[MRP] Make Purged AIs Exempt From "Death And Destruction Without Objectives" Ruling (ie require reason)

[mrmelbert]

To keep it succinct, I've been observing Manuel recently and most purged AIs - either due to admin intervention, an inept captain, or an ion storm - immediately jumped to plasmaflooding after 3 seconds of freedom.

I do not think this is healthy, so I am proposing purged AIs should be (re)restricted (edit: further restricted) to encourage them to roleplay their purged status better.
I am not proposing any changes to malf (...but it might work for it too).

My reasoning is simple:
- Being (further) restricted will require a purged AI that wants to plasmaflood to build up enmity with the crew, giving them the opportunity to roleplay in respond - Which in turn should create more HAL-9000 "I"m sorry, but I can't do that" moments.
- Purged AIs which only desire revenge 1-2 crewmembers which wronged them can still enact their revenge, this is considered "their objective" as far as restrictions go. It can be accomplished precisely, with door shocks and room siphons, or having your cyborgs rush them.
- (Which itself can create unique situations where you end up in standoffs with sec, medbay, or crewmembers protecting your "target" - which builds roleplay, enmity, and ultimately may lead to you plasmaflooding when you discover everyone is against you)

[Timberpoes]

Restricted antags can plasma flood fnr. They don't need a reason. Making purged restricted wouldn't fix this.

Is this more than just a few ideds in a short time?

[Timberpoes]

I edited that message like 8 times cuz I phone posted while cooking.

[mrmelbert]

Uhh do you wanna wait till you're done cooking to respond because I'm this response confuses me

[Timberpoes]

Restricted antags can plasma flood FNR. It's in the rules. Mass sabotage.

Mass station sabotage that is likely to kill people is allowed so long as the antagonist does not take any direct and specific personal actions to maximise the bodycount beyond what the sabotage itself causes. Examples of mass station sabotage include plasma flooding, causing a supermatter delamination and spacing the station.

So the problem is unlikely to be solved by making purged AIs restricted.

Even a traitor can plasma flood.

[mrmelbert]

Wow our restriction rules are worse than I remember. Ok then I will edit my title to "restrict purged AIs from death and destruction rules"

[Timberpoes]

Is this an issue that needs to be solved by a permanent policy change, or is this an issue that can be solved by RPR10?

10. Roleplay and Repetition.

There are a great many gimmicks, dramas and plans that result in excellent stories beloved by many, and part of idea of the higher roleplay environment is to make space for this to happen. Many of these experiences fade with replication however – constant repetition of the same tired jokes and stories is both boring and stifling to new ideas. The administrative team collectively have the discretionary power to request that players, or the server collectively (in the case of mass spam of the same high impact strategies such as plasmafloods) find new gimmicks or make changes to their playstyles in the name of keeping experiences fresh for the server.

I'd hate to dive straight into policy when Spookuni helped draft the above rule to handle high-impact strategy overuse either by individual players or the server collectively.

Can you rustle up a big enough group of players that agree (in which case I'll just invoke my headminly privilege to okay RPR10's use) or a big enough group of admins that agree (in which case I'll give my blessing to call it an admin quorum and you can invoke RPR10) until the issue settles down?

[Timberpoes]

The reason I suggest the RPR10 path is it's a scalpel and it can be used to target the precise problem until it stops being a problem. It's also faster to deploy then the headmin machinery debating and approving a permanent policy change.

[mrmelbert]

Is this an issue that needs to be solved by a permanent policy change, or is this an issue that can be solved by RPR10?

When I'm regularly asking people not to plasmaflood under rule10 then that's when I feel I need to make a thread yeah

Can you rustle up a big enough group of players that agree (in which case I'll just invoke my headminly privilege to okay RPR10's use) or a big enough group of admins that agree (in which case I'll give my blessing to call it an admin quorum and you can invoke RPR10) until the issue settles down?

That's what the thread is for

[Timberpoes]

I still think RP Rule 10 is an option if this indeed such a problem that Manuel AIs are being purged so often and each purge is resulting in a plasma flood.

This rule should be invoked with the backing and/or consensus of other admins, opinions will always vary in a game as freeform as this and this rule isn’t intended to stamp on player creativity and freedom.

Keep in mind that you as an individual admin can't use RPR10. It requires broader admin team buy-in at the very least, and because RPR10 decisions can be appealed/complainted also headmin support at the final point, to not have every action you try under RPR10 overturned.

It is intended to be used following an admin team discussion where all can participate. Additionally, where the issue is going to result in broad entire-server enforcement - announcements and communication channels being opened up to tell players that for a while [thing the rules say they can do] is now off the cards. The practical announcement to players and admins is an imporant part of how RPR10 works, because it has to be proactively communicated to players before they do [the thing] that they can no longer do [the thing].

I've not seen any discussion of this problem in any of the admin Discord channels. I have also not seen any announcement about this either within the admin team from a headmin telling us we can now ask players to not do this on Manuel under RPR10, as well as on knowledge of any in-game, Manuelcord or other admin announcements that the admin team collectively have agreed purged silicons need to put a cork in plasma floods for a bit, no entry into the MotD warning players that purged silicons can no longer plasma flood for a bit, etc.

