Hivenet is bad

[Kaed]

If I seem rude, it's because I think this topic is largely produced by reactionary paranoia towards something new and significantly different from normal racial loadouts.

 

There's a thing called developmental restraint. Giving Vaurca a psychic network to themselves for no real justifiable reason than "it'd be cool, no one has ever done that" is not a restrained nor reasonable decision.

"But why not!" is not an argument for keeping it and maintaining racial differences, then, if you want to argue that the game should not be equally fair for everyone.

A game's not fun for anyone if you intentionally fill one playstyle with power and give distribute nothing to anyone else in the same motion.

 

Nearly every argument against hivespeak here involves wild, alarmist speculation that involves either people being shitlers, or being ignorant baboons who don't know how other races work. I don't imagine the idea that 'hey, vaurca are all semi-telepathic' is such an outrageous concept in a sci-fi future setting that Urist McGreytide will be unable to wrap his poor, dense brain around it. It has a large amount of available oversight by synethics, a number of counters and intercepts that, say, lingspeak does not have.

 

You're making such a wonderful case by utilizing strawmans and personally insulting your argumentative opponents. I really do want to continue listening to your radicalized and emotionally upset-sounding opinions, as they bring intense intellectual discussion to the table. I am sure that the lore team is very much appreciative of you being such a splendid representative of lore writing.

 

Developmental restraint is a concept that has no clear, defined boundaries. How far is too far? The staff doesn't seem to think it's too far. I don't think it's too far.

You clearly think it's too far, and are using everything you can to try and undermine my side of the issue, including using buzz words like 'strawman arguments' You seem to think I am attacking you personally with my comments, when I am actually attacking your points about how this feature will ruin the game (in a fashion, admittedly, that is perhaps more disparaging than it could be). This is, in fact, how a disagreement works.

To end this argument, however, I will reiterate something that Skull has said previously, in this thread: If you can cite an issue that occurred, an actual issue, something that occurred during an on server round , then it will be considered. But saying that bad things could potentially happen, maybe possibly, at some unspecified point in the future, like they are a guarantee and should be taken into account and prevented, is a very tricky prospect. Is it fair to the playerbase to assume the worst of them at all times, with no actual evidence that they will abuse something?

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Way to steal my joke, Delta. I'll refrain from contacting my lawyer for lawsuit proceedings if you send me three direct payments of $50,000.

The arguments that there hasn't been any lore justification or build-up are completely discredited. We've been foreshadowing it for at least a month now. The Hivenet bounces through our telecommunications. It's an extra radio channel implanted in the vaurca's head that the AI can spy on. They cannot use it while unconscious or stunned afaik.

Hypotheticals on what it could possibly do are also not holding any ground. If you can provide actual testimony about the hivenet making it this horrible thing then that can be an argument. "It could" has never been used as a reason to entirely remove a feature like this afaik.

And stop insulting my staff.

[Guest]

You clearly think it's too far, and are using everything you can to try and undermine my side of the issue, including using buzz words like 'strawman arguments'

 

This just in, "strawman" is a buzz word, according to a lore developer. More at 11.

 

You seem to think I am attacking you personally with my comments, when I am actually attacking your points about how this feature will ruin the game (in a fashion, admittedly, that is perhaps more disparaging than it could be). This is, in fact, how a disagreement works.

 

Nearly every argument against hivespeak here involves wild, alarmist speculation that involves either people being shitlers, or being ignorant baboons who don't know how other races work.

 

Oh, you want to try that again? You were personally insulting people by referring to them as being ignorant baboons, not specifically me, but you were effectively lumping your argumentative opposition into their own box to undermine their character and their stance on this issue. You can easily take this back, just say the word and all is forgiven.

You can still be disparaging without being an asshole.

 

We've been foreshadowing it for at least a month now.

 

It's great that you communicated to everyone that this was going to happen, Jackboot, we all appreciate the advance warning. Oh, wait, no, that didn't happen.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

You can't ignore the releases and foreshadowing then whine about not being given advanced notice. You were. You chose to not pay attention. That's your fault. The only other thing we can do is send you a personal newsletter in your inbox and add you to the staff discord, which probably will not happen. And since you've shown open contempt for any attempt to reason and getting sassy with several people trying to talk with you I'm just going to not respond to any more of your posts.

[Guest]

Question, why should I be faulted for choosing to stop paying attention to "lore developments" after you wrote an unironic article about an existant Rare Pepe Meme Art museum and how it was a huge craze amongst humanity? And the article detailing a battle between the up-and-coming successor to the Lord Regent of the Unathi Hegemony, and another usurper who happened to be an important military figure in the same faction, which was effectively ripped out of a corny anime script where a dude in power armor faced off against a mecha? It's not that I'm doubting the latter could happen, but it was still ridiculous.

I was very much engaged in your writings before that, and I truly did enjoy your creativity and innovative touch, but Jesus Christ, why do you lot unnecessarily strike at the concept of suspension of disbelief? You don't have to overdo it, but it ends up happening anyway. Why?

