/tg/Station 13

Bottom post of the previous page:

Started by https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/24550

It appears that drone laws and subsequent policy might need changes. I propose that we forbid drones from interacting with sentient beings only, instead of living things. This also means that interacting with borgs will be forbidden, under the previous laws, this was unclear.

Besides, all this means is that drones can do xenobio or mining, maybe milk a few cows, etc. There will be issues regarding simple mobs that gain sentience via pink slime extract or the random sentience event. But, they can always kill the drone, or say something which will let the drone know that the mob is sentient.

Thoughts?

Maybe it's time to drop the IC laws and just have a set of OOC explanations regarding what you can or can't do.

Did anyone ever change the original laws I wrote for drones? because I really expected them to get an overhaul and finalised into something else, I forget if that ever occurred.

imblyings wrote:Maybe it's time to drop the IC laws and just have a set of OOC explanations regarding what you can or can't do.

Considering the IC laws are "don't do anything bad and don't interact with anyone who isn't a drone" it probably couldn't hurt to make it clearer that

IF YOU BREAK THESE RULES YOU WILL MOST LIKELY GET DRONE BANNED

or something along those lines

There's also the middle ground of replacing the laws with IC text like all other ghost roles have, it doesn't need to be actually OOC as long as it's more clear and cut than laws.

Problem with the law format is that laws don't work very well as hard rules for ghost roles: laws are usually seen as something that can be interpreted and toe-lined because that's how people play silicons which are also bound by laws. But players also see ghost roles as something they can use to get the most out of a round after they died, limited only by the text they get when spawning. The obvious consequence is that they use drones to interact as much as possible with the round while dancing around law interpretation, because laws are the only thing they get when spawned. Laws can be interpreted, "fluff" text can't.

This thread is the living proof that the law format doesn't work to get the message across. Unless you actually want to change that message and give more freedom to drones, which isn't probably a good idea. Also, please make the drone dispenser deconstructable.

>more freedom to drones
did somebody say F R E E D R O N E

You literally can not interact with any other being, living or otherwise; so you can't touch that corpse, that cockroach, Ian, a borg, pAI, or really anything besides other drones and obvious inanimate objects that nobody else is using or is important

MSO ruled that pAIs are not beings.

InsaneHyena wrote:

You literally can not interact with any other being, living or otherwise; so you can't touch that corpse, that cockroach, Ian, a borg, pAI, or really anything besides other drones and obvious inanimate objects that nobody else is using or is important

MSO ruled that pAIs are not beings.

This is true

InsaneHyena wrote:

You literally can not interact with any other being, living or otherwise; so you can't touch that corpse, that cockroach, Ian, a borg, pAI, or really anything besides other drones and obvious inanimate objects that nobody else is using or is important

MSO ruled that pAIs are not beings.

Different now when pAIs can inhabit a moving mob with Kevinz pAI changes as well as being stuck in bots now, versus days of it being stuck as a sidekick; always dependent on someone holding it. As such things change and I feel drones really shouldn't be trying to summon pAIs. If MSO wants to continue that I have no quarrel, but as it stands now I feel they really shouldn't be touched by a drone.

Also I can't find where this ruling is or was. It isn't on the forums as far as I can tell.

Drones were always meant to be engiborgs mini, the idea thread even had concerns that best borg might lose value with drones.
Here is my (attempt at a) lawset to cement them in that position if the administration is willing to set it in stone:

1. You may never interact with an independent being, whose definition is:
An object of organic nature, composed of at least one cell, each cell possessing at least a membrane or nucleous.
or
A being designed or capable to willingly perform tasks without supervision or direct input.
2. You may never perform any action leading to damage to an indipendent being, regardless of intent or action.
3. Drones such as you are not indipendent beings and their sole reason of existance is to maintain, power and upgrade the station, never to act againsts its interests, repairing damage when necessary but never directly preventing it.

