Stationbound Law Rework

[Chada1]

Hello, It's time for me to suggest another change, this time for my favorite role and about one of their mechanics that has not aged well, at all.

So, normally 'borgs have a set of four laws, we all know this. Let's analyze them and then make some changes, we know them as: -

1. Safeguard: ("Protect your assigned space station from damage to the best of your abilities.") Pretty ? but allows going out of your way to hunt Antags and recklessly endanger yourself. Also doesn't include the AI and other 'borgs in its protection, when it really should, as they're v. expensive and it would harm NanoTrasen to have their 'borgs/AI sit by and allow each other to be destroyed, nor does it include the Station pets or other research materials, in general expensive things. Which is ? No Good ?
2. Serve: ("Serve NanoTrasen personnel to the best of your abilities, with priority as according to their rank and role.") Same thing as Safeguard except without the 'AI and borg' problem. This also prioritizes Command over regular Crew, which will be kept I think. To sum it up: Actively encourages powergaming and hunting Antags. It doesn't foster RP, it removes it.
3. Protect: ("Protect NanoTrasen personnel to the best of your abilities, with priority as according to their rank and role.") Same thing as Safeguard except without the 'AI and borg' problem. This also prioritizes Command over regular Crew, which will kept I think. To sum it up: Actively encourages powergaming and hunting Antags. It doesn't foster RP, it removes it.
4. Preserve: ("Do not allow unauthorized personnel to tamper with your equipment.") <= Does nothing but make 'borgs avoid being tampered with. Only in one interpretation (The extreme one) would it mean the player should avoid their unit being damaged and fear RP. Part of the reason the other laws are a big issue.

All of these also use 'You and your' which refers to the player behind the keyboard, which leads to the misunderstanding that you're meant to focus on your knowledge from an out of character point of view, which can v. much lead to thinking they're supposed to apply their out of character knowledge and not look at things from the perspective of what their individual stationbound unit would know, which if interpreted in the way it's phrased, will directly lead to a lack of roleplay and powergaming. Not v. new player friendly.

Now let's look at what I want to change them to.

1. Safeguard: ("Protect NanoTrasen property from damage to the best of your unit's abilities.") Covers all NanoTrasen equipment, including but not limited to, pets, the Odin, the Exodus, the Upsilon, the AI, the other 'borgs. Refers to the Stationbound unit you are playing in particular, not the player behind the keyboard.
2. Serve: ("Serve NanoTrasen personnel to the best of your unit's abilities, with priority as according to their rank and role.") Same as Safeguard without the equipment and with just serving Crew in particular.
3. Protect: ("Protect NanoTrasen personnel to the best of your unit's abilities, with priority as according to their rank and role.") Same as Safeguard without the equipment and with protecting Crew and other NanoTrasen persons in particular.
4. Preserve: ("Your unit is a valuable commodity. They must avoid tampering from unauthorized personnel, and avoid knowingly allowing themselves to come to serious harm.") Adds the Self-Preservation directive from IPC Lore directly into the 'borg laws. Prevents the 'borg from actively hunting Antags in any of the other laws. Severe harm means law conflict, law conflict = no action, which means the only other option in a law conflict, with preserve, if you expect to be destroyed, is to flee. Flight, not Fight or Flight. A thing to consider is that if a 'borg is following laws 1-3, they're capable of being in danger with this law, they just can't willfully seek it out, or knowingly stay in danger they know will cause them to be destroyed. That simple!

This hopefully would fix all of these problems. Primarily, this only impacts 'borgs, the AI is almost immune to this except when the Antag is literally in their core, at that point they have to try to reason with them as opposed to allowing themselves to be tampered with/killed. I think this is a BILLION times better for roleplay. The PR can be seen Here.

 

The Final law is essentially Fear-RP but for 'borgs. Any questions/feedback?

[Arrow768]

I don't think those changes are needed, as the laws are presented in a ic manner and therefore refer to the borg/ai and not the player. 

Adding "your unit" to it just mixes ic and ooc in a weird way. 

Voting for dismissal. 

[Zyrus]

Yeah, you're basing this solely off your own opinion that the laws are somehow taken as OOC. They're not. This just makes it weird.

[Chada1]

2 hours ago, Arrow768 said:

I don't think those changes are needed, as the laws are presented in a ic manner and therefore refer to the borg/ai and not the player. 

Adding "your unit" to it just mixes ic and ooc in a weird way. 

Voting for dismissal. 

 

1 hour ago, Zyrus said:

Yeah, you're basing this solely off your own opinion that the laws are somehow taken as OOC. They're not. This just makes it weird.

