So I've been thinking lately and remembered that there are two loot/admin-spawned AI upgrades (The Enhanced Surveillance suite and Combat Hacking upgrades for those of you out of the loop) and thought 'wouldn't it be nice if AIs could get upgraded like cyborgs can?'. Of course, I wouldn't want to be upsetting the balance and the Combat Hacking upgrade is right out so I tried to think about the upgrades carefully.
I'd like to hear concerns specifically from the anti-silicon crowd because I can trust you guys to say when something's out of balance and not to just say “that sounds cool”. I'll make some suggestions and my reasoning as to how it should be. Do note that all upgrades have to be inserted into the AI manually and in person, meaning it has to put itself at the mercy of someone not entirely trustworthy, and vice-versa for the person doing the upgrading. It's essentially surgery for the AI and leaves it very open to being killed.
Suggested Modules
- Passive Repair Subroutines – A basic upgrade that borrows heavily from the Cyborg self-repair upgrade. Slowly restores the AI's system integrity and repairs burn/brute damage at around .25% per tick, stacks with“oxyloss” (power loss) damage healing.
Basically means the AI doesn't have to get carded for repair after every narrow escape but barely improves it's survivability. More a convenience.
Requires: Materials research – 4/Engineering research – 4/Data Theory - 4
Cost: 15,000 metal/15,000 glass - Improved Maintenance Diagnostics – Reduces the time it takes for an AI to regain control of an airlock after it's AI wire has been cut and an APC it's hooked up to if the power has been disabled, also superficially allows it to hack a firewalled airlock (It can receive information from it but it still can't undo the cut power wires). This also increases the speed of a Malfunctioning AI's APC hacking.
Requires: Material research – 5/Engineering research – 6/ Data Theory – 4/ Electromagnetic research – 3
Cost: 80,000 metal/6,000 glass/5,000 silver - Tricorder Medical Scanner – Allows the AI to determine a person's overall health even if their suit sensors are disabled. Can only gives an overall status and detect harmful viruses. Cannot determine the cause of harm or if the stealth rating of a virus is below what can be detected of a medical HUD.
Requires: Material research – 4/Engineering research – 3/Biological research – 3/Electromagnetic research – 3
Cost: 5,000 metal/5,000 glass/2,500 silver - Low-Level Light Enhancement – Grants the AI Eye night vision. Nothing else to say.
Requires: Material research – 4/Engineering research – 5/Plasma research 5-/Electromagnetic research – 5/Data Theory research – 4
Cost: 6,000 metal/6,000 glass/3,500 plasma/10,000 uranium - Redundant Circuitry – Increases the AI's damage resistances to 80 (does not include bomb resistance) and reduces stun times caused by being EMP'd. Marginally useful seeing as how the AI can do very little once you can actually hit it.
Requires: Material research – 6/Engineering research – 6/Data Theory research – 6/Electromagnetic research – 6
Cost: 50,000 metal/30,000 glass/20,000 plasma/15,000 silver/15,000 gold
Enhanced Surveillance Suite – Behaves exactly the same way as the malf module. Let's the AI hear spoken words as though they were relayed via holopad, cannot hear whispered words.
Requires: Material research – 6/Engineering research – 6/Data Theory research – 6/Illegal research – 3
Cost: 10,000 metal/15,000 glass/10,000 diamond - Secondary Personality Runtimes – I'm iffy on this one but it sounds like a neat idea. Functionally the AI equivalent of a pAI companion and has to do whatever whom they belong to says, effectively making the AI's laws they're laws. Has an AI eye but cannot interact with secure station systems without having to hack them first, except vending machines. Can hear and speak on the binary channel and has many of the pAI downlaods available as standard, including the universal translator. AIs can re-format them if their companion proves too annoying. Their health is tied to the AI's so if it goes, so do they.
Requires: Data Theory research – 5/Electromagnetic research – 3/Bluespace research – 2/Engineering research – 2
Cost: 5,000 metal/5,000 glass/10,000 silver
Also if anyone suggests adding the Combat Hacking module I will legit adminbus you because there is no way in hell will that ever be added to R&D.