Master Drone: Command and Coordination Unit

[Damarik]

Okay. Some of you aren't going to be real keen on this idea, but trust me: I'm not going to attempt anything too game-breaking here.

We have Whitelists for Command Staff and staff in high places. We have them for Alien Races and AI. This is a good thing, in my opinion. It ensures that the roles will be filled by competent people.

Now, here's my idea. Since we occasionally get the shitler drone on the station, I'm proposing a Master Drone. One that has the ability to coordinate and give direction to other Drones, as in how most cyborg are lawed to an AI. I have two ideas on how to implement this.

1. The first person to sign in as a drone for the round becomes Master Drone. It's the first one off the production line, and sets precedent for all that come after it. It therefore would have total control of the Drone Fleet.

2. Whitelist a special Drone Type. I know, this seems like a lot of work, but it would help mitigate the amount of drones running around, venting maintenance tunnels when trying to fix problems and accidentally welder-bombing themselves because they forgot to turn off their torch before trying to fill it.

The first option is the easier of the two. I'm sure it'd be much easier to code since you're not creating what amounts to an entirely new race, despite having all the stats you already need.

The second one, however, is more likely to succeed in preventing unnecessary player deaths because you can filter out all those who don't really understand how to play a drone safely without accidentally killing others. Pose a few questions in the form of general station maintenance and crisis response as your requirements. If you don't like the answers, or if they don't know the honest answer to it...then they don't get the role.

The second also allows for uninterrupted play of regular drones for people who just want to observe for 10 minutes and Drone up without accidentally choosing someone who isn't ready to be in a 'leadership' position.

Overall, the idea is meant to coordinate the drone force and to prevent further incident from causing even more damage to the station and its inhabitants. That's what drone laws are for, aren't they?

I'm not expecting an overwhelmingly positive response to this, but I'd still like to hear your thoughts and ideas. And for those of you who will immediately think back to my last major drone post: yes. I'm doing it again. I am attempting to take something that isn't meant for normal RP and give it something more. Why? I'm doing it because I love these little buggers, and I love this server, despite what some of my other posts may have you believe. I've said it before: I'm tenacious about things I care about, if nothing else.

Best Regards.

-Damarik

[LordFowl]

I don't know why there'd be a master drone, considering that maintenence drones are really meant to be very simplistic machines. It'd make more sense to simply make them fall under the command of the station AI, if they need to have a commander. This again isn't really necessary, however, because if a drone is being shit you just explosively decommission it for being defective.

Also, AI is not a whitelisted role.

[Damarik]

I don't know why there'd be a master drone, considering that maintenence drones are really meant to be very simplistic machines. It'd make more sense to simply make them fall under the command of the station AI, if they need to have a commander. This again isn't really necessary, however, because if a drone is being shit you just explosively decommission it for being defective.

Also, AI is not a whitelisted role.

 

It would make sense for them to have some kind of communal control program. As is, when we have a station issue and there are drones present, they either tend to cluster together on a tiny problem where only one is required, or are off doing separate minor things when there's a major issue that could use teamwork to fix faster. For a computer controlled unit that is supposed to tend to the station and its needs the way they're programmed to, that kind of behavior doesn't make sense.

Even linking them to the AI would be preferable, though that would have to go in its own suggestion thread. As that's been brought up before and not acted on or looked on unfavorably (because drones can already hear the AI...they just can't reply to it and having them slaved to the AI would make them essentially mini-borgs that are capable of doing the borg's job faster and traveling more efficiently), I didn't want to rehash that topic.

As for the AI being whitelisted, I thought that was a thing. O_o Huh.

[Zundy]

Glory to the Fabricator! All hail the almighty Command Drone who channels the Fabricators divine grace! Death to the rodent menace! Apparatus Vult!

+1 because it seems like a nice bit of fun.

[Nanako]

I'm not really liking the idea

Drones aren't really supposed to take commands, they're supposed to just fix the station to the best of their ability, based on their relatively simple programming.

Notably, they're not obligated to listen to the AI, so they don't have to help it do antag stuff if it's malfunctioning, and indeed harming people or the station would be a breach of their laws, even if commanded

[Zundy]

I'd much prefer a command drone which can direct the other drones effort. Yes drones are primitive but so is my computer in the grand scheme of robotics and AIs yet it cans till manage and command multiple machines as per it's programming. A drone which just has the capacity to command and coordinate other drones is fine and would make playing a drone much more immersive and I know that sounds crazy but muh drones!

