Making pAI's more fun to play and easier to play as

[Colfer]

It seems right now that the majority of the time, people who want to play as a pAI have to beg to do so and the occasion where people actually want to play pAI is somewhat uncommon, so nobody uses pAI's in their loadout (maybe they have tried before but most of the time it fails).

I think there are various ways to make pAI's better suited for the general population starting with ghost spawning menu
It could be nice if pAI's by default are set to "Downloads Open" when no personality is in them which would be placed under the "Request Personality" button. Joining as a pAI from the spawner menu will use your pAI settings in your global tab (If not that, it gives you a popup to rename yourself similar to offstation antagonists). You can always set "Downloads Closed" on a pAI, if your looking for a specific one

Secondly I think new pAI sprites such as farwas, crows, and maybe rolling spheres could be neat and give pAI players more options. Since the current roster of usable sprites is around 5 or 6.

Lastly I think pAI's could benifit from being more available and also more useful, such as by being able to hold objects of any size and Activate them in hand, and use them on objects as well, but to counter this, reducing their health by 80% since they can survive around 4 or 8 gunshots from a decent weapon last I have seen. Additionally, letting them operate machinery such as pianos, computers, card decks, and chemical dispensers and generally giving them the same functionality as a humanoid mob hand but without throwing, attacking or shooting. (Edit)[But the pAI player should have new restrictions if this is implemented, or OOC clerifications that they should take peoples occupation since they are inferior at doing it, and additionally shouldnt bring harm to sapient life since they are a companion ment to serve their master, carrying live grenades set on a 30 second timer to security to blow themselves up wouldnt serve their master, since they would be dead.
The previous loose 'serve your master' works since pAI's are completely and utterly useless at any physical task requiring hands or pulling at all, but assuming this is considered and done, they would have to be held to a higher regard of responsibility](Edit end)

I am mostly unaffected if the second or third options are not implemented, but currently theres very few pAI's readily available to the general population on the station and its even less common for them to actually be used by any crewmember without the person who wants to play as a pAI asking about it in OOC periodically for 30 minutes sometimes, or even more.
I think making them more mechanically useful would general make them more fun to play as and with, since pAI's currently only serve as a talking buddy and cant actually help their owner in any way except maybe automating their laptop.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Colfer
Clarification on third option

[Spacemanspark]

On 26/04/2021 at 10:00, Colfer said:

Lastly I think pAI's could benifit from being more available and also more useful, such as by being able to hold objects of any size and Activate them in hand but to counter this, reducing their health by 80% since they can survive around 4 or 8 gunshots from a decent weapon last I have seen. Additionally, letting them operate machinery such as pianos, computers, card decks and generally giving them the same functionality as a humanoid mob hand but without throwing, attacking or shooting

I think this is the sole area in this suggestion that I don't quite agree with. I don't typically make comments on the topic of balance without being well integrated into a server, but synthetics are something I adore in SS13 and I can't help myself, lol. So... 

Even if they cannot fight with the items they pick up directly, being able to carry any typical object is quite a massive upside, far more than you might expect. Being able to carry bombs, guns, et cetera while being carried or moving by your owner is fairly ehhhh to me. As well, this forms two questions, one from a realistic standpoint and one from a code standpoint, both of which follow the same vein: How do you handle this, sprite wise? Sure, a monkey or a farwa is generally very simple, but what about a cat or drone carrying an item? Not having an in hand sprite wouldn't be particularly great, either. Cyborgs/ Androids have modules that denote what items they can have at any given moment, so one knows at least a little about what to expect. But if BobShmoeOS v2.9 walks up to the brig carrying a grenade or a bomb, that's something a person should be able to spot immediately. 

I also don't know how I feel about lowering their health, either, as a way to balance that out. pAIs are already incredibly fragile, and while that's not something I currently care about all that much when I play one, I'd probably be a little less motivated to do so if a simple breeze or speck of dust touching me caused my chassis to break. An alternate solution is to have damage inflicted to a pAI cause various instability or other such issues the more damaged they are, similar to an android's module slots shutting down if they take too much damage. Have the chassis occasionally fold back into card form, have them occasionally emit sparks, cause their wireless capabilities have a chance to fail or completely stop working, slow down movement speed, that sort of thing. 

I think, perhaps, adding in more things for a pAI to interact with wirelessly might be one step towards making them more viable. Perhaps have the current owner be able to designate machines that they have access to for the pAI to wirelessly interface with, provided they're within range. I imagine science would have the most use out of this. 

I think adding in a few analyzer modules would also be quite helpful. Recently I've been the pAI for Safaa Sadar, who frequents hydroponics. Having a plant analyzer module would allow me to help her a little bit, for example. I imagine medical or robotics would also appreciate a medical or robotic analyzer too. It might be small, but it may help them save some time. 

I'm hella tired as I'm writing this up, so I may not be making the most cohesive ideas. Either way, glad people are giving pAIs a bit of love. 

[Colfer]

1 hour ago, Spacemanspark said:

but what about a cat or drone carrying an item?