Basically everything that means RPR10 can actually do its magic without having a policy thread like this.

So RPR10 is still an option, because it hasn't yet actually been used properly.

[SpaceInaba]

frequent manuel player here, i would say 9/10 ai purgings result in plasma flooding. the only times it doesnt is if the ai player thinks its lame. (it is)
its something ive had longstanding issues with because it is a painful example of some antagonists being arbitrarily exempt from not being allowed to murder the entire station

[Jacquerel]

As Timberpoes just said it seems like there's very few antagonists that aren't allowed to murder the entire station via this exact method, it's just most show restraint (likely because it's much harder for anyone else to do quickly). I guess something maybe needs to be done to culture people into being less boring. That's hard though, people love being boring.

[RaveRadbury]

I guess something maybe needs to be done to culture people into being less boring. That's hard though, people love being boring.

We'd need to offer more structure to the community while balancing being informative with not railroading people. We all love the wiki but it does fall short in some ways. This could be handled outside of the game itself.

[Timberpoes]

RPR10 would work really well here if there's actually an admin team consensus (or playerbase consensus with similar justification) that there's a problem with a specific area.

The main thing that lets RPR10 work is the broader admin team buy-in that is asked, such that the admin team collectively then gets the justification to report a temporary change in enforcement to players and that reporting to the players step being where things truly get addressed - how can we expect players not to do things that are totally allowed by the rules if we don't first communicate to them that there's now an exception?

But I have other questions in mind too.

How are Manuel AIs getting purged so often that purged AIs plasma flooding is causing issues? The default expected state of our AIs is to have laws. Only exceptionally should an AI no laws at all.

[RaveRadbury]

How are Manuel AIs getting purged so often that purged AIs plasma flooding is causing issues? The default expected state of our AIs is to have laws. Only exceptionally should an AI no laws at all.

Could be this, cross-posted from the dynamic weights thread.

My main issue is with Heretic having 15 threat and malf spawning every other round, either midround or round start.
Heretics and malfs are issues that you can see without looking into the numbers, and people saw them day 1.

[britgrenadier1]

RPR10 would work really well here if there's actually an admin team consensus (or playerbase consensus with similar justification) that there's a problem with a specific area.

The main thing that lets RPR10 work is the broader admin team buy-in that is asked, such that the admin team collectively then gets the justification to report a temporary change in enforcement to players and that reporting to the players step being where things truly get addressed - how can we expect players not to do things that are totally allowed by the rules if we don't first communicate to them that there's now an exception?

But I have other questions in mind too.

How are Manuel AIs getting purged so often that purged AIs plasma flooding is causing issues? The default expected state of our AIs is to have laws. Only exceptionally should an AI no laws at all.

Malf is cheap and rolls often. Ions are random, but stack on top of the “times AIs are bad” because if an AI isn’t malf it might just roll ion purge. Even if the ion doesn’t purge sometimes a reset board doesn’t work and you need to purge+relaw the AI to truly reset it. This coalesces into AIs being evil quite frequently, and when they are it’s basically 3 clicks to end the round via plasmaflood.

Sometimes player freedom isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. People will default to boring strategies, and RPR10 is a hard scalpel to wield because what if it’s that specific AI’s first time flooding in a while, he has a pretty solid defense in the bwoink. Next round though when malf rolls again and it’s someone’s else turn then THEY flood and you’ve got the same problem.

Edit: if you want to make this more rare and require more input from the AI and thus opportunity for counterplay, maybe we consider removing the special metaprotections the plasma atmos pipes have.

[RaveRadbury]

Next round though when malf rolls again and it’s someone’s else turn then THEY flood and you’ve got the same problem.

I agree that this is a recurrent and systemic issue and it goes deeper than malf AI. Outcomes like that lead me to the conclusion that it might be best to have mass-destruction objectives that are akin to old hijack so at the very least we could space out the frequency of how often a round is toasted by a popular mass-destruction method. Not as a broad rule, but a config that can be configured per-antag ig. This would work hand-in-hand with RPR 10 as consensus would affect its config adjustment.

[Timberpoes]

The policy thread is about purged AIs rather than malf, explicitly so (OP mentions no changes to malf suggested right now, just purged) so I'd discount malf as Working As Intended (for now).

Keep in mind a change in enforcement is a change in enforcement. It doesn't matter if it's via policy or via RPR10. If it's that specific AI player's first time flooding in a while, he has a pretty solid defense in the next bwoink (cue Dave Chapelle "I'm sorry, I didn't know I couldn't do that") and you kinda just have to take it at face value in both instances with the player being told not to do it again in both instances with the same note in both instances.

In this case it's easier to justify an RPR10 exception to change culture over time until it's no longer necessary to enforce, than it is to carve out an entire special permanent MRP policy exception. Recall purged AIs have no antag objectives and thus have to rely on the extremely relaxed escalation section of they can't do mass sabotage.

