Camera Feed Distortion

[SatinsPristOTD]

Geeve's "remove the AI at roundstart" thread got me thinking of ways to subtly nerf the AI's ability to gimmick shutdown via the Omnipotent cameras. As an AI player myself, I don't want to lose my AI, but I also recognize that it is incredibly easy to catch antags. While good AI's turn somewhat of a blind eye to antaggery, fact remains it's hard to not completely shutdown an antags "entrance" or "grand escape".

So (and I'm not even sure if this is codable, but we'll see), I came up with the idea of Feed Distortion. It wouldn't actually be an antag-caused thing, but rather something that occurs NORMALLY. Cameras may go "static" for a brief moment in random areas. "Oh, the bar camera is out right now. It'll come back in a minute or so" would just be a common thought to AI's. The feed distortion wouldn't need engineering to come fix it. It doesn't need the camera to be replaced or fiddled with. It's just a brief moment (maybe a 5 minute window?) of static in that area.

Now, this is where we implement the idea of a feed distorter. Antags can buy (or have it spawned on their respective shuttle) a device that is similar to a radio jammer. This device will take out cameras in a RADIUS, meaning you can shut down minings airlock cameras (and maybe mining itself) while still outside the facility and in "stealth".

Traitors could do this from tunnels.
It could even benefit lings and vampires if we put it in the warehouse spawners and tunnel spawners. Similar to the radio jammers and wormhole generators.

If an antag keeps it on longer than the "normal" time how long a distortion lasts, that's on them. They take that risk when using for an extended period of time.

[Dark1Star]

+1 Having more electronic warfare stuff is always a good idea in my book. The ability to disrupt the stations c4i (Command, Controll, Communications, Intelligence.) is always something I've wanted to have more ouf. Outside of going straight to the AI and subverting it, it'd be cool to have more "Subtle" options. +1

[Seeli]

+1 Already said, I kinda love this. Would be a fun roleplay mechanic. An airlock with random FD could be baaaad news when someone needs inside/outside quickly in medical emergencies, so maybe not 5 minutes. Maybe shorter. Also, Ion storms could make FD worse?

[Pratepresidenten]

To build on your idea:
Some form of camera hub in every respective department that can be tampered with to blackout an entire subgrid of cameras?

Im a big fan of generic RNG failures in general.

[SatinsPristOTD]

1 hour ago, Seeli said:

Ion storms could make FD worse?

Ions should absolutely make rolling "static"-outs a thing. Make it hit an entire department.

As for the AI not having the ability to open airlocks in case of emergencies, people will just have to resort to doing what they do when we don't have an AI on for the shift.

[Wigglesworth Jones]

I like this idea, it could be interesting.

[Seeli]

Oooh, rolling camera feed distortions through departments due to Ion storms would be great. Antags could take that as an opportunity to run places they shouldn't with the randomized ones or even cause FDs themselves. Can't some antags fake announcements? They could fake an ion announcement too.

And departmental camera hubs would be cool. CMO, HoS, RD, CE, Captain, HoP offices. Maybe even QM.

[ben10083]

Perhaps an alternative is that cameras are "late", as in you see delayed feedback of what the camera sees. This allows for someone to quickly take out cameras via a weapon, and will make it harder for AI to trap someone.

[Nantei]

Agent ID turns you into static on the AI's side of things. Dew that.

[Sheeplets]

I like this.

[Doxxmedearly]

4 hours ago, Seeli said:

Can't some antags fake announcements?

Any antag with access to a traitor uplink can buy a false ion storm announcement for something paltry like 2TC. This may actually get them to be bought for once. 

[Carver]

5 minutes is not brief. I'd make it 20-30 seconds when it occurs naturally, if EMP'd have it match the duration of an APC going out (about a minute?), and when done via item last as long as the antag item is activated (and I guess a ghetto version of said item that relies on battery power since ghetto antag items are nice).

Edited October 17, 2019 by Carver
Also the proposed Agent ID buff commented earlier would be terrible. Said item already prevents tracking.

[Nantei]

Preventing tracking is pretty useless unless the AI is very stupid. They can zip around cameras like a meth addict, so scanning pretty much the entire station is trivially easy. If I am mentioning that I can't track someone as an AI, it's usually because I want to avoid validing. I could actually find them pretty damn easy if they were on cameras. If the intent of the agent ID to protect your identity from the AI, it does a pretty piss poor job at it. AI can give everyone a full physical description of you. Static protects your identity completely,, pretty easy to make it toggleable so you aren't constantly like that.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Nantei

[Carver]

Preventing tracking in and of itself makes it marginally more annoying to find you, very annoying if you traverse z-levels. A full description is worthless if you utilize disguises with the ID as intended. I'd rather see a separate item costing more TCs do this, rather than giving a significant buff to an item that's already quite useful (and cheap), and that nearly every off-station antag (Nuke Ops, Raiders, etc.) starts with a free one of.

[NerdyVampire]

I think its a pretty fine idea, it seems like a camera scrambler would naturally be a part of the uplink selection. As long as it doesn't become too easy or cheap to deploy.