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[Dismissed] Maintenance Drones Suck, Heres Why


Bygonehero

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The Noninterference Law for maintenance drones needs to be reinforced harsher. For a ghost role these little robots ruin more antag gimmicks than they are worth. Too often do they use the excuse of something 'possibly' going on or if something is 'slightly' wrong with an area. I have seen drones repair cameras RIGHT AFTER someone broke them on purpose. They interfer with the actions of so many, both antag and player, That I would feel better if they are removed entirely if policing bad play is impossible.

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I don't think they should be removed, period.


HOWEVER, I don't think they should have AI cams on them. I accidentally ruined a gimmick while afk because of it and it also just kind of doesn't make sense for these cheap little shells to have cams.


All these things can be remedied by taking them into consideration when making a gimmick though.

You are also allowed to just kill them. They don't move fast. If you don't kill them immediately, they'll likely fuck off.

They are allowed to follow someone who has done damage in order to clean up after them just like they can follow a bleeding person because they know that that person is going to mess the floor more, they just can't interfere or prevent any damage.

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I honestly don't know what they even add to the game. I mean, think about it, they outright reduce the chance for roleplay by existing. Androids, people, they all add roleplay potential when they fix things. Drones? They are literally designed not to roleplay. The most they add to the round is putting cute hats on them.

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I honestly don't know what they even add to the game. I mean, think about it, they outright reduce the chance for roleplay by existing. Androids, people, they all add roleplay potential when they fix things. Drones? They are literally designed not to roleplay. The most they add to the round is putting cute hats on them.

 

Drones arent meant to contribute to the round.

Its a ghost role with some tools. You can either skitter around and do little, or put in some work and repair shit.

You're just an autonomous repair system that does all the work, gets none of the credit and most likely gets destroyed in the process =)

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I honestly don't know what they even add to the game. I mean, think about it, they outright reduce the chance for roleplay by existing. Androids, people, they all add roleplay potential when they fix things. Drones? They are literally designed not to roleplay. The most they add to the round is putting cute hats on them.

 

Drones arent meant to contribute to the round.

 

 

Except, they end up contributing to the round alot, and often at the detriment of things that roleplay.

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They contribute through automated repairs, but zero RP, sure.

But having hallways un-vented or doors unbroken can tilt either way, depending on who has what.

Picking up, hitting or outright killing the drone on sight will make it stop what its doing before it can finish any repairs. If they persist, well.. Thats an ooc issue, right?

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They contribute through automated repairs, but zero RP, sure.

But having hallways un-vented or doors unbroken can tilt either way, depending on who has what.

Picking up, hitting or outright killing the drone on sight will make it stop what its doing before it can finish any repairs. If they persist, well.. Thats an ooc issue, right?

 

So zero RP ghost roles that are not meant to contribute to the round often end up doing so, at the detriment of players and antags that do roleplay. As a cyborg or AI, you are meant to follow the spirit of your laws, and not lawyer your way out of them if there is some mistake.


What I want is the same kind of expectation from drone players. You are a ghost role. You do not matter to the round. You should not matter to the round. Common sense should dictate your actions as much as your laws. If an antag destroyed cameras in an area they are currently operating in? You should probably not be in there fixing cameras. If a xenobotanist released a biohazard on the station you should not interfere. A ghost role should not be afforded this kind of power to make or break rounds and as it is, maintenance drones can be functionally more powerful than engineering cyborgs in some cases and sure as hell interfere with the different roles.

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Maintenance Drones cannot think, they're not smart intelligences. They simply do. This was clarified before, and likely is still fresh somewhere on the wiki or forums.


A drone walking into an area it doesn't know something terrible is happening in to fix windows is absolutely fine so long as it doesn't interact with people. The moment someone interacts with the drone, it should leave. That is the long and short of it, as their laws prevent them from interacting. But their job is just that, automated maintenance systems. It's to take pressure off of engineering in emergencies and also to just do generalized repair and maintenance of the station or vessel.


There's really not an issue with how they are right now, if someone is going against this or you believe a drone is violating it's tiny chipset brain of laws, you can ahelp it and it'll be handled. I've ahelped a few maintenance drones, yknow? Anyone can swipe a maintenance drone to disable it as long as they have security, medical, or engineering access as far as I'm aware.

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Don’t pick on drones :(


They are just doing their job.


Also, you sound pretty biased. Drones are a tool.


It’s like saying, yes an axe COULD chop off a limb, we should throw off a cliff. But that same axe could’ve been used to chop a tree down or cut some firewood.


A tool is what you make of it. If you see someone abusing it, ahelp.

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Some science departments can also kill drones with their ID (I only know that the roboticist can do it but I wouldn't be suprised if more can do it).


Now, I don't realy see the problem with drones fixing things right next to an antag, considering how fragile they are. A few hits with any kind of tool disable them already. That being said, I can see where you are coming from and would like to point to /vg/stations MoMMI who have a slightly different lawset than aurora has, with the big one being

 

1. You may not involve yourself in the matters of another being, even if such matters conflict with Law Two or Law Three, unless the other being is another MoMMI in KEEPER mode.

