/tg/Station 13

Bottom post of the previous page:

so can drones make science or other department's shit

like if i wanna make an autocloner by the bridge or make my own RND lab in escape or a food stand with hydro trays or something is that kosher

i've been bwoinked for it before but others seem to do it fine so i dunno if the policy changed or if its just a per-admin basis

fanks

I think a critical point has been lost here and that might be partly my fault, early on.

90% of the time a drone bwoink is because they're doing something blatantly, obviously against their laws or blatantly, obviously disruptive.

The majority of the rest of what I said, and a lot of what's been discussed in this thread, while largely a consistent interpretation of the rules, is intended _as a guideline for you, the player, to keep from getting into situations where you end up blatantly, obviously violating your laws._

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.

There was a situation early in my adminhood where a drone created a singularity in maintenance, and did a pretty bang-up job about it (to start with). It did end up getting loose, and I did end up bwoinking them to talk about it, but they didn't get a note or a ban because they were able to explain what happened clearly and it was an obvious autism fort project and not an intent to disrupt.

The notes or bans I've made about drones:

* Someone attacked people and tried to turn themselves into a different creature with a staff of chaos, as a spawned-in (NOT polymorphed) drone.
* Someone repeatedly set off foam grenades and activated the slipper on a shuttle which happens to have a slipper installed.
* Someone attacked a cogscarab as a drone.
* Spammed comms as a drone.
* Became a miner and fought monsters on lavaland, as a drone.

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.

A couple of questions:

- Are non-sentient, non-pet vermin, such as randomly generated mice and cockroaches considered beings?
- If a crewmember repeatedly attempts to pick up a drone while it's working and chase it when it runs away, would a drone be allowed to emit a brief, bright light (i.e. use a flash) and skitter away?

Sligneris wrote:A couple of questions:

- Are non-sentient, non-pet vermin, such as randomly generated mice and cockroaches considered beings?
- If a crewmember repeatedly attempts to pick up a drone while it's working and chase it when it runs away, would a drone be allowed to emit a brief, bright light (i.e. use a flash) and skitter away?

yes, no

Sligneris wrote:A couple of questions:

- Are non-sentient, non-pet vermin, such as randomly generated mice and cockroaches considered beings?
- If a crewmember repeatedly attempts to pick up a drone while it's working and chase it when it runs away, would a drone be allowed to emit a brief, bright light (i.e. use a flash) and skitter away?

-I'm not sure why the first question needs to be asked. Why wouldn't they be?
-No, a drone should not be flashing people "in self defense" or any other slippery slope stunts.

cedarbridge wrote:

Sligneris wrote:A couple of questions:

- Are non-sentient, non-pet vermin, such as randomly generated mice and cockroaches considered beings?
- If a crewmember repeatedly attempts to pick up a drone while it's working and chase it when it runs away, would a drone be allowed to emit a brief, bright light (i.e. use a flash) and skitter away?

-I'm not sure why the first question needs to be asked. Why wouldn't they be?
-No, a drone should not be flashing people "in self defense" or any other slippery slope stunts.

You have a distinct advantage as a drone of being able to run over tables and ventcrawl, you shouldnt need to use a flash, or be carrying a flash at all for that matter.

Take people repeatedly bothering you while working as a sign to move on to another project for a bit, if they continually seek you out to fuck with you, consider adminhelping, you may be valid but rule 1 still applies and and an admin may feel pity and speak on your behalf.

Sligneris wrote:A couple of questions:
- If a crewmember repeatedly attempts to pick up a drone while it's working and chase it when it runs away, would a drone be allowed to emit a brief, bright light (i.e. use a flash) and skitter away?

You're asking if drones are allowed to stun beings

Like no dude

Ah, well.

Hoped the circumstances could possibly allow it, but I guess not.

living beings == /mob/living

And no that's interference I'm pretty sure, drones can never fight back with living beings afaik

"Can I (verb) a (being) as a drone if the (being) does (unimportant action performed by the being in question)?"

No unless the thing you're doing is some variant of "avoid" or "ignore"

Going to hijack this thread as a general drone policy one.

It's very frequent that someone would ask me to help with things and I have to weigh the risk between whether doing so would be considered technically becoming involved with them and risk a droneban, or them trying to kill me for ignoring them.
So it brings up the question, would it be it okay to fulfill a direct request from a non-drone as long as the task suits law 3? For instance requests like "Fix this broken thing" or "Help set up the engine" but obviously not things like "Weld me." or "Open this door for me."

Slignerd wrote:A couple of questions:

- Are non-sentient, non-pet vermin, such as randomly generated mice and cockroaches considered beings

- If a crewmember repeatedly attempts to pick up a drone while it's working and chase it when it runs away, would a drone be allowed to emit a brief, bright light (i.e. use a flash) and skitter away?