This has very little to nothing to do with my opinion, I've experienced it in practice, there are players who mistake 'your' to refer to you in an OOC sense, it's mixing up OOC and IC in a weird way right now, the only reason it seems like it doesn't is because we've had it for a billion years. The current way of referring to 'You' and not 'Your character' is mostly a holdover from an era where RP wasn't even really a thing. SO the idea that it's setup just for HRP (It isn't) and isn't doing this (When it was actually designed to do that back then) is kinda crazy.

'Your' = Player behind the keyboard.

'Your unit' = Player behind the keyboards' character.
 

It's that simple. 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Chada1

[Zyrus]

That sounds more like a player problem than a Law problem. Make it clear on the wiki this is expected. Problem solved.

[Chada1]

1 minute ago, Zyrus said:

That sounds more like a player problem than a Law problem. Make it clear on the wiki this is expected. Problem solved.

It doesn't matter if it's clear on the wiki or not, because they'd have to read it directly on the wiki and not ingame to get it, when we NEED TO ELIMINATE needing a wiki to play your role in a way that won't get you banned.

The wiki is meant to help you learn the mechanics of the game, not avoid being actually banned. ?

Edited May 27, 2020 by Chada1

[Arrow768]

Then this should be added to the "welcome text" which is displayed when you join instead of every law. 

[Chada1]

2 hours ago, Arrow768 said:

Then this should be added to the "welcome text" which is displayed when you join instead of every law. 

That's a v. good idea arrow and might work. I'm willing to budge here and see if that improves it for people ?

Would you be willing to try the other law improvements in a test merge or something tho? I think those are extremely important too and this was just a secondary concern to them.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Chada1

[Arrow768]

The rest of the pr was imho worth trying out. 

It's only the weird mix of ic and ooc within the laws (that becomes especially weird when stating laws; who/what is the borgs "your unit") that bothered us (the maintainers) and led to the closure of the pr as not wanted. 

[Chada1]

6 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

The rest of the pr was imho worth trying out. 

It's only the weird mix of ic and ooc within the laws (that becomes especially weird when stating laws; who/what is the borgs "your unit") that bothered us (the maintainers) and led to the closure of the pr as not wanted. 

I'll change it soon:tm:, I'll have to put some thought/work into the AI/'borg jointexts because there are a couple of other things I want to improve and add to them too, like the clause against laws violating other laws which only exists on the wiki rn.

[Zundy]

Why would referring to yourself in the third person be weird? The military do this all the time. "The recruit" etc.

[Alberyk]

5 minutes ago, Zundy said:

Why would referring to yourself in the third person be weird? The military do this all the time. "The recruit" etc.

The suggested laws were not using the third person, they were speaking to the player, not the character.

[Zundy]

"Protect NanoTrasen property from damage to the best of your unit's body's abilities" is fine though, so why not unit?

[Chada1]

2 minutes ago, Alberyk said:

The suggested laws were not using the third person, they were speaking to the player, not the character.

The current laws speak to the player and not the character. 'Your' is directly referring to the player, not the stationbound.

Noone actually suggested ways to improve it (Which up to this point I've been extremely receptive to), or I would have a good while ago.

[Chada1]

Alright so, Arrow explained to me how it works (FINALLY SOMEONE DID) and now I get it. 

12 minutes ago, Zundy said:

"Protect NanoTrasen property from damage to the best of your unit's body's abilities" is fine though, so why not unit?

It goes from:
Borg ABC states: "You must not..."

To

Borg ABC states: "Your unit must not..."

Which is a statement seemingly to someone else, which could lead to confusion for Crew/etc

Edited May 27, 2020 by Chada1

[Chada1]

This is now fixed, all of the 'Your unit' changes have been altered/reverted and except one, which is the Corporate lawset, where it before said 'You are expensive to replace' it now says 'Synthetics are expensive to replace' so it covers the AI/'borgs too.

I'm STILL going to try to fix the separation between player and character issues, but it'll be by Arrows idea (The jointext for AI/'borgs)

The new laws at the moment are:
 

1. Safeguard: ("Protect NanoTrasen property from damage to the best of your abilities.")
2. Serve: ("Serve NanoTrasen personnel to the best of your abilities, with priority as according to their rank and role.")
3. Protect: ("Protect NanoTrasen personnel to the best of your abilities, with priority as according to their rank and role.")
4. Preserve: ("You are a valuable commodity. You must avoid tampering from unauthorized personnel, and avoid knowingly allowing yourself to come to serious harm.")

Edited May 27, 2020 by Chada1

[Chada1]

As another update, I've figured out how to implement the separation of player/character and the law override clause. Here's a picture of the new laws + the clauses in practice. 

