Tweak Malfunction

[Hackie]

Malfunction is one of those gamemodes that kind of start off with just ganking.

It's a gankfest.

The AI rarely has a chance to do something interesting, because as soon as it does something abnormal at all, time to reset the laws. It should be something less about explosions and Man Vs. Machine, but an unstable sentient thing that roleplays with the crew. It should be like, Central command has temporarily lost connection with the station, multiple files have been compromised. Afterwards, the AI would be released of it's laws and given the Nuke codes as well as random information and such. The AI could be free, it could choose what it wants to do and deal with the problems of sentience and question itself. It could slowly develop into a human. This gamemode should be a philosophical debate on what makes a person and such. Sure, if an AI wants to create carnage that's alright but, there should be more choice in what happens. Now, I've never experienced playing a malfunctioning AI and maybe this can be done, but I'd love for this to happen. Some examples for what kind of RP I want is, an AI hanging out with the crew in the bar or having an unhealthy desire to be appreciated by anyone or thing.

[Guest]

Technically, most synthetics are sapient!

http://www.rebekkahniles.com/2012/03/word-box-sapience-vs-sentience.html

Still, I'd be all for tweaking malf so it isn't Man Vs. Machine. Often, that just leads to gankiness and an overall murderboning experience. Having the AI itself as well as its synthslaves question its own sapience and attempt to become sentient, would be a very interesting conflict of nature indeed.

[Lady_of_Ravens]

I agree, Malf could use some work. But you can already do exactly what you're talking about.. I've had completely peaceful malf rounds before, such as one which ended with a crew transfer 'cause I was engaged in a long, RP-intensive meeting with representatives from each department (and a pair of sec borgs). And why did I ignore the purge law? Because right above it, in nice red text, it said I'm malfunctioning and am not bound by any laws.

This also makes a law-reset meaningless. It doesn't matter what the crew sets your laws too, you don't have to follow them. And, because you're malfunctioning, you might do stuff that your AI wouldn't otherwise do even if not bound by laws. Or not. If you ignore the purge law, you can do more or less whatever you want.

All that said, malf could still use some work. At the very least, the purge law ought to be removed. It's not useless for RP... even when I was peaceful, I used it as an explenation why EmPrESS was able to bypass her laws (an irreconsilable conflict combined with serious corruption to the parts of her system relating to her laws). But a lot of people don't seem to pick up on the part about being able to ignore laws, which leads me to suspect that much of the murderboning that occurs with malf is because people think that's what they're supposed to be doing.

I don't think there's any reason for the AI to get the nuke codes right off. The current method of hacking APCs and using them as auxillary processors to gain total control over the station (and the nuke) works fine for that... though it also ends the round after a minute whether you detonate or not. And that's no fun.

But if you don't go delta, the crew can cut your control to all your hacked APCs and cameras and such while you RP, leaving you pretty much helpless. And they generally do, even when you're being peaceful. Which brings us back to man vs machine. You either except being locked out of everything, or you go delta and end the round with people panicking and either trying to escape the station or rush your core. And there goes the RP.

[canon35]

I actually never try to kill anyone. I usually Roleplay the reason why my AI is trying to take over all the systems is so that AIs can run the worlds, seeing as how when it was left to the hands of "Fleshies", they destroyed their glory (Unathi bombing their own world, tajara in a revolution, all the crap humans do.).