Drone laws

[christ110]

Started by https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/24550

It appears that drone laws and subsequent policy might need changes. I propose that we forbid drones from interacting with sentient beings only, instead of living things. This also means that interacting with borgs will be forbidden, under the previous laws, this was unclear.

Besides, all this means is that drones can do xenobio or mining, maybe milk a few cows, etc. There will be issues regarding simple mobs that gain sentience via pink slime extract or the random sentience event. But, they can always kill the drone, or say something which will let the drone know that the mob is sentient.

Thoughts?

[Wyzack]

Poor gunhog, he just wants to code things leave him alone

[PKPenguin321]

Reeeee they're just supposed to repair things and keep getting features added for not-construction things

[cedarbridge]

I don't see a need to change to policy. Drones are already capable of doing a lot of things their laws don't allow. Same as any other player role. No reason to change policy to allow them to do those things.

[D&B]

What if a drone makes a slime farm, fucks off, or dies, and someone else dies because of the slimes?

What will stop people from megafauna fighting as drones?

NPC's are non sentient, just mobs. Does that mean you would be able to salvage the space pirate ruin?

It's a can of worms that doesn't need to be opened

[kevinz000]

Drones while fun to have aren't too hard to get.
Therefore they're a zero effort ghost tour.
Therefore they don't need more abilities
However his PR shouldn't get turned down because this is a player issue not a code issue.

[Arianya]

If anything enforcement of drone rules are a little lax at the moment, given how frequently drones misbehave and either have to be blown or adminhelped.

Also as PKP said, they're repair drones, not second lives where you can go do stuff so long as you don't interact with other players. People seem to have this weird obsession with them doing not-repair things because "muh RP" which seems to translate to "I want to be able to fuck around with the station and be unaccountable since "I can't interact!""

Lets make it so that a mind can only occupy one drone per round so that getting your ass blown/killed as a drone actually means something rather then hopping in drone body #32 and carrying on your merry way

e: I should clarify that I think GunHog's PR is fine, its the rabid opposition to drones continuing not to have access to something they didn't have access to that perplexes and irritates me.

[Wyzack]

LEAVE


GUNHOG



ALONE

[bandit]

What if a drone makes a slime farm, fucks off, or dies, and someone else dies because of the slimes?

Then the drone gets bwoinked or banned because slimes are non-drone beings.

What will stop people from megafauna fighting as drones?

The drone gets bwoinked or banned because megafauna are non-drone beings.

NPC's are non sentient, just mobs. Does that mean you would be able to salvage the space pirate ruin?

No, because NPCs and mobs are still non-drone beings.

If it isn't an object, isn't part of the station, and isn't another drone, then don't fucking interact with it, ever. It baffles me that people find this so difficult.

[Arianya]

I propose that we forbid drones from interacting with sentient beings only, instead of living things. This also means that interacting with borgs will be forbidden, under the previous laws, this was unclear.

Thoughts?

Bandit wins the "not reading the thread" award.

[D&B]

What if a drone makes a slime farm, fucks off, or dies, and someone else dies because of the slimes?

Then the drone gets bwoinked or banned because slimes are non-drone beings.

What will stop people from megafauna fighting as drones?

The drone gets bwoinked or banned because megafauna are non-drone beings.

NPC's are non sentient, just mobs. Does that mean you would be able to salvage the space pirate ruin?

No, because NPCs and mobs are still non-drone beings.

If it isn't an object, isn't part of the station, and isn't another drone, then don't fucking interact with it, ever. It baffles me that people find this so difficult.

Did you read the fucking thread

[Atlanta-Ned]

Once again, here is a handy chart for all your drone related questions.

[cedarbridge]

Started by https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/24550

It appears that drone laws and subsequent policy might need changes. I propose that we forbid drones from interacting with sentient beings only, instead of living things. This also means that interacting with borgs will be forbidden, under the previous laws, this was unclear.

