1 dismissal Remove Cyborg

[Flpfs]

Basically, softremove them.

I know the epic motto of improve, don't remove, but I see no way of fixing this role.

You are basically a non-character, literally designed to act like a game NPC. This wouldn't really matter if they didn't have massive influence over the tasks they picked. One engineering borg can basically do the work of two, three engineers, without any effort, being resistant to gunfire, flames, immune to oxygen damage and low temperatures. Medical borgs can do pretty much /all/ medical tasks like surgical and medical, service borgs, etcetra.

My point is, they only serve to mechanically do things for the ship, and do not generate any roleplay. They often take away tasks from crew, and it feels annoying to join as doctor/pharmacist/bartender/miner or whatever to see that some random cyborg has done what you should be doing, with you having no say in it.

Continuing, in all my time in this server, I can count on my hand the cool interactions I have had with cyborgs. This is partly due to the nature of player this role attracts, and the nature of the role itself. It seems to attract grating, annoying individuals. I have seen several times now cyborgs run and tank gunfire, snitch on antagonists in bad faith, taunt mercenaries/raiders over comms, etc. 

And, even if you have a very smart player behind the cyborg role, the fun you will have is severely limited, anyways. You are playing a mindless automaton. Either a literal circuitboard, a bound version of a positronic, or a literal brain in a cage. The laws of the cyborg, and its duties, also reinforce this state of mindlessness. You exist solely to do mechanical jobs on the ship, and are blindingly loyal (if the player isnt being a dick).

Externally, what is there to interact with a cyborg? You can ask it to do coffee, maybe. Or, bandage somebody, whoa. Aside from memey gimmicks that do not last more than three rounds (funny accent, funny quirk of speech), there's nothing more to it. Cyborgs have no background, no history, no family, no aspirations, nothing that makes a character actually interesting. They're boring, and that is on purpose. That is why Cyborg has to go.

TLDR - cyborgs do our jobs for us and they aren't really characters + its boring and they're annoying

[kyres1]

The issues that come from borg can be attributed to the fact that they aren't really characters at their core - or, at the least, the prerequisite for a borg is to have your agency taken away from you. After all, you are equipment.

That said, I don't think it's very helpful for anybody to play what is effectively less than a character in an environment where everybody is playing characters, especially not encouraged to do so. The more agency that is removed from cyborgs, the less characterized they can become, but simultaneously we run into the age-old issue of these being unwhitelisted roles with no process of quality control. They only inherently can be tuned so freely due to this. I don't really deeply desire the removal of stationbounds, but something that permits these things to become characters more than encouraged to detriment is needed to me. Otherwise, removal (or at least proposing removal) is the first step towards improvement.

In a perfect world, a solution would be to lump them under a synthetic whitelist and prevent them from being applied for directly, so people have to demonstrate some measurement of understanding what they are before playing them. That way, they can be granted more freedom in characterization by merit of a synthetic whitelist. Or, perhaps, even have their laws (the primary roleplay nerf) toned down or removed.

[Evandorf]

I think a lot of the issues brought up in the original post can be resolved with systems already in place. 
 

If a borg is doing your job you have every right to tell them to stop or get reset and do something else unless you’re superceded by your head or the Captain. If there was no machinist to do a reset I would completely be onboard allowing them to respawn to choose another module  

If a borg is power gaming, meta gaming, or acting outside of its lawset then ahelp it. I’m not totally against a whitelist for them but they are much more manageable than an AI to deal with.

As far as them being boring to play or being boring to interact with I would have to say your mileage may vary. I don’t interact with every crew member every round. Having “NPCs” in the background helps the ship feel less empty. I play AI and borg because I have less agency and not despite it. I don’t think it’s fair to say a role should be removed just because you, personally, don’t like it. 

[Sheeplets]

I can only speak on my experiences with Medical borgs, but I'm sure these issues exist across the board too.

