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Project #Freedrone

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 6:19 am
by Paintling
I was deadchatting with some people and the discussion drifted to drones and in the midst of discussing it some seemingly good ideas came of it, and while I don't know if the leadership/coders/admins/whoever is in charge of this ever intends to bring back drones I think the following changes, originally thought up by Cobby in my original drone post and then recently lightly edited by myself and some players in deadchat, would make a good working basepoint for the re-introduction of drones and to see what could be improved from there to keep them fitting with the station and prevent the abuse that caused them to be removed from happening again.

I will present the proposed changes below as well as the reason WHY that change is being recommended.

1: Make them slower, equal to human speed. This is to prevent drones from constantly darting around avoiding dangers or antogonizing players without recompense. A slower drone is hittable and if they're abusing rules you can actually catch their name if it isn't in the feed.

2: Make their hitboxes clearer. While its a great advantage to a drone the unclear hitbox of a drone is incredibly annoying to the average antag, frustrated player, validhunting assistant. Making it appropriately easy to hit would allow them to be dealt with should the situation demand it.

3: Slow down drone shell spawn rate and/or install a timer that starts on drone DEATH that prevents the player from getting back into a shell. This is to counter drone players instantly hopping into another shell after they get popped for any amount of shenanigans or by antags trying to protect the damage they've caused.

4: Change the wording in drone laws from interfere to ignore, thereby allowing them to do their jobs as they see fit, requiring them to COMPLETELY not interact with entities and allowing them to not get bwoinked for a number of reasons. Naturally this change is the most iffy as any changes to the laws need to be very carefully worded and vetted so people can't abuse them easily. That said this change, when combined with the others, allows drones to do things such as fix antag damage BUT make its MUCH easier for drones to get popped by said antags, creating a sort of sustainable loop between damages and repair.

5: Allow drones to have and set names similar to borgs and AIs. This change while seemingly cosmetic is to prevent what (I think) caused the removal of drones in the first place, players abusing drones and not being job banned because it was such a hassle to figure out which drone was which. By adding names to drones it will be much easier to pinpoint people abusing them as well as overall problems attributed to them. Plus honestly I don't see why they shouldn't have them as anything they could do with a name to cause problems they'd could do without names already. It just makes it easier to solve it without punishing everyone.

I think that these changes combined would create an excellent base that could be re-implemented and modified based on how it performs, without (I think) extensive modifications to the code, I am unsure about that last bit as I am not a coder nor do I know how hard it would be to change this. I assume not very because its largely modifications to existing code as well as text changes, the hardest part being the naming system as it would require the addition of such a feature.

I do hope that other people add their own (and hopefully at least semi-serious) suggestions below because I would really like to see drones added back. They were an excellent ghost role that allowed people to do something productive and benefit the station while also alllowing for fun and chatting with other players without heavily influencing the round.

Also im attatching an image of Cobby's original suggestion from my 'Petition to Bring Back Drones' post from like two years ago, it's his idea for the most part, he deserves the credit. I just wanna see drones come back without being butchered heavily and removing all the fun.

Re: Project #Freedrone

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 7:08 pm
by Cobby
If those changes our made i would still be fine with them making a return as a maintainer (and would be for headmins being on board too).

Re: Project #Freedrone

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2020 12:02 pm
by Tlaltecuhtli
is it possible for mob/silicons/ to have the pacifist trait?

Re: Project #Freedrone

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2020 12:19 pm
by cacogen
Look I didn't read but drones are fun and if we have to remove most of that fun from them to feel we can trust players with them again then so be it

Re: Project #Freedrone

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2020 2:06 pm
by Cobby
Tlaltecuhtli wrote:is it possible for mob/silicons/ to have the pacifist trait?
They can have the trait, idk if it plays nicely.

Re: Project #Freedrone

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2020 2:36 am
by Paintling
cacogen wrote:Look I didn't read but drones are fun and if we have to remove most of that fun from them to feel we can trust players with them again then so be it
The TLDR is to basically slow drones down, make it easier to do their job of fixing without stepping on laws, and make it so that if they get up to unlawful shenanigans people can pinpoint WHICH drone did it. All the actual fun of drone should remain, it's all just to prevent people from being gigantic shitlords with them.