/tg/Station 13

I think the main issue that the AI and sec suffer from is that they don't have much to keep themselves occupied with, which leads to then scanning the station for antag behavior, since they don't have anything else to do really. They should have something to do so their gaze is turned away from antags.

Only thing I can think of is having some sort of security net or grid that the AI or sec have to set up at round start and possibly maintain.

Edit: Ok, it seems that everyone has posted that sec actually do have shit to do. Let's focus on the Ai if possible then
Post your ideas for activities here.

bi-annual greyshit clubbing competition

Antag hunting.

For the AI, there's just door opening and you're right.

But for sec, they have all the petty crime to deal with. Most of that isn't from antags, and there's normally lots of it.

MAYBE people shouldn't be committing petty crime as non antags
I know, I'm controversial

And some of that ties in to wanting to validhunt.
They break into places to get X that'll let them hunt Y better.

Corporate Security! Where you spend 99% of your time sitting on your chair reading something or slipping slowly into madness.

Its just that SS13 encapsulates that 1% of times where something actually happens.

I deal with plenty of crime besides antags.

Yeah, I definitely feel like security is consistently one of the busiest jobs on the station. I almost always have plenty to do, and if I don't I'm happy to finish off the records and add lots of detail.

Compared to something like medical doctor, where you can spend as much as 30 minutes without seeing anyone injured come in (and even then they'll just shove themselves into cryo) or engineer (once the engine's set up) or especially jobs like assistant, where you essentially have to make your own fun every round, security has a massive amount of work to keep doing.

Also, crew just stopping committing petty crime? That would be (a) unenforceable and (b) more boring for everyone involved. Minor fights, thefts, all those sort of things are The Thing that gives variety when antags aren't around. I'm not saying all greytiding is good, but if you remove the chance for people to beat each other up over a monkey or whatever, things quickly get more dull.

How about you get off your high horse about valid hunting, If you wanted to make the case against vigilantes you might be on to something, but validhunting/play2win is the best place for security, sorry, I don't give out participation trophies or pitty-wins, I will not cheapen your victory by pretending to be hollywood sugar glass for you to burst through as an action star antag. If I can get you, I will, And I won't engage in thin roleplay to release you, either don't get caught, or be original and inventive enough to peak my interests. Otherwise, I will find you, If possible, I will robust you, and I will enjoy your redtext.

That goes for antags, and those who choose to act like antags, general shitlers and derpidoos carry on with your shenanigans in peace


Edit: Also, You clearly don't play security if you think we don't have anything to do, you also don't pay attention if you don't think we have anything to do, one of the more common complaints is "I called for help in the bar a lot and security never came" or something along those lines. Sec has plenty to do.

Takeguru wrote:MAYBE people shouldn't be committing petty crime as non antags
I know, I'm controversial

problem with that is that if nonantags didn't/couldn't start shit, the slightest little mote of shitstarting would be instant MUST BE AN ANTAG, LYNCH HE.

Falamazeer wrote:How about you get off your high horse about valid hunting, If you wanted to make the case against vigilantes you might be on to something, but validhunting/play2win is the best place for security, sorry, I don't give out participation trophies or pitty-wins, I will not cheapen your victory by pretending to be hollywood sugar glass for you to burst through as an action star antag. If I can get you, I will, And I won't engage in thin roleplay to release you, either don't get caught, or be original and inventive enough to peak my interests. Otherwise, I will find you, If possible, I will robust you, and I will enjoy your redtext.

That goes for antags, and those who choose to act like antags, general shitlers and derpidoos carry on with your shenanigans in peace


Edit: Also, You clearly don't play security if you think we don't have anything to do, you also don't pay attention if you don't think we have anything to do, one of the more common complaints is "I called for help in the bar a lot and security never came" or something along those lines. Sec has plenty to do.

Emptyquoting this

Playing as any Sec position is usually a game in time management, as well as getting shot dead at any moment because you had the audacity to type out a sentence to someone.

Steelpoint wrote:Playing as any Sec position is usually a game in time management, as well as getting shot dead at any moment because you had the audacity to type out a sentence to someone.

How dare you try to roleplay on our server. Get out.

Saegrimr wrote:

Steelpoint wrote:Playing as any Sec position is usually a game in time management, as well as getting shot dead at any moment because you had the audacity to type out a sentence to someone.

How dare you try to roleplay on our server. Get out.

Would it surprise you to know most of my HoS deaths are when I'm talking with someone?

That or suicide bombs.

Steelpoint wrote:Would it surprise you to know most of my HoS deaths are when I'm talking with someone?

Not really, same shit happens to me when I stop to ask someone why they're in my department rather than just whipping out the stunprod and cablecuffing them first.

losing is fun!

I was under the impression that valid-hunting is more nuanced than just a single bad thing to be removed or discouraged, and that it was a situational action that is either horribly unsporting or incredibly vital to the continued fun of other, more placid, players.

Kor's migrant/away thing ONE DAY (when we get enough content) may fill in a role as things for sec to do when it's boring however.

