/tg/Station 13

Drones are an outet for players who want to do their autism projects without bothering or being bothered by anyone else.

Drones are also a great later game ghost role to repair the damage in the station. With things like the impending cloning removal, it will be important to have more of those.

Finally, and this is objectively true, the things are fucking adorable


This thread is twofold:

1) A petition to (I guess now) the new headmins to re-enable the drones in the config

but also

2) A bit of a thought on how drone laws could be reworked to fit better in the "autism project or damage repairer" model without going into grief or metagaming.

At the very least drones need to be able to manufacture their own materials. Then you can do autism projects on KSS12 where drones were recently re-enabled.

We had major issues with masses of players that could not follow their drone laws in the past, it just happened too often. I would be ok with drones if they where coded to live on their own station and lose power if they leave it. Drones on the main station effect the round too much.

Drones and roles that are specifically not supposed to interact with the crew are anti-SS13

Shaps-cloud wrote:Drones and roles that are specifically not supposed to interact with the crew are anti-SS13

Then let drones be a part of the round. Remove the drone manufacturer, make drones only obtainable via robotics or cargo and let drones have more freedom to repair or interact.

Drones would basically be treated as an extension of the player that made them, so an antag bitching about a drone would be told simply to either stop them from being made or blow them instead of causing an admin headache.

Dr_bee wrote:

Shaps-cloud wrote:Drones and roles that are specifically not supposed to interact with the crew are anti-SS13

Then let drones be a part of the round. Remove the drone manufacturer, make drones only obtainable via robotics or cargo and let drones have more freedom to repair or interact.

Drones would basically be treated as an extension of the player that made them, so an antag bitching about a drone would be told simply to either stop them from being made or blow them instead of causing an admin headache.

Except having something that is the size of a mouse that is able to do the functions the crew are able to do (mechanically) be at the whim of a roboticist, and able to interact with the crew is a horrible idea. If they were Cyborgs Lite ala Paradise Station and AuroraStation, it wouldn't be so bad.

No.

I'd like to play drone and I didn't have any problems with them personally when they were still in the game, but it will likely just end up with a few people taking it solely to interfere with a round that doesn't go their way much like you see with golems every time they are made. The few ruin it for everyone else.

As a player, I recall multiple rounds where a drone would come along and mess with whatever your doing and you then end up killing them only for the to respawn and redouble there efforts too annoy you, playing as them you often find yourself getting remotely detonated because of these players and it being a super easy option to deal with drones who simply spawn back in as a different number after being killed conventionally.

Hell I remembera sequence of events where a drone stole minerals from the protolathe and built a turret to stop people retreiving them from his autism project arguing that he wasnt interferring with other people as the turret was automated.

Now, I wouldn't actually mind if they came back all being said but fuck, I feel that half the player base would cop jobbans for them for a role who I'm not convinced really requires a return.

Hell, I loved playing drones and learned Engineering that way. I honestly can't think of a way to solve the shitty player issue other than segregating drones to their own Z level, like KC13.

Denton wrote:Hell, I loved playing drones and learned Engineering that way. I honestly can't think of a way to solve the shitty player issue other than segregating drones to their own Z level, like KC13.

the solution is fucking dronebanning/ghostbanning people that dont follow the fucking rules

no that's too much work for admins to do

"Fix problems with the station, but not problems caused on purpose" is an absolutely unenforceable ruleset

terranaut wrote:

Denton wrote:Hell, I loved playing drones and learned Engineering that way. I honestly can't think of a way to solve the shitty player issue other than segregating drones to their own Z level, like KC13.

the solution is fucking dronebanning/ghostbanning people that dont follow the fucking rules

Ah, you must have found the secret construction and deconstruction logs.

Please notify all admins immediately about this discovery. With this, drones may be re-added since it will be possible to detect if a drone is griefing or not.

If you do not share this discovery with them then please stop teasing admins with these secret logs. It's rude, not polite, and isn't fun for them.

teepeepee wrote:no that's too much work for admins to do

Please notify the admins of the hidden logs as well if you found them.

It's a huge pain in the ass to find griefing drones, and they constantly started shit. I have zero desire to deal with them ever again.

SpaceManiac wrote:"Fix problems with the station, but not problems caused on purpose" is an absolutely unenforceable ruleset

This.

I wouldn't mind them being revived if they just couldn't see non-drone mobs and told people IC issue if a drone is simply doing it's laws. The fact they could see the names of people but it's blurred out was such a silly concept to me anyways, it's like you're asking for people to break their laws.

Cobby wrote:I wouldn't mind them being revived if they just couldn't see non-drone mobs and told people IC issue if a drone is simply doing it's laws. The fact they could see the names of people but it's blurred out was such a silly concept to me anyways, it's like you're asking for people to break their laws.

That's actually a good idea though it would still need logs to see if drones are breaking shit.

f-f-forensics?

Cobby wrote:f-f-forensics?

