Surrealistik

Maybe I'm biased due to playing a borg so often, but I love NSA-AIs when they keep me informed of things that need to be done, or people that need robusting. If however, you're a fail AI that can't make good use of the information you shouldn't tamper with them, agreed. Besides, a real valid hunt AI would track antags mercilessly and robust them at the first opportunity with hungry hungry airlocks.

It has some great concepts, which is where my proposal came from, balance tweaks aside, but yeah, a little unworkable in its current state, and I definitely think it would be an absolute pain to balance versus just adding the Seed/Mask and Altar concepts to the current system.

My idea is inspired by the Mask; I assume you are the creator? That said, while I do like many of the Mask's changes, I'm uncertain about it in its totality; some of its changes I find too radical, and the Mask's ability to coordinate, its core idea, I feel is too constrained. One thing I especially like about Mask is the Worship/Favour pool/resources and Miracle system; I omitted an equivalent due to concerns about complexity and the difficulties of balancing it, though I'd be down for adding something like it later.

Coordinating the Cult/Seed of Nar'Sie: There is now a coordinating force for the cult: the Seed of Nar'sie which effectively acts like a cult AI. Cultists, altars, constructs and runes (to a lesser extent; it can only see and hear what's immediately around runes) act as sensory/camera nodes for the Seed allowing it to see and hear around them, and it has a list of nodes to follow/move to not unlike the AI. It ignores darkness and can always see invisible runes, objects, creatures and ghosts. It can communicate with its cultists using a telepathic 'cultist' channel that works identically to the Coordinate spell, so long as at least one cult altar exists (see below). The Seed can be telepathically communicated with using the Coordinate rune/talisman as if it were a Cultist. If the Seed player logs out, a ghost may assume control of it. The Seed can manifest in throbbing, blood red spirit form at an altar, traveling out to 7 tiles. While manifesting the Seed, an altar glows exactly as the Seed does. A cultist can pray at an altar to prompt a presence request for the Seed not unlike AI holopads. The spirit acts like an AI hologram, and is only capable of communicating and being communicated with (including with non-cultists), with the exception that it can remotely invoke runes it can see excepting Sacrifice, Summon Horror, Manifest Ghost and Resurrect. It can never be used as a sacrifice (obviously). If an altar is deconstructed or destroyed, the spirit using it to manifest immediately discorporates. Holy water or a blow from the Null Rod will also cause the spirit to immediately discorporate and be unable to manifest for several minutes; the spirit is otherwise invulnerable. Cult Altars: Altars can be constructed by cult members from a section of table or desk. Altars must be consecrated with some manner of blood sacrifice made upon it (animals will do), in addition to demanding a considerable tithe of blood from its creator. Using the Sacrifice Other rune successfully with a living sacrifice will also work to consecrate an altar located above it. Altars furthermore weaken the veil between worlds/dimensions, acting as vital nexuses of Nar'Sie's power, and most runes must be within X tiles of them (larger than the spirit projection radius) to function (everything that's not Communicate and Sacrifice). Cultists will be notified when they're in an area they can use cult magic in bolded blood red text ("You feel the power of Nar'Sie flow through you!"), and their cult icon may change (red aura for example). Cult constructs, including manifested ghosts might slowly weaken/lose health if they're not within the 'power' radius of an altar, similar to Dionas in darkness. Cultists within the spirit projection range of an altar (as mentioned above) can freely utilize the cultist channel. Ghosts can write in blood within the spirit range of an altar as the veil is sufficiently weakened there. The Chaplain can sense the presence of evil when in the spirit projection radius of an altar and is notified of it in bolded, blood red text. Holy water poured over an altar followed by a blow from the Null Rod will remove Nar'Sie's taint from it, effectively destroying it. Essentially the altars act as a sort of network, behaving as APC/intercom hubs for cultist communication and magic. They also work as nexuses of sacrifice. When a critically injured living creature is placed upon it (or becomes critically injured while laid upon it), it is automatically sacrificed per the Sacrifice Other rune (also yielding the benefits of a Rune deciphering to those cultists nearby), and a soulstone is created, containing that creature's spirit. Altars may be inscribed with a rune. Any spell