Cameras on Cyborgs

[Eliot Clef]

I'd like to talk about these a little bit, because they're simultaneously fairly useful, but also somewhat rough on synthetic antagonists.

Basically, because they're walking camera nodes, it can become really easy to out a subverted or otherwise traitorous cyborg. You watch them a little bit, or a lot, and you can figure out that they're engaging in suspicious behavior. (It also makes overt suspicious actions very risky, because all it takes is one person at a camera monitor happening to look at your display to discover your shenanigans.)

Admittedly, most of the time cyborgs only get watched through their cameras if they're specifically calling attention to themselves somehow or if they've asked for attention to be directed to their camera.

Realistically, this is exactly how things should go, and I've heard it suggested that Security players should have body cam equipment that operates in much the same way. But, I think that maybe there should be an option to disable/remove cyborg cameras without blinding the borg in the process.

Maybe for newly-built borgs it's an optional (but highly recommended) component, or maybe malf/traitor AIs get tools to disable the borg cameras? Unsure.

[LordFowl]

Borgs are already all access machines that don't have paincrit, are fairly good at soaking up raw damage, work in any environment and when hacked have very dangerous weapons. An ion rifle doesn't do much against them, EMPs are not as useful as they could be, and a flash only really works if the borg isn't careful or you gang up on it. I'd like to see some case scenarios where this camera thing caused total failure of an antag's plan.

[Dreamix]

Borgs are already all access machines that don't have paincrit, are fairly good at soaking up raw damage, work in any environment and when hacked have very dangerous weapons. An ion rifle doesn't do much against them, EMPs are not as useful as they could be, and a flash only really works if the borg isn't careful or you gang up on it. I'd like to see some case scenarios where this camera thing caused total failure of an antag's plan.

 

"I'd like to see some case scenarios where this camera thing caused total failure of an antag's plan." Okay. Once, I got emagged as a borg, by a roboticist. We tried to loot the vault, but the AI was 'randomly' just looking at the vault. Security quickly assumed that I was rogue, and one officer kept watching me through my camera. I just wanted to escape the station with the roboticist, but I failed because they knew exactly where I was at any moment. Things went in those explody ways, with security cyborgs having laser rifles, and fueltanks just standing there, waiting to be shot at. Later, I was shot with ion rifles. Repeatedly. And with revolvers loaded with lethal ammunition.

So, yeah. "when hacked have very dangerous weapons" That's only sec-borgs. Engineering borgs get a stun baton, and other modules are rarely played and/or have useless emagg-weapons.

"ion rifle doesn't do much against them" It's one-hit long-stun. And you don't even need to hit the borg, just aim somewhere near it, as ion rifle 'ions' things in a fairly big area.

"EMPs are not as useful as they could be", I never actually saw someone use a EMP on borgs.

"a flash only really works if the borg isn't careful or you gang up on it", that's also one-hit long-stun. You get flashed, you lose. Flash really works on anything, besides security borgs, as they have tasers.

"Borgs are already all access machines that don't have paincrit, are fairly good at soaking up raw damage, work in any environment and when hacked have very dangerous weapons." Borgs still have a law 4, survive. Borgs shouldn't really rambo anything, because NT synthetic units are expensive and such. And even if they are rogue, just grab an ion rifle, or ask the RD to shut it down. I can't count how many times I was flash-spammed or locked down and forgotten for the rest of the round as a borg.

So, yes. I agree with Eliot's suggestion.

[Eliot Clef]

Borgs are already all access machines that don't have paincrit, are fairly good at soaking up raw damage, work in any environment and when hacked have very dangerous weapons. An ion rifle doesn't do much against them, EMPs are not as useful as they could be, and a flash only really works if the borg isn't careful or you gang up on it. I'd like to see some case scenarios where this camera thing caused total failure of an antag's plan.

 

Alright.

One time, the AI was Malf. One of my fellow borgs was a murderous lunatic, who went around melting things with chems, and did the same to people. I spent a moment considering stashing a resulting corpse someplace.

For whatever reason, a sec officer -- and I at the time had no reason to be considered suspicious -- was watching my camera and immediately demanded an explanation. I bullshitted an explanation, but I'm pretty sure I was watched close from then on out.

