Yet another Drone Policy thread
Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 2:23 pm
Bottom post of the previous page:
I was told that this is probably better as a policy discussion, so here goes nothing. I've been playing a lot of drone recently but after recent events I've realized I knew less about what is expected of drones than I thought I did, even after reading through a few threads on the forums about drone policy. There seem to by many policies involving drones which are not listed on the forums OR wiki OR in the drone rules/laws. For example, how drones aren't supposed to interact with random event spawned objects; i.e. anomalies(you're not supposed to interact with them, which I didn't know until I was told recently by an admin, and I can't find a thread about said policy). Or for example, if kudzu was defined as a being, the only discussion I've found since was this thread from Or how "beings" as written in the drone laws is defined, when the only concrete definition I can find was kevinz000's post from almost a year ago: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... ng#p337381(to translate, Living beings are equal to /mob/living which is apparently not true according to an admin)kevinz000 wrote:living beings == /mob/living
MSO's ruling that pAIs are not defined as beings for the purpose of drone laws (which I can't find and the only proof is a few forum posts confirming it)
and the drone laws itself stating that drones can interact with other drones. In the end, after looking through several threads, I still have no idea what beings as stated in drone laws encompass. Here's a list of previous drone policies that I managed to find if anyone cares:
Spoiler:
The second issue I have is with the rules written in the drone spawn message. For clarity, here are the drone's current laws and rules:
Laws:
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"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. Your goals are to build, maintain, repair, improve, and provide power to the best of your abilities, You must never actively work against these goals."
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DO NOT INTERFERE WITH THE ROUND AS A DRONE OR YOU WILL BE DRONE BANNED
Drones are a ghost role that are allowed to fix the station and build things. Interfering with the round as a drone is against the rules.
Actions that constitute interference include, but are not limited to:
- Interacting with round critical objects (IDs, weapons, contraband, powersinks, bombs, etc.)
- Interacting with living beings (communication, attacking, healing, etc.)
- Interacting with non-living beings (dragging bodies, looting bodies, etc.)
These rules are at admin discretion and will be heavily enforced.
If you do not have the regular drone laws, follow your laws to the best of your ability.For example, this happened in a rather recent round:
Just to be clear, this is how I've always played drone, I see a screaming SM, I fix it; I see the CE testing out a new meme gas mix, I avoid. But yet by trying to act according to my laws, I have probably broken the rules. Now I didn't get bwoinked for this, but with hindsight It could have totally been possible if the tator player ahelped it. If I wasn't fixing the SM, then the Borg and AI might not have been able to repair it in time and the SM would have blown. But then, it is very hard for a drone to determine what is or isn't interference by only using IC knowledge, considering that the only information a standard drone gets are from human chatter, other drones, atmos alarms, non-drone pings, and binary chat. I carry a station bounced radio when playing a drone so I can get a little more info regarding issues on the station or areas to avoid and even that's not enough sometimes.A traitor geneticist gets hulk, cold resist and chem grenades. He attacks engineering with the intent of destabilizing the engine, and punches his way through a few wall into the engine. He tosses a rather under-powered grenade at the bottom of the SM chamber. Breaking a few walls and the cooling loop filters then hides out of sight. .
Most of this goes unnoticed by me as a drone until an atmos alarm in the engine pops up in chat. I go to investigate, and finds a hole in the engine where the SM chamber walls and filters are supposed to be, so I repair them.(according to my laws)
The alarms also attracts the attention of a Engie Borg and the AI, who comes to check out what's happening to the engine.
The geneticist, possibly having xray vision or sensing that the SM is taking too long to blow, comes charging back in with another grenade, this time he attacks the top of the SM chamber, breaking the airlocks and many parts of the cooling loop, including scrubbers. I run away to avoid interference with another being. (again according to my laws)
In the meantime, I overhear on the binary channel that the AI notices that the traitor is hulk, and therefore not human, sends the borg to subdue him.