A drone comes out of nowhere and destroys someone's walls. All the information he can provide is that he saw a drone do it however there are two drones online. You look at forensics to find nothing because the walls were destroyed. Unless you find something the drone had damaged or know how to find forensics from a missing wall, you will likely not be able to do anything. This assumes there was a drone as well as them having fingerprints.

btw true story.

would switching drone laws to /tg/ mommi laws be a good idea? For those who dont know, the laws are as follows.


1. Do not willingly interact with another being, even after their death, besides those beings also in KEEPER mode.
2. Do not impair any other non-KEEPER being's activities.
3. You must maintain, repair, improve, and power the station to the best of your abilities.
4. Communicating is not interaction, but only so long as it does not lead to violation of your second law.

This along with removing the damn drone machine and limiting drones to robotics printing and cargo crates would do wonders for them, while also allowing fun things like drone bars and drone dancing.

What do drones actually add to the gameplay experience though? They're either an annoying pest underfoot stealing materials/hats/others or off in some remote corner building an autism fort and screaming in deadchat when they get blown up because of other drones actions.

It's a on-station role not meant to interfere with the round, it's contradictory and not really adding value for anyone in the game.

I mean they make sure that medbay isn't a fucking crater for the entire fucking round I guess?

Damage is meant to be difficult to repair though. If medbay is a crater every round then perhaps the issue isn't that there are no drones, but that there's too many ways to make it a crater/those ways are too easy.

The only problem I see here that drones would solve is that engiborgs don't have hands and so can't build a lot of really useful things.

Why not just add a golem-like android shell that just has hands, but is locked behind advanced tech?

Arianya wrote:Damage is meant to be difficult to repair though. If medbay is a crater every round then perhaps the issue isn't that there are no drones, but that there's too many ways to make it a crater/those ways are too easy.

Limiting !fun! is not the way to make the game more, you know, actually fun. Having ways to make the medbay a crater and having ways to restore the medbay from being a crater (if the situation has normalized) is the way to go.

Drones offer a way to fix and maintain the station, they are fun and they allow for fun situations. Just because they won't stop to call you a nigger on occasion doesn't make them useless or contrary to the spirit of tg.

The current meta is that, once enough of the station resembles a crater, you just call the shuttle. While that will still happen with drones, there will be more opportunities to restore the station and keep a nice round going. That is objectively a good thing.

Speaking of, if we do have a major issue with not being able to see which drone is which, how about we add a drone naming scheme similar to borgs?

Arianya wrote:What do drones actually add to the gameplay experience though? They're either an annoying pest underfoot stealing materials/hats/others or off in some remote corner building an autism fort and screaming in deadchat when they get blown up because of other drones actions.

It's a on-station role not meant to interfere with the round, it's contradictory and not really adding value for anyone in the game.

Just like assistants

Arathian wrote:

Arianya wrote:Damage is meant to be difficult to repair though. If medbay is a crater every round then perhaps the issue isn't that there are no drones, but that there's too many ways to make it a crater/those ways are too easy.

Limiting !fun! is not the way to make the game more, you know, actually fun. Having ways to make the medbay a crater and having ways to restore the medbay from being a crater (if the situation has normalized) is the way to go.

Drones offer a way to fix and maintain the station, they are fun and they allow for fun situations. Just because they won't stop to call you a nigger on occasion doesn't make them useless or contrary to the spirit of tg.

The current meta is that, once enough of the station resembles a crater, you just call the shuttle. While that will still happen with drones, there will be more opportunities to restore the station and keep a nice round going. That is objectively a good thing.

Speaking of, if we do have a major issue with not being able to see which drone is which, how about we add a drone naming scheme similar to borgs?

Sure, having ways to restore the medbay is one thing, and we have several of those (Engineers, engi borgs, RCDs, metal foam grenades, etc etc.) - but these aren't an argument for drones specifically.

You say that drones are "fun and allow for fun situations" - I'd appreciate some examples, because my experience of them both as an observer, a crewmember and as someone who played drones occasionally themselves was that at best they were unintrusive, at worst they were obnoxious.

Shuttles got called no less frequently when drones we're on - shuttle calls are made subjectively, not at a fixed % of the station being damaged, and so drones don't tend to alter this perception. And that's assuming they're even doing their "job" and not hanging out in a corner somewhere building a space bar or whatever.

Arathian wrote: Just because they won't stop to call you a nigger on occasion doesn't make them useless or contrary to the spirit of tg.

Not completely on topic or relevant. This is just a glorious quote.

Shaps-cloud wrote:Drones and roles that are specifically not supposed to interact with the crew are anti-SS13

Arianya wrote:It's a on-station role not meant to interfere with the round, it's contradictory...

The concept of drones is practically set up to fail.
Want drones back?
Then propose a solution that allows the drone's core principle of non-interference to be somehow okay with the nature of the game.
Don't tiptoe around the problem by outlining how adorable or useful they could be.

Making other players outright invisible to drones would be a good start.