And you have too much unrequited love for me (and I, you), so you'll come around and respond anyway.

[Skull132]

Delta:

 

No one likes a hypocrite.

Fall back in line, all of you's. Discuss hivenet as a mechanic. Lorewise, its presence makes sense and has made sense eversince the inception of Vaurca as a synthetic race who share a consciousness. Remind yourselves that their normal state of being is literally in a giant VR world, where they communicate instantly. It is not at all far fetched that this technology extends past that state.

[Guest]

I am not a hypocrite for asking "Why do Vaurca need this".

I have asked this a few times now and nobody has bothered answering it.

[Skull132]

Your last post is not relevant to even that topic.

Stow it.

If you want to find out why Vaurca have it, talk with Fowl.

If you have any concerns about the lore around it, you talk to Fowl, Jackboot, myself (in the order described), or you make a general or lore questions thread about it.

If you have no further comments on Hivenet as a mechanic, then please stop posting here.

[Zundy]

This is absurd. The ants laterally have this as a lore defined ability. What in the fuck is the problem? Mechanically this is just a station bound radio which the ants just have automatically

It's fucking nothing. Skrell are going to get this too and oh shit Players can do this anyway with station bound radios.

Edit: Ahem, so this whole Kekkers Delta thing. What's up with that Skully baby?

[Bedshaped]

Global communication has been something specifically limited to bound synthetics because of it's inherent power. Cyborgs have it because they have drawbacks to the extreme plus being subservient to literally every grey jumpsuit wearing clown who rolled off the shuttle.

When you start dishing it out to other races suddenly you shine a big light on the idea of giving global communications out as a feature. Since Vaurca have it, surely IPCs shouldn't have to use radios anymore when they can have thought transmitters implanted in their chassis; reasons to restrict it become less and less believable.

As a lore concept, it's tenuously believable at best. If Vaurca evolved from something less technologically advanced and surely this "something" had a way of communicating with the greater hive that wasn't technology based. What happened to this mechanism? Human ancestors uses cords in their throats to vocalise noises and grunts, then evolved intellectually to the point that they could combine their vocal cords and tongues to create complex and unique words. Did somebody just come along to the Vaurca someday and present them these Hivenet implants and eureka they could now behave as a hive.

Should we really be adding a copy-paste of binary talk with little notice to the community or should we be exploring new ways of communication that are less lazily implemented and actually allow for interesting things to happen?

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Global communication has been something specifically limited to bound synthetics because of it's inherent power. Cyborgs have it because they have drawbacks to the extreme plus being subservient to literally every grey jumpsuit wearing clown who rolled off the shuttle.

When you start dishing it out to other races suddenly you shine a big light on the idea of giving global communications out as a feature. Since Vaurca have it, surely IPCs shouldn't have to use radios anymore when they can have thought transmitters implanted in their chassis; reasons to restrict it become less and less believable.

As a lore concept, it's tenuously believable at best. If Vaurca evolved from something less technologically advanced and surely this "something" had a way of communicating with the greater hive that wasn't technology based. What happened to this mechanism? Human ancestors uses cords in their throats to vocalise noises and grunts, then evolved intellectually to the point that they could combine their vocal cords and tongues to create complex and unique words. Did somebody just come along to the Vaurca someday and present them these Hivenet implants and eureka they could now behave as a hive.

Should we really be adding a copy-paste of binary talk with little notice to the community or should we be exploring new ways of communication that are less lazily implemented and actually allow for interesting things to happen?

 

What is your opinion on station bounced radios? Is it the same?

[Carver]

Well considering we have neural sockets jammed in our head exclusively for the purpose of hivenet, and a relay on Tau Ceti, it'd make sense.

Hivenet is an actual mechanical implant in the vaurca, like internal comms

This raises some questions, notably, how can an antag disable it during the course of a round? Anything mechanical can naturally be disabled in some sense by traitor gear, but is there a less kill-the-entire-bug-with-EMP way of disabling it? Didn't we have frequency jammers on oldcode?.. Could surgeons remove the capability?

 

This is absurd. The ants laterally have this as a lore defined ability. What in the fuck is the problem? Mechanically this is just a station bound radio which the ants just have automatically

One can take away a station-bound radio if you capture the user. From what I can tell the only way to disable this is to kill the Vaurca. Not that it isn't fun to kill antpeople, it's just not the most practical thing to murder a hostage based purely on an aspect of their species that you can't really do anything about.

[LordFowl]

Well considering we have neural sockets jammed in our head exclusively for the purpose of hivenet, and a relay on Tau Ceti, it'd make sense.

Hivenet is an actual mechanical implant in the vaurca, like internal comms

This raises some questions, notably, how can an antag disable it during the course of a round? Anything mechanical can naturally be disabled in some sense by traitor gear, but is there a less kill-the-entire-bug-with-EMP way of disabling it? Didn't we have frequency jammers on oldcode?

