/tg/Station 13

I regularly play derelict drone and head station-side, primarily because there is literally not enough resources to do anything of note on the derelict. But I also head station-side because drone's were my favorite ghost role and their removal was unexpected, unexplained and unpopular.

I quite literally play as a drone should, I fix the station, do small building projects, make repairs, and power the station. I am careful to double check if I am fixing something that might be intentional sabotage and I make sure to not trap people in places by fixing things and such.

Typically I only get praised when I am a drone, and because getting to the station is such a hassle and I only have functionally 1 life as a drone, I tend to be even more cautious about what is going on around me as to not become worth killing.

I have gotten mixed messages about derelict drones, I have never had issues coming station-side for several months until a recent round. In which I was told I shouldn't leave it.

I have three issues here. 1. Why were drones removed in the first place and not improved in some way. 2. What is the policy on derelict drones heading to the station to just act like a drone. and 3. What are the purpose of derelict drones, considering the station they start on has absolutely shit all for resources to build anything.

Sounds like we need to remove derelict drones now too.

are you the retard that keeps coming to the station as a derelict drone?

congratulations faggot, you'll get them removed.

Drone removal was done via the codebase, not by admins/headmins, so you'd want to check the PR that removed them for the reasoning. I will note however that from conversations I've had, maintainers are generally unhappy with people who insist that a feature could be "improved in some way" but make no efforts to do any work in that vein themselves.

While there's no specific policy on the derelict drone heading to the station, there's been a pretty consistent precedent that ghost roles that start off-station should not make a beeline for the station. If you ~somehow~ do end up on the station it should really only be to pick up materials to repair the derelict, not to act like a drone for the main station.

The purpose of the derelict drone, as I understand it, is to repair, improve and maintain the derelict station. More OOCly, I believe its purpose is to give players a chance to experiment/learn about broken down/damaged stations in a controlled environment.

As ned and Bluespace have said, going to the station in general is very likely to end up with the derelict drone removed or forbidden from leaving the derelict via code rather then policy, so barring exceptional circumstances I wouldn't advise doing it.

I was actually told directly by Jimm in voice to refuse you as a derelict drone from coming to the station. It's the closest we have to official rulings as we have.

If you're willing to awkwardly float one tile at a time for twenty minutes just so you can fix a chewed wire then go for it I don't care

lmwevil wrote:I was actually told directly by Jimm in voice to refuse you as a derelict drone from coming to the station. It's the closest we have to official rulings as we have.

Yeah it is the first ruling of the sort Ive been given, not complaining, just wondering why it popped up now.

On the subject of derelict drones on the derelict, the Old-station survivors are better suited for learning how to fix and build things, as they come with both materials and parts for an engine. Derelict drones dont have enough on the derelict to build anything of note. I am not even sure there is enough metal on that thing to make it air tight. not that it would matter because you cant make any air.

I would rather they be removed if me playing one life drone is such a problem in their current state. There used to be a teleporter on the derelict for awhile then it was removed to become its own ruin. It and the chapel mass driver were the only powered parts of the derelict to start with, which kind of gives a "use these to leave" vibe to those that spawn in to be honest.

On a side note, Im going to look up how to map and see if I cant put an SM and materials into the derelict. It would be the perfect place for experimentation and would give the derelict drones more of a purpose.

The mapping process looks intimidating as fuck however.

>SM
>in the derelict
No. The derelict needs a singularity. It's an old station, it needs an old engine.
Actually, that might make sense. Derelict drones are good for construction autism and learning shit that you usually won't build stationside, why not offer an opportunity to learn how to set up the better engine?

Isn't the text on the drone to improve the station.

You're leaving the station you're supposed to repair to go somewhere else more fun.

You need to stop doing that or you're going to end up either drone-banned or all drones are removed.

it doesn't say which station you're supposed to improve, though

but for real
>to go somewhere else more fun
what, are we not allowed to have fun now? victimless fun that benefits all players?

DemonFiren wrote:but for real
>to go somewhere else more fun
what, are we not allowed to have fun now? victimless fun that benefits all players?

No because thats not what ghost roles are for.

If you want to have fun on the fun station then you spawn as a station member or a ghost role that spawns on station (positronic brains, sentient mice, etc).

It's not hard.