Cyborgs in that department, without directly naming anyone, are probably the most irritating thing I've dealt with on Aurora. Because you're right, they'll do everything. Their job is to have everyone elses' job too. The worst offenders vacuum up our entire combined workload in a department that already struggles with delegating fair amounts of work to keep everyone active and involved. I've lost count of the number of times I had to shoo away cyborgs as a First Responder who've ran out on calls without being asked to when there were people available. You ask them to leave, they do, and then a few rounds later they do the same shit. If you say nothing then they'll drag your patient away from you past an entire lobby of physicians and surgeons and run the line from start to finish. It might not be the intended behavior, but it isn't isolated behavior either. It keeps happening because the potential for abuse is inherently there, and the burden of reining that in shouldn't fall solely onto the mods and admins.

I'd 100% support putting them behind a whitelist, or removing them completely. Whatever works at this rate.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Sheeplets

[Carver]

Their ability to be extremely helpful and take the brunt of the workload in a department is why I love them, even if I never play them. Nothing is more nice to have than an engineering shipbound on lowpop, or a medical unit at any time. What others hate about them is what I adore, they'll do the job and they'll do it well without any fuss.

As for being a 'non-character', who cares? Robots acting like robots is a rarity as it is, I would loathe to see even less of it. Viax, shipbounds and work-focused IPCs (at least outside of security where they're oddly rare for some reason) are a treat and I love every single one of them I see in a round - they're consistently helpful and they often keep the Horizon's gears greased when things get hectic. Above all, this is the foremost reason I'd argue cyborgs/shipbounds have to stay.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Carver

[Montyfatcat]

They definitely have a big issue with being all consuming. There's no limitations because they're basically designed as lowpop assistance tools, which makes them mesh poorly in highpop rounds where the majority of roles are filled. Most of the time, I end up telling fresh borgs to assign themselves to the bar because it's the only thing not available, or cleaning, because more often than not these days the key departments they can help are capable of working themselves just fine. Part of this shift might be that the map is much smaller than the old one, meaning transit times and spread out departments make far less of a difference than they used to, and this was definitely one of the few reasons to assign a borg to the job instead of a person.

The only reason to keep them around at this point is eliminating them would destroy the emotional cost of what happened over the last week or so. Even then, we could eliminate them slowly by having the SCC label borgs cost inefficient and start slowly phasing them out. Mechanically this would just mean any existing borgs would get grandfathered in until every player stops playing them altogether.

[greenjoe]

5 hours ago, Flpfs said:

Basically, softremove them.

what do you mean by soft removing them?

[Gem]

i agree with the mentions of borgs being overbearing and being/doing all of the mechanics and work, but having none of the character or interaction.
while i personally can see the appeal of relaxing and not having to play a character (i.e. just doing game mechanics stuff), maintenance drones exist pretty much for this purpose.

2 hours ago, Carver said:

As for being a 'non-character', who cares?

its a roleplaying server.

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

eliminating them would destroy the emotional cost of what happened over the last week or so.

i disagree. most borgs i have personally seen are nowhere close to related to cyborgification.
i.e. most are hardwired, androids, and/or not created by cyborgification (as in the execution).

Edited October 11, 2022 by Gem
Clarified Cyborgification

[Carver]

11 minutes ago, Gem said:

its a roleplaying server.

And not everyone needs strong motivations or a deep backstory. You can roleplay as a basic, emotionless robot without any issue - and that shouldn't be remotely discouraged. I often enjoy interacting with these 'non-characters' more than most other characters.

[Evandorf]

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

They definitely have a big issue with being all consuming. There's no limitations because they're basically designed as lowpop assistance tools, which makes them mesh poorly in highpop rounds where the majority of roles are filled. Most of the time, I end up telling fresh borgs to assign themselves to the bar because it's the only thing not available, or cleaning, because more often than not these days the key departments they can help are capable of working themselves just fine. Part of this shift might be that the map is much smaller than the old one, meaning transit times and spread out departments make far less of a difference than they used to, and this was definitely one of the few reasons to assign a borg to the job instead of a person.

The only reason to keep them around at this point is eliminating them would destroy the emotional cost of what happened over the last week or so. Even then, we could eliminate them slowly by having the SCC label borgs cost inefficient and start slowly phasing them out. Mechanically this would just mean any existing borgs would get grandfathered in until every player stops playing them altogether.

It might be good to make the number of borg slots inversely proportional to the round pop. More borgs when there are fewer people and vice versa. 
 

If you canonically make the SCC scrap borgs as cutting cost how will that effect regulations and severe punishments? We already don’t have executions because borgification is a stand-in. 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Evandorf
Me being illiterate

[Gem]

11 minutes ago, Carver said:

[...]