Besides, all this means is that drones can do xenobio or mining, maybe milk a few cows, etc. There will be issues regarding simple mobs that gain sentience via pink slime extract or the random sentience event. But, they can always kill the drone, or say something which will let the drone know that the mob is sentient.

Thoughts?

You've set out a solution without stating a problem. You've also not stated why that unstated problem needs to be solved by the solution. There's currently no reason that drones should be doing xenobio or mining. drones are meant as second layer repair bots that usually just build autism forts. Giving them mining and xenobio on a policy level just leads to a lot of really murky policy and tries to turn drones into a second life role. They were never meant to be "as long as I have a drone shell I can keep doing what I did before I died."

[Cobby]

Can we just remove the laws, give them flavor text that explicitly states what we want drones to do, or just remove the damn things?

[Screemonster]

It's not necessary to change policy to allow things that aren't currently allowed just because a few shitters are doing it / capable of doing it anyway.

If someone leaves their door unlocked, you don't see the police going "oh hey well we might as well make burglary legal since there wasn't a mechanical restriction preventing that burglar from entering the property"

and equally it doesn't make sense to lock people out of their own house to keep burglars out

[TehSteveo]

Why is it that drone laws are always confusing for people? The OP's version of drone laws are incorrect and interruption is incorrect.

Default drone laws:

Spoiler:

"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 Drone."
"2. You may not harm any being, regardless of intent or circumstance."
"3. Your goals are to build, maintain, repair, improve, and power the station to the best of your abilities, You must never actively work against these goals."

You literally can not interact with any other being, living or otherwise; so you can't touch that corpse, that cockroach, Ian, a borg, pAI, or really anything besides other drones and obvious inanimate objects that nobody else is using or is important(E.G. drone shouldn't touch the nuclear disk or loose weapons). Your job is to repair and improve the station.

As far as way drone are treated being pretty lax is kinda funny, considering the fact I believe some the most common bans levied are drone bans. Admins don't let drones have free reign; so if they get ahelped for violating laws they're going to receive a talking about their laws to being drone banned for breaking them.

[DemonFiren]

But if it no longer is alive, is it really a being instead of dead matter?

This is a serious philosophical problem.

[D&B]

R E A D

T H E

O P

[TehSteveo]

Apologies. As I have a migraine so my comprehension isn't the best at the moment. Still after getting these drone law debates we're not going to change drone laws to allow drones to play with a camera to interact with shit. It's another case of IGNORE IT if you want to play drone.

By the way a change to drone laws would be coder territory first; not policy discussion as you'd have to change the laws. As far as somehow playing some weird policy game where this is okay to interact with things, but this interaction here isn't. That isn't going to happen.

Also, reflecting back on why I made that post that seems like I ignored the OP was more along to the OP's line here, "This also means that interacting with borgs will be forbidden, under the previous laws, this was unclear." I made it clear since we were not clear apparently with that previous post.

[RandomMarine]

To the question at hand, nah, they shouldn't. Drones shouldn't be fucking around with NPCs just as they shouldn't mess with players.


But, since a thread on drone-related policy exists, I've got to say some things.

First off, interpretation of the drone lawset is all over the place.

The wiki suggests that drones should ignore beings as if they don't exist. (The laws don't even suggest that)
Most people believe that drones should not be interacting with beings in the slightest. (The laws don't actually say that.)

So, I'm bringing this law into question for policy questions.

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 Drone.

First question, what can you do if another being involves itself in your matters? Are you allowed to interact with them accordingly? Does this mean you can you set up a little DroneMart™ and try to serve patrons that approach the counter?
If drones can't do these things. Then I think the law needs to be re-written to be more clear-cut on that.

Second question, is taking items from somebody's workplace involving yourself in their matters? Is whether or not they're present a factor in this?

Third question, what defines a being, exactly? Fluff-wise, plants are living things. But in-game they're simply reagent-holding items.

[ShadowDimentio]

If someone throws a shitfit because a drone was doing xenobio when nobody else was and wasn't like summoning golems to grief or something I say we turn the person bitching into a drone with no hands.

