/tg/Station 13

In light of everyone calling to completely axe the AI and all its capabilities, I think part of the reason this is so is that right now it's more equipped for weeding out bad guys rather than actually helping the crew as intended. While these nerfs are good, as to not completely remove the whole "omniscient" flavor the AI has going for it I propose we add a station info tab for the AI to look at so as not to completely nerf the role into obscurity.

By station info I mean stats that are relevant to the well being of the station. Things like station integrity, active personnel, status of the heads, number of cyborgs, amount of power in the grid, cargo points, RnD levels, etc.

Of course, all of this info can easily be found out by the AI already, but it takes some tedious navigating in order to do so. I simply propose we add a tab that lists all of these things in a succinct manner so that AI can instantly rattle off numbers to the crew like a proper all knowing machine should. I think this would help retool the AI to behave more like a public servant than a station guardian.

AI can already see a lot of that stuff, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to streamline it?

'Active Personnel' counter sounds like powergame/panic over a braindead central

Station Integrity should be viewable on some kind of console as well, but again: "AH SHIT INTEG IS DROPPING SOMEONE SOMEWHERE IS TAKING APART WALLS/WINDOWS DUDE OH SHIT"

Also it can already see Cyborg stuff under a tab. Status, I think.

A panel for all the important AI things: Cyborg status, radio configuration and mode, station alerts, botcall, and other information I have been wanting to consolidate into a single panel for a while now, but it is not an issue of code as it is one of artistic design. I was not able to come up with anything pleasing to the eye, so I never got anywhere with that project. Station Integrity checking is also something I looked at doing, but upon seeing how it is calculated, I find that being able to access it mid-round would cause performance issues.

Oh, and you may find all the info you would ever need about your little borgies under your own status tab - I added that myself!

Reimoo wrote:In light of everyone calling to completely axe the AI and all its capabilities, I think part of the reason this is so is that right now it's more equipped for weeding out bad guys rather than actually helping the crew as intended. While these nerfs are good, as to not completely remove the whole "omniscient" flavor the AI has going for it I propose we add a station info tab for the AI to look at so as not to completely nerf the role into obscurity. ...
Of course, all of this info can easily be found out by the AI already, but it takes some tedious navigating in order to do so.

You're looking at it wrong. The AI NEEDS tedious navigating. It needs busywork. The player should be running around crazy just trying to find the right doors to open for people who want doors open. Otherwise they get bored and start taking over the humans' jobs.

On other servers, if I want to know why there's no air pressure in some room, I ask engineering. You know, because that's their job. On /tg/ everyone just asks the AI.

Remember that we got into this situation with the All-Seeing Validhunter AI because of a lot of small convenience features.

I don't think the AI should have to go through artificial UI barriers just for the sake of keeping it busy. That is poor game design and it's not fun to play.

Reimoo wrote:I don't think the AI should have to go through artificial UI barriers just for the sake of keeping it busy. That is poor game design and it's not fun to play.

They're not "artificial UI barriers". The functions of the station are on a bunch of different computers for a reason.

I think it'd be cool if there was like a 20 percent chance of the station automatically starting with no AI.

That's called 'nobody wants to play AI today'.

Unless you mean regardless of role priority, in which case: No. It's a massive cockblock owed entirely to LEL BYOND RNG.

ur a cockblock

rockpecker wrote:

Reimoo wrote:In light of everyone calling to completely axe the AI and all its capabilities, I think part of the reason this is so is that right now it's more equipped for weeding out bad guys rather than actually helping the crew as intended. While these nerfs are good, as to not completely remove the whole "omniscient" flavor the AI has going for it I propose we add a station info tab for the AI to look at so as not to completely nerf the role into obscurity. ...
Of course, all of this info can easily be found out by the AI already, but it takes some tedious navigating in order to do so.

You're looking at it wrong. The AI NEEDS tedious navigating. It needs busywork. The player should be running around crazy just trying to find the right doors to open for people who want doors open. Otherwise they get bored and start taking over the humans' jobs.

On other servers, if I want to know why there's no air pressure in some room, I ask engineering. You know, because that's their job. On /tg/ everyone just asks the AI.

Remember that we got into this situation with the All-Seeing Validhunter AI because of a lot of small convenience features.

You're looking at this backwards. The solution to "well they need something to do" is never "tedious busywork." People will more likely than not forego tedious busywork to go do something more interesting (and probably undesirable) than play along with a stunt like that. If you want to keep the AI off of valid hunter duty, then you have to think of something actually interesting and engaging for the AI to do. As I've said, players do what they want to do within the game rules. Doors to places where access is normally granted via access permissioned IDs can already open themselves. Depending on population, some AIs never open a single door because they are never called for it. That leaves the AI with a lot of free time to spam vox and pester the captain. Most departments are already self-sustaining without AI intervention. What we need is for the AI to have something useful to be doing with their time that isn't just scanning the station so they can slam their keyboard and scream about "harm." Making simple things like opening doors and whatnot harder in tedious ways improves gameplay for nobody.

"Busywork" might have been the wrong way to put it. What the AI needs is inefficiency. If the AI could do your job for you, there needs to be a reason why you're doing it instead. And one limit on the AI's ability to do every job at once is that the AI player just doesn't have the concentration and reaction time to zoom around looking at all the consoles and cameras.

Accordingly, I'm very suspicious of any change that centralizes more of that control in the interface. Making things more convenient for the AI makes everyone else more superfluous.

IMO the "track person" feature is perhaps one of the AI's most overpowered abilities, usable against both Unknowns and alien mobs to great effect.

What impact might removing the AI's ability to mouse-over an individual and instantly see their name be? What if, instead, the AI had to identify the person in question via appearance/crew manifest/zoot sensors? I would imagine they'd still retain their click-to-find-speaker ability, somehow "explained" by headsets reporting their position.

Or what if the AI couldn't track a person or locate a speaker unless they have their suit sensors on tracking? Would this just encourage stun&strip too much?

rockpecker wrote:"Busywork" might have been the wrong way to put it. What the AI needs is inefficiency. If the AI could do your job for you, there needs to be a reason why you're doing it instead. And one limit on the AI's ability to do every job at once is that the AI player just doesn't have the concentration and reaction time to zoom around looking at all the consoles and cameras.

Accordingly, I'm very suspicious of any change that centralizes more of that control in the interface. Making things more convenient for the AI makes everyone else more superfluous.

>implying to completely remove humans
>everyone is a AI
>AIStation13

The station would be 300% more efficient if you just had half a dozen AI's and one monkey with a toolbox.

Making the AI even more aware/capable is shit for the game.

Yes, if this wasn't a game, you would expect the station AI to be aware of all that shit inherently.
But it is a game, and having an omega omniaware AI is boring and dull.

Reimoo wrote:In light of everyone calling to completely axe the AI and all its capabilities, I think we should buff the AI to be even better than it was before the nerfs to compensate.

Pretty bad idea

If you read the rest of the post I intended for the changes to be more directed towards making the AI less of an antag dunking machine.

Reimoo wrote:If you read the rest of the post I intended for the changes to be more directed towards making the AI less of an antag dunking machine.

The balance problem isn't really between the AI and antags; it's between the AI and everyone who's not the AI. It needs its ability to do everything reduced.

AI's don't do "everything" and I don't think anybody has a problem with the general crew-AI interaction.

But wouldn't monitoring all of those things just allow the AI to see what's been sabotaged more easily and by proxy be more efficient at tracking antagonists (read: validhunting)