"non-character" implies having no depth nor interactability at all. that's how i interpreted it, at least.

1 minute ago, Evandorf said:

how will that effect regulations and severe punishments?

more marooning or HuT, i guess.

[Cnaym]

We lost the good borg players long ago, I am all for it being part of the AI whitelist. It's too much for a beginner friendly role anyway and without a solid understanding of the role and following the laws they are a pain to deal or work with.

Good borgs are a blessing not because they do all the work silently, but because they support the crew via interaction.

[Omicega]

I feel like most of the points I'd make have already been made -- cyborgs, to me, have always been all-access do-everything machines that basically have to limit themselves (and frequently don't) in order to avoid just crushing the capabilities of actual non-cyborg characters entirely. First responders get the brunt of this when a medical cyborg that knows what it's doing shows up, but honestly I've felt the same pinch hit when I play engineer as well. There's no need to call an engineer to open anything up in a crisis scenario if you can get a cyborg to just bolt open anything you need access for.

In fact, I would go even further and say maintenance drones should be removed (or severely handicapped) as well too. The one shred of justification cyborgs have is that despite my disdain for them as non-characters, they can actually interact with the roleplay environment to some degree, even if I personally resent them for driving more interesting characters away and out of their gameplay spaces by virtue of just being far more efficient at whatever their job is. Maintenance drones are literally hard lawed against any interaction with non-drones, so they only really exist to silently scurry around and either remodel stuff out of sheer boredom (because you can't ask a drone to file paperwork like an engineer frequently gets told to, I guess) or suck up engineering's gameplay by rushing to alarms.

tl;dr remove them and maintenance drones too

[NewOriginalSchwann]

Everything I would have said here has already been said (perhaps better) by others. Remove cyborgs. Honestly, remove drones and the AI too while we're at it.

[greenjoe]

1 hour ago, Omicega said:

(or severely handicapped)

What would you have in mind for That, vs removing entirely?

[WickedCybs]

I just find it hard to take borgs seriously, especially in relation to the borgification procedure. After the mutiny there'd be weeks of joking about borgings where the borg will still essentially have the same name but with numbers added, as if that would happen right? It would be silly. And then it actually did happen canonically. What they represent gets undermined by how the lore and people actually portray them and there's not really much lore there to begin with I suppose.

Removal feels like a pipe-dream but at the least, I think we could try to support them better and set a better tone. A few things are uncertain and one thing that comes to mind is confusion lately on what exactly makes borgs in general tick. We did have circuit, MMI and "positronic" borgs. Apparently, there might only be MMI borgs canonically. The game itself always has a bit of a disconnect and I can't really blame people for not wanting to get into the borg code though.

Edited October 12, 2022 by WickedCybs
stuff i forgot to add

[KingOfThePing]

1 hour ago, WickedCybs said:

And then it actually did happen canonically

This was a decision by the player, since naturally the player has the last word here. There is a plethora of characters out there that have beyond stupid names, it doesn't matter there and it doesn't here. It's a player decision. 

[KingOfThePing]

I forgot the rest of my reply: I agree with Carver. The argument of non characters is null, as long as Viax exist. If they can do too much then limit them mechanically, like removing their all access as soon  as they chose a module and specialize the modules more. Giving them more back story is also good, stationbounds are in a limbo because no one really knows what they are since it's not explained. Stop locking even more stuff behind whitelists, it's not helping the case in any way. 

[WickedCybs]

20 minutes ago, KingOfThePing said:

This was a decision by the player, since naturally the player has the last word here. There is a plethora of characters out there that have beyond stupid names, it doesn't matter there and it doesn't here. It's a player decision. 

It doesn't matter to you. To me, It does reflect on borgs overall and the lore given this was a canon occurrence in an event about canon consequences. We do have naming guidelines for people, so I do think borgs might benefit from this now.

Edited October 12, 2022 by WickedCybs
forgot another sentence

[Caelphon]

I don't even see that many cyborgs on the Station, so I don't see the point in continuing hosting them -  I mean, even AI has begun to wither. There isn't really a need for them, and as others have said, they seem to just hog all the work. I'd rather delegate engineering needs to the Matriarch for smaller Maintenance Drones if they're really needed. 

