/tg/Station 13

the fact that admins are even considering removing this is pretty stupid, literally the only reason this is even being thought about is because there is a VERY vocal minority of people whining about "waah ai ruining muh murderboning :^(((" with the rest of us actually learning how to get around this. there are much better options than removing it at all, and when they took it out for one round ooc basically exploded.

modify the ai to have other things to do, but that we are giving serious thought to REMOVING THE AI COMPLETELY is dumb as hell.

Good thing the admins don't really have a say in it, now if someone in coderbus had a vendetta against the AI...

I wasn't aware that there was actually a movement to remove the AI until admins said they were disabling the AI for a few rounds in response to some feedback on the forums, which led to everyone saying "wait what the fuck, why the hell are we removing the AI that's retarded", which led to the confused admins pointing us to the FUCK THE AI thread. I guess I'll have to read all 5 pages of essays and walls of text to be able to fully understand it, but I really don't think many people actually want to remove the AI

Now do we know anyone like that I wonder...

Shaps wrote:I wasn't aware that there was actually a movement to remove the AI until admins said they were disabling the AI for a few rounds in response to some feedback on the forums, which led to everyone saying "wait what the fuck, why the hell are we removing the AI that's retarded", which led to the confused admins pointing us to the FUCK THE AI thread. I guess I'll have to read all 5 pages of essays and walls of text to be able to fully understand it, but I really don't think many people actually want to remove the AI

Nobody wants to actually remove the AI, it's a part of the game that, if removed, would be far, far too hard to fill the void left by it. It would be like removing the entire bridge and all the jobs on it on box and leaving nothing in place but a hole to space. It would, in many ways, break the game, and especially for Ops, give them so much more freedom with how to spend their TCs due to not having to sink 50 on a borg to kill the AI.

Jesus Christ people, there is a difference between disabling AI temporarily, and removing it from the code.

I advocated to disable the AI originally (and still do) to highlight the issues that mny antags have when it comes to AI's cockblocking them super hard.

Yes certain antags can get specific items dedicated purely to trying to avoid the cockblocker9000, but not all traitors have these, not all traitors should be EXPECTED to have these, and not all antags are traitors.

By removing AI for a few days or whatever, we should all be able to clearly see if there is a shift in antag behavior/freedom to do shit that would otherwise get shutdown immediatelly by the AI.

If nothing changes, then clearly the AI is not an issue, and people like me are talking out of our asses and are whinging crybabies.
If antags are able to do more interesting/diverse things, then clearly the AI IS an issue, and we can then take steps to address this.

Removing the AI is a retarded idea and you are retarded if you support it. Traitors need to git gud and learn to buy a fucking ONE TC tool and cut cams/APC control wires. The AI has never thwarted me as a traitor. If you want to fix antag problems, buff traitors in general. Removing AI is a haphazard solution that doesn't address the real issue.

Can we remove changling mode for a couple days? I dislike it.

But honestly, this is kind of getting out of hand, if you want to murderbone then you have to plan for it/work for it, it won't be as impressive anyways.

Being a suspect cunt and cutting cameras (remember you'll have to cut ALL cameras that can see the doors you care about, which means on both sides) in the entire area you plan on doing anything traitorous, before hand, plus buying a tool exclusively dedicated to avoiding one person (which also means anyone that buys a bundle or a crate is fucked) is stupid.

I have not been fucked by an AI as a traitor for as long as I can remember - because I have to go OUT OF MY WAY to plan around it - emp + stun to kill people, teleporter/etc to escape getting detected/etc.
And you know what? Every single time I've been able to do anything that's genuinely interesting as a traitor/ling, is because the AI is out of commission for whatever reason, and I don't have to worry about being cockblocked at every turn.

TEMPORARILY removing AI is like testing the server with ass maint off, or rainbow tide - it's a single bloody button in the config.