How about we actually give antags the tools they need to survive instead of whining that the AI and sec don't like to play like complete idiots?

make it so cameras have a visible green light shown when the AI is looking through them

CPTANT wrote:How about we actually give antags the tools they need to survive instead of whining that the AI and sec don't like to play like complete idiots?

Atticat wrote:make it so cameras have a visible green light shown when the AI is looking through them

If onlythere weresuch a tool

Only traitors have access to that tool, and it's basically mandatory, which is pretty shitty in itself.


I honestly wish you wouldn't troll discussions, because I highly doubt you're under the false impression all antags have access to that specific item.

Honestly, stop the nerf train. Traitors/DA got a ton of buffs (gloves added to toolbox, higher ratios, reductions in TC cost for utility items such as radio key), and are now using the traitor radio key to work together. Lings are much more deadly now as well, and are getting a power to make them completely invisible to the AI. Gangs, Cultists, and Revs are too widespread for AI players to handle, the AI is just a doorknob during blob, helpless against wizards, and are usually dead in Nuclear Emergency.

Please, let us not make playing the role any more suffering than it already is - it is really getting out of hand.

Atticat wrote:I honestly wish you wouldn't troll discussions, because I highly doubt you're under the false impression all antags have access to that specific item.

Probably because its intentional for only syndicate to have these tools, and not every other antag. Or are we reaching a level of hand-holding where cultists need to dial up the Narsie-link and order a crate of thermals and emags?
Stop murdering people while unprepared if you can't do it fast enough to keep them from screaming.

Gun Hog wrote:Lings are much more deadly now as well, and are getting a power to make them completely invisible to the AI.

I thought they already had this power, but nobody took it because it was immediately obvious to any human who shift-clicked you.

Nah, it was like an Agent Card but made you valid on sight.

If I can unfuck my shitcode, it will make all AIs unable to see you on cams while its activated, like a sort of cloaker-lite

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:If I can unfuck my shitcode, it will make all AIs unable to see you on cams while its activated, like a sort of cloaker-lite

Make it invisible to borgs too, it'll be funny.

Remove the AI kek

Saegrimr wrote:

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:If I can unfuck my shitcode, it will make all AIs unable to see you on cams while its activated, like a sort of cloaker-lite

Make it invisible to borgs too, it'll be funny.

This would be maximum comedy-tier.

> WHY AM I DYING OH GOD INVISIBLE ENEMIES.

Old_cloaker.txt

Lings can already make borgs cry tears of petroleum with the EMP shriek, which stuns, blinds, and mutes them for something like 30 seconds.

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:Lings can already make borgs cry tears of petroleum with the EMP shriek, which stuns, blinds, and mutes them for something like 30 seconds.

I had a borg try and incinerate me by itself one time.

Boy that was a dumb borg.

Yeah....At this point as Security you have to have the right mindset or you're just antag food.

As an experiment since that massive ban drama I played a round as security where I tried to be as reasonable as possible, talk to everyone and try not to be "valid hunting".

I got murdered within 5 minutes for talking instead of tase cuffing and searching someone that I pretty much knew was up to some shifty shit.

That was a fun 30 minutes spectating though.

Alright, so I apparently was mistaken about the sec part. But the Ai part still stands.
Literally All the Ai does is open doors for the most part.

Once again. the point of this thread is not to think of nerfs for the Ai, but to think of things for them to do. This is of double benefit to both the antags and the Ai I feel, as it might delay the Ai's response time to noticing someone yell HELP, as well as keep Ais from going braindead during slow rounds.

AIs are already overwhelmed by requests and callouts during mid-high population rounds. Adding some sort of side gimmick just to draw their attention is only going to get people screaming about them being rogue for not opening a door or some random bullshit.

Make something that can be easily maintained by the AI but hard to maintain by humans. Maybe something that is in different locations around the station and is a hassle for humans to do. Or something.
Personally as AI I go around micromanaging atmos whenever somewhere is even 1 kPA below normal.

AI's have plenty of things they can do to get themselves occupied - if the typical non stop crew requests don't.

The main issue is simply that asimov AI's used to be (perhaps nostalgia goggles but whatever) far more neutral to the crew.

IE: The AI might see someone who is clearly a traitor, and clearly breaking the law/stealing the station blueprints or whatever, but keeps that information to itself/borgs, rather then immediatelly batphoning sec.
Why? Because being an antag doesn't immediately make you a law 1 threat.
And guess what? If you sic security on a traitor who isn't causing harm, the chance of harm (either to them, or from them) goes way the fuck up.

AI Drone Research System.

AI can dedicate runtime to a branching, choice-filled "research" path wherein it can create, at a station in robotics, a drone it is capable of assuming direct control over.

This drone starts out as very basic, but it can be upgraded in various ways - size, modularity, limbs, in-built equipment etc. This can, over the course of a good round, allow the AI to get to standard drone level, then basically be a part-time cyborg, then go all the way to hardlight human hologram.