Dr_bee wrote:I regularly play derelict drone and head station-side, primarily because there is literally not enough resources to do anything of note on the derelict. But I also head station-side because drone's were my favorite ghost role and their removal was unexpected, unexplained and unpopular.

I quite literally play as a drone should, I fix the station, do small building projects, make repairs, and power the station. I am careful to double check if I am fixing something that might be intentional sabotage and I make sure to not trap people in places by fixing things and such.

Typically I only get praised when I am a drone, and because getting to the station is such a hassle and I only have functionally 1 life as a drone, I tend to be even more cautious about what is going on around me as to not become worth killing.

I have gotten mixed messages about derelict drones, I have never had issues coming station-side for several months until a recent round. In which I was told I shouldn't leave it.

I have three issues here. 1. Why were drones removed in the first place and not improved in some way. 2. What is the policy on derelict drones heading to the station to just act like a drone. and 3. What are the purpose of derelict drones, considering the station they start on has absolutely shit all for resources to build anything.

I law 2 the AI to blow you if I ever see you. Stay on the derelict before you actually get them removed.

Arianya wrote:

DemonFiren wrote:but for real
>to go somewhere else more fun
what, are we not allowed to have fun now? victimless fun that benefits all players?

No because thats not what ghost roles are for.

If you want to have fun on the fun station then you spawn as a station member or a ghost role that spawns on station (positronic brains, sentient mice, etc).

It's not hard.

it's officially confirmed, ghost roles are not allowed to have fun
don't ever play derelict drone if you want to have fun
you're here to do hard work no one will ever see

DemonFiren wrote:

Arianya wrote:

DemonFiren wrote:but for real
>to go somewhere else more fun
what, are we not allowed to have fun now? victimless fun that benefits all players?

No because thats not what ghost roles are for.

If you want to have fun on the fun station then you spawn as a station member or a ghost role that spawns on station (positronic brains, sentient mice, etc).

It's not hard.

it's officially confirmed, ghost roles are not allowed to have fun
don't ever play derelict drone if you want to have fun
you're here to do hard work no one will ever see

Careful lizard you're posting in a fine fashion to be put on post approval.


My own view on this is that derelict drones should not be jetting off to the station every round. In the same vein people who spawn in Charlie (Old) Station and immediately fuck off after getting the space suit should also not be doing so. An improvement of the derelict to give the drones more repairs/building materials would certainly be something that I'd like to see

Arianya wrote:Drone removal was done via the codebase, not by admins/headmins, so you'd want to check the PR that removed them for the reasoning. I will note however that from conversations I've had, maintainers are generally unhappy with people who insist that a feature could be "improved in some way" but make no efforts to do any work in that vein themselves.

It's an odd thing to bring up the separation between codebase and admins when the only reason cited for their removal was that, I quote: "the role is designed for a higher standard of play than everything else. Admins are unable to enforce that consistently and miss bad behaviour."

Another phrase that gets thrown around a lot is "don't fix policy with code" and that's exactly what happened

At least as far as drones in general are concerned it'd probably take out like 50% of the issues with them if they acted like they had that pacification trait but I'm not a coder so my opinion means jack and shit, in that order.

Used to be all for FreeDrone but after reading the PR I'm honestly convinced removing them might as well have been the best course of action. Just stay in the derelict. I think the comments in the PR sum up an answer to #1 quite well, putting more weight on the volunteer coder's shoulders to salvage drones in their current implementation wouldn't really be right, and putting more weight on the game admin's shoulders to scrutinize every single drone player just on the off chance they don't follow their laws isn't exactly right either.

Can't really say I'm glad they're gone though, but that's just my opinion.

Mickyan wrote:

Arianya wrote:Drone removal was done via the codebase, not by admins/headmins, so you'd want to check the PR that removed them for the reasoning. I will note however that from conversations I've had, maintainers are generally unhappy with people who insist that a feature could be "improved in some way" but make no efforts to do any work in that vein themselves.

It's an odd thing to bring up the separation between codebase and admins when the only reason cited for their removal was that, I quote: "the role is designed for a higher standard of play than everything else. Admins are unable to enforce that consistently and miss bad behaviour."

Another phrase that gets thrown around a lot is "don't fix policy with code" and that's exactly what happened

As was stated numerous times in the lead up to drone removal, in the umpteen policy threads about this very topic, if you can find a policy that makes drones work you are welcome to suggest it. Just saying "improve don't remove" or "don't fix policy problems with code" or any other of 100 buzzphrases that don't actually fix the problem are about as useful as if you had rolled your face across the keyboard before posting.

