Roundstart AI bolting/reinforcement

[subject217]

I've had discussions with several different admins about this and the wording of this rule is somewhat strange so I thought it was suited for a policy thread. Repeatedly as a player I've run into AI players who will turn the AI sat into Fort Knox at roundstart: Bolts on all airlocks within the AI sat, and shutters/blast doors enabled both on the AI sat and on the entrance to the transit tube that leads to the AI sat (like on Meta or Delta ). Here's what the rules say about roundstart bolting for AIs:

1. You must not bolt the following areas at round-start or without reason to do so despite their human harm potential: the Chemistry lab; the Genetics Lab; the Toxins Lab; the Robotics Lab; the Atmospherics division; the Armory. Any other department should not be bolted down simply for Rule 1 reasons.
2. The core and upload may be bolted without prompting or prior reason. The AI core airlocks cannot be bolted and depowered at roundstart however, unless there is reasonable suspicion an attack on the core will take place.

The specific wording here is "The core and upload". A separate part of the rules also allows the AI to keep Secure Tech Storage bolted at roundstart. The AI core is only the immediate area that the AI subsides in and the one airlock that leads into it. However, most AI players go well beyond that. Should this be enforced? Personally, it's quite obnoxious when one tries to go to Telecomms as an engineer on Metastation and he is blocked by blast doors, 4 bolted airlocks, and stun turrets.

In other parts of the rules it is mentioned multiple times that the AI cannot bolt things down because of the *security risk* if it's an area that's actually used by people to do their jobs. IMO, Meta tcomms meets this prerequisite and enforcement of this rule should be changed, at least on Metastation.

[Lazengann]

Roundstart bolting is fun for nobody so I don't support it

[Cobby]

If you can't unwrench a certain valve because of le epic ai then le epic ai shouldn't be able to preemptively bolt/depower areas.

[oranges]

this is just another indication of why metastation is poorly mapped

[Anonmare]

I bolt the Armoury if there's no warden or HoS and there's less than 3 officers because the immediately emag into armoury and murderbone literally everyone meme was funny precisely once.

Besides, bolts are no obstacle for emags anymore. Bring a screwdriver/crowbar/wrench you lazy prats.

[somerandomguy]

Roundstart bolting is fun for nobody so I don't support it

It's more fun for the crew than having to deal with a rogue AI because a traitor got their hands on the upload board

[Anonmare]

To be honest, that rule is a legacy and needs an update. We have door remotes and the aforementioned emags to make a joke out of bolts now, the only counter to them is to bolt+depower which is already against the rules.

Plus you can break airlocks with guns, any sufficiently strong melee weapon or blast your way in with ghetto chem/IEDs.

[DemonFiren]

Holy shit why is this a problem.
Law 2 or git gud.

[Steelpoint]

Tell the AI to unbolt the doors, if you have legitimate authority (Read, Captain or RD) then it has no choice but to do so.

Being on topic more so. I am personally against extreme boltings of the entire AI Sat at round start (without any real reason to do so) since I feel it's being done in poor sport. The AI Sat should be providing reasonable enough interior defence that going full Bolt spam should be initially unnecessary

This is further emphasized that the majority of attempts I see to attack or disable the AI come from outside the Sat. No on in their right mind is going to attack the AI through the middle of the AI Sat, having to run through dozens of turrets, shock+bolted doors, plasma filled/no pressure rooms, rogue Securitrons and exploding machines is suicidal. Everyone now just breaks in from outside the Sat.

Attacks to the AI are either...

• From Outside
• Via teleporting (Wizard, etc)
• Sending a Borg to kill the AI

Fact of the matter is there is no genuine possible threat that can sneak into the Sat that will be stopped by bolting the doors. So doing it preemptively is not only a waste of time but accomplishes nothing.

Bolting the doors is only useful for stopping a legitimate authority (Capn, RD) from entering the Sat.

[DemonFiren]

If it accomplishes nothing and forces people who claim to be legitimate to identify themselves what's the harm?

