is another Drone.
2. You may not harm any being, regardless of intent or circumstance.
3. You must maintain, repair, improve, and power the station to the best of your abilities.

Ill copy/paste what i said in the other topic:

Can we get the ability to create a few sheets of metal/glass too? Could work the same way as Constructs creating Soul Shards. Like 1 sheet of metal/glass every 10 seconds or something. Then we wouldnt need to steal stuff from departments that may need the materials. I dont feel like this would be abused, considering drones have a lawset to stop them interacting with humans.

or, as someone was suggesting on the server, give drones their own little room in maint that they can ventcrawl to. It would have some sort of recycling machines that could make metal/glass/rglass as needed.

Basically i think drones should have some way to get materials that doesnt require stealing from departments or mining it yourself, which would take forever.

Also i think the research requirements are fine. They do not seem that high. If Science knows what they are doing then getting drone unlocked should be easy. Its a good way to stop people ghosting early just to be a drone, i think.

On Validness I'd like it to be something akin to:
Think of it like Ian, it's a dick move to kill him, but you can.

Steelpoint wrote:

• Drones need a way to communicate with one another via radio. Even if its just someone else to talk to.
• I don't want any Drone body to exist on station at round start, while I am not against allowing players to play as a Drone at round start, it would cause a rush to spectate and get to those Drones.
• The Drones "internal storage" should just be a backpack, inventory management for Drones is even worse than Janitors.
• I'm concerned that with the research requirements to be able to make Drones, and that Robos will be making Cyborgs and Augmenting themselves, that we will rarely see Drones after a week or so. I suggest either the requirment to make Drones is lowered, or there is a Drone control that allows ghosted players to enter it to become a Drone, and limit the amount of active Drones at any time.

1. Radios, Yeah ok I guess this may be nice
2. No drone bodies exist at roundstart atm.
3. Just pushed a fix to drone internal storage so it works even when it's in its slot, so you can place items in it, etc. I don't like the idea of it being a backpack, they get 1 slot, if they want more, they must juggle a container in my opinion, it's not hard work.
4. The requirement is low, iirc it's the same as Radio MMIs which is pretty damn low.


I have a PR up with a bundle of polishes and fixes.
Now is a good time to mention critical issues/nagging details.

PR currently contains:
- Improvements to Drone internal storage so that attacking it with items responds how ever other storage item does, resulting in you being able to place items in an internally stored container.
- Clicking a drone shell pops an alert up to the player, so they can cancel becoming the drone.
- Drones now have a bad_items list, they cannot pick up items in this list. The list contains guns (not new) and grenades (new)

I think the internal storage is perfectly fine. You can fit a toolbox in there, then fill it up with tools from engineering. You dont really need anything else.

What you really do is use a Backpack in your internal storage.

Well it's gonna be impossible to play for a week because two thirds of server population is playing drones, not following laws and opening doors for everybody with their all access (who thought that would be a good idea)

I like the way drones enhance the longevity of the station. Drones should be able to go through plastic flaps like MULEs do. This ability combined with more plastic flaps around the station means Drones could lose their all-access and solves the problem mentioned by Lo6a4evskiy.

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:Well it's gonna be impossible to play for a week because two thirds of server population is playing drones, not following laws and opening doors for everybody with their all access (who thought that would be a good idea)

There are 0 Drones at roundstart.
If you see drones, then Science has researched them and Robotics decided it was a good idea/there was a need for them.
An admin message is already in place to tell admins to go gentle with spawning millions of drones.

To be honest I don't like that drones are made by roboticists. I like the way Paradise handles it in that the drones are created by the station directly (spawned by a machine that requires no maintenance) and I'd prefer to see something like that here, but perhaps drones can only be spawned after 10-20 minutes (stops round-start drones). It just feels silly that these entirely independent little automatons are created by the roboticist when in reality it makes more practical sense to just create engineering borgs with whatever brains you can get your hands on, and it's more fun to make mechs. Especially later in the game.

I think it also makes more sense lore wise that these drones are produced by the station to upkeep the station automatically, implying that the facility at least has the potential to be sustain itself with a limited crew.

My feedback so far;
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/issues/4890
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/issues/4891

I was remembering things wrong about Paradise. Drones are created in the drone fabricator, which is controlled by the Maintenance Drone Control panel. They work independtly, yada yada, but after you die you have to wait at least 10 minutes before you can spawn as one (or you have to wait 10 minutes after pressing observe).

An antag AI should be able to do something with drones.

I think that currently there are a few things which could easily be abuseable and cause drone/crew issues.