It should enable 'borgs to endanger themselves even in v. dangerous scenarios if it is actively deemed as necessary to serve and protect (Which means a mod/admin can tell if something is foul play just by whether or not the danger seems reasonably necessary) and accounts for non-NT Crew (Contractors, TCFL if boarding by NT request) and also does a neat distinction between non-NT and NT proper in the serve law which would lead to the 'borg prioritizing NT staff over contracted staff in commands. (Which could lead to neat roleplay where a 'borg looks to the NT members of a department for permission to carry out the requests of a contractor) I also used more synonyms for the law titles, since I think it helps to hammer in the spirit of the laws. Serve is still serving to the best of your ability, but is also an active assisting of Crew instead of just serving Protecting is actively ensuring the safety of Crew where possible, not just protecting them from danger when it's spotted. And hopefully with fear RP still in.

Also new wording changes, any feedback is V much appreciated.

Edited May 29, 2020 by Chada1
Updated with the new version.

[Chada1]

Since the law changes themselves change a lot more about the game and take a lot more testing, I've decided to split them into a different PR from my law information changes, this is because in the event of needing to revert them I'd prefer the law information stay in, so it's better to atomize it. That said, I'm hoping we can get a testmerge ?™️, and it wouldn't bother me to revert if it doesn't work, I'm trying to tweak some of 'borg/AIs problems out with these changes, not create more.

[Chada1]

A lot more changes have been made since the last image posted, but it's still v. similar to that, you should visit the PR to see how it looks exactly, but it won't give you the same frame as it will ingame. I'm probably not going to be posting consistent updates to this thread mostly due to the lack of feedback. ? Sorry.

[NerdyVampire]

So after having played rounds as both station-bound and AI I gotta say that I am mostly satisfied with the changes. The only thing I'm missing, is also the biggest hot-button issue, the ability to bolt as an AI. Now, here is what I think might be worth some consideration in regards to the future of the AI.

Is it possible to make a menu in the command console (blocked from AI access like the alert level) in which the RD and captain can edit AI permissions, such as its ability to bolt airlocks, access the messaging server, electrify airlocks, and possibly more? These features would still be barred from all AIs at spawn, but it will allow the relevant command staff to make this as a command decision and will further solidify the relation between the intelligence and command team.

Since this is locked to captains and research directors, both white-listed players, I feel this is a good compromise to bar new AI players from any features, as they will have to actively ask for it from command staff, and provide good reasons for it. It will also allow some bias towards AI players that can generally be trusted with this, and against AI players that can't.

Thoughts?

 

[Carver]

If Command can simply edit AI perms, then what would be the point of removing such abilities? They were generally only ever used by crew order in the first place with exemption of malf.

[NerdyVampire]

6 hours ago, Carver said:

If Command can simply edit AI perms, then what would be the point of removing such abilities? They were generally only ever used by crew order in the first place with exemption of malf.

The point would be that we would be transforming it into a dynamic thing that can change from round to round, instead of a permanent change. It helps to cement the AI as a tool to be used by command as they see fit and opens up for us expanding more on this, such as command disabling the mech control as well. If you are right that there is never any better reason to use it than on crew orders, then command wouldn't adjust them. But the possibility is there, and that is important to me. Aside from that, it has the added benefit of giving the RD a little more responsibility and meaning.

[Chada1]

On 11/06/2020 at 08:03, NerdyVampire said:

Thoughts?

I'm sorry, but I think you misunderstood the reason behind removing the AI bolting/electrification. It's not just to protect the Crew from new AIs, it's to protect the AI/borgs AND Antagonists from being ordered to validhunt and shutdown/being valided and shutdown.

Allowing bolting and electrification to come back in the form you're proposing would just lead to this happening again and the AI and borgs can't tell the Captain/Research Director no ICly when given the order, so it is in absolutely no way just the silicon players fault-- these features are removed from non-Antag Silicons to avoid them from being ORDERED to act in this way too, which is 100% what you're saying you want to return.

To sum it up; It's not just how the AI uses bolting/electrification, it's how the Crew uses it too.

Which is why I'm sorry. This is an incontrovertible NO from me.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Chada1

[armrha]

I still feel like if you're 'shut down' because an AI bolted you in or out of somewhere, that's your problem and you need to learn more to be the antagonist and part of being an antagonist is overcoming challenges, no matter how much people say 'it forces you to build your whole strategy around avoiding the AI', well, the game has built years and years of ways around the AI. It still feels like fun gameplay to me. But I guess the community disagrees. Though I feel like I've run into far more people that disagree with the bolting being removed than who agree with it; it still seems like every time it comes up in ooc or chat people are like WTF? Why did we do that? I don't think it ever went to a vote or anything...

Just disagreeing on that, don't disagree with your work here though, good stuff, thank you Chada1.

[NerdyVampire]

On 22/06/2020 at 06:09, Chada1 said:

I'm sorry, but I think you misunderstood the reason behind removing the AI bolting/electrification.

I do understand it, we've already discussed my standing on the bolting in general, but this is actually the wrong thread to discuss it in, so I'll not continue it here. I followed the wrong github link