[D&B]

It doesn't matter if someone else was doing it or not, drones are not meant to be treated as a second Life for you to do whatever you want, hence being restricted to repairing and improving.

Proposing to punish someone for reporting someone breaching their laws is the stupidest fucking idea I've read this week, congrats on that.

[ShadowDimentio]

It doesn't matter if someone else was doing it or not, drones are not meant to be treated as a second Life for you to do whatever you want, hence being restricted to repairing and improving.

Proposing to punish someone for reporting someone breaching their laws is the stupidest fucking idea I've read this week, congrats on that.

If they aren't bothering the crew at all, what does it matter to you what the drones are doing? What excuse do you have for ahelping that a drone is doing xenobio besides "I want to rules lawyer this drone into trouble"?

If you do this you're a bad person flat-out.

[cedarbridge]

It doesn't matter if someone else was doing it or not, drones are not meant to be treated as a second Life for you to do whatever you want, hence being restricted to repairing and improving.

Proposing to punish someone for reporting someone breaching their laws is the stupidest fucking idea I've read this week, congrats on that.

If they aren't bothering the crew at all, what does it matter to you what the drones are doing? What excuse do you have for ahelping that a drone is doing xenobio besides "I want to rules lawyer this drone into trouble"?

If you do this you're a bad person flat-out.

>following the rules as written and wanting others to also follow those rules makes you a bad person
lad

[D&B]

You're given explicit rules of what not to do, and you are willingly breaking that.

If you don't want to be restricted, then don't click the drone and you're set. But don't go getting into something that has boundaries, and then claim you're a victim of rule lawyers and administration when you're breaking those boundaries knowingly.

[D&B]

Furthermore, working on xenobio DOES affect others if someone decides to make use of what you produced. Suddenly greytiders mcshit has an army of sentient creature they gained by breaking in and stealing the product that wasn't supposed to be produced by a player breaking rules that shouldn't be broken

[cedarbridge]

The real issue here is that, as stated earlier, drones are restricted from doing anything that affects any non-drone being directly because those sorts of activities are reserved for actual living players. Drones are just a "have something to do for a while before the round ends but stay away from players" role. You're not meant to treat it as a second life because, for the same reason as respawns, it cheapens your actual IC life. Why care if the antag dunks you if you can just respawn as a drone and go back to autisming your slimes?

[oranges]

policy does not need to be changed.

[Grazyn]

Can we just remove the laws, give them flavor text that explicitly states what we want drones to do

^this

Drone laws have been written and re-written and re-written again to try to find the perfect wording, yet people still argue about the definition of "being" and "involve" going as far as to say that current laws allow drones to set up a bar, breed slimes, and steal everything from RnD. Just accept the fact that finding a perfect wording is impossible. There will always be someone nitpicking the laws to find the most efficient laws-complaint way to grief/annoy others. A flavor text with OOC directives on what they can and can't do, like we have for other ghost roles, would be much better.

[oranges]

They're not realistically laws to the same degree as silicons, it was literally just meant to be flavour text.

changing the format of the laws won't really help people who always push the boundaries

[Arianya]

Right, hence you remove the laws entirely and replace it with an OOC addendum that the purpose of drones is to repair and improve the station, nothing more or less and that doing anything outside this, including interacting with any non-drone beings can/will get you in trouble.

[Cobby]

They're not realistically laws to the same degree as silicons, it was literally just meant to be flavour text.

changing the format of the laws won't really help people who always push the boundaries

There is no indicator that you are not suppose to treat the laws like a silicon would as a drone until an admin bwoinks you. The format is entirely important, hence why we had an entirely separate page about the format of Alert Levels, and hence why we have had several drone policy threads nitpicking the laws when we could just not try to disguise OOC rules to an IC format known to cause problems anyways.

Right, hence you remove the laws entirely and replace it with an OOC addendum that the purpose of drones is to repair and improve the station, nothing more or less and that doing anything outside this, including interacting with any non-drone beings can/will get you in trouble.