invoked from a altar rune is significantly more powerful if it has any kind of numerical effect (damage, stamina drain or debuff durations for example). Summoning Nar'Sie: To summon Nar'Sie, the Seed must be manifested and over the Summon Horror rune inscribed on an altar with 9 cultists invoking it. Further, the cult must fuel the ritual by sacrificing a crew member upon the altar. This makes victory via Nar'Sie a little more difficult to achieve as 10 players and a crew sacrifice are required and you must have an altar. Lastly, summoning Nar'Sie himself requires two minutes of chanting by all members. If any participants move or take any other actions, the attempt is interrupted and they must all start over. New Rune Spells: Hell Self Join, Ascension: Instantly transforms a cultist on the rune into a construct of his choice; they will be given a prompt to confirm whether or not they wish to 'ascend' in this way. Hell Destroy Travel, Disrupt Bluespace: Will prevent all non-cultist teleportation to and from a 7 tile radius centred on the rune while active. Non-cultists that would teleport to or from the area will instead be stunned. Requires three cultists to activate. Hell Join Technology, Corrupt Technology: Will corrupt all airlocks, consoles and machines in a 7 tile radius of this rune and the area of a cult Altar, giving cultists all access to them. Corrupted technology will not work at all for non-cultists, including non-subverted synthetics. This effect lasts until the corrupted technology is no longer in the area of an Altar. Requires 6 cultists that must chant for one minute. If any participants move or take any other actions, the attempt is interrupted and they must all start over. Floors and walls in the affected area upon the spell's completion will gradually be replaced by cult floors and walls. The AI will be notified of the corruption, and its location. If the AI or a cyborg is within the area of the spell when it takes effect, they will be slaved to the cult. Hell Travel Join, Hell Portal: Creates a hellish red portal to Nar'Sie's dimension. Hostile NPC monsters will periodically stream forth, along with blood and gibs, attacking everyone except for Constructs, including cultists. Slowly corrupts the surrounding area into cult walls and floors. Non-Constructs within 7 squares will be subject to hallucinations. The portal is destroyed when its rune is destroyed, or it is no longer in the area of an Altar. Requires 6 cultists, a human or animal sacrifice and 60 second channel time. Any non-Construct that enters the portal's square rapidly takes heavy damage. Any non-Construct that goes critical in the portal's square is gibbed and reanimated as a random Construct under the cult's control. Nerf Manifest Ghost: No healing while manifesting a ghost. The manifesting cultist takes half of all pain/stamina loss and damage the ghost would receive (the ghost is still pain immune however), ignoring most resistances and immunities. Manifestation ends when the summoner goes into any kind of critical status. Ghosts are pretty bullshit and OP as they stand. Wall Rune Nerf: Generates a force field that can be damaged and destroyed. The field is invisible if the rune is, but can still be attacked and destroyed. Has a generous amount of hit points. Nightvision and Invisovision for Constructs/Manifest Ghosts: This makes sense to me. Tone Down Juggernaut Damage Resistance: Being immune to pretty much everything except EMT weapons and E-Guns, and even then being absurdly resistant to these is a bit much; perhaps give them more health to compensate.

I'm all for it once we balance the existing traitor items (Emag).

Updated Medical Borg: Medical Borg: ChemVac Module: Replaces the dropper. Essentially works as a dropper that can hold and transfer up to 120 units. Used for filling large beakers from containers in a reasonable amount of time and clicks; ain't nobody got time for dropper/syringe transfers. Space Cleaner/Sterilizine Spray Bottle: 120 capacity spray bottle. For cleaning and disinfecting surgery areas and equipment. Synthesizes a 50/50 mixture of Space Cleaner and Sterilizine. Med Storage: 7 storage slot container for storing pills, body/stasis bags, patches and pill bottles only. Collects pills and pill bottles it's used on if there's room. Clicking on the pill storage module toggles its inventory open or closed; it remains open even when deselected, so long as it's equipped. The medigripper can retrieve pills and pill bottles from the module's inventory. Medigripper: Allows the cyborg to grip, apply and manipulate organs, body/stasis bags, meat (insertion into cloner), food, iv bags, pills, patches, pill bottles (can open these), masks and anesthetic tanks. It is also capable of buckling and unbuckling the cyborg and other creatures while active. Very similar to the Engineering gripper. Essentially acts like a hand for a subset of items/functions. