Custom Borg App - First Draft/Concept

[EmperorVoyd]

 

BYOND Key: Voyd2000
Character name: Kanza Al'Falak - KEDI/KEDI-IO - Adama Al'Rafati/One Who Sees
Item name: Custom borg skin. "Glitch"

Why is your character carrying said item to work?

It is the body of the character.

Item function(s): Item functions as a borg unit. (Engineering/Miner to start)
Item description: Glitch is a hodgepodge of various components.
Item appearance: This borg is a mix of various parts and bits, It's origin and or builder are unknown at this time. 

Pictures of Glitch are below.

How will you use this to better interact with the crew and/or stimulate RP?
This is Glitch, A larger construction drone chassis built from parts of other drones and even a few custom parts, It houses a positronic brain inside but is a non-vocal critter, using action emotes, flashing lights, beeps boops and pointing in order to interact with and help the crew.  Much like miner drones, it is not small enough to fit in drone doors.

Glitch stands taller on its legs than normal drone chassis and relies on a lidar sensor atop the chassis to augment its two green ocular sensors to the right side of its chassis

Additional comments:

N/a

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by EmperorVoyd

[EmperorVoyd]

**edit post removed.

Edited February 16, 2019 by EmperorVoyd

[EmperorVoyd]

Ok fixed up some mistakes I made, New file set for Glitch below! 

glitch-toggle_lights.dmi
glitch-smashed.dmi
glitch-open-c.dmi
glitch-open+we.dmi
glitch-open.dmi
glitch-open(M).dmi
glitch_resting.dmi
 

glitch-eyes.dmi - Updated with simulated glow

glitch(M).dmi - Updated with better walking animations.   

glitch.dmi - Updated with 800 tick delay idle animations when facing east or west.

Please Note: 
The OPEN, RESTING and SMASHED sprite states all have "Baked in" lighting and shouldn't use the "EYES" lighting sprite meant for normal operation. 
When I say lighting I only mean the visual look, not the in-game mechanic of glowing or lighting areas.

2nd Please Note: 

I'd like it if the TOGGLE_LIGHTS sprite state was bound to the in-game ability to turn on and off your borg lights
I'd like it if the RESTING sprite state was used when using the "rest" emote

A few samples of what's in the DMIs

Just a demo with baked eye-lights and what the toggle lights look like. Ignore the white line, that's alpha transparency glow losing quality as an animated gif.

Animated Glitch - No baked lights
   -  

 

 - Idle animation plays once every 2 or 3 mins. when facing east long enough. Claw play and kitty face

 - Idle animation 2 plays once every 2 or 3 mins. when facing west long enough. Game of Tetris crashes at the worse time.

Glitch, Idle stance, No baked in lighting.

 

Glitch in Resting state. Baked in blue lights and flashing Z Z Z side screen.

 - Animated

 

(From left to right)

Glitch Open for Repairs, Showing off its posi-brain and expansion cards - Glitch Open for Repairs Power cell removed - Glitch Open for Repairs, wires stripped down, no power cell.

 - Animated 

    

 

Glitch Smashed/Dead, Side screen flashes ! ! ! ! in between static bursts

 - Animated

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Edited March 15, 2019 by EmperorVoyd

[ferner]

 

This looks fantastic and unique, I appreciate the mish-mash nature of it.

I know Voyd is a great roleplayer and I could see them pull off playing an emote-oriented stationbound well.

As for the technical aspects I have no idea unfortunately of what is actually possible regarding custom borg skins.

[EmperorVoyd]

**Deleted**

Edited February 26, 2019 by EmperorVoyd

[Chada1]

I'm a big fan of this and I like the idea a lot. Also voyd is a fantastic roleplayer, all of my interactions with them have been great, and they seem to have a consistently high standard of roleplay. I've roleplayed with them on and off between many different characters, as my 'borg, in Cargo as a looong abandoned character, in Science once or twice as my Skrell? maybe, can't remember on that one.

Anyway, my point, I trust them with a concept like this, I think they can do it justice, my only worry is the idea of a 'borg that doesn't talk. I have tried a similar feat in the past, and it didn't work too well. What I ended up doing Voyd is to bind a key to a custom emote beep for acknowledging queries and pre-set responses that people could grow accustomed to, this worked better for me than not talking at all. 

The reason a non-talking 'borg doesn't work too well is no fault of your own -- People simply won't roll with it, and will try to say you're breaking your laws by not responding to them quickly. They don't understand that you're doing your laws to the best of your Characters Ability, not your own OOC ability.

 

Up to you on what you ultimately do.

+1.

Edited February 12, 2019 by Chada1

[EmperorVoyd]

How I planned to RP out more complex communication locally using Glitch's side screens and simply an emote like "  /me turns and flashes the text. "I understand" On its side screens.  " In the event, a player can't cope with other forms of communication. Or another example  /me turns and flashes the text. "Danger do not enter" On its side screen whilst buzzing frantically. The fallback from non-vocal is to literally spell it out lol  

For coms, it would be emoting such as. " ;! beeps twice, responding to the request for a Borg unit followed by a quick chirp signifying it's awaiting more detailed instructions. " 
 

As people will interact more and more with the unit they will figure out the Beeps boops and chirps on their own without me having to sort of narrate the intent.

Like with my non-vocal nymph play, it took a few rounds before people started to willingly let me feed, before this I made it a personal challenge to only feed off people whom properly RP offering up a wrist or hand, Some even learning that they have to also take off their gloves, all by way of consistent behavior from my Nymph, with no words started to feed on "regulars" who knew that this particular nymph only feeds when offered a hand.
 

 

[Itanimulli]

Can't get behind a borg that looks like a human.

First sprite? Yeah. IO sprites? Nah.

I liked the initial concept, but now it feels like too much is going on.

Edited February 26, 2019 by Itanimulli

[NerdyVampire]

Uuuh looks very good. Would love to see it in game, whatever the mechanics might be!

[Alberyk]

Some code issues:

-borgs can't really spawn with an extra custom item, so the toolbox thing is not feasible

-you can have a single custom borg sprite set by ckey, and it is linked to a borg's name

[EmperorVoyd]

2 minutes ago, Alberyk said:

Some code issues:

-borgs can't really spawn with an extra custom item, so the toolbox thing is not feasible

-you can have a single custom borg sprite set by ckey, and it is linked to a borg's name

-I figured the toolbox item was a long shot, hence I never put much work or anything into it, This is good to know! Thank you!

-Does this mean if it comes down to a choice, I'd have to pick Glitch or KED-IO - Oh boy, hard choice as I think I would enjoy both! 

However, the KEDI-IO set was more of a hypothetical what if/maybe backup if the Glitch concept was unacceptable.  
But faced with the choice I would likely lean more toward KEDI-IO, I would put a little more work into said sprites if it was an acceptable concept.

[TishinaStalker]

Very nice sprites for Glitch, some very good work. As a note, we're approving Glitch sprites specifically. If we hadn't, the KEDI-IO sprites wouldn't have flown either because they are against the fundamentals of cyborg sprites.

Application accepted.

[Alberyk]

Sprites added to the code, you should be able to select it.