Multiple headmin teams and an endless procession of policy threads tried to make drones work. None of them did.

Regardless, their removal is not a policy issue anymore, as it's done and dusted. If they ever return to the station it will be through the codebase, not through a policy thread. Hence my original comment.

Rustledjimm wrote:

DemonFiren wrote:

Arianya wrote:

DemonFiren wrote:but for real
>to go somewhere else more fun
what, are we not allowed to have fun now? victimless fun that benefits all players?

No because thats not what ghost roles are for.

If you want to have fun on the fun station then you spawn as a station member or a ghost role that spawns on station (positronic brains, sentient mice, etc).

It's not hard.

it's officially confirmed, ghost roles are not allowed to have fun
don't ever play derelict drone if you want to have fun
you're here to do hard work no one will ever see

Careful lizard you're posting in a fine fashion to be put on post approval.


My own view on this is that derelict drones should not be jetting off to the station every round. In the same vein people who spawn in Charlie (Old) Station and immediately fuck off after getting the space suit should also not be doing so. An improvement of the derelict to give the drones more repairs/building materials would certainly be something that I'd like to see

Working on it now, Managed to get dream maker to work and a git account ready. The derelict and derelict drones would be perfect for SM engine training/experimentation.

Ill probably try to put drones back in via cargo only if I can manage coding properly, that way it requires human approval to bring drones to the station and make more in the first place.

Ill try to get off my dead ass and solve a policy issue with code, or at least mapping.

just make it so that derelict drones explode when they leave the derelict z-level

Arianya wrote:As was stated numerous times in the lead up to drone removal, in the umpteen policy threads about this very topic, if you can find a policy that makes drones work you are welcome to suggest it.

Yeah I had a working policy already, I banned shitter drones for a week or longer the first moment they fucked up and sure enough they either didn't do it again or they were the kind of shitter that got themselves jobbanned/serverbanned for other stupid shit.

I would like to state that I believe the codebase was in the wrong to remove drones and I'm very annoyed a very evidently unpopular PR got merged through. What's the point in even having code feedback if it's not going to be considered?

barbedwireqtip wrote:just make it so that derelict drones explode when they leave the derelict z-level

please this.

when they get on the station and raid the armory just because they can it causes a shit storm

Anonmare wrote:What's the point in even having code feedback if it's not going to be considered?

iamgoofball wrote:

Saegrimr wrote:I love how this happens every time with goofball

The only opinion that matters about a feature is maintainer opinions and headcoder opinions.

Rustledjimm wrote:An improvement of the derelict to give the drones more repairs/building materials would certainly be something that I'd like to see

My plans for the derelict are to scatter around more materials that let drones fix the station. Maybe even a complete singularity gen so the station can be powered?

The other thing I'd like to do is destroy derelict drones if they leave the derelict Z-level. No clue how to implement that though.

I can't wait to see a loosed derelict singulo float over to station z-level.
That would be hilarious the first time at least.

Saegrimr wrote:I can't wait to see a loosed derelict singulo float over to station z-level.
That would be hilarious the first time at least.

There usually isn't much for singuloth to eat in open space.

Stage 5+ doesn't shrink if it gets that high in the first place.

Do drones still have those "laws"? IIRC one of the main problems was that laws weren't actually laws like those silicon gets, but simple fluff text parsed as laws for immersion. But players used them like regular silicon laws, complete with law-lawyering and stretched interpretations

Grazyn wrote:Do drones still have those "laws"? IIRC one of the main problems was that laws weren't actually laws like those silicon gets, but simple fluff text parsed as laws for immersion. But players used them like regular silicon laws, complete with law-lawyering and stretched interpretations

It didnt help that drones were this shitty half measure of "dont touch anything, but fix stuff tho" in their implementation on /tg/. The drone machine being automatic was a mistake in my opinion. Drones should be given more freedom to act in the round, but should be brought into the round by a human player in the first place. It is why I think making them come from cargo only or from robotics would be the best way to bring them back, instead of an easily fillable drone machine.

Yeah to some degree admins shot themselves in the foot by constantly redrawing the line in the sand regarding the secret don’t cuck antags (purposely) rule.