Things drones cannot do with this lawset:
interact with any player or npc
cooking
virology
toxins
mess with bots (they can still create them, but are not allowed to change their behavior.)
touch severed limbs

Things they still can do:
research
build mechs
engineering/atmos work
interact with any kind of machinery such as buttons, conveyor belts or ID consoles.

1: You may not mess with, bother, harass, steal from, hang around, or in any way interact with any human, nonhumans, silicons, or any other type of mob or being whatsoever under any circumstances. No, not even then.
2: You can do research and station jobs as long as it's not getting in the way of any of the above.
3: Rules-lawyering will result in remote-detonation or a ban from all ghost roles. If you think something's an edge case or might possibly be against these rules don't fucking do it
4: Build, repair, maintain, and improve the station to the best of your abilities
5: this isnt a second life you piece of shit

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:1: You may not mess with, bother, harass, steal from, hang around, or in any way interact with any human, nonhumans, silicons, or any other type of mob or being whatsoever under any circumstances. No, not even then.
2: You can do research and station jobs as long as it's not getting in the way of any of the above.
3: Rules-lawyering will result in remote-detonation or a ban from all ghost roles. If you think something's an edge case or might possibly be against these rules don't fucking do it
4: Build, repair, maintain, and improve the station to the best of your abilities
5: this isnt a second life you piece of shit

Law 3 should be law 1, to be honest

Not enough people go on the wiki and read rule 6

Simpler and less hostile lawset adapted from /vg/

1) You may only interact with things that have the same lawset as you.
2) Do no harm.
3) Improve and repair the station.

Unless the drone is somehow aware of the AI having a matching lawset (Autismov) they can only interact with other drones. "Interact" is a little easier to explain and understand than "interfere" since the latter assumes that the drone cannot get between the non-drone and some activity, where the former just limits out all interactions regardless of who initiates the contact.

And it will still be rules-lawyered around.

DemonFiren wrote:And it will still be rules-lawyered around.

Toe the line, get banned. Its not really a productive rules or policy discussion if the stock response to a rule or policy is "bad players will try to get around it." Just reduces every discussion to "Why bother having rules fight the man whoo"

cedarbridge wrote: Toe the line, get banned.

And this thread exists why?

Why do they have to be laws again? It's misleading in this format.

DemonFiren wrote:

cedarbridge wrote: Toe the line, get banned.

And this thread exists why?

Because somebody wanted to move the line where it was never intended to be.

ExcessiveCobblestone wrote:Why do they have to be laws again? It's misleading in this format.

1) Because drones are based on MoMMIs and those are functionally mini borgs with a lawset similar to autismov above.
2) Because they're non-human cybernetic critters that more or less look and behave like drones so its reasonably flavorful to have their limits in law format.

[See Cedarbridge's quote above]

I understand the RP aspect of having them laws, but the fact of the matter is you just can't cover situations with them and I don't think it's exactly fair to have them look like silicons, have a law format like silicons, then ban them when they dance around law interpretation just like silicons.

I mean, we're even treating this thread with the same silly minutia semantics that come with silicon policy. It should be made clear that the only thing similar to these little jerks and silicons are that they're made of metal. Making their rule format like silicons does not help.

If people are honestly unwavering about the lawset, at least have both initial flavortext briefly explaining the role and what is to be expected out of them AND the laws.

Ditching the silicon-esque laws and just have the spawn text inform players what they're allowed to do in a non-IC sense is a step in the right direction.

I still have a lot of issues with drones that go beyond rules and policy, but that's out of the scope of this thread.

we really need this rewrite

I just had a round with no less than 4 ahelps about drones, and then there were more things that may have went down I didn't see

Two of those ahelps, people misunderstood the laws and assumed since taking an esword on the ground isn't directly interference with a human it's okay

Consensus seems to be moving to an ooc explanation and dismissing the idea of laws completely. Do you have any reword thoughts or do you just want the current set of laws but as an OOC notification.

oranges wrote:Consensus seems to be moving to an ooc explanation and dismissing the idea of laws completely. Do you have any reword thoughts or do you just want the current set of laws but as an OOC notification.