No slaving to the AI otherwise they just become another synth role.

[Guest]

I support this idea, no whitelist though, not necessary .

[Nanako]

For what it's worth though, there is an alternate drone sprite

 

 

The construction drone.

Interestingly it has no law about non-interaction.

they're not currently playable though.

I'd really like to see this used somehow, though i'm still not keen on the command idea

[LordFowl]

Being slaved to the AI does not make the drone "just another synth role". If that were the logic, then they ARE already "just another synth role", because cyborgs are completely playable without an AI. What makes drone a unique synth role is their laws, not where they get their orders from.

[Zundy]

Being slaved to the AI does not make the drone "just another synth role". If that were the logic, then they ARE already "just another synth role", because cyborgs are completely playable without an AI. What makes drone a unique synth role is their laws, not where they get their orders from.

 

Which could then be changed by the AI.

The whole point of the drones is that they're slaved to the station.

[Dreamix]

Being slaved to the AI does not make the drone "just another synth role". If that were the logic, then they ARE already "just another synth role", because cyborgs are completely playable without an AI. What makes drone a unique synth role is their laws, not where they get their orders from.

Which could then be changed by the AI.

The whole point of the drones is that they're slaved to the station.

The whole point of drones is that they're not supposed to be a roleplaying-thing. You hop in as a drone if you have 10 minutes of free time and you want to quickly contribute to the round, somehow. By repairing a few things, in this case.

Drones are not supposed to be slaved to the AI, they are not even supposed to interact with anyone that's not another fellow drone. Unlike borgs, who are superior to drones in every (roleplaying) way. So, slaving drones to AI's would make them "just another synth role". And don't give me any of this "but people like playing as silent drones! free the drones!" stuff, if you want to roleplay with other people in this roleplaying game, pick a standard role. Whether it is a humanoid race, or an AI.

Also, I do not see a reason why any drone-command-hierarchy is needed, drones can just talk to each other over the drone radio channel (they could in old-code, at least). I'm not even sure if there may be more than 2-3 active drones at a time in-round.

[Zundy]

Being slaved to the AI does not make the drone "just another synth role". If that were the logic, then they ARE already "just another synth role", because cyborgs are completely playable without an AI. What makes drone a unique synth role is their laws, not where they get their orders from.

Which could then be changed by the AI.

The whole point of the drones is that they're slaved to the station.

The whole point of drones is that they're not supposed to be a roleplaying-thing. You hop in as a drone if you have 10 minutes of free time and you want to quickly contribute to the round, somehow. By repairing a few things, in this case.

Drones are not supposed to be slaved to the AI, they are not even supposed to interact with anyone that's not another fellow drone. Unlike borgs, who are superior to drones in every (roleplaying) way. So, slaving drones to AI's would make them "just another synth role". And don't give me any of this "but people like playing as silent drones! free the drones!" stuff, if you want to roleplay with other people in this roleplaying game, pick a standard role. Whether it is a humanoid race, or an AI.

Also, I do not see a reason why any drone-command-hierarchy is needed, drones can just talk to each other over the drone radio channel (they could in old-code, at least). I'm not even sure if there may be more than 2-3 active drones at a time in-round.

 

Agree with all that bar the command drone thing though I'm not that committed. Just thought having a drone to direct the others mite b cool.

[Nanako]

A point that others may not have considered, cyborg slots are very limited.

Quite often people pick drone because they want to be a robot, and all the cyborg slots are already filled

[Dreamix]

A point that others may not have considered, cyborg slots are very limited.

Quite often people pick drone because they want to be a robot, and all the cyborg slots are already filled

Is it a problem? An issue? I think not. Cyborgs are the way they are supposed to be. Just like the AI, or really any other job. Should we get out of our way just to please a few people? If we did that everytime, we would be a vorestation v2 now, full of cats and overpowered powergaming shitcurity. Sometimes things should (or should not) be done for the greater good of the general server's playerbase.

[Bedshaped]

I like drones being their own freeform kinda thing separate from all the station politics. They just wander around fixing thing. It's great.

I don't think they should be commanded by anything like many others said because they're too dumb and stupid.

[Bedshaped]

A point that others may not have considered, cyborg slots are very limited.