[Butterrobber202]

I think both AI and Cyborgs suffer because no one has bothered to update their role since 2016. They still operate with nearly identical limitations and guidelines as back then. I think the best move would be not removing them, but having the staff take a critical look at their place on the ship, in the corporations, and how to adjust their role to fit in with those things, in addition to player expectations.  

[KingOfThePing]

3 hours ago, WickedCybs said:

. We do have naming guidelines for people, so I do think borgs might benefit from this now

The names guidelines to the rules are Firstname Lastname, with, some cultural limitations for some regions, that's it. I will obviously not drop any examples here but you know exactly what I mean when I say that it's no problem to adhere to these limitations while having an extraordinarily stupid or illogical name. It's not hard. It's a very objective thing, I am sure but it should not matter. 

Besides, this is only hardly the topic here. Maybe introduce a few naming blueprints borgs have to use to create their designation (not names, since they are equipment) to avoid this. 

Edited October 12, 2022 by KingOfThePing

[Dreamix]

Personally, I would like borgs soft-removed from the ship. Meaning that borgs should exist in the lore, and could be constructed on ship from MMIs, but players should not be able to spawn as a borg, and there should be no free posibrains in the mechanist workshop to build borgs with.

 

- Borgs do not provide much roleplay, in my experience. They are equipment, not crew. There's not much reason for crew to care about borgs, and not really much mechanical ability for borgs to do meaningful things. Barely anyone that I see actually like, roleplays with a borg.

- And if borgs do provide any roleplay, it's not really anything that a proper crew role could not provide. Everyone can talk about their backstories or the news in the lore or whatever. But a borg can't do actually meaningful things, like buy a gift for another crewmember, lead a team for an expedition, crush an antag in a organized militia, really engage in any antag-related stuff, any command matters, or really anything at all beyond doing their job.

- "But Viax Vaurca and dumb IPCs exist" - Yes, but they are actual crew, and can do the actually meaningful things as above. They also don't have all-access IDs and an expectation that they do their job and nothing else.

- Borgs take other people's jobs and tasks. Medical and engineering borgs especially. Basically I echo what other people have already said. Additionally, as a command player, I see borgs do things like, open up areas for crew, like the kitchen or the bar, where I would prefer to do it myself, maybe upgrade that crew's access or something, or have to decide if they deserve that access at all.

- "But you can just tell a borg to leave and fuck off" - Yes, but it kinda sucks to do that, cause an actual player is behind that borg. If you tell a service borg to leave the kitchen and bar, it might as well go to storage and get cryoed, and it sucks to cause a player to do that. An actual character that gets told to fuck off, or gets suspended or something, might wander off to do something else, go to talk to other characters, and get involved in all kinds of things that a borg could not, or even just drink in sadness, or get angered at others, or start a rivalry/hatred character arc that gets built upon in future rounds. A borg can do none of those things.

 

I would also like AI gone for the above reasons, and many other AI-related reasons as well. And also maint drones, but that's not the topic here.

[niennab]

I feel the same frustration surrounding stationbounds however I wouldn't want to see them removed, at least not without a genuine attempt to rework them. Both in terms of the lore and mechanics, they have not been touched for a long time. Equally I think a whitelist is only justified if stationbounds are changed drastically in terms of their lore or mechanics.

The suggestion of removing maintenance drones would of course be ridiculous considering the crucial role they play in setting up the engine during low pop hours when there are no engineers. 

Edited October 12, 2022 by niennab

[KingOfThePing]

49 minutes ago, Dreamix said:

They also don't have all-access IDs and an expectation that they do their job and nothing else.

If you play a Viax properly then literally everything you do is your job and nothing else except ordered. Stop bringing this argument because it is wrong. Viax are an arguably even worse (for anyone who finds it bad) contender for this "problem", because they have the lore to back it up, unlike borgs. 

 

Not everyone has to be an epic main character. If you argue that borgs play like NPCs, which I also find wrong, then that is nothing bad. Let people play how the want within the rules, or something like that. 

This is like saying why people play mining, because miners are NPCs since they go out, off the ship and hit rocks instead of interacting with you. Some people enjoy that, like some people enjoy playing borgs. There is nothing wrong with either.