 

In terms of this, Vaurca being instantly murdered by EMP's is actually a bug, and the way this works has been modified in an upcoming patch. EMP's will still be roughly lethal, however.

Furthermore, Vaurca surgery will finally be fixed, shortly, meaning that a neural socket can be extracted non-lethally via surgery.

If frequency jammers are re-added to traitor gear, I may consider added jamming Vaurca hivenet to their list of abilities.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I would love to see the antagonist frequency jammer also jam the hivenet of Vaurca within range.

[Zundy]

One can take away a station-bound radio if you capture the user. From what I can tell the only way to disable this is to kill the Vaurca. Not that it isn't fun to kill antpeople, it's just not the most practical thing to murder a hostage based purely on an aspect of their species that you can't really do anything about.

 

Hmm didn't think of that. This turns my opinion on it's head considering at present there's no way to stop a hostage radioing to his ant buds.

[Kaed]

One can take away a station-bound radio if you capture the user. From what I can tell the only way to disable this is to kill the Vaurca. Not that it isn't fun to kill antpeople, it's just not the most practical thing to murder a hostage based purely on an aspect of their species that you can't really do anything about.

 

Hmm didn't think of that. This turns my opinion on it's head considering at present there's no way to stop a hostage radioing to his ant buds.

 

Technically yes, this is true, you can take away a SBR. But it can also be placed in a great number of awkward places (including inside your chest cavity maybe, depending on if that's still a thing in code) that you have to search, allowing them to call for help long before you can find it, making this mostly kind of a moot point. The idea of a jammer is fine, but comparing something to something else is a nuanced prospect.

[Carver]

Technically yes, this is true, you can take away a SBR. But it can also be placed in a great number of awkward places (including inside your chest cavity maybe, depending on if that's still a thing in code) that you have to search, allowing them to call for help long before you can find it, making this mostly kind of a moot point. The idea of a jammer is fine, but comparing something to something else is a nuanced prospect.

Yes. But you can tell they're calling for help, and kill them on the spot for doing so. People will call for help if they know the other person won't know they did so. So to counter this you essentially need to kill the Vaurca, keep it KO'd forever, or find the one blindfold on the map and a set of earmuffs so it has absolutely no sensory input and thus jack shit to report. Alternatively, instead of a blindfold, you can just screwdriver it's eyes out.

[Kaed]

Yes. But you can tell they're calling for help, and kill them on the spot for doing so. People will call for help if they know the other person won't know they did so. So to counter this you essentially need to kill the Vaurca, keep it KO'd forever, or find the one blindfold on the map and a set of earmuffs so it has absolutely no sensory input and thus jack shit to report. Alternatively, instead of a blindfold, you can just screwdriver it's eyes out.

 

Not a bad point, but this could easily be mitigated by giving some kind of tell that they are hivespeaking, similar to how radios work. Example:

Urist McTator: Alright bug, don't move or call for help! *aims gun*

Zlar'blah'duh Zo'ra: Yeckzzz. No call for help.

Urist McTator: Right, follow me.

Zlar'blah'duh Zo'ra buzzes quietly and twitches his antennae.

Urist McTator: I SAW THAT YOU FUCKING BUG

BANG BANG BANG BANG

Sparkles: Urist McTator is being a very bad boy over by the Holodeck.

[Bedshaped]

What is your opinion on station bounced radios? Is it the same?

 

I don't have an opinion about station bounced radios. No, why would it be?

[Carver]

Not a bad point, but this could easily be mitigated by giving some kind of tell that they are hivespeaking, similar to how radios work.

That would be quite dandy, yes.

[Bedshaped]

Technically yes, this is true, you can take away a SBR. But it can also be placed in a great number of awkward places (including inside your chest cavity maybe, depending on if that's still a thing in code) that you have to search, allowing them to call for help long before you can find it, making this mostly kind of a moot point. The idea of a jammer is fine, but comparing something to something else is a nuanced prospect.

 

That's sounds like a really creative way of hiding your communications. Creativity shouldn't be stifled.

[Snakebittenn]

Remember when we asked for feedback on hivenet that didn't rely exclusively on hypothetical scenarios?

[Taintedglory]

What is your opinion on station bounced radios? Is it the same?

 

I don't have an opinion about station bounced radios. No, why would it be?

 

He asked this because Station Bounced radios on private frequencies are essentially Hivenets for everyone else. Stow it in your pocket, leave the microphone on. Oh look, Antag is robusting me, taking my headset, Help help. Everyone else on the frequency knows you are in trouble.

[Zundy]

The issue is this: It's like a station bounced radio you can't remove ergo an antag would have to kill or at least blind an ant to prevent the ant from constantly relaying their position.

If this can be countered then fine, but as it stands it can't so it's lame.

[Bedshaped]

There's no such thing as a private frequency with a SBR. The entire range of their frequencies are routed through Telecomms, can be disabled (actually they can't be disabled I think) and can be discovered and listened into. The mechanics of Hivenet and SBR are so different that trying to draw a comparison is befuddling.