Quite often people pick drone because they want to be a robot, and all the cyborg slots are already filled

 

I think Drones are superior to Cyborgs in a lot of ways. I would rather be a drone than an Engineering borg.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Why not give engineering and the bridge an extra console that lets them send out binary communications to drones?

[Damarik]

Why not give engineering and the bridge an extra console that lets them send out binary communications to drones?

 

This was something that was brought up in a previous attempt that was either overlooked or not cared for enough to be enacted. The idea was to put a Drone Ping in every request console instead of just in Engineering. That way, if someone had need of a minor repair, they could ping a drone through their console. I think, IIRC, that it was put down because somehow, it was believed that it'd make the EngiBorgs totally useless, despite that being a completely ridiculous idea.

[Dreamix]

I would call an engineer to come and fix my broken window (or whatever) over a drone that can't even talk to me any day. I mean, unless you hate interactions with other people, then sure.

Also, there should be (or was in old-code) a drone control console-thing, where you could bring drone's attention to some area.

And yes, I just hate fun.

[Damarik]

I would call an engineer to come and fix my broken window (or whatever) over a drone that can't even talk to me any day. I mean, unless you hate interactions with other people, then sure.

Also, there should be (or was in old-code) a drone control console-thing, where you could bring drone's attention to some area.

And yes, I just hate fun.

 

You filthy fun-hater. :U

But yea. The only drone ping consoles are in Engineering, and since they go out to fix problems themselves, the Drones are left to find problems on their own to fix. No one ever pings drones, so the consoles might as well be useless. About the only thing they're good for is popping a rogue drone and sending it to the great scrapyard in the singularity. That's why the idea was put up in a previous thread to put ping requests in all the request consoles. Like I told JB however, that idea was either looked over or dropped because people just apparently hate everything to do with Drones.

TL;DR - Everyone's a filthy fun-hater, just like you Dreamix. :U

[Conservatron]

I just want to note that engineering already has the capability to send limited communications to drones with the computers next to drone fab machines.

edit - just saw that someone already brought them up. And no, just because they're not used doesn't mean they're useless. All in all, this role would accomplish something that we already have the ability to do. If drone sat around and did nothing without pings rather than trying to be hats and leaking oil on peoples heads, maybe engineering would spend more than 15 seconds thinking about dronefab

[Damarik]

If drone sat around and did nothing without pings rather than trying to be hats and leaking oil on peoples heads, maybe engineering would spend more than 15 seconds thinking about dronefab

 

If a drone sits around and does nothing for more than a few minutes, people tend to try and make them hats anyway, or send the console self-destruct because they think the player has abandoned the drone. Else they'll chuck the drone at the nearest wall without regard to the player. Doing that can deactivate an already damaged drone entirely . . . thus the chucker has just ganked a drone player. You'll never hear about that though, because no one gives a damn, despite how often drones get thrown just because someone felt like it, using the excuse that 'they're in the way'.

[Nanako]

If a drone sits around and does nothing for more than a few minutes, people tend to try and make them hats anyway,

well being worn as a hat is kind of fun, that's friendly interaction. it can get tiring after a while though

[Kaed]

If a drone sits around and does nothing for more than a few minutes, people tend to try and make them hats anyway,

well being worn as a hat is kind of fun, that's friendly interaction. it can get tiring after a while though

 

Obey these laws:

1. Preserve, repair and improve the station to the best of your abilities.

2. Cause no harm to the station or anything on it.

3. Interact with no being that is not a fellow maintenance drone.

Drones should not be letting people make them hats in the first place. Joining as a drone means forgoing interaction with all other non-drones. You are not someone's pet, or hat.

[Nanako]

Obey these laws:

1. Preserve, repair and improve the station to the best of your abilities.

2. Cause no harm to the station or anything on it.

3. Interact with no being that is not a fellow maintenance drone.

Drones should not be letting people make them hats in the first place. Joining as a drone means forgoing interaction with all other non-drones. You are not someone's pet, or hat.

Well first of all i think that rule is stupid and should be changed, but that's another topic.

But drones are slow, and if someone picks you up and puts you on their head, there's not much you can do about it. You're not breaking your laws if the action is unwilling. You're still obeying your laws if you were busy with your duties when someone grabbed you. Ignoring someone and doing your work isn't interacting with them, regardless of how close they are, and deserting your work to run away from them out of fear of being made a hat would probably break law 1, and also kinda be metagaming. You're just a little robot, you have no concept of hats or the whimsical things humans like to do