Also why the hell did drones get access to silicon chat? It only helped spread the false belief that they were silicons (and thus subject to silicon policy) and it made things even more confusing since drones weren't allowed to interact with borgs/AI anyway. It also gave them info about the round they could use to flock to heavy traffic areas, inevitably leading to interference. Drones already had their own chat and emergency pings anyway.

All in all a clusterfuck of bad policies and contradictory rules, I don't think there was anything salvageable about drones

I think binary was added so they'd be able to listen in on the AI or borgs exchanging news about station damage which they could then rush to fix
but I think they have a built-in alert monitor already so that's bullshit
how about salvaging them by removing binary, making them orderable or buildable as bee said, and sticking to one fucking policy of "ignore simple mobs and don't directly or indirectly fuck with anyone's round, ever"

DemonFiren wrote:I think binary was added so they'd be able to listen in on the AI or borgs exchanging news about station damage which they could then rush to fix
but I think they have a built-in alert monitor already so that's bullshit
how about salvaging them by removing binary, making them orderable or buildable as bee said, and sticking to one fucking policy of "ignore simple mobs and don't directly or indirectly fuck with anyone's round, ever"

Keeping the "dont fuck with the round" part honestly is more hassle. Drones are weak for a reason, and there are multiple ways of getting rid of them without even having to melee them.

Most of the issues with drones were from policy, as well as the rather foolish belief that antag rounds are sacred and any and all opposition to them should be limited.

It is that line of thinking that fucked over silicons honestly.

Giving drones more freedom to repair stuff without worry about fucking over sabotage while making them more rare to prevent the infinite re-spawning drones problem will mitigate the effect they have on antags even if they end up fixing damage they cause on purpose.

Plus giving more control of how they enter the round means the antagonist is more at fault for not fucking over cargo or robotics and letting them build the drones in the first place, than it is the drones for doing their fucking job.

Basically they would be easily killed "engineer in a box." Useful for fixing the station and maintaining stuff but not useful for general purpose stuff and protection like a posibrain is.

But this is all in the future, First step is to give derelict drones shit to do, map is sorta complete, now I have to figure out git and the map merger process before putting up the PR that will most likely be closed immediately.

Drones are small, nimble, have a full toolset and all-access. Their one weakness against Urist McGreyshit is their low health.
That weakness doesn't really matter to any drone player with enough engineering and atmos experience to fuck shit up from out of reach and quite possibly without ever being identified in the process, that latter part also meaning there's no reason to blow them unless you make a habit of always detonating all drones the moment an engineering-related fuckup happens.
If you take away the drone noninterference clause entirely you'll get the second-best validhunters and/or griffs on station, with nothing but the very inconsistently-enforced rules 0 and 1 to shut them down.

DemonFiren wrote:Drones are small, nimble, have a full toolset and all-access. Their one weakness against Urist McGreyshit is their low health.
That weakness doesn't really matter to any drone player with enough engineering and atmos experience to fuck shit up from out of reach and quite possibly without ever being identified in the process, that latter part also meaning there's no reason to blow them unless you make a habit of always detonating all drones the moment an engineering-related fuckup happens.
If you take away the drone noninterference clause entirely you'll get the second-best validhunters and/or griffs on station, with nothing but the very inconsistently-enforced rules 0 and 1 to shut them down.

Not planning on removing it entirely, that would be hell as well as removing one of the reason I like playing drones in the first place.

So what exactly should drone rules/laws look like in your opinion?

When drones were added, they were one of the first ghost roles able to interact with the round (pAIs came before but they were nothing more than a talking ghost). Recycling dead people into the round was a very controversial and delicate issue so a lot of care went into making sure their presence couldn't impact the round in a meaningful way beyond "holes are fixed". Thus the zero tolerance policy against interference came to be, and things were good, because people understood that a second chance at "playing" the round was precious and they behaved. For a time.

But in the following years more and more ghost roles were added, all more or less capable (and allowed) to heavily interact with the round. Second lives with almost no caveats became the norm. But drone policy stayed the same. People used to lavaland roles, posibrains and mobile/bot pAIs found harder and harder to obey this obsolete policy and ruleset for drones. Times had changed, and drone policy simply didn't apply anymore.