DO NOT INTERFERE WITH THE ROUND AS A DRONE OR YOU WILL FACE [punishment]

Drones are a ghost role that are allowed to fix the station. Interfering with the round as a drone is against the rules. Actions that constitute interference include, but are not limited to:

• Taking important items (IDs, weapons, contraband, etc.)
• Interacting with living beings (communication, attacking, healing, etc.)
• Interacting with non-living beings (dragging bodies, looting bodies, etc.)
• Interacting with any non drone being in general
• Anything beyond fixing the station/building things

If you have to ask, the answer is most likely no.

that's just what came off the top of my head anyways

Since they're ooc rules, you may as well say "player-controlled" instead of living being to really drive the point across and avoid misunderstandings . You can't interact with player-controlled beings and NPCs unless they're other drones

You're not allowed to interact/interfere with non-player-controlled mobs either though. If you specify "player-controlled" you'll just end up with drones tooling up to fight carp.

"and NPCs"

It's mostly to avoid "But zombies/silicons/posibrains/miniantag-of-the-week aren't alive!" issues

(sorry for poor grammar)

*big bold red text, maybe with bwoink sound to really get the attention* READ THIS BEFORE PLAYING OR YOU WILL BE BANNED

*normal text* Congratulations, you're a drone! Drones are ONLY allowed to REPAIR and IMPROVE the station. You ARE NOT allowed to INTERACT or INTERFERE with other players, NPCs, simple animals and any other creature/being that isn't a drone. Interfering means doing anything that can affect other people's rounds in a meaningful way (e.g. taking important items, dragging bodies). As a drone, you are expendable, so expect people to destroy you if you even slightly inconvenience them. If this bothers you, you shouldn't play drone.
Follow these rules and you won't be banned. Probably. One last thing: have fun!

Maybe put the text in a pop-up or make a "I have read and understood this" button they have to press to actually take control of the drone

Grazyn wrote:(sorry for poor grammar)

*big bold red text, maybe with bwoink sound to really get the attention* READ THIS BEFORE PLAYING OR YOU WILL BE BANNED

*normal text* Congratulations, you're a drone! Drones are ONLY allowed to REPAIR and IMPROVE the station. You ARE NOT allowed to INTERACT or INTERFERE with other players, NPCs, simple animals and any other creature/being that isn't a drone. Interfering means doing anything that can affect other people's rounds in a meaningful way (e.g. taking important items, dragging bodies). As a drone, you are expendable, so expect people to destroy you if you even slightly inconvenience them. If this bothers you, you shouldn't play drone.
Follow these rules and you won't be banned. Probably. One last thing: have fun!

Maybe put the text in a pop-up or make a "I have read and understood this" button they have to press to actually take control of the drone

Too nice, I'll fix it for you for consistency

Grazyn wrote:(fuck grammar)

*big bold red text, maybe with bwoink sound to really get the attention* READ THIS BEFORE PLAYING OR YOU WILL BE BANNED

*big bold red text* You are a drone. Drones are ONLY allowed to REPAIR and IMPROVE the station. You ARE NOT allowed to INTERACT or INTERFERE with other players, NPCs, simple animals and any other creature/being that isn't a drone. Interfering means doing anything that can affect other people's rounds in a meaningful way (e.g. taking important items, dragging bodies). As a drone, you are expendable and worthless, so expect people to destroy you if you even slightly inconvenience them. If this bothers you, get your adminhelp rejected.
Follow these rules and you will be banned. Just not today. One last thing: fuck you

Maybe put the text in a pop-up or make a "I have read and understood this" button they have to press to actually take control of the drone

Grazyn wrote: Maybe put the text in a pop-up or make a "I have read and understood this" button they have to press to actually take control of the drone

If nothing else please include this

Then there is actually no excuse and we don't have to deal with grey areas or rule lawyering or whatever

This should be for every role that pulls a ghost tbh.