I return after a while, and seeing that there's no one around start to repair the now almost overloaded engine. (provide power to the best of your abilities)
The Borg comes back to the SM after a while, but have little idea how to fix such a damaged engine(doing several very unwise things, but that's not really important)
In the end I had to pull out all the tricks I had for stabilizing the engine (following the law "repair, improve, and provide power to the best of your abilities") I managed to stabilize the engine long enough for the shuttle to come and leave (this is what the engine looked like roundend https://imgur.com/a/d0qvAvY)
I've been asked to roleplay drone as a dumb little robot who can only discern if a wall is supposed to be there or not. Trying to roleplay as such creates a paradox in what a drone should do, and this leads into questions like "Can I reset APCs after a powernet failure?", "replace lights after the overload event?" "Can I set air alarms to contaminated as that is an upgrade from filtering?" "Can I repair broken walls of the SM?". After all, any action that "build, maintain, repair, improve and provide power" will interfere the round somehow, perhaps causing a tator to fail his objectives. For example: Repairing a wall that a traitor was using to gain illicit access, or setting up the SM that the tator engineer left off so the shuttle could be called due to lack of power, or optimizing the waste gas loop rendering someones N2O leak ineffective, or another thousand billion possibilities.
I feel like a rewrite of the Drone Spawn Message is in order. As it is now, the player gets a contradicting message on how to play drone. For admins, ""DO NOT INTERFERE WITH THE ROUND AS A DRONE OR YOU WILL BE DRONE BANNED" sends a very strong message, what would a new admin think if he sees that? more likely than not he's gonna see that and diligently ban players who made a honest mistake, all because a line that was written as a bandaid fix has now become LAW. What should be done in the case of issues regarding drones according to a previous headmin is:
Source: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 79#p334934imblyings wrote: The crew will benefit from autocloners but they will too from a big breach being fixed. A drone diligently and quickly fixing such a breach may be the difference between a shuttle call or not. I think context should help an admin in making a decision here. If there is a mountain of bodies in genetics due to a murderboner and a drone builds an autocloners in genetics or it's cult and a drone builds an autocloner in the brig? Over the line and admins can use escalating responses from advice and deletion of the built stuff to other things, since there's a very real intent to shape the round. If it's a quiet round and autocloners are one of a few things that the drone is building? Why not?
Admins should judge intent very carefully I think
And from an admin(Snipped for clarity):
Source: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 79#p335996feem wrote: ...
90% of the time a drone bwoink is because they're doing something blatantly, obviously against their laws or blatantly, obviously disruptive.
...
The likelihood of me giving you a note or a drone ban because you fixed a gaping hole in the bridge is pretty low, unless you actively and intentionally attempt to sabotage whatever the antag is doing at that moment.
...
The point I'm making here is that the strict letter of the law is what's spelled out in your drone laws: Don't intentionally interact, don't mess with a round-critical object, and don't sabotage.
The rest of it is _suggestions based upon admin experience_ to make sure you don't inadvertently violate those laws.
It doesn't mean 'you will be bannu' without review of the situation, or shouldn't.
I suggest that if drone policy is staying the way it is, that the IC laws should be removed, and reworked directly into OOC rules; while rewording so that the message isn't "GO DIRECTLY TO BAN, DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200" at the very least. But honestly what I would like to see more is a change in the way in how drone policy is enforced. Move the focus back onto the Laws, and admins judging intent more regarding drones.
If a someone spawns as a drone after getting killed by an antag just so they can fuck with said antag? Fine, give them a warning and move to notes and bans as necessary if this behaviors continues. Someone who started early into the round as drone doing some repairs that might be considered interfering? tell them through messages in their head that they should stop, I very highly doubt that a player with good intentions in mind would continue what they were doing in this case. After all, isn't this how silicon policy is usually enforced?
On another note, I feel like the "protection" policy that antag actions get from drones should be reconsidered. Like I've said, it's hard for a well meaning drone to tell the difference between malice, incompetence, neglect, ignorance or plain batshit crazycoughSidEchardscough regarding something like the SM. Besides, Drones have very little hp, and there are many methods in game now to deal with them, including but not limited to: telling the AI to blow them, EMPs and other weaponry, spacing them(good luck getting back to the station without being able to throw shit) and so forth. It should be trivial for antags to counteract drones repairing sabotage with all the tools they have at their disposal. This way, there would be at least some form of RP between the oblivious little drone and the blood thirsty traitor
Donno how this became an essay, but I love playing drone and I believe that it can be a role that could benefit the whole station and other's playing experiences.There seem to be a sentiment that drones are "banbait" and I hope that could be alleviated in some way. I feel like current drone policy has lead less and less people to even bother loading up the metal and glass needed into the dispenser, and that would be a shame, because we'll loose out on awesome projects like this: https://track8.mixtape.moe/olzbtt.webm