One:
R&D literally with the law saying you need to improve it will encourage drones to take over or make their own R&D and thus taking resources away from R&D either a management system with it would have to come in place or a request system to R&D from which the drones can request stuff. (I started hogging R&D to upgrade machines getting the parts)

Two:
Inter drone communication: It needs something.

Three: Materials: Literally once drones start repairing a lot we run out of materials pretty quickly on station.

Four: Tools: After a few iterations of drones coming onto the station and dying a lot of tools will be scattered everywhere in places nobody will remember meaning more and more tools will be made via drones and then forgotten about in that half repaired area.

Five: The inbuilt flashlight should become a UI thing not a verb its easier for people to access.

Six: T-rays should really be something they can activate and use inbuilt aswell because they are meant to repair stuff it will help fixing pipes and wires a lot during repairs.

Seven: Hats nuff said.

Eight: Disposals need to be easier for drones to access.

Nine: Drones need their own emotes not this *drool and *stare and others.

Ten: I mentioned it on the IRC I dont suggest people relay this too much because it is a really big abusable thing.

Eleven: What Reimoo ninja'd about but malf included.

Drones are currently very vulnerable to getting spaced especially if they are doing EVA repairs. Not so much of an issue on their own but if they are carrying scarce items it can fuck them and the people on-station who needed them over.

Also, do drones have access to the ore redemption machine? That'd let them get more metal (and "improve" the station with gold floors)

Jalleo wrote: Seven: Hats nuff said.

JJRcop just finished up hats

So a drone can wear a hat, then be worn as a hat itself? We going deep guys...

Drones should wear drones as hats though.

Cipher3 wrote:Drones should wear drones as hats though.

they can (someone else needs to pick and drop the drone first though)

Good idea picked up from OOC: Built-in recyclers.

Bottles, garbage, soda cans, papers, and shards all over the floor? Vacuum that shit up and convert it into metal/glass bits.

Maybe some sort of internal energy supply that can be turned into metal/glass? and is recharged at a drone station or via recycling stuff as you suggest.

Drones are glorious, last round end we held abandoned engineering against lord singuloth and won. Then a random slime ate half of us.

Minor issues with drones dragging non player mobs but eh they can get bant.

I'm concerned about drones requiring items....it's making the task of finding welders/other tools substantially harder on high-pop rounds when every drone must raid tool storage to follow their laws.

Drones can ventport to cargo and make new tools.

I can't remember, do autolathes make toolboxes? Because drones have a total of 3 item slots without resorting to storage containers within storage containers. Afaik

Most humans discard empty toolboxes, then there is the cardboard in cargo and any container you may find. A gear locker left open? Click your heels it probably has a spare backpack!

Atticat wrote:I'm concerned about drones requiring items....it's making the task of finding welders/other tools substantially harder on high-pop rounds when every drone must raid tool storage to follow their laws.

Cargo has an autolathe. R&D can make an infinite number of autolathes.

If toolboxes seriously become a shortage, cargo can order them. This concern about running out of station resources just means mining actually has a job after their first trip to R&D/Robotics. People need to stop thinking that only prespawned resources are real resources.

You can open job lockers, the number of spare backpacks is crazy you can easily get one un-noticed.

also, whats the point of making monkeys not ventcrawl with items but drones can?
seems quite OP especially if drones can revolt

Because monkeys can do whatever they want and changelings can turn into them, but Drones have a rigid set of rules which cannot be altered in any way

If drones revolt they'll get banned, because there is no way that can exist within this system

As noted, the only possible way for Drones to be able to go rouge is if a admin allows it, so its never going to happen. The current best way to play as a Drone is to get a backpack, find a spare box (They are all over), use the box as a toolbelt while leaving your backpack open while in your Internal Storage so you can put stuff in and take stuff out of it.

I do support a way to allow Drones to acquire basic materials (Metal and Glass) since right now people are just complaining of Drones stripping bare Engineering, EVA, Tool Storage and anywhere else with metal. They burn through metal quickly.

In addition, I think that Drones in high secure areas (Stay out of the bloody Armoury and Perma) should be allowed to be terminated by Security. Yes perma does have a bar of soap, no your going to release the prisoners. Yes you look cute with the Riot Shield.

Steelpoint wrote:Yes you look cute with the Riot Shield.

Found the clown's backpack in a locker and ran around with that honking a bike horn since I lost all my tools.
Everybody was trying to put me on their head.

Seriously though that bar of soap is golden. Mini-janiborg. Why is soap so rare?

Saegrimr wrote:

Steelpoint wrote:Yes you look cute with the Riot Shield.

