Maintenance Drones Again!

[JJRcop]

Maintenance drones are back! https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/58249

To reduce opportunity for mischief, the headmins and I laid out the following restrictions which are now implemented:

• They can't interact at all when close to another being, living or dead
• Their binary chat has been removed to separate them from AI and borgs
• They can only hold a whitelist of items necessary to do their job
• They can only interact with machines necessary to do their job
• The drone satchel is gone, and drones now have built in basic tools
• They also can't interact in some blacklisted high risk areas
• Finally, you must play 40 hours total as a Silicon role in order to play as a drones
    ‣ (The headmins can change this)

These restrictions are very brutal, and are meant to be so. What kind of feedback do you have for our small handy friends?

[Valorium]

Already expressed by someone else on the Github, but they haven't shown up and said it here so posting for posterity -

Drones should be able to move and interact near simplemob bots, i.e. cleanbots and medibots, given that both IC they are not living creatures with any real semblance of sentience and OOC it's very difficult to do anything in main hallways like replace lights or clean floors when constant bot patrols stop you from doing anything. Given drones lack access, there's very little they could even do to negatively impact simple robots, except physically take a crowbar to them (which could be coded out if it was that great a concern).

[toadtheloser]

I hope the admins reduce the required hours to play as the drone. 40 is just too much.

[nulladept]

Add a roundstart tip about drones so more people would know they are back

[Farquaar]

Bruh it takes more silicon hours to play a drone than the AI
Only silicon mains are gonna have enough hours to try it

[carshalash]

40 hours to play it is kind of nuts, and we all know my AI hours.

[Cobby]

Admins took the too nice to say no approach by making the requirments utterly insufferable to play instead of just letting them not see humans and doing the epic build/repair/etc. meme

[JJRcop]

PR up that resolves some big issues, like machinery/APC frames and medbots: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/58802

I hope to explore relaxing restrictions more, but I am pretty happy with this version. I think headmins should try reducing the requirements a little, but otherwise I like where it's at.

[Capsandi]

I have found the best time to play drone is on icebox, so that I may escape into maintenance and build ladders down to entirely new tunnels/storage rooms, good job on these!

[legoscape]

I can play maintenance drones again but it fucking sucks and I don't want to play maintence drones.

You cannot do shit 90% of the time because people are walking around you. You can't pick up anything because "It might break your laws"

You cannot interact with air alarms to fix plasma fires.

You cannot use tools or upgrade tools. You cannot fix wires if mice are around and alive

You cannot use items after someone has touched them.

You cannot exist without someone's presence.

You can still get killed by someone and cannot run away because they are running at you so vent crawl is not allowed.

This is dumb changes. Whitelist the fucking drones for people with 40 hours. Revert the dumb changes let people have fun.

[Pandarsenic]

Free drones