ExcessiveCobblestone wrote:This should be for every role that pulls a ghost tbh.

Only a few of the ghost roles (and one in planning) are specifically intended to interact with players and the station. At least two are specifically antagonistic.

ExcessiveCobblestone wrote:This should be for every role that pulls a ghost tbh.

What cedar said - it's not really necessary for most ghost roles

You can be specifically banned from drones for fucking up, but we don't ban people from being a xeno because of them eating people or something

I can't believe this is still going on. It's not very complicated.

1: Don't interact with any being - living, dead, or in between.
2: Don't act like a phagg0t.

I think that's enough to weed out non-hackers

cmspano wrote:I can't believe this is still going on. It's not very complicated.

1: Don't interact with any being - living, dead, or in between.
2: Don't act like a phagg0t.

I think that's enough to weed out non-hackers

this is too vague, if I droneban someone for taking an esword off the floor then id have to defend myself with rule 2, which would be annoying

I believe cobby was referring to the popup and explicit "I have read and understand these rules" bit, not the specific ruleset.

oranges wrote:I believe cobby was referring to the popup and explicit "I have read and understand these rules" bit, not the specific ruleset.

i believe citrus was correct

ExcessiveCobblestone wrote:

oranges wrote:I believe cobby was referring to the popup and explicit "I have read and understand these rules" bit, not the specific ruleset.

i believe citrus was correct

i believe i understand now

Question regarding drone laws:

Atmospherics and drones

If there is plasma in the atmosphere should drones change it? In theory it could be interfering with a human trying to flood the station with plasma. However they don't KNOW that without metaknowlege.

Catch 22 I guess.

Do you act on the metaknowlege that plasma is most likely caused by some sort of antagonist and not interfere with it
or
Do you act as a drone and notice a abnormality on the station that could cause potential problems and repair the station

starmute wrote:Question regarding drone laws:

Atmospherics and drones

If there is plasma in the atmosphere should drones change it? In theory it could be interfering with a human trying to flood the station with plasma. However they don't KNOW that without metaknowlege.

Catch 22 I guess.

Do you act on the metaknowlege that plasma is most likely caused by some sort of antagonist and not interfere with it
or
Do you act as a drone and notice a abnormality on the station that could cause potential problems and repair the station

This has been addressed before (in fact I think you asked this elsewhere and I replied to you)

OOC "do not interfere with the round" overrules any IC laws, so even if you can justify why messing with X doesn't break your IC laws, if it interferes with the round you'll still get in trouble

Attempting to do anything more than fix the damage a plasma leak causes will most likely get you a bwoink

in my head canon drones are beings more intelligent than spessmen and have exclusive 1gig up and down access to a big database of knowledge on what happens on a spess station, giving them the ability to rapidly and accurately guess at why there is plasma in the air

therefore it's not meta to follow the rules and not get drone banned

imblyings wrote:in my head canon drones are beings more intelligent than spessmen and have exclusive 1gig up and down access to a big database of knowledge on what happens on a spess station, giving them the ability to rapidly and accurately guess at why there is plasma in the air

therefore it's not meta to follow the rules and not get drone banned

truly the deepest of lore, though the idea of 1gig up/down being the highest tech in the future is funny to me

I guess we never evolved past google fibre (though I will admit wireless longdistance 1gb connection speeds isn't bad)

Qbopper wrote:

starmute wrote:Question regarding drone laws:

Atmospherics and drones

If there is plasma in the atmosphere should drones change it? In theory it could be interfering with a human trying to flood the station with plasma. However they don't KNOW that without metaknowlege.

Catch 22 I guess.