Also don't do the subtle validhunting such as repairing lights during sling or taking a knack for cleaning grafitti during gang.

[Dr_bee]

The strictness of drone laws makes me kind of sad to be honest. They seem to be a holdover from when there were no other methods of perma-dead people from coming back into the round.

Now there are several ghost roles that give you full ability to roleplay with other players and effect the round. So would it be so horrible to let drones be able to run silly gimmicks like a Drone-shop or Drone bartenders?

It should have some non-violence clause however, we dont want drones validhunting. not that they arent stupidly fragile in the first place.

[D&B]

Then why not do it when you're alive?

What is stopping you from turning on assistant, grabbing a toolbox, and doing whatever you want to do?

[cedarbridge]

The strictness of drone laws makes me kind of sad to be honest. They seem to be a holdover from when there were no other methods of perma-dead people from coming back into the round.

Now there are several ghost roles that give you full ability to roleplay with other players and effect the round. So would it be so horrible to let drones be able to run silly gimmicks like a Drone-shop or Drone bartenders?

It should have some non-violence clause however, we dont want drones validhunting. not that they arent stupidly fragile in the first place.

The problem is, drones spawn directly on station, can vent crawl etc. Drones should not be able to be functionally treated as second lives.

>Scientist gets dunked in department by traitor
>Sci player goes to drone
>Drone takes over xeno in his place

This means the sci player's death was mostly pointless because they're already back doing exactly what they were doing before their death. Other ghost roles like lavaland characters and such aren't the same because they have little or no impact on the on-station drama. Xeno golems 1) require pre-done xeno work 2) are bound to their creator. Additionally, drones have the laws they have to prevent ghosts from grabbing one and dicking over an antag plot in progress.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Drones are from *after* golems, which is what you're talking about, dr_bee. Way, way, after.

[ShadowDimentio]

The strictness of drone laws makes me kind of sad to be honest. They seem to be a holdover from when there were no other methods of perma-dead people from coming back into the round.

Now there are several ghost roles that give you full ability to roleplay with other players and effect the round. So would it be so horrible to let drones be able to run silly gimmicks like a Drone-shop or Drone bartenders?

It should have some non-violence clause however, we dont want drones validhunting. not that they arent stupidly fragile in the first place.

The problem is, drones spawn directly on station, can vent crawl etc. Drones should not be able to be functionally treated as second lives.

>Scientist gets dunked in department by traitor
>Sci player goes to drone
>Drone takes over xeno in his place

This means the sci player's death was mostly pointless because they're already back doing exactly what they were doing before their death. Other ghost roles like lavaland characters and such aren't the same because they have little or no impact on the on-station drama. Xeno golems 1) require pre-done xeno work 2) are bound to their creator. Additionally, drones have the laws they have to prevent ghosts from grabbing one and dicking over an antag plot in progress.

"Don't dick over antags" is completely fine, drones shouldn't be bothering the crew and certainly not the antag that dunked them, but "don't do xenobio because technically they're beings and technically it's a law breach, you can do R&D or toxins or robotics though" is just an asinine distinction. What's lost by letting drones do xenobio? Your precious "D-DRONES SHOULDN'T BE A SECOND LIFE!! WHAT IF THEY WERE A XENOBIOLOGIST!???" subtext? They can already do literally all of science outside of xenobio, why is xenobio so special?

[cedarbridge]

Your precious "D-DRONES SHOULDN'T BE A SECOND LIFE!! WHAT IF THEY WERE A XENOBIOLOGIST!???" subtext? They can already do literally all of science outside of xenobio, why is xenobio so special?

"your precious"

Its the entire point of the lawset. You're not meant to use drones to replace being human. If you think drones should be banned from all activities to include those other departments then I suppose we can do that too. I've never seen a drone doing toxins but I'd have strong questions with it about which part of constructing bombs was in furtherance of its "repair and improve the station" directive. Drones are designed as non-participant repair and construction bots. They aren't second lives, they aren't additional crew to staff missing stations with ghosts. They're repair and reconstruction drones meant to improve and repair the station. That's what their laws say and they are for. There's no reason for the drone to do anything like xenobio because it doesn't repair or improve the station. Adding in a niche allowance because you want to be the xenodrone doesn't further their purpose as a ghost role.