[Steelpoint]

Because the round start configurations of the AI Sat (should) demand the authority to identify themselves irrespective due to the turrets and other obstacles blocking their route to the AI, furthermore the AI should be quick to figure out someone has entered their Sat and ascertain their identity.

[Anonmare]

There's a few seconds of delay on motion-cameras now. I've legit seen people get far enough to disable turret control and run in fast enough to short-circuit the foyer turrets' APC before the AI noticed someone was on the sat on metastation.

All it takes is someone being fast enough to render all those defences moot - especially if they have an EMP which is super trivial to make these days. Everyone can get easy access to uranium now, even the janitor only has to go to the service lathe, access the material storage and fart out as much uranium and iron as he pleases to make an EMP nade and literally laugh his way inside an unbolted AI Sat.


If you do not take every single advantage you have on the sat, you will get fucked harder in the ass than Sasha Grey does for $10,000 and it's still not always enough.

[Malkraz]

Literally 1 wire pulse or a Law 2 request wtf nerf bolts

[Yakumo_Chen]

You can beat any AI with a source of EMP and a hand tele, even just the armoury gun. I disable annoying AIs all the time by just spam teleporting to a beacon until the RNG makes a portal in the wall and EMPing the other side.

[BeeSting12]

It's not about how easy it is to beat, it's about the fact that it's powergaming. As AI, I bolt nothing roundstart unless asked to because it's funner that way. A borg can easily bypass a manual valve but it's still against the rules to use them.

[Malkraz]

I bolt upload and secure tech storage because they're secure areas with no immediate department ownership (e.g armory) and can lead to some pretty bad shit very early in the round. I do the same with sat for self protection but most naughties go right through the wall behind the PSU anyway so it's more of a "slow down bucko" deal.

[DemonFiren]

It's not about how easy it is to beat, it's about the fact that it's powergaming. As AI, I bolt nothing roundstart unless asked to because it's funner that way. A borg can easily bypass a manual valve but it's still against the rules to use them.

>it doesn't offer any real protection
>but it's powergaming

[Cobby]

It's not about how easy it is to beat, it's about the fact that it's powergaming. As AI, I bolt nothing roundstart unless asked to because it's funner that way. A borg can easily bypass a manual valve but it's still against the rules to use them.

>it doesn't offer any real protection
>but it's powergaming

It doesn’t offer any real protection if you have the appropriate tools*

Otherwise people wouldn’t bolt stuff fnr lol

[Anonmare]

At least bolting the satellite at least gives you a chance to catch an unsynced borg zipping straight in, shutting off the APC and GG no reing you. It gives you that precious second it spends undoing the bolt for the hecking motion-cam to realise someone's there and, by extension, you to at least shout out a warning. You won't get revived though, nobody revives AIs.

[WarbossLincoln]

precious seconds to ctrl click something? The borg probably doesn't even have to stop moving at all.

Honestly I'm never alerted by the motion sensors on the satellite, I'm alerted by sounds. The only sounds you'll hear as AI are things happening within about 1 room of your core. If you here anything hit the teleport to core button. The only time I ever see the motion sensor before hearing something is if they linger in the teleporter room for whatever reason.

[Qbmax32]

The ai sat defense sucks hard balls already, no point in neutering it more

[WarbossLincoln]

IMO you should be allowed to do anything to secure your sattelite/core that's pre built at round start. bolts, shutters, whatever. Don't have an engie borg build a fortress 4NR at round start, but if it starts there let them do it. It's a lot different than them bolting the armory.

[zxaber]

Emagging a bolted door leaves it bolted, so there's good reason to perhaps want to keep the two most important rooms to the AI's livelihood as such.

