/tg/Station 13

I've read previous threads on this and understand how drones are hellish to balance.
viewtopic.php?p=634156#p634156

Also, as per previous posts, they're virtually unplayable - not the least of which is the fact that you have to have joined and loaded the dispenser because no one else does it and it starts unloaded.

Consider instead of*** having drone access by default (after x hours) and rescinded after shittery, have it be unavailable until explicitly granted, maybe associated with a discord account plus playtime or something. It would limit the number of lazy offenders, make ban avoidance more difficult, and ensure that drone players have gone through a filtering process so they know exactly what they can and can't do. Maybe enumerate a list for it or something, i dunno. Perhaps in that context some of the frankly excruciating limitations can be lifted.

At least note their terribly crippled state on the wiki.

Genuine apologies for nercro-ing this topic, but after playing them a bit i needed to vent. I don't really expect any changes; y'all have plenty on your plate as it is, but right now they're just.... bad.

edit: instead of**. They're already access by default, obviously...

yeah, they might as well have been removed honestly. a repair role that can't do any actual repairing is basically unplayable. when there's a hole in atmospherics, you can't repair it because the game doesn't let you build that close to critical equipment. if tcomms is gone, you can't try to fix it. if there's an erroneously bolted door in maint, you can't unbolt it.

can they even use air canisters? air alarms?

man i just want to chill out and build a funny maint base sometimes, and drone would be perfect for that if they could do literally anything.
at this point admins don't want them because they're hard to administrate, and players don't want them because they're crippled and suck, and it's better to wait for a positronic brain so you can play a role that doesn't have hands. why do the coders still want drones?

Admin issue
"coders" don't particularly want or not want drones. Someone wanted to readd them, managed to convince a headmin to back them with policy, and we added them according to that, since there was no reason not to.
S how things go.

I'm a bit concerned about what they do to engi's repairing things, but eh.

TheFinalPotato wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 3:59 am
I'm a bit concerned about what they do to engi's repairing things, but eh.

Have we ever actually had an Engineer or AtmoTech complain about Drones stealing their work, cheapening their duties, etc.?

Pandarsenic wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 9:10 am

TheFinalPotato wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 3:59 am
I'm a bit concerned about what they do to engi's repairing things, but eh.

Have we ever actually had an Engineer or AtmoTech complain about Drones stealing their work, cheapening their duties, etc.?

No, obviously. They're bad. I mean if they were ever good

TheFinalPotato wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 9:18 pm No, obviously. They're bad. I mean if they were ever good

I meant more in a "How often do you see the Engineering department actually repairing things at all instead of just leaving them broken unless it's their own department or they're threatened" sense

See that's the problem, but I want them to, and I don't want my pie in the sky fantasy to be made even more impossible then it already is

They should be removed, they are clearly a failed concept.

Human engineers are a failed concept

Replace them with a drone department

I really wonder if they really were that big of an administrative issue that people had to add in that stupid "Doing X might violate your laws" bullshit. Just drone ban the shitters and leave it at that. Other servers have managed that much with way better drone design

I assume this is the sentiment that still lingers after the Ssethtide came in. Ghost roles were used to grief A LOT. Nowadays it's a tad more quiet. I don't see a good argument why people abusing drone ghost roles to be shitters shouldn't be treated like any other ghost role abuser: by getting bwoinked. There's no good reason to hamstring the job, because if people want to grief hard, they can just play borgs if need be. Or Xenobio creatures.