Saying AI isn't an issue for some antags (tator and ling minly) because you can get X item/do specifc Y thing, is like saying bombs aren't an issue for blobs because you can steal all the ttv's before bursting, or just burst near toxins.
Yes, that will stop you (mostly) from getting bombed, but the fact you have to base your plan around stopping this one specific threat that will otherwise ggnore you, is awful for gameplay.

And you wonder why people complain about traitor rounds basically being extended + loose singulo/bombs? Because people are too afraid of the cockblocker9000.

I may be one of the most biased people here, and because of this, I have been trying to refrain from posting too much on all the AI hate threads cropping up, hoping that no one actually acts on them, and they will just find some other thing to hate. I simply cannot accept the removal of the AI, which to me is the most fun of all roles, and my favorite job.

And I am sure that if someone's favorite job, such as Head of Security, were to be nerfed or removed, he would not stand for it either. (Or a more realistic idea, the return of Antagonist Security) Saying to remove a role for a few days feels like an unwarranted job-ban. Would you be happy if your favorite role were degraded or removed, most likely by people who rarely or never play the role? I feel the people advocating for the AI's removal are misguided. I find this an over-reaction to a change in player behavior. Furthermore, it seems antagonist players do not wish to have to worry about more than human and 1-2 environmental threats, or do not want to consider preparing against a known, highly visible and manageable threat.

When people say "for a few days", we all know probably it's not going to be "for a few days". It's going to be forever.

Never mind, it's a config.

TheNightingale wrote:When people say "for a few days", we all know probably it's not going to be "for a few days". It's going to be forever.

is that a slippery slope why yes it is

This is NOT A CODE CHANGE. This isnt like goofchem or other shit that becomes physically impossible (or atleast utterly impractical) to remove.
It is one setting in the config - any of the headmins/MSO can turna true to false and it's reverted - just like turning ass maint on or off (another thing that people vehemently seem to not like...).

This is not about removing AI from the game forever - it's about showing that the AI does have detrimental effects to certain game modes, because we can argue for one side or the other until we're blue in the face, but actually trying it on the live server on something that isn't deadpop (the only time there is ever really no AI) will actually show the effect or lack there of.

If there is zero change in behavior, and traitors/lings aren't more free to do actual antagonistic things, then feel free to call me/oldman/whoever out as raging faggots.
But if we see more interesting rounds because no AI, then that might be a pretty damn good sign that the AI, or something related to it, needs some sort of change.

rainbowtide is a config too but that's dead RIP

i'm under absolutely no illusions about the AI, and people who think "oh noes it's gonna be gone forever" are stone cold stupid

that being said, i will take any round where i can get away from the silicon mommy and Greytide [Common]: "AI open the armory". so we should run a couple days of no AI imo

both "sides" here aren't going to accept the other's argument, so how about we just boil this whole thing down and have a community vote? yeah i know that "lol we gonna have another headmin elections people didnt vote on that either" but i think something this major to the game should be left to the community EVEN IF we are in a "test phase." a vocal minority should not be able to outweigh the actual majority.

i honestly don't see why we should have to run a vote as to whether or not we TEST the idea of no AI

but i'm also american so i'm genetically obliged to say yes, let's go democracy

Deitus wrote:both "sides" here aren't going to accept the other's argument, so how about we just boil this whole thing down and have a community vote? yeah i know that "lol we gonna have another headmin elections people didnt vote on that either" but i think something this major to the game should be left to the community EVEN IF we are in a "test phase." a vocal minority should not be able to outweigh the actual majority.

Because it's not major at all?

Very few, if any want to actually remove AI from the game. This is literally turning it off for a few rounds/day to actually see the effect of the (lack of)AI has no traitors and a few others.