The shutters on the AI's sat are a bit of a crap shoot; they're much better at stopping an intruder, in that the intruder can't just hack their way through it and will have to deconstruct a R-wall (or three, if they decide to just tunnel through an outer wall). It also stops unsynced/rogue borgs from waltzing in and just shutting off your power before you can react with a flash. On the other hand, if you happen to have an emergency, or some other AI is shutting off your power or something, your loyal borgs can't reach you easily unless they're engineering and are willing to destroy an R-wall. Bolting all of the satellite sounds a bit paranoid, and is quite rude on meta where telecomms is south of the AI, but I'll usually bolt the right-hand (back door) entrance as a way of discouraging people to sneak in the back or something I dunno. Bolting the whole satellite on Box sorta makes sense seeing as how it's almost built as a fortress anyway (complete with that long "death room" hallway), and Delta puts the AI and upload in the same area so you might as well just bolt the whole thing down.

The upload's more of a non-issue. With the storage AI upload board generally being easy to get to, and the ability for more to be printed from various places after research, it's fairly easy to work around the upload being bolted. On the other hand, emagging into the upload is a dangerous game, because fucking everyone will know due to the placement of the thing (on meta, anyway), so you might not need to worry about emag break-ins.

re-enforcing with new walls is kinda power-gamey, but extra walls either block turret shots or else make it obvious from the outside that the AI is expecting company and so I don't think either are great strategies anyway.

[Anonmare]

You can crowbar open the shutters by turning off environmental power in the area they're in FYI

[somerandomguy]

You can crowbar open the shutters by turning off environmental power in the area they're in FYI

How do you get to the APC though when it's in the AI core

[Anonmare]

On meta, it's the APC in foyer (outside the AI core) that powers the shutter. The AI core APC powers the buttons that control the shutter but the shutter itself is powered by a different APC

[RogueSteampunker]

I mean, literally just bolt upload, sat, and secure storage if you're feeling extra frisky, no? Cause afterall, AI rounds are varied in regards to situation, but one of the only constants is bolting your own stuff up in case someone tries to undo your laws. Anything else is situational, and usually not play roundstart unless it's to prevent the "no sec and emagging into armory" shtick.

Really, if we're trying to tell the motionless AI core that it can't bolt its own doors cause that's powergaming, we've got a problem on our hands.

[Anuv]

AI shouldn't be able to roundstart bolt upload/SS without legit threats change my mind

[somerandomguy]

AI shouldn't be able to roundstart bolt upload/SS without legit threats change my mind

Emag in and subvert roundstart

[Togopal]

AI shouldn't be able to roundstart bolt upload/SS without legit threats change my mind

Emag in and subvert roundstart

Emagging a bolted door permanently locks it

[somerandomguy]

AI shouldn't be able to roundstart bolt upload/SS without legit threats change my mind

Emag in and subvert roundstart

Emagging a bolted door permanently locks it

Which is why you bolt the upload, so people can't subvert you
It also blocks tiders who stole the spare

[Anuv]

AI shouldn't be able to roundstart bolt upload/SS without legit threats change my mind

Emag in and subvert roundstart

You can't reinforce/bolt armory/toxins/chem roundstart

[somerandomguy]

AI shouldn't be able to roundstart bolt upload/SS without legit threats change my mind

Emag in and subvert roundstart

You can't reinforce/bolt armory/toxins/chem roundstart

They can't spiral into a shuttle call from being in there for 5 seconds

[Yakumo_Chen]

I dunno why you would bolt upload roundstart, being subverted is fun. I only bolt down my AI core door so that some douche can't just walk right in without at least the most basic modicum of efforts.

I think armoury bolting is fine if the department is completely barren (as in lowpop) and I'll keep stuff like assistants / the lawyer out because muh harm.

I think the AI sat on Meta is poorly designed though. Hell, AI defense would be made 1000% more secure by just moving the AI core APC to behind the AI.

[Lumbermancer]

I dunno why you would bolt upload roundstart, being subverted is fun.

Of course self-antaging is fun

[Denton]

I dunno why you would bolt upload roundstart, being subverted is fun.

Of course self-antaging is fun

Isn't the whole point of playing silicon to get subverted so you can start killing people?

[Lumbermancer]

I play AI to make antag lives as miserable as I possibly can.

[DemonFiren]

I play AI to make antag lives as miserable as I possibly can.