If I could code and I knew how to do it, I would make it appear as if the item is held above the pAI and drops on the ground when the pAI is folded, picked up, or the item is clicked on. It would be cute for the item to appear being held on the head of the pAI or balanced on their back if its a drone/cat/rabbit.

 

1 hour ago, Spacemanspark said:

I also don't know how I feel about lowering their health, either, as a way to balance that out. pAIs are already incredibly fragile

pAI's that sustain too much damage just get wiped from the card, the card itself remains intact. I think its better if it works like 3-4 hits from weak weapons like crowbars, and one or two hit from actual weapons like self-made swords, security batons, projectiles and lasers since, in the worst case senario, the person has to go through extra steps to hide the card, or they could re-download the pAI to use for themselves, additionally a new pAI that previously died doesnt have the memories of its previous owner meaning that if the pAI was for example, holding an active grenade, they wouldnt immediately go back and ask for a new bomb to destroy security with.
I am wondering if a pAI that dies should default the card to "Downloads Closed" even if wiped since being able to instantly get restored after dying might put people off and think that they need to kill it again, and maybe be a little anger inducing.

 

1 hour ago, Spacemanspark said:

few analyzer modules would also be quite helpful. Recently I've been the pAI for Safaa Sadar, who frequents hydroponics. Having a plant analyzer module would allow me to help her a little bit, for example

I think this is a great suggestion, along with being able to hold objects I would want pAI's to be able to use objects on things in a non-harmful way, such as watering plants or interacting with nutrimax vendors to get nutriment and generally be very helpful and useful to their masters in more ways than just talking with them and instructing them on things and generally be a multi-purpose companion. The idea of a HoP asking her pAI to run the bar and having a little animatronic cat using the vending machines, mixing drinks and such sounds really cute, but it could be a bit annoying both depending on the personality and the user. But a pAI could always be wiped by a person that doesnt own them if they are being annoying (I think thats right?)

Generally, Im thinking theres a stigma of giving pAI's any form of power and im not sure why other than the fact they are unlawed synthetics that can be altered by somebody that owns them. I think this level of power dramatically raises their mechanical usage up, but not to a point where they break the game, since only having one usable hand and no storage options leaves it limited and pAI's wont be taking peoples jobs, just filling in if needed such as with a chemist, bartender which mostly only require one hand to be effective with.
Obviously, There will be people who will abuse this in ways I cant fully comprehend, but as the saying goes. "Hate the player, not the game"

Edited April 27, 2021 by Colfer
A response was unnecessarily defensive, sorry about that

[Spacemanspark]

On 27/04/2021 at 12:23, Colfer said:

Generally, Im thinking theres a stigma of giving pAI's any form of power and im not sure why other than the fact they are unlawed synthetics that can be altered by somebody that owns them. I think this level of power dramatically raises their mechanical usage up, but not to a point where they break the game, since only having one usable hand and no storage options leaves it limited and pAI's wont be taking peoples jobs, just filling in if needed such as with a chemist, bartender which mostly only require one hand to be effective with.
Obviously, There will be people who will abuse this in ways I cant fully comprehend, but as the saying goes. "Hate the player, not the game"

I think this is where my ability to fairly comment on balance concerns ends, although I can still give you an explanation of why many servers house this belief. Typically, the term 'mobile death alarm' is brought up, along with their small sprite size. Yes, previously I mentioned that pAIs are remarkably fragile as is, and offered an alternate solution to nerfing their health without making them a two shot--but I would be remiss in failing to mention one of the bigger upsides they potentially have. Granted, a pAI should ideally not be used for anything combat related, but the small sprite size does have an impact. 

However, my point of balance concerns arises from my time on servers that have a higher focus on mechanics as opposed to roleplay. On a server such as Aurora, where players are a lot more willing and interested in roleplay, balance can sometimes be put on the back burner in favor of more unique, immersive content. Many of my opinions or worries might be baseless, or at least far less severe than I could be making it out to be. It's why I haven't commented much on the topic of Aurora's game balance ?

On 27/04/2021 at 12:23, Colfer said:

But a pAI could always be wiped by a person that doesnt own them if they are being annoying (I think thats right?)

If I'm honest, though, this has always been one of my pet peeves. I haven't had it happen to me on Aurora, nor have I seen people do it here, but good lord it is the absolute worst feeling when pAIs get randomly picked up and wiped for next to no reason. I don't know off the top of my head if Aurora has rules that protect such cases happening here (I'd imagine it does), but if it doesn't... I can't particularly say I'm keen on this being a good balancing point.

[Colfer]

With the introduction of the "Multi-purpose gripper" to maintenance drones, I believe that the gripper for pAI's that is being suggested here should be some kind of mechanical equivalent to the maintenance drones gripper to allow them to use items and objects around themselves in a vastly better capacity, while still having the restriction of a blacklist for items (instead of a whitelist) and only having one hand to use objects.

(Edited to clerify further)

Edited October 27, 2021 by Colfer