This does not mean the end game is remove AI forever - the ultimate change could be nothing, delays on door bolting or whatever - but those are all code changes. This is a true/false config setting to see if anything ACTUALLY needs to change at all.

lumipharon wrote:
the ultimate change could be nothing,

if im understanding this correctly, the reason we are testing taking out the ai is to see if the game would be better without it...even if this was testing to check if ai needs nerfs. im fine with testing things for a few days, but if coders/admins even CONSIDER removing (or even nerfing) the ai, it should be put to a vote.

Which is why I suggested turning AI off for a few days.
If traitor/ling is no better without an AI, then I am talking out of my ass and nothing is wrong with AI.

That's still like saying "we should just try out removing medbay for a little while to see how antags can do without it". AI's are so core to the game and they do so much other than dealing with antags that removing them "just to see what would happen", even temporarily, is taking away a huge chunk of content that people enjoy just to make things a bit easier for antags

Like completely removing the AI for several days is a bigger change than you seem to think

Shaps wrote:That's still like saying "we should just try out removing medbay for a little while to see how antags can do without it". AI's are so core to the game and they do so much other than dealing with antags that removing them "just to see what would happen", even temporarily, is taking away a huge chunk of content that people enjoy just to make things a bit easier for antags

Like completely removing the AI for several days is a bigger change than you seem to think

its a config option

you change a 0 to a 1

if its shit you change the 1 to a 0

Shaps wrote:That's still like saying "we should just try out removing medbay for a little while to see how antags can do without it". AI's are so core to the game and they do so much other than dealing with antags that removing them "just to see what would happen", even temporarily, is taking away a huge chunk of content that people enjoy just to make things a bit easier for antags

Like completely removing the AI for several days is a bigger change than you seem to think

Yes but people don't complain that medbay is extremely restricting on antags (except for thrown morphine, lel).

Also AI isn't core to the game - see: rounds where there is no round start AI (as opposed to rounds where the medbay is a mysterious gaping hole in the station round start).

The problem is that the presence of the AI has a massive impact on the round for antags and non-antags. AI's used to be hampered by their absolutely shit UI and basic systems that limited their ability to respond or do anything quickly, however nowdays that's not a concern since the modern AI UI is more sleek and easy to use.

Not even security has the influence and power that a competent AI can wield against antagonists, and if security and the AI team up then its a hell of a ride for the antags.

The presence of the AI simply restricts the behaviour of antags as trying to plan around the AI takes up a large chunk of your time and effort, whereas without the AI being as prevalent, or there at all, this might offer antagonists more freedom in how they execute their plan.

Let them go ahead and take the AI out for a bit. They'll realize how fucking dumb it is and revert back to the standard in no time. It'll be like when they made silicons mute for awhile, or that time when some people wanted metastation to replace Box. What a riot!

oooh. Mute silicons sounds fun

Honestly, if you change the first law to YOU CANNOT HARM HUMANS instead of YOU MUST PREVENT ALL HARM TO HUMANS the AI and borgs wouldn't be so bad.

Shad0vvs wrote:Can we remove changling mode for a couple days? I dislike it.

But honestly, this is kind of getting out of hand, if you want to murderbone then you have to plan for it/work for it, it won't be as impressive anyways.

changeling doesn't ruin every other round regardless of roundtype, but guess what, the AI does
we're not trying to get a removal trial "because we dislike it"

if i remove the ai will people let me remove ei nath? :^]

Zilenan91 wrote:

Shaps wrote:I wasn't aware that there was actually a movement to remove the AI until admins said they were disabling the AI for a few rounds in response to some feedback on the forums, which led to everyone saying "wait what the fuck, why the hell are we removing the AI that's retarded", which led to the confused admins pointing us to the FUCK THE AI thread. I guess I'll have to read all 5 pages of essays and walls of text to be able to fully understand it, but I really don't think many people actually want to remove the AI

Nobody wants to actually remove the AI, it's a part of the game that, if removed, would be far, far too hard to fill the void left by it. It would be like removing the entire bridge and all the jobs on it on box and leaving nothing in place but a hole to space. It would, in many ways, break the game, and especially for Ops, give them so much more freedom with how to spend their TCs due to not having to sink 50 on a borg to kill the AI.