I know this is supposed to be bait to balance out the "I play AI to self-antag" above but
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[Malkraz]

I think this style of play only becomes a problem when it's a part of a set of behavior among certain AI players, specifically the type that will stall to inform security that you just law 2'd them to open tech storage for some insuls or some other innocuous shit, and then immediately close the door behind you giving sec ample time to tell them not to open it so they can ignore your conflicting request. It's absolute shittery and in my opinion AI's who try to play SecurEye 3000 (unless ordered to/have an appropriate lawset) should catch jobbans because it goes against the spirit of the role. It's important to make an effort to carry out every action as neutrally as possible to ensure the game is still fun for both the crew and the antagonists. Bolting secure areas and the satellite to protect yourself are both important, but not so important that you should disregard the golden rule of Neutrality and cuck players out of their round completely. You aren't here to "win" the station.

[BeeSting12]

not even gonna lie i dont bolt anything because its a lot funner to get subverted than to play asimov validhhunter. if i wanted valids id go HoS and kill people

[BeeSting12]

I think the AI sat on Meta is poorly designed though. Hell, AI defense would be made 1000% more secure by just moving the AI core APC to behind the AI.

the station is meant to be a metal deathtrap not a properly designed space station.

[Lumbermancer]

I play AI to make antag lives as miserable as I possibly can.

I know this is supposed to be bait to balance out the "I play AI to self-antag" above but
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>bait
Son...let me quote you my notes...

[DemonFiren]

I mean, I always knew you were a shitler, but a shitler this big?

[Lumbermancer]

You're only strengthening my resolve.

[DemonFiren]

I mean, it's not like it really matters to me, I don't play anyway.
That, and your style might suit current /tg/.

[Lumbermancer]

You mean style completely opposite of meta? That's the whole point.

[Anonmare]

This thread has run its course.

[Yakumo_Chen]

I think the AI sat on Meta is poorly designed though. Hell, AI defense would be made 1000% more secure by just moving the AI core APC to behind the AI.

the station is meant to be a metal deathtrap not a properly designed space station.

Poorly designed maybe but it shouldn't be so poorly designed as to make it miserable for an AI player to exist on Meta because AI defense is needlessly underwhelming. The turrets are useless if you can just shoot a single ion bolt straight ahead into the AI core chamber to GG NO RE the AI.

It's a metal deathtrap, yes, but that's precisely the reason why the AI gets a large quarantined box in space full of deadly turrets. Almost every other station has much more competently designed AI Sats.

Especially box, which not only has a turret room entry point (with turrets that can shoot anyone standing next to the turret controls), but it also has a kill room hallway with the APC behind a glass wall (can't be ion gun'd without going through the glass or rwalls) and the inner core chamber has even more protection to prevent a front entry while giving the turrets free line of fire.

Meanwhile Meta has only rooms protecting the AI entry, BOTH of which have APCs in a direct line of fire from the doorway of the entry room, making it almost incompetently easy to defeat an AI by opening the door and shooting the APC from out of turret range. Meta is supposed to be the map with more powerful goodies for all roles as well, but shafts the AI as hard as possible. I think Delta has a similar problem but has a slightly more robust AI core then meta anyway.

[Anonmare]

Did you try calling for help?

Not really viable if you are the antagonist, not even security are dumb enough to arrest the people trying to stop you from blowing the place up.

[Anonmare]

Still relies on you having a cyborg or an AI shell which isn't guaranteed and other traitors will probably kill you than work with you.
And MULEbots can't be directed like normal bots or travel through transit tubes/space/teleporters

If there was a malf power to just buy a customisable AI shell, it'd be fine but there isn't one, not that it matters since EMPs are hyper-deadly to AIs and more abundant than they've ever been.

You don't even need to EMP the AI core, you only need to hit its APC really. Since EMPs pulse wires, an EMP'd APC will be turned off for ~2 minutes and if they EMP the SMES as well - you're already dead, you just don't know it yet. Since an EMP will deplete an entire power cell in an APC and toggle the SMES output off, and you can't turn it back on without being powered by an APC.