But how does it gain runtime, I hear you ask? Simple - each upgrade in a chosen research path will require a certain amount of time to pass. But this is extremely slow in normal operation - to get anywhere near a reasonable research rate going, the AI needs to cripple its ability to monitor the station by dedicating the runtime it was previously devoting to...

- Running the radio, and its own private channel
- Departmental cameras
- Different alarm systems (eg. fire, atmos)
- Motion detection
- Hostile activity on networks (door jacking etc.)

...towards this research. Each system it disables increases the speed on the timer, allowing for faster progression, and for the fastest progression an AI can also dedicate its core runtime to the process, effectively cutting it off from the station entirely for a short time.

So AIs would then get a choice. Keep their old surveillance capability all round, forgoing this new ability? Rush into research with everything they have, risking the ire of the crew through unresponsiveness and the dangers of unseen traitor activity - but only for the first ten-to-fifteen minutes, after which it comes back with a powerful new ability? Keep it middling by crippling itself of some of its own surveillance capability, relying on cunning to fill in the gaps whilst its research ticks upwards at a medium pace?

It's probably never going to exist, but eh.

Saegrimr wrote:AIs are already overwhelmed by requests and callouts during mid-high population rounds. Adding some sort of side gimmick just to draw their attention is only going to get people screaming about them being rogue for not opening a door or some random bullshit.

this could reduce AI meta though, because "the ai isnt opening my door" doesnt immediately equal "ai rouge".

That said, highpop rounds are already pretty frustrating sometimes because of how long the AI can take to open a door for you.

Miauw wrote:

Saegrimr wrote:AIs are already overwhelmed by requests and callouts during mid-high population rounds. Adding some sort of side gimmick just to draw their attention is only going to get people screaming about them being rogue for not opening a door or some random bullshit.

this could reduce AI meta though, because "the ai isnt opening my door" doesnt immediately equal "ai rouge".

That said, highpop rounds are already pretty frustrating sometimes because of how long the AI can take to open a door for you.

The tracking delay certainly did not do anything to make that any better, especially when more than one person is yelling at you...

If you give security more leeway with high value prisoners some would busy themselves with intricate punishments, executions and disposing of corpses. At present you can barely yank the cell out of a security cyborg in a fire fight with it letting it run around cover open (so people know it needs a battery) and releasing it without being decried as too cruel. The stringent regulation on prisoner handling is stopping the officers savoring the kill so they just go out and hunt again being more effective but less satisfied.

I once fully space suited a guy who was raiding EVA and chucked him into space cuffed with ample air in his internals (random z at the time no chance of infinite loop) and got bwoinked for it (this was back when executions flowed more freely too). I mean if I can't do ironic punishments like some sort of mystical red genie a bit of the frontier sparkle is gone.

Remove AI, it literally has nothing to do but valid hunt and open doors, or stalk security and bolt them down and then cry to admins when the conflict lawset brings conflict that isn't in its favour.

I spend most of my time as AI dicking around with comms and blackmailing traitors/people I saw breaking in somewhere/the clown into doing amusing things.

Why have we yet to trial the removal of the AI? It seems to be a oft requested, and popular, idea that I doubt it would harm us to trail it for a week.

If the removal of the AI absolutly ruins the game, or proves to severaly unbalance the game, then it can be easily readded (Isn't the AI a host config option?).

Steelpoint wrote:Why have we yet to trial the removal of the AI? It seems to be a oft requested, and popular, idea that I doubt it would harm us to trail it for a week.

If the removal of the AI absolutly ruins the game, or proves to severaly unbalance the game, then it can be easily readded (Isn't the AI a host config option?).

I feel it needs to be replaced with something, it's a massive part of the game.

Tornadium wrote:I feel it needs to be replaced with something, it's a massive part of the game.

If the anti-silicon crybabies actually manage to get the AI removed, this wouldn't be a bad alternative.
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4499

Saegrimr wrote:

Tornadium wrote:I feel it needs to be replaced with something, it's a massive part of the game.

If the anti-silicon crybabies actually manage to get the AI removed, this wouldn't be a bad alternative.
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4499

I was looking for that, I think that'd be a good replacement.

The issue is you're then having the bridge be constantly manned and backup for the Captain/HoP at any time. Might require a map change.

Yeah but two dudes glued to a camera at the center of the station are easier to murder than assaulting the AI satellite.

Getting the ai removed would suck imo because it's an extremely unique role and interesting part of ss13, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be prudent to do a couple no AI rounds to see how things play out. Still, the bridge crew is kind of neat. Maybe we could add them without removing the ai...

Why not just remove AI from round start positions and require the AI to be built? (Requiring research).

Then you can keep the AI and give the bridge commander and crew a purpose.

Tornadium wrote:Why not just remove AI from round start positions and require the AI to be built? (Requiring research).

Then you can keep the AI and give the bridge commander and crew a purpose.

This would remove Malf mode

Zilenan91 wrote:

Tornadium wrote:Why not just remove AI from round start positions and require the AI to be built? (Requiring research).

Then you can keep the AI and give the bridge commander and crew a purpose.

This would remove Malf mode

what a fucking tragedy