This actually sounds like a pretty good argument in support of removing the AI.
With that said I wholeheartedly support the removal of the AI.

As do I, and if there was to be a longterm fix for the AIs omniscience, make it so they can't instantly jump to someone when they yell over the radio.

Alternatively, another, far more radical change would be to remove the AIs ability to bolt doors outside of malf, limiting them to lifting firelocks to block access. This may create problems, and would likely need to be trialed in some way before being tested on the server.

Removing the radio track wouldn't be too bad. They can still track via camera menu, but if the person speaking over comms has a mask on, or an agent ID, or so on...
Firelocks don't stop anyone with a crowbar, though - and everyone carries crowbars. A bolt delay like the track delay might work.

Miauw wrote:if i remove the ai will people let me remove ei nath? :^]

does ei nath shit on every other round regardless of roundtype?

The AI is going down, and I'm going to lead the charge.

lumipharon wrote:Jesus Christ people, there is a difference between disabling AI temporarily, and removing it from the code.

I advocated to disable the AI originally (and still do) to highlight the issues that mny antags have when it comes to AI's cockblocking them super hard.

Yes certain antags can get specific items dedicated purely to trying to avoid the cockblocker9000, but not all traitors have these, not all traitors should be EXPECTED to have these, and not all antags are traitors.

By removing AI for a few days or whatever, we should all be able to clearly see if there is a shift in antag behavior/freedom to do shit that would otherwise get shutdown immediatelly by the AI.

If nothing changes, then clearly the AI is not an issue, and people like me are talking out of our asses and are whinging crybabies.
If antags are able to do more interesting/diverse things, then clearly the AI IS an issue, and we can then take steps to address this.

This is exactly what I advocate. I enjoy the AI in this game, but think it'd be interesting to see what events transpire under a "no ai" rounds test.

You don't need to disable AI in the config, because there are already plenty of rounds every day where we have no AI. All you need to do is log in during the quiet hours and enjoy 20-player-no-AI and evaluate it for yourself.

A 20 pop round with no AI would be different from a round with high-pop. Turning it off would be the only way to ensure a fair test.

I look forward to post AI removal people being too proud or angry to swallow their own bullshit when it doesn't usher in a golden era.

OH PROTECT SEC FROM TRAITOR CREATES TRUST AND MAKES MORE PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY SEC! Insert sec still being treated like shit forever and officer devoid rounds popping up still.

i think you're taking this a little bit personally, incomptinence
have you tried taking deep breaths

Not that it is the topic of this thread but >implying removing traitorsec did not improv sec massively

Every other department manages to get work done (competence permitting) despite the threat of traitors disrupting them.

If the mere thought of working with a traitor who may be not even go loud makes your blood run cold this may not be the game for you.

At least the the people who want the AI gone are after something concrete rather than a bogeyman who pops up in one out of five or so solo baddie rounds only which even when we had a higher probability for them was not a lot so over 80% of the time if it was ruining your experience as security you were just a consummate worrywart.

And then there goes the Warden with the entire armoury in his pocket, staring by jumping the HoS, ending with the station depopulated.

Depopulated stations are something to strive against in the drat game. Notice traitors have been edged out so much by various combat nerfs it rarely happens outside of basil anyway via straight combat. Code singubaby sure easy.