I'm fairly sure they show up as beings in the drone vision so yes
And flashing humans is clearly against drone laws even if it is in "self defense"

wouldnt that basically be like using the drone ping tool that engineers are given?

RandomMarine wrote:Going to hijack this thread as a general drone policy one.

It's very frequent that someone would ask me to help with things and I have to weigh the risk between whether doing so would be considered technically becoming involved with them and risk a droneban, or them trying to kill me for ignoring them.
So it brings up the question, would it be it okay to fulfill a direct request from a non-drone as long as the task suits law 3? For instance requests like "Fix this broken thing" or "Help set up the engine" but obviously not things like "Weld me." or "Open this door for me."

The only real reasonable workaround here is indirect statements. "Well, I don't have time to fix this so I sure hope there's drones around to do it." followed by drones moving in and fixing something would be fine. "Hey drone wire those solars or I'll smash you." is not something you do. 1) You're not a borg. You don't follow orders. If a crewperson is too retarded to know the difference you're probably in danger being around somebody so stupid as to be a danger to themselves. 2) Following direct orders necessarily requires you to interfere because you're literally doing whatever action it is the being wants you to do because you heard the command and now choose to follow it. 3) If somebody is trying to order drones around and threatening to violence them if they don't comply, said drones are perfectly equipped to escape such person and proceed to follow their directives away from the person in qestion.

So no. You should not be following direct orders from any non-drone being.

Remove drones.

Slignerd wrote:A couple of questions:

(...)
- If a crewmember repeatedly attempts to pick up a drone while it's working and chase it when it runs away, would a drone be allowed to emit a brief, bright light (i.e. use a flash) and skitter away?

Drone laws: Do not interact with beings
Your question: But can I do it anyway?

that is the most ebin negro i've seen in a long while

what if a free drone took orders from a being and told a normal drone to carry the orders out..

what if a normal drone told a free drone to kill someone

hm

imblyings wrote:what if a free drone took orders from a being and told a normal drone to carry the orders out..

what if a normal drone told a free drone to kill someone

hm

That's pretty easy.

Drones are not obligated to follow instructions from other drones.

A normal drone should not be telling anyone to kill anyone anyway.

just make it so if you listen to anyone speak or speak as a drone you get dronebanned

I'm favoring "if you look for loopholes in drone policy you get dronebanned"

Instead of starting another policy thread for one very specific instance of drone behavior, I'll just continue this one, since it's here. Convenience!

Anyway, regarding, specifically, the Derelict Drones and the Derelict pAI. It's always seemed odd to me that a pAI spawns at all on the derelict, an ordinarily very isolated location except for the drones who spawn there, and that the drones in question are in fact capable of accessing and downloading a pAI personality onto that pAI, if the drones are then forbidden from interacting in any way with that newly-downloaded pAI. This in spite of the fact that the pAI can immediately download the language module allowing them to speak with the drone responsible for their birth, and can't do anything productive to interfere in their efforts regardless. Also, the pAI's default chassis is drone-shaped. Coincidence, probably, but kind of helps underline the point here.

I'm not trying to say that drones should be running around on the primary station using pAIs as intermediaries to communicate with players, or that a drone should ever interfere with a pAI who's obviously busy interacting with/serving otherwise active players, but in this very specific instance of the Derelict Drones and pAI, is there an exception to be made? Should a drone be lectured for downloading a pAI and greeting them, only to have some spiteful ghost ahelp the drone for communicating with a non-drone being? Should an exception be made in this instance allowing for some fun tinybot interplay and camaraderie in an otherwise deserted and lonely corner of the game?

I picture it from a strictly RP perspective and see a space wanderer stumbling into the derelict, roaming through the darkness until encountering an assorted few tiny, scurrying robots who've only had each other as company for who knows how long, only to all scatter into the shadows at this sudden disruption of the companionship they've become accustomed to - I dunno, in my head it just seems cool to let the robots live on the abandoned station together, rather than forcing the three to ostracize the one because it's not technically the same as them.

Maybe shitters would just try to ruin it somehow, though. I'd like to hear what others think about this very singular instance of drone/non-drone interaction.

Drones are allowed to download and talk with pAI's. Using pAIs as a way around the human interaction rule is probably not okay though. If it's something like the drone saying to the pAI: "Damn, I wish that stupid biological being would move." and then the pAI calls the human a chumbis and tells him to move that'd be fine.

If it's like this:
Drone: "PAI, tell him to move."
PAI: "Human move."

Then that's not good.

Ispiria wrote:Anyway, regarding, specifically, the Derelict Drones and the Derelict pAI. It's always seemed odd to me that a pAI spawns at all on the derelict, an ordinarily very isolated location except for the drones who spawn there

The pAI on the derelict predates the drones by quite a bit.