Instead of changing it, admins tried different wordings (that all meant the same thing as before) and kept applying zero tolerance, going as far as to expand it to fringe cases it didn't even cover before (like a drone fixing a sabotaged engine, with the drone unable to tell if a traitor had sabotaged it on purpose). Things were made even worse by the addition of binary (as said before) and the "blow drones" button, and people started to get banned for blowing them for no reason. This seemed to contradict the common knowledge that drones were cheap and expendable and only helped to add confusion: an admin could drone ban you for "wasting" science minerals because you printed a few tools, and in the next round another admin could note/ban you, the RD, for blowing drones who did the same thing.

All this over-analyzing of the history of drones distracts from the real reason why drones were removed after the role existed relatively painlessly for years.
Current headmins aren't willing to bother enforcing their rules. That's it. The only things that can be done about it is to either vote them out when the time comes or re-design drones into a shadow of their former selves to please the armchair game design experts.

>headmins
you mean admins

framing the playerbases continued abuses of drones as the failing of the headadmins is the biggest trip of 2018

Drones did not follow laws, kept on fucking with people and got removed.

This is why we can't have nice things.

RandomMarine wrote:All this over-analyzing of the history of drones distracts from the real reason why drones were removed after the role existed relatively painlessly for years.
Current headmins aren't willing to bother enforcing their rules. That's it. The only things that can be done about it is to either vote them out when the time comes or re-design drones into a shadow of their former selves to please the armchair game design experts.

Knowing the past is necessary to understand the present, I think it's important to know why people didn't start abusing drones until recently, when the explosion of much freer and much more impactful ghost roles happened, making drone policy feel obsolete.

Admins can still make you a drone, right?

oranges wrote:framing the playerbases continued abuses of drones as the failing of the headadmins is the biggest trip of 2018

CreationPro wrote:Drones did not follow laws, kept on fucking with people and got removed.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Many players ignore the rules regardless of their role. Is the proper response to ban them or shut down the servers?

Frebbie wrote:

barbedwireqtip wrote:just make it so that derelict drones explode when they leave the derelict z-level

please this.
when they get on the station and raid the armory just because they can it causes a shit storm

Also,

oranges wrote:framing the playerbases continued abuses of drones as the failing of the headadmins is the biggest trip of 2018

see

Lazengann wrote:If you're willing to awkwardly float one tile at a time for twenty minutes just so you can fix a chewed wire then go for it I don't care

Yeah admins are volunteers that can interpret rules differently, but if drones get removed because shitters can't fucking stop messing with the round, who in their right mind would go "lol IDK" if someone finds a loophole to do it again?

Drones weren't removed because the users were constant rule breakers. If that were the case it would have been relatively easy to droneban the worst of them and drones would still be in.

The issue is that what was meant to be a fairly straightforward ruleset, aimed at making a low investment, low impact ghost role that was as much set dressing as anything, was anything but.

Instead they were a walking, talking policy violation, and we could scarcely go a week without having a policy issue about them, whether it was drones setting up autocloners in the hallways ("well, it's technically upgrading the station right?"), drones growing plants ("well, plants aren't really beings!") or drone players complaining about their low investment, low impact ghost role being sabotaged/destroyed by people who are actually in the round.

Every one of these issues was anything but clear cut, and it resulted in drone rules becoming less and less comprehensible as compromises were made and policy was changed. I don't disagree that telling the drone to distinguish a sabotaged SM to a poorly set up SM is very difficult or impossible (was that cooling pipe destroyed by space dust, or by a traitor? Good luck!) but at the same time we couldn't have drones literally being silicon+, no slowdown, all access, vent crawling conflict resolvers.

Towards their death I recall seeing a drone running around doing anomaly events. Sure, it's not a being, but here's a ghost role taking conflict and something to do out of the actual crew's hands, and doing so with a minimum of risk, given their weird immunities (for example, a drone can quite happily walk into a pyro anomaly's inferno and beep its way to the bank as it stands next to it scanning and signalling it)

Despite the above, I like drones, but I'm under no illusions that people weren't content to play them as the dumb, borderline mindless drones crawling in the vents, repairing holes here and there and otherwise being downright non-existent.

And yes, this does mean that some people who want to play that style of drone lose out, but we can't deal with that edge case unless we move to a whitelist, a move that was roundly opposed.

the fuckup was by the admin team deciding drones shouldn't impact the round. Fixing things impacts the round you dummies what kind of drunk person made that policy