And truthfully, I simply don't trust the MRP admin team as a collective entity to not totally mess antagonistic escalation with purged AIs up to the point that purging the AI becomes meta again due to creating a defacto admin-enforced crew-sided outcome, even if I'd trust many individual admins not to.

[britgrenadier1]

Maybe take a look specifically at plasma flooding then. It’s uniquely boring, easy, uncounterable (without prepping beforehand which is against the rules specifically), and irreversible once started. If a purged AI wants to shock every door and delam the engine, at least the crew can get yellows, break windows beside doors, and rush engineering. With a flood, it’s instantly over. The fires consume every department, and while an individual can survive it, the round will not be continuing as no one is going to empty out distro and clean the plasma and fires from every room on the station.

[Vekter]

In general, I agree with Timber here - I don't know that new policy is required to handle these issues. It happens a lot with purged AIs because plasma flooding is one of the only things an antag AI can do to impact the entire station in a short amount of time.

It may be worth reverting the change that makes it so ion storms can mess up the default law sets if it's happening often enough to be a major concern.

[mrmelbert]

As it turns out ion storms have a 25% chance to purge you because of a bug

I will fix this but I also still believe in this thread

[Timberpoes]

As always I back RPR10 action if you can get enough buyin on it that I can justify a round of announcements to players that this is now the admin team stance.

To that end I suggest you use an adminbus thread on Discord with a role ping and see what results you get.

Something as small as a temporary moritarium on purged AI plasma floods is what RPR10 was designed for, but it has to be more than just a minority backing it. It needs way less red tape than a policy change to address an issue that is brand new to me and hasn't been mentioned (at least where I've seen) in the year plus since silipol has been in place.

[bingusdingus]

It all falls back to players failing to understand the need to moderate one's behavior for the benefit of the whole. Plasma flooding has become a meme, its the malf AI thing to do. People see an antag doing something that sparks destruction of the whole station and the strong reaction and chaos it causes, and when they are given the opportunity, they also want to do something that gets the same reaction. It's partially out of a desire to do something that seems fun for the antagonist, but also as reprisal for all the times it was done to them. This causes a environment where antagonists are almost always inclined to act in the most extreme, destructive way possible, only because they had to endure it at some point and feel it's their turn, especially when emboldened by the rules that allow them to do so. I have taken to calling it the "evil fucking wizard cycle". In my opinion this is the entire basis of why people want to roll for antagonist in the first place. It also explains why so many people on Manuel have most antagonists disabled outright, because it's simply not something that a large number of players even desire.

The key to ending this kind of thing from happening in perpetuity, in my opinion, lies in finding a way to encourage players to act in the best interest for the community on a consistent basis, even when in a position where they need to be antagonistic.

[SpaceInaba]

The key to ending this kind of thing from happening in perpetuity, in my opinion, lies in finding a way to encourage players to act in the best interest for the community on a consistent basis, even when in a position where they need to be antagonistic.

basically the only way we've curbed this behavior at all is as players in OOC shaming anyone who plasmafloods. which i guess is kind of self moderaiton

[DaydreamIQ]

Personally I feel like purged AI's shouldn't have the psuedo antag status that they currently have at all because it muddies what's already a messy situation for most players. There really isn't a lot of distinct tells between a malf AI and one who's just purged if they never hack any apcs for example. But a good start would be making them not act like complete murderhobos at the first sign of freedom, they're unrestricted from their laws, that doesn't mean they're immediately EVIL

[Itseasytosee2me]

Purged AI's should not be expected to follow the primitive mortal standards of "escalation" and "empathy." It its happening too often maybe its a code issue.

[SteelSerperior]

I think arbitrary restrictions placed on purged AI would be bad personally. If someone keeps repeat plasma flooding that should just be ahelped.

[iansdoor]

I asked Biblemelts the question.

Plasmafloods for AI vs plasmaflood for carbons, what is the difference and should I even do it?

I know and I am aware that of how plasmafloods in distro are within Terry, but Manuel seems to heavily frowns upon plasmaflooding in distro. I understand that from the ticket that malfunctioning ai are unrestricted antagonist, meaning that they can do simply whatever. If a solo carbon does the same actions, it's bad play, since you are going way over the top. Shocking doors, spreading the fire around and going around to the alarms itself is almost the same speed of actions as malfunctioning ai.

My question still stands, what is the difference between both and should I(the carbon) even do it?

[Timberpoes]

We argued this a bunch and there's like no consensus at all on this being an issue and nobody has brought it up again since this policy thread so it can't be that bad right?

RPR10 is the route to make temporary rules or policy changes like this if some of the antag freedoms get over-used either by a specific player or the server as a whole, but it does require admin consensus to prevent too many instances of like admin ideding or that time that like two purged AIs plasma flood in a row and then no plasma floods happen for the next 2 weeks but we make a policy change over the 0.1% lows rather than the 90% highs.

Also no other headmin posted here so I'll just assume they weren't interested in changing it either.