Synths/Real Androids

[Helios]

Putting a posibrain in a fully augmented body brings it back to life as an Android, where it is bound by the laws of the AI. This also lets people who have died to come back as humans, kind of.
Now, if you really want to have fun, have it as a race option, android crew members who have easy healing, access to Binary chat, but can be subverted by faulty programming. Usually being bound by Asimov, meaning that you cannot valid hunt would be an interesting side effect. They could also not be remotely blown by robotics console, which would be an interesting side effect when dealing with a rogue/malf AI.

[DemonFiren]

So, kinda something like Bay did with IPCs.
Far as I recall, these guys overheat in a vacuum because they're air-cooled, they shut down when starving and "feed" by sticking some appendage or another into an APC port, and you really don't wanna get EMP'd as one.

I wonder what would happen if you made synthfucks and completely cut them off from binary, law-slaving, oxygen needs, toxin damage and changelings, in exchange for requiring cable and welders for healing, becoming completely unable to do even a brief spacewalk, lighting up like a Christmas tree when EMP'd and of course requiring robotics to build them a new body upon killification.
(hint: probably nobody ever would play it)

[Helios]

So, kinda something like Bay did with IPCs.
Far as I recall, these guys overheat in a vacuum because they're air-cooled, they shut down when starving and "feed" by sticking some appendage or another into an APC port, and you really don't wanna get EMP'd as one.

I wonder what would happen if you made synthfucks and completely cut them off from binary, law-slaving, oxygen needs, toxin damage and changelings, in exchange for requiring cable and welders for healing, becoming completely unable to do even a brief spacewalk, lighting up like a Christmas tree when EMP'd and of course requiring robotics to build them a new body upon killification.
(hint: probably nobody ever would play it)

Why would you take off Binary/Law-slaving?

[DemonFiren]

Synths independent from the AI are slightly more interesting, in my opinion. They soften up the divide between organic and synthetic by providing synth crew and possibly provoking tin can infighting with the borgs.
Also, they'll be even worse scum than lizards by not even being made of meat.

[Anonmare]

Don't think they should be a round start race, a race that can come about during the round then I think wouldn't be so bad so long as there were downsides to their existence. Like being unable to benefit from viro, genetics etc.
How about this?

Penalties:-
- No all-access, that's for *real* silicons you meat-poser
- They can be made during the round and inserted into a fully augmented body that's been stripped of all it's organs (an empty shell essentially) with a power cell inserted in the chest cavity that will function as their "hunger meter", for lack of a better term, with better power cells giving bigger gains.
- Gain no benefits or penalties from reagents. Can't benefit from Viro, Genetics superpowers and medical docs can only shrug their shoulders at them if they come across them in crit.
- Extremely weak to EMP with getting caught in the epicentre being an instant crit and draining a significant portion of your power hunger bar, being caught in the 'weak' EMP does major burn damage and drops you down to half power hunger as well as scrambling your speech into incomprehensible gibberish.
-Upon your death, your head's emergency access panel (for quick rebooting and/or retrieval) will open and leave your posibrain easily removable with a crowbar or hemostat
- Enterprising traitors can take you down, pop your posibrain out and slide their warm, moist, lewd emag against it and put you back in and are considered an emagged borg for all intents and purposes. Maybe give them a tell that gives them away if they're emagged too long, like twitching and slurring long words in a manner similar to a morph
- No 'default' access to binary (unless you were made from a hypothetical malf module). Not too sure about this point though, would hate for a rogue AI to get overheard by an android it didn't know existed
- Can be slaved to an AI

Benefits:-
- Completely immune to toxins, radiation and diseases as well as changeling stings
- Healed by welding and cable coils
- Has HANDS, all the other silicons are so jealous
- Can wear clothing, IDs, headsets etc.
- Resilient to brute and burn damage and completely immune to electricity burns
- Immune to temperature and pressure damage damage, though you will slow down after a while in very cold places as your joints freeze up
- Can benefit from cyborg upgrade modules, though some of them are still incompatible with you like the mining jetpack and drill - And who knows WHAT the illegal module would do to you?
- Can easily be switched into a new body and revived without the need for cloning and defibrillation (Though as a side effect you are very easy to debrain if you're killed, surgical tools not even being needed)
- Synthflesh can be applied to your frame to make you resemble a real life Human bean which opens up the possibility of being able to disguise yourself - The Cylons walk amongst us
- Maaaaaaybe self-surgery since most things that would stop a person in real life (i.e The god awful amount of pain) don't apply to you. And it's a big IF at that, though you'd not gain all that much benefit from it apart from plastic surgery if you've been 'synth'd'

Would be a fair amount of work and, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there something like this long before I joined? I think it got removed for... Reasons, I can't remember

[Helios]

- Immune to temperature and pressure damage damage, though you will slow down after a while in very cold places as your joints freeze up

How about Immune to oxygen damage/inhaling toxins but overheats in space because it uses aircooling, and also takes regular damage from fire.
And before people go "Why would they overheat in space, it's cold"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer#Radiation
Radiation is very slow when it comes to heat loss.

[DemonFiren]

>slaved to AI
>has hands

That is actually the biggest reason why I prefer they remain unslaved unless, perhaps, a malf AI buys a special ability or shit like that.

[ShadowDimentio]

Dear jesus words

MASSIVELY overcomplicated, but cool. Fund it.

[Anonmare]

How about Immune to oxygen damage/inhaling toxins but overheats in space because it uses aircooling, and also takes regular damage from fire.
And before people go "Why would they overheat in space, it's cold"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer#Radiation
Radiation is very slow when it comes to heat loss.

I'd be down for that, maybe put in some expensive 'android specific' modules that would let them deal with their overheating issues

Also, to stop them from becoming upgrade nightmares if R&D get's rolling, have their power consumption tied to how many modules they have installed and the more they add the bigger the drain. So a bluespace cell with no modules will last all day, but a standard cell with every module last minutes at best.
Having bigger power cells would be the only to overcome the drain and they can't replace their own power cell or each others (Call it programming blocks preventing them unless they get circumvented.)

Maybe make them immune to weakening but not stunning, so if they get hit by a taser or a baton they'll stay standing but stay in place for a second or two so Sec isn't toothless against them. Flashes still paralyze them unless they wear eye protection

[DemonFiren]

Replacing your own cell won't work because you'll collapse "dead" the moment it's out.

Replacing others won't work because NT places behavioural blocks on their almost-slaves.

[onleavedontatme]

Usually being bound by Asimov, meaning that you cannot valid hunt

Are you playing a different game?

[Remie Richards]

Replacing your own cell won't work because you'll collapse "dead" the moment it's out.

Replacing others won't work because NT places behavioural blocks on their almost-slaves.

Nah, let them do it, but obviously you know, the dead thing.
And let them do it if they're in pairs, reward what little teamwork goes on anymore.

[Helios]

Usually being bound by Asimov, meaning that you cannot valid hunt

Are you playing a different game?

What do you do as a synth if you are turned into a rev?
You can't beat a human wizard's head in. If you are letting the person next to you beat his head in you are through inaction allowing him to come to harm, so you're not following laws.
As a gang you can't shoot anyone in this role.

[DemonFiren]

Putting one of these into an electric chair should supercharge their cells and let them shoot lightning overload their cells and make them go boom like said cell's plasma-sabotaged equivalent.

...that said, if one has a plasma-sabotaged cell entered into it that thing should trigger not upon normal discharge, but module activation or recharge.

[Jazaen]

I really like the flesh idea. Would they be able to wear clothes with it?

[Wyzack]

While i think this is a cool idea, it also seems like you just get to reenter the round as a human with cool powers and very few drawbacks

[DemonFiren]

While i think this is a cool idea, it also seems like you just get to reenter the round as a human with cool powers and very few drawbacks

Space murders you much faster.
Doctors can't heal you, geneticists can't clone you, there's no superpowers.
If you die, odds are very good you'll come back as someone else's slave.
If you starve, you're dead. You need an active power grid to recharge.
EMPs absolutely rape you.

[Anonmare]

I really like the flesh idea. Would they be able to wear clothes with it?

That's my thought, honestly I'm only it for the idea of having antags making slaved Terminators/Cylons and have them slip into the crew relatively unnoticed. Adds to the paranoia when security demands everyone submit to a mandatory bloodtest or tasing people randomly (Not that they don't already anyway) to find out who's not who they appear to be.

EDIT: To be precise, imagine an antag robo killing someone and going full-frankenstein on their body - replacing all the useless flesh with perfect steel and prepping some synthflesh to conceal the monstrosity beneath. Then printing off a happy little posibrain, slapping them with an emag/freeform/OneHuman module and slotting them into the husk of a body to puppet but dancing along to the tune of someone else.
Not to say other jobs couldn't do it, exosuit fabs aren't ID-locked after all...

[Drynwyn]

Issue: Last time I checked, a fully augmented human is spaceworthy (if they have a breath mask). Seems weird that sticking a posibrain in there would make it suddenly MUST HAVE AIR COOLING.

[Gun Hog]

It does not have to be this complicated. If I were coding this, because I am lazy, I would just run a check on the body for all augment parts and enough health to not be crit, and if this is true, allow a new surgery called "Androdification" (or something) that ends with you placing the posibrain in. The code would then revive the body and transfer the posibrain's mind to itself. I might have to do some work so that androids drop a posibrain on debraining rather than the juicy meat organ.

My point is that I would be too lazy for all this fancy stuff. Acquire a human corpse somehow, brain it, fully augment it, do the surgery to insert the posibrain, done. After that he would be no different than any other augged human. (Augs are already vulnerable to EMP, a strong EMP hit to a full aug is instant critical)

[Anonmare]

It does not have to be this complicated. If I were coding this, because I am lazy, I would just run a check on the body for all augment parts and enough health to not be crit, and if this is true, allow a new surgery called "Androdification" (or something) that ends with you placing the posibrain in. The code would then revive the body and transfer the posibrain's mind to itself. I might have to do some work so that androids drop a posibrain on debraining rather than the juicy meat organ.

My point is that I would be too lazy for all this fancy stuff. Acquire a human corpse somehow, brain it, fully augment it, do the surgery to insert the posibrain, done. After that he would be no different than any other augged human. (Augs are already vulnerable to EMP, a strong EMP hit to a full aug is instant critical)

I'm worried that would just be seen as coming back into the round after being killed with no consequences, other ways to come back into the round (like golems, xenobio mobs and Manifest runes) usually have you enslaved or otherwise disadvantaged (Drones) or very rarely, outright antagonists.

[DemonFiren]

Issue: Last time I checked, a fully augmented human is spaceworthy (if they have a breath mask). Seems weird that sticking a posibrain in there would make it suddenly MUST HAVE AIR COOLING.

Headcanon: A fully augmented organic's aug power is drawn from a metabolic interchange in its guts.

The corpse can't really have this, instead it draws from a cell, resulting in greater energy through the cables, resulting in heating. The robot shell's control systems and positronics also generate heat while running, as most computers do.

[Gun Hog]

If your proposal is thus, then it is out of my realm. I would have to do a lot of extra work to nerf an android player while not affecting players simply seeking augmentation. The most obvious solution is a new mob as a child of /human, containing all the disadvantages or differences from an aug.

Yes, your concern is exactly on point and well warranted. It would indeed be a full respawn mechanic. Keep in mind that we already have a clever way of doing this via golems. Golems can in fact be debrained (I just tested it), and you can place that brain into a normal human corpse, revive that corpse via cloner or defib, thus creating a flesh and blood human! If you do not wish for this to be another player controlled method of respawning, then a new concept would be required.

[ThanatosRa]

One of these slaved to a malf ai would be an absolute terror. Fund it.

[Nienhaus]

Replacing your own cell won't work because you'll collapse "dead" the moment it's out.

Replacing others won't work because NT places behavioural blocks on their almost-slaves.

[Jazaen]

If your proposal is thus, then it is out of my realm. I would have to do a lot of extra work to nerf an android player while not affecting players simply seeking augmentation. The most obvious solution is a new mob as a child of /human, containing all the disadvantages or differences from an aug.

Yes, your concern is exactly on point and well warranted. It would indeed be a full respawn mechanic. Keep in mind that we already have a clever way of doing this via golems. Golems can in fact be debrained (I just tested it), and you can place that brain into a normal human corpse, revive that corpse via cloner or defib, thus creating a flesh and blood human! If you do not wish for this to be another player controlled method of respawning, then a new concept would be required.

Been there, done that, can confirm it works really well. And there is an abundance of braindead/soulless corpses on hi-pop rounds. Of course, the question if you still serve your master is an another matter entirely, and one better avoided.

Speaking of disadvantages, I say we make them use both battery power and hunger for the fleshed ones. Maybe they themselves require energy, but their skin requires nutriment? Maybe some healing chems damage them, because they are corrosive? Maybe mercury damages their skeleton because it bonds up with the metal that makes them up, changing it's propeties...

There have to be some more differences between flesh and metal ones, since fleshing would be direct upgrade (besides the whole hunger thing, which is not hard to sate unless station is going to hell). Maybe they can't repair themselves that easily, requiring either more synthflesh or a scapel and then metal? Or maybe their skin makes them even more susceptible to EMP, because in order to simulate human things like pulse and normal body heat you had to drop your shields, or detach some metal, or SPACE MAGIC.

I'm also for adding an disadvantageless admin-spawned version with max bullet resistance and super punch that appears randomly on station in order to kill someone syndicate/NT has found REALLY undeserving to live (say, sending an ExTerminator after erpers is better than flooding the station with meteors or just blowing them up)

EDIT: And make AI uploadable into one, so it can finally have hands. And then despair when someone calls the doorknob.

[ShadowDimentio]

Unrelated: It'd be cool if AIs could ASSUME MANUAL CONTROL of borg/synths if they want to

[Gun Hog]

Unrelated: It'd be cool if AIs could ASSUME MANUAL CONTROL of borg/synths if they want to

I coded this partially, but scrapped the idea due to it being super buggy.

[PKPenguin321]

i say scrap all this and make it a robotics endgame thing, kinda like how xenobio gets golems endgame

see, xeno gets golems endgame because it brings players back into the round as pseudo humans (they have hands and are basically identical to humans aside from their mutantrace). so what i propose is making it so with super high research (talking maxed/very near maxed), you can make an advanced posibrain (or APB). it's practically the same as a normal one, except it costs slightly more you use this one to make androids.

you can then drop the APB into a debrained corpse and it will act like a normal brain. from there you can defib/clone the fucker and badaboom, you've made a human.

[Zilenan91]

You could also work with genetics to take people back into the round by taking dead, humanned monkies.

[PKPenguin321]

You could also work with genetics to take people back into the round by taking dead, humanned monkies.

yeah exactly

it allows allows you to repurpose those brainless corpses that always pile up in robotics

[lumipharon]

If someone does this, please don't make them slaved to the AI.

[Luke Cox]

As a roundstart race, this is terrible and you should feel terrible. As something robotics can build to put positronic brains in, fuck yes.

[kevinz000]

>Roundstart race
>Malf AI
Goodluck holding back the zergdroid rush

[callanrockslol]

Can we just have the Bladerunner gamemode I suggested ages ago?

[Helios]

>Roundstart race
>Malf AI
Goodluck holding back the zergdroid rush

What is the current winrate for malf?

[onleavedontatme]

The interesting parts of synths (are they sentient or just machines? General quirkiness, etc) wouldnt really surface at all in ss13. They'd just be augged crewmembers yelling the round type on the radio like everyone else.

Giving the AI hands is also bad.

[Jazaen]

Getting hands but losing access to cameras seems like a good trade. We already can upload them into mechs.

[lumipharon]

Remember when we had those bugged rounds with malf assistants?

I would like to imagine something of that hilarious nature.

[bandit]

We already have malf assistants. They're called assistants.

[Gun Hog]

I cannot code this unless it is kept simple - i.e. not a new mob and not different from an augged human player. Actually, I am fully capable of coding nearly any of the ideas here, I just think it would be too much work.

[Jacquerel]

The actual "pretends to be a human" synth could be fun as a side antagonist with sneaky objectives that anyone has a chance to spawn as "having been replaced by", though that would require people to have the restraint not to treat any antagonist role as full-on murderboner so I guess it'd be unlikely.

[FantasticFwoosh]

i say scrap all this and make it a robotics endgame thing, kinda like how xenobio gets golems endgame

see, xeno gets golems endgame because it brings players back into the round as pseudo humans (they have hands and are basically identical to humans aside from their mutantrace). so what i propose is making it so with super high research (talking maxed/very near maxed), you can make an advanced posibrain (or APB). it's practically the same as a normal one, except it costs slightly more you use this one to make androids.

you can then drop the APB into a debrained corpse and it will act like a normal brain. from there you can defib/clone the fucker and badaboom, you've made a human.

If the APB was AI law uploadable with a swipe or slotting in a AI module directly (meaning you can reset by extracting the brain, removing the card to default to standard synth laws and plop back in - Can't be emagged but can be onehumaned using the large almost single use AI card *because as soon as you shove it out of the synth it'll scream you subverted it providing its not dead*)

I agree in not petitioning roundstart examples of synths, but instead leave it for lategame application when the miners are back and posibrains are rolling . As not to alienate robotics and leave it a R&D proceedure, let the APB be settable with most of the AI exoskeleton functions including slaving turned off by default (applying a card directly to the posibrain as said before will change the lawset, we can have it so doing so automatically unslaves from the AI)

To differenciate synths without synthflesh application, they should have a entirely blank metallic face with their allocated AI name tagged to their identity voice(meaning that in a dramatic fashion, they could be exposed by extended damage physical/burn to the face to being a synth imposter) a tator for instance, could kill their target, debrain them and shove a posibrain impostor in thier place. Unless they are full covered up, all 'human synthflesh' body parts should bleed blood (requirement else the skin will visibly slough, losing total quantity of any type blood which doesn't particularly matter to the synth itself only maintaining the synthflesh) which does not affect the unit until it bleeds oil when skin is depleted and damage continues to be sustained, in which case the unit will recieve slowing penalties and on total/half depletion tick 5 damage a second every time it moves or is moved.

[Miauw]

this should probably be put on hold until a few months down the line when fallout four isnt the cool new thing everybody is talking about

[Jazaen]

Well, assistants hiding in CARDBOARD BOXESTHE COWARDS! THE FOOLS! meme mostly died, so even if bots were added soon-ish hype would most likely die after 2 weeks, and they would become cool thing someone can do with some motivation instead of the thing moving the round forfard (barring some tator or admin intervention, that is)

[Shadowlight213]

>emagging a disadvantage.
AIs and borgs have a much higher antag chance than humans as they can be subverted or emagged while regular humans cant. How is the ability to get antag a disadvantage?

[Remie Richards]

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/13122

Adapted from thread Ideas.

[Anonmare]

>emagging a disadvantage.
AIs and borgs have a much higher antag chance than humans as they can be subverted or emagged while regular humans cant. How is the ability to get antag a disadvantage?

It doesn't really fit in as a positive since it's not "true" antag, mainly due to emagged borgs (AIs being unemaggable) are still slaved to a single person and if that person says "Go suicide bomb Departures" the only thing you should be asking for is how big do they want the explosion to be. And since Synths are made during the course of a round, they can't "roll" antag, not counting mulligan/midround, and being a "Sort-of" borg; can't anyway.
Well, not unless traitor borgs suddenly became a thing but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

[PKPenguin321]

i say scrap all this and make it a robotics endgame thing, kinda like how xenobio gets golems endgame

see, xeno gets golems endgame because it brings players back into the round as pseudo humans (they have hands and are basically identical to humans aside from their mutantrace). so what i propose is making it so with super high research (talking maxed/very near maxed), you can make an advanced posibrain (or APB). it's practically the same as a normal one, except it costs slightly more you use this one to make androids.

you can then drop the APB into a debrained corpse and it will act like a normal brain. from there you can defib/clone the fucker and badaboom, you've made a human.

If the APB was AI law uploadable with a swipe or slotting in a AI module directly (meaning you can reset by extracting the brain, removing the card to default to standard synth laws and plop back in - Can't be emagged but can be onehumaned using the large almost single use AI card *because as soon as you shove it out of the synth it'll scream you subverted it providing its not dead*)

I agree in not petitioning roundstart examples of synths, but instead leave it for lategame application when the miners are back and posibrains are rolling . As not to alienate robotics and leave it a R&D proceedure, let the APB be settable with most of the AI exoskeleton functions including slaving turned off by default (applying a card directly to the posibrain as said before will change the lawset, we can have it so doing so automatically unslaves from the AI)

To differenciate synths without synthflesh application, they should have a entirely blank metallic face with their allocated AI name tagged to their identity voice(meaning that in a dramatic fashion, they could be exposed by extended damage physical/burn to the face to being a synth imposter) a tator for instance, could kill their target, debrain them and shove a posibrain impostor in thier place. Unless they are full covered up, all 'human synthflesh' body parts should bleed blood (requirement else the skin will visibly slough, losing total quantity of any type blood which doesn't particularly matter to the synth itself only maintaining the synthflesh) which does not affect the unit until it bleeds oil when skin is depleted and damage continues to be sustained, in which case the unit will recieve slowing penalties and on total/half depletion tick 5 damage a second every time it moves or is moved.

i like the whole imposter thing but there shouldn't be any AI law syncing bullshit
golems don't have any laws short of obey their summoner, why should androids be any different?

[Shadowlight213]

>emagging a disadvantage.
AIs and borgs have a much higher antag chance than humans as they can be subverted or emagged while regular humans cant. How is the ability to get antag a disadvantage?

It doesn't really fit in as a positive since it's not "true" antag, mainly due to emagged borgs (AIs being unemaggable) are still slaved to a single person and if that person says "Go suicide bomb Departures" the only thing you should be asking for is how big do they want the explosion to be. And since Synths are made during the course of a round, they can't "roll" antag, not counting mulligan/midround, and being a "Sort-of" borg; can't anyway.
Well, not unless traitor borgs suddenly became a thing but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

>implying ghosts don't flock to posibrains whenever they see an antag robo emagging borgs.