PKPenguin321 wrote:i think you're taking this a little bit personally, incomptinence
have you tried taking deep breaths

well its kind of frustrating when your only reply is "b-but the ai shits on every roundtype...!" without any other reasoning, and now you're pulling the "lol calm down dude" thing? you're either stupider than i thought you were or just a really bad troll. or both.

here's the thing: the players who control the ai (or anything else) are different EACH ROUND. I'm interpreting the "le shitting on rounds :^((" argument as how they have the ability to shut down a traitor after finding them. maybe the one time that they stopped your ebin murderbone spree was an ai that was competent, cuz guess what: traitoring is not about shooting galleries. even the most robust player will probably get shut down if they go in guns blazing to try and accomplish their objectives. "but the ai bolted the door!!" the toolbox is what, 4 or 5 tc? or even free from tech storage. if you have a toolbox you basically have a full access pass to the station. or better, screwdriver and wirecutters, the bane of the ai. disable a camera and it can LITERALLY DO NOTHING TO YOU AT ALL.

if you get caught, you get caught; the round and server move on. the whole reason this is coming up in the first place is because a few people got butthurt about "the ai is op because i dunno how to hack doors," wrote up an essay on the forums with some big words to make it sound like they know what the fuck they're talking about, and started a huge circlejerk to the point where the admins actually tried taking the ai out for a few rounds because they thought that's what the community actually wanted, which made just about everyone on at the time say something along the lines of "removal of the ai is incredibly stupid and so are the people that want it removed." I remember when i first came here (not even all that long ago really) and issue like this would be summarily dealt with via a collective "gitgud" from the community. what the fuck happened?

im all for the ai being modified or possibly nerfed, but the whole thing with you chucklefucks actually wanting to REMOVE IT COMPLETELY NO QUESTIONS NO STOP TALKING WE WANT AI GONE NOW is a pretty good indicator that this is baseless butthurt from a few rounds where you fucked up and needed something to blame. so go ahead, keep going with your "calm down dood is just game xDDD" schtick, but learn that taking something out for "ruining" one of your traitor rounds is not reason enough to bitch and moan about wanting a key feature being removed.

Too many people believe that if you play without making any mistakes, you should never lose. Those people should consider what should happen if both sides play without making any mistakes. Luck has to play a part, and everyone has to get unlucky and lose soetimes. A skill difference might let you win more often, but you're never going to be completely immune to a lucky or skilled player in a powerful role shutting you down.

If the game is currently balanced in a way that stops interesting things from happening, that's a legitimate problem. But if the AI is shutting down traitor without shutting down any other mode, then the problem is with traitor, not with the AI.

To all the people who said "Just turn off AI for a few rounds, you'll see!!"

the admins did do that and it was near-universally agreed to be a bad thing

Shaps wrote:That's still like saying "we should just try out removing medbay for a little while to see how antags can do without it". AI's are so core to the game and they do so much other than dealing with antags that removing them "just to see what would happen", even temporarily, is taking away a huge chunk of content that people enjoy just to make things a bit easier for antags

Like completely removing the AI for several days is a bigger change than you seem to think

By other things you mean they open doors for you and occasionally make an obscene message through vox, right?

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:To all the people who said "Just turn off AI for a few rounds, you'll see!!"

the admins did do that and it was near-universally agreed to be a bad thing

It's called the initial butt hurt effect, any large change will suffer it.
Remember the UI change!

I'd advocate the AI off for a few days on the following conditions

- Bridge crew gets implemented as a replacement
- Security gets some kind of buff (Ballistic lethal side arm please)

Otherwise good luck being able to deal with a competent traitor. Seriously they have to intentionally fuck up for you to win.

what if *I like playing AI too and I don't think AI is the main problem of every failed traitor, but I do think in some ways the AI is unmatched. I like a few of these ideas, especially the force camera ones (and the remove the animation one)

Meaning you have to use scripts for departmental comms is just a knowledge gate: anyone who uses MAGNI (or similar) can function just as effectively, and anyone who doesn't, can't. The "jump to X person" is one of the AI's most used tools, as well - not only for finding shifty Unknowns, but for "AI DOOR". Forcing camera light on as well as animation seems a little redundant - how about just the camera lights? That way if you're feeling paranoid, you can switch off the lights, and if the camera lights up, you know you're being watched.

Remember that the AI can be used by traitors as well as against them - subversion, for example.

remove ntsl then