Found the clown's backpack in a locker and ran around with that honking a bike horn since I lost all my tools.
Everybody was trying to put me on their head.

Seriously though that bar of soap is golden. Mini-janiborg. Why is soap so rare?

Let cargo order soap 2014

"Engineering ran out of metal!"

Fucking good. It's there to be used. You know what else engineering ran out of? Hull breaches and broken windows to fix.

Raven776 wrote:"Engineering ran out of metal!"

Fucking good. It's there to be used. You know what else engineering ran out of? Hull breaches and broken windows to fix.

That's mainly because Drones are better than Engineers in all respects.

They really aren't. Engineers have far better inventory management and communication.

It's actually kind of hilarious how it took a new job to get people to actually fix shit.

bandit wrote:It's actually kind of hilarious how it took a new job to get people to actually fix shit.

You mean you DIDN'T roll for antag on engineer to be the yellowtide?

PUBLIC OPINION NEEDED.

Two choices, Pick one.

1. Drones get a custom radio channel, similar to binary, Drone only. They may speak freely on this channel.

or

2. Drones get a "ping" verb, This verb sends a preset message to every drone, saying where the drone is, and an "Alert" level of the drone's choosing, from Low, Medium, High or Critical.
Formatted as: "DRONE PING: [name]: [alert_s] priority alert in [A.name]!"

drone ping just so humans can see pinging drones across the station. "Drone (522) pings."

seriously, though, pings are far more interesting

I'd rather them get the *ping *buzz *beep.

I can already *aflap while on someone's head at least.

:d drone channel would be nice.. :d isn't use I think.

How would you identify where the drones are though? It sounds fine if they are on the station, but what about if they are building a drone base in space? Or setting up a secret little base on the mining asteroid?

Is empty space, or the asteroid the station?

3. You must maintain, repair, improve, and power the station to the best of your abilities.

Alex Crimson wrote:How would you identify where the drones are though? It sounds fine if they are on the station, but what about if they are building a drone base in space? Or setting up a secret little base on the mining asteroid?

Where the drone is identified by using the name of the area they're in.
This does mean however if the drone is in space all you'll get is "space" but it works everywhere but space.

Saegrimr wrote:Is empty space, or the asteroid the station?

3. You must maintain, repair, improve, and power the station to the best of your abilities.

Some people will play Drone just so they can go build silly stuff in space. Admins have even encouraged the building of autism forts. So long as they are not hurting anyone, i dont see the problem.

Connect your fort to the station in any way, it is now part of the station!

Saegrimr wrote:Good idea picked up from OOC: Built-in recyclers.

Bottles, garbage, soda cans, papers, and shards all over the floor? Vacuum that shit up and convert it into metal/glass bits.

Thats some paradise station shit here
Add plastic sheets cause some garbage is made of plastic
and i dont see how you get metal paper just make it like it drops a paperhat

Incomptinence wrote:Connect your fort to the station in any way, it is now part of the station!

Now that's perfectly acceptable.

I got stuck as a drone when there was no gravity on the station, in cargo next to a crate in the middle of the room. I believe it's also possible to get stuck next to lockers, too. Drones can't throw anything to help themselves out of this situation.

kosmos wrote:I got stuck as a drone when there was no gravity on the station, in cargo next to a crate in the middle of the room. I believe it's also possible to get stuck next to lockers, too. Drones can't throw anything to help themselves out of this situation.

Not being able to throw things is very obnoxious.

Because drones could potentially get killed by greyshits/engineers for taking tools and materials out of their departments out of sheer spite, and I think it would be nice for them to have a room to hang out in, check on station alerts, and to stock up on tools and materials without getting in anyones way, I would like to see them get some sort of "drone nest" room. This room would have materials and tools to build with, as well as station alert computers. It would be very secluded and pretty much only accessible through vents. Similar to /vg/stations MoMMI nest. Considering their laws force them to stay away from people I think this would really help them out a lot.

mrpain wrote:Because drones could potentially get killed by greyshits/engineers for taking tools and materials out of their departments out of sheer spite, and I think it would be nice for them to have a room to hang out in, check on station alerts, and to stock up on tools and materials without getting in anyones way, I would like to see them get some sort of "drone nest" room. This room would have materials and tools to build with, as well as station alert computers. It would be very secluded and pretty much only accessible through vents. Similar to /vg/stations MoMMI nest. Considering their laws force them to stay away from people I think this would really help them out a lot.

That's usually drone priority #1. They always set about building nests. Because they don't have :d yet, there's some initial confusion about which nest to use.