 

which sounds basicly like what you want for drones to act like. It essentialy forces drones to get out of whatever is happening and come back when noone is realy looking to fix things. Personaly, I don't care if something gets changed with how drones are supposed to act but I don't see the point of a change.

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This all sounds like a lot of hassle and hoops for maint drones to have to jump through just to do their job. Trying to rules lawyer it in such a way that the maint drone is at fault for repairing something because doing so somehow is in violation of their laws will just inevitably lead to larger and larger daisy chains of discontent. If you break a camera as an antagonist, you should expect someone to repair it. Same with venting a corridor, or breaking into a department. It doesn't matter if they're an engineer, a cyborg, or a maint drone.


Repairing something that someone has broken is not interfering or interacting. It is their job. Maint drones are only in violation of their laws and thus the rules in two cases;

1) They are actively communicating with non maint-drones

2) They are actively preventing antags from operating (they key word here is prevention). A maint drone repairing an antag's damage is not interference. A maint drone building a wall in front of an antag to prevent further damage is.


Ultimately, you seem to be unaware of what maint drone laws actually are. They are not lawed against "

interference", but against interaction.

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

2: Cause no harm to the station or crew.

3: Interact with no humanoid or synthetic being that is not a fellow maintenance drone.

Nowhere in these three tenets do I find any credence that the idea of a maint drone repairing an antagonist's actions, even if it's immediately afterwards, is rules lawyering, or against the spirit of their laws. It is only in the broadest possible definition of the term interacting that is it possible that drones could be in violation, and in applying this term drones would pretty much always be in violation.

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Yeah, I don't see how maintenance drones is shitty behaviour or anything. Just break them.


Here's some examples of actually shitty maint drone behaviour I've witnessed and ahelped, though.

-Spotting a ninja in the cargo warehouse and running out, pinging frantically at the cargo tech at the desk and trying to encourage them to follow them into the cargo warehouse

-Walling off major hallways or doorways (this is actually griefing tbh)

-Taking apart important computers and machines

-Murdering pets 4norasin


But none of those are actually stuff maint drones should be doing. I would ahelp any of those.


This doesn't require a thread.

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I dont see an issue with maint drones as long as they don't actively interfere with the current actions of an antag.


If you break cameras and a few minutes later the maint drone comes along and repairs them, then that's fine.

If you are in the process of breaking cameras and the maint drone repairs them after you break them and uses tables and vents to avoid being destroyed, than that is active interference which should be punished.

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I agree that a maintenance drone repairing a camera immediately after you break it is shitty (even if it is within the scope of their role), but if it's so immediate that it constitutes directly interfering with the antagonist, then that would have to be them doing it literally right in front of you, as you did it - so just destroy the drone. Fix shit, get hit.

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I agree that a maintenance drone repairing a camera immediately after you break it is shitty (even if it is within the scope of their role), but if it's so immediate that it constitutes directly interfering with the antagonist, then that would have to be them doing it literally right in front of you, as you did it - so just destroy the drone. Fix shit, get hit.

 

What he said, I see no reason to change their laws at the moment, and as the one person who really enjoys playing as an adorable drone with a tophat, I feel that the only way we could fix this if it was an issue is to make their laws much more confusing which will inevitably put off people from playing them in the first place.

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Wouldn't a drone specifically ignore people and just repair anyways? Like, if a drone saw you break a camera its dumb drone brain probably would just try and fix it, wouldn't it? I sincerely doubt they programmed these things with any concept of social situations, as far as the drone is concerned you probably don't even exist.

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Yes. That's why people have clarified that it's not bad drone RP or whatever to do it, just that it's bad play because it's against the spirit of the role of drones - which is to be passive facilitators, not active agents in confronting the antagonists. Sometimes, just hiding around and waiting for an opportunity to fix something... is interfering. If you're aggressive and meta enough about it.

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Yes. That's why people have clarified that it's not bad drone RP or whatever to do it, just that it's bad play because it's against the spirit of the role of drones - which is to be passive facilitators, not active agents in confronting the antagonists. Sometimes, just hiding around and waiting for an opportunity to fix something... is interfering. If you're aggressive and meta enough about it.

 

Here is a good example: I was malf AI and it was that time of the round when sec and the captain went down to pop open a can of whoop ass on me, fortunately with the power of my magic AI powers I had them trapped outside my core and they were suffocating....that is until a drone unbolted the doors and fixed the air alarm. I set it back to drain only to find out the drone was fixing it as soon as I "fixed" it. I went over to blow it sky-high to find out the drone was glitched and wasn't on the console, had to ahelp to get it gibbed, by the time it was done by barricades was blown up and I was shot to shit. In conclusion; the current policy of drones are fine, although if the drone is actively interfering with the antag unreasonably, ahelp it and/or kill the bugger.

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