[ShadowDimentio]

Sure it improves the station, slimes have all sorts of stuff useful to the station such as bluespace tiles and self-recharging batteries.

[Cobby]

I honestly hate drones, hate the minutia distinctions between the lawset, still not exactly sure what function they have due to the second bit, and would quite frankly like to see them removed from the station outside of things that would have them unbound by their flavortext/laws [like wizardry or badminnery].

I never really understood the point of ghost roles anyways since I was under the impression that was what the 2 servers were for.

[cedarbridge]

I honestly hate drones, hate the minutia distinctions between the lawset, still not exactly sure what function they have due to the second bit, and would quite frankly like to see them removed from the station outside of things that would have them unbound by their flavortext/laws [like wizardry or badminnery].

I never really understood the point of ghost roles anyways since I was under the impression that was what the 2 servers were for.

Nobody wants to bounce between servers just for the one they were already on to end round and leave them out of a roundstart.

[captain sawrge]

I honestly hate drones, hate the minutia distinctions between the lawset, still not exactly sure what function they have due to the second bit, and would quite frankly like to see them removed from the station outside of things that would have them unbound by their flavortext/laws [like wizardry or badminnery].

I never really understood the point of ghost roles anyways since I was under the impression that was what the 2 servers were for.

Nobody wants to bounce between servers just for the one they were already on to end round and leave them out of a roundstart.

But round end is announced in-gamse now for the other server.

[cedarbridge]

I'm not gonna lie. I love drones to death but I really hate having to deal with so many complaints about players that can't follow drone law instructions to not interact with non-drones. I'm not even talking subtle stuff. I've had at least 3 cases in the last week of drones dragging bodies and one even stuffed a guy in cryo. The last one is a fairly special individual and certainly not typical, but this is becoming a really annoying issue. We already age-range borgs/AI. Why are drones not age-ranged too?

[Haevacht]

I'm not gonna lie. I love drones to death but I really hate having to deal with so many complaints about players that can't follow drone law instructions to not interact with non-drones. I'm not even talking subtle stuff. I've had at least 3 cases in the last week of drones dragging bodies and one even stuffed a guy in cryo. The last one is a fairly special individual and certainly not typical, but this is becoming a really annoying issue. We already age-range borgs/AI. Why are drones not age-ranged too?

They are.

[ShadowDimentio]

It's not like you'd notice good drones being good drones anyways because a good drone is one you never even notice.

[Haevacht]

It's not like you'd notice good drones being good drones anyways because a good drone is one you never even notice.

Good drones you only notice when you see a new set of solars with a lounge suite overlooking space in a random part of the station.

[cedarbridge]

It's not like you'd notice good drones being good drones anyways because a good drone is one you never even notice.

Good drones you only notice when you see a new set of solars with a lounge suite overlooking space in a random part of the station.

Professional drones build atmos pipe vents to seemingly nowhere just to have only drone access to their autism fort nests

[Cobby]

I honestly hate drones, hate the minutia distinctions between the lawset, still not exactly sure what function they have due to the second bit, and would quite frankly like to see them removed from the station outside of things that would have them unbound by their flavortext/laws [like wizardry or badminnery].

I never really understood the point of ghost roles anyways since I was under the impression that was what the 2 servers were for.

Nobody wants to bounce between servers just for the one they were already on to end round and leave them out of a roundstart.

There's a ghost verb that does this easily and round ends are announced via the news system. If you miss it then that means you're probably enjoying yourself on the other, so you haven't really lost.

[oranges]

that's the weirdest thing I ever heard

[imblyings]

Maybe it's time to drop the IC laws and just have a set of OOC explanations regarding what you can or can't do.