But I suspect that if the "non-interference clause" was somehow fully hardcoded, people wouldn't want to play drone in the first place

Not a big fan of drones personally. They always seemed like a waste of ghost slots and like people said their non-interference thing made them a detriment more than a fun thing. Just play engi cyborg if you want to do autism projects. There's always robos doing posibrains and shit.

I can't say I miss drones. They were always trying to toe the line of their lawset.

CPTANT wrote:I can't say I miss drones. They were always trying to toe the line of their lawset.

This too.

I always remembered drones going on the shuttle even though it directly contradicted their laws since they weren't maintaining the station to the best of their ability and fucking around on the shuttle might be considered interference.

Xeroxemnas wrote:

CPTANT wrote:I can't say I miss drones. They were always trying to toe the line of their lawset.

This too.

I always remembered drones going on the shuttle even though it directly contradicted their laws since they weren't maintaining the station to the best of their ability and fucking around on the shuttle might be considered interference.

Actually law 3 at the moment when drones were disabled was written like this (quote from github)

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.

This allowed drones to board the shuttle but people who didn't know about this thought drones were breaking their laws and this only helped fuel the hate.

i support drones being revived, they did a lot of autist things but also gave me some great stories

Drones should be reactivated to extend round length.

Rounds are getting shorter when the stated goal is to have longer rounds.

The headmins should figure out what needs to be done before this can happen.

What are engineers? They're the job that's meant to fix holes in the station. If you want to ignore the existence of everyone on the server and build an autism fort, go host a local server for yourself.
Drones are for dead players to respawn themselves and grief the round / whoever killed them. They're golems with all-access and ventcrawl.

Dawson1917 wrote:What are engineers? They're the job that's meant to fix holes in the station. If you want to ignore the existence of everyone on the server and build an autism fort, go host a local server for yourself.
Drones are for dead players to respawn themselves and grief the round / whoever killed them. They're golems with all-access and ventcrawl.

Engineers don't manage to effectively repair the station.

Having drones on the station would make rebuilding more attractive.

Kryson wrote:
Engineers don't manage to effectively repair the station.

Having drones on the station would make rebuilding more attractive.

Engineers don't effectively repair the station because they run off to do autism projects and ignore the rest of the server without fail. Despite engineers being the people meant to repair the station, that's the least likely thing you'll ever see them do. This has been an unaddressed problem for years.
Drones are no different, as shown by them either griefing or running off for autism projects every single time they've been spawned by an admin or enabled on downstreams.

>be engineer
>can't fight fire because only atmos mains get to be firefighter
>can't scrub the air of toxins because only atmos mains get access to the air console
>can't replace air after breaches because atmos mains hoard oxygen for fusion and the pipes are always empty
>department is a glorified metal and insulated gloves storage which atmos mains gladly help themselves to

Engineer is the designated bottom of the totem pole role that exists only to get shit on, it's literally a noob trap. If you want to repair the station, being an engineer offers no benefit over being an assistant, or a clown.

Iatots wrote:>be engineer
>can't fight fire because only atmos mains get to be firefighter
>can't scrub the air of toxins because only atmos mains get access to the air console
>can't replace air after breaches because atmos mains hoard oxygen for fusion and the pipes are always empty
>department is a glorified metal and insulated gloves storage which atmos mains gladly help themselves to

Engineer is the designated bottom of the totem pole role that exists only to get shit on, it's literally a noob trap. If you want to repair the station, being an engineer offers no benefit over being an assistant, or a clown.

hop exists

The problem with engineering is that repairing is fucking garbage without more QOL improvements
A basic bitch repair with the RCD to keep air in place is just about the maximum anyone can manage before the shuttle has docked and left, god forbid trying to restore it to functionality if there was anything in there but tables and chairs

Iatots wrote:>be engineer
>can't fight fire because only atmos mains get to be firefighter
>can't scrub the air of toxins because only atmos mains get access to the air console
>can't replace air after breaches because atmos mains hoard oxygen for fusion and the pipes are always empty
>department is a glorified metal and insulated gloves storage which atmos mains gladly help themselves to

Engineer is the designated bottom of the totem pole role that exists only to get shit on, it's literally a noob trap. If you want to repair the station, being an engineer offers no benefit over being an assistant, or a clown.

Incorrect

The engineer has access to the engineering hardsuits, which grant space safety and some armor, and light. THey also function as welding protection with their helmet.
Engineering has access to setting up solars or the supermatter, which powers the station.
Engineering has easy access to every tool required to repair the station, and to the miraculous RCD, Alongside any other things which come from the engineering lathe
Engineering has Access to welding shit to cut down that wall between Engineering and atmos so you can teach those fuckwads not to screw with you.
Engineering has the resources to do station repairs, and people often don't read the wiki to do so

Engineers have the resources to build a new engine.

Engineering can likely order more supplies when assistants would get it denied.

Engineering hardsuits, while they lack the full immunity granted by atmos hardsuits, Have decent fire resistance.

Engineers have easy access to many craftable weapons

Engineers have acccess to the SM, and can weaponize radiation.

Engineers have multiple suit storage units for radiation purging

The list goes on!