Do you act on the metaknowlege that plasma is most likely caused by some sort of antagonist and not interfere with it
or
Do you act as a drone and notice a abnormality on the station that could cause potential problems and repair the station

This has been addressed before (in fact I think you asked this elsewhere and I replied to you)

OOC "do not interfere with the round" overrules any IC laws, so even if you can justify why messing with X doesn't break your IC laws, if it interferes with the round you'll still get in trouble

Attempting to do anything more than fix the damage a plasma leak causes will most likely get you a bwoink

True but if you have set plasma to filter ahead of time or made the pipes so they will drain well... anyways yes you did address this but I do think there will be problematic grey areas that admins will have to address occasionally.

Yeah, unfortunately you're right, but with that new OOC message with the big red text there's zero excuse for people to do dumb stuff now

It won't stop them, but now "I wasn't aware there was a policy on drones outside of laws" isn't a valid excuse

So, if there was a recently patched up hole that I'm fixing after a bomb went off, I'm allowed to bring an oxygen canister in to re-oxygenate the room?

killerx09 wrote:So, if there was a recently patched up hole that I'm fixing after a bomb went off, I'm allowed to bring an oxygen canister in to re-oxygenate the room?

The way I see it, a room missing air pressure sets off an alarm. Air alarms say "hey, there's something wrong with the station here that needs to be fixed." Drones fix the station, so drones can bring air to resolve the air alarm in the area where they've patched a breach.

killerx09 wrote:So, if there was a recently patched up hole that I'm fixing after a bomb went off, I'm allowed to bring an oxygen canister in to re-oxygenate the room?

This is fine, you're fixing the station (as the state the station is in at round start is oxygenated and not exposed to space) - if the room was filled with plasma from a leak and you scrubbed it to refill the room with air there would be an issue

If you're not sure in game, just ahelp it, it's a lot easier for everyone if you ask first and get told "no" than it is to do something and get banned

On drones and cargo.

I've had a few cases where players have complained that drones are helping themselves to cargo points and ordering stuff. This should not be allowed and I've yelled at a few drones for it. In the interest of interesting gameplay and drones still being allowed to have fun while keeping to the spirit of the rules, drones should be allowed to place orders for crates at the public side request terminal where the cargo techs can approve or reject drone crate orders like they do normal crew orders. This way the drones are not directely interfering with the round/other beings while still getting that solars crate their drone nest needs. I see this as roughly the same sort of compromise we already have regarding drones and the R&D protolathe. If nobody else is using it, you can use it to make things you need. However, cargo's points are generally more precious than science's material supply so giving the QM/Cargo Techs the final say on if and when the drone's wanted crate arrives at the station (and then mysteriously disappears into maint while nobody is looking) makes this the best possible case.

On drones and cyborgs

I've witnessed some drone players printing Posibrains and Cyborg shells immediately after other Posibrains and borgs were blown. The player in question claimed that although they would stop printing Posibrains, printing and assembling Borg shells was not a breach in their laws.

Is this true?

D&B wrote:On drones and cyborgs

I've witnessed some drone players printing Posibrains and Cyborg shells immediately after other Posibrains and borgs were blown. The player in question claimed that although they would stop printing Posibrains, printing and assembling Borg shells was not a breach in their laws.

Is this true?

Don't take my word as gospel because I'm often wrong about this sort of thing, but if the drone ic reating borgs and finishing them so they become live I'd say that's a violation of the policy as a new borg can have an effect on the round

creating just the shells + posibrains and leaving them next to eachother but not assembling them would also strike me as an attempt to rules lawyer around the limitations

drones are meant to fix the station and build silly projects - creating sentient beings is not one of those two things

Alright cool now I can tell drone defenders to fuck off

D&B wrote:Alright cool now I can tell drone defenders to fuck off

I'd be more comfortable with people quoting me if I was backed up, this is how I interpreted the policy and a headmin may disagree so don't take what I say as 100% truth

I'm fairly certain most admins would agree but I'd rather cover my ass and make it clear that's just what I understand to be the case