Yinzr (I think), Ana, and I once noticed a borg acting somewhat suspicious, so we asked it its laws, then ordered it to go on patrol. Then we watched. It went straight back to the roboticist who had subverted it, and we managed to wrap the case up pretty quickly.

Simply put, all it takes is miniscule suspicion or bad luck for a borg-mounted camera to foil synthetic rebellions and subversion. And it follows you everywhere, there's no getting rid of it. There's no hidey holes or maintenance escapes.

Borgs are decently dangerous, but I think people severely overstate how ridiculous they really are.

[jackfractal]

It would be pretty easy to let robots turn it off from a code perspective. The trouble is that having an active robot with a disabled camera is a direct indication that they're subverted in some way as functional robots would have no reason to disable them.

The issue with robots isn't that they're strong or weak, it's that the strategies that work against them have no reasonable counter-play. If someone has an ion rifle or a flash, you're screwed, if they don't they're screwed.

There's no real way to avoid getting locked down or blown up remotely unless you smash or disable the computer, space it's card and the card in tech storage, and wipe the research data, and space or detonate the destructive analyzer. That's an enormous number of non-stealthy actions necessary to to avoid giving people the ability to remotely kill you instantly anywhere, and it's available to precisely one module (the engineering robot). All other robots save the Security module (who can shoot the computer) are just straight up screwed.

The ability to survive in any environment is fun, but considering that you're really not encouraged to use the spectacularly lethal things (like atmos sabotage or venting the station) where that would actually be useful to a robot, it means that it ultimately ends up being less important then you might think.

The fact that you can be remotely spied on, with no indication that people are watching you and no way of preventing it makes playing a rogue robot reeeally tricky. The ability to then be remotely killed without any way to reasonably defend yourself makes it neigh impossible.

I like getting subverted as a robot, but I'm under no illusions that I'll be able to actually do anything.

[LordFowl]

An AI can remotely spy on other antags as well, and if they're hiding away that means they're the asteroid or in maintenance, typically. And if its a case of 'minuscule suspicion', they don't know they should be hiding yet nine times out of ten. I don't think the ion rifle is that long of a stun, actually, because I've been on both the receiving and giving end and have noticed that typically a flash is just straight up better in most scenarios. Rogue borgs don't don't have to and are usually told specifically to ignore law 4, because their hack-law overrules it of course. Most borgs actually have very useful e-mag weapons, and a stun baton is nothing to scoff at. The janitor gets lube spray, the standard gets an energy sword, and the medical bot gets a cyanide pill.

To be honest, all I'm getting out of this thread is that flashes are the thing that are ridiculous OP (especially because they're so accessible), and not camera spying.

[Eliot Clef]

An AI can remotely spy on other antags as well, and if they're hiding away that means they're the asteroid or in maintenance, typically.

 

This is only convenient for an AI, which can specifically track people down. This is also mitigated heavily by sheer population density. The AI simply isn't going to be tracking individual players that often. They're more likely to encounter somebody doing something by chance, simply because their perceptions are so broad, relatively speaking.

Spying on individuals via the cameras as a non-AI, however, is pretty impractical. Probably on purpose!

Except for borgs! Borgs have distinctive camera names (their own name, of course) and there's usually only a couple of them. You can easily have every borg on the station watched, making everything the borg does a risky move if they're an antagonist.

As you've pointed out, it's a bit difficult to hide from the AI. But it isn't impossible. Those cameras can be disabled, you can go to an outpost, you can go to maintenance, hell you can even hide from the AI in a locker and it won't be able to find you on its tracker easily.

A Borg can't do any of those things without blinding itself. (And I don't know that this turns off the camera monitor to begin with.)

[LordFowl]

But your point is that there is already suspicion about the cyborg. Nobody randomly watches a cyborg on a camera unless they're bored, or the cyborg is sent to the asteroid. Same thing for the AI.

[CakeIsOssim]

A couple suggestions. Either A) Alert the cyborg in some sort of way when someone is viewing them through their camera, or B) Have the remote camera view disabled on spawn/creation, and give the cyborg the ability to enable it either for a temporary amount of time, or enable it until they disable it again. Though, I suppose this would be made nil, as it might become a round-by-round thing for someone to yell into their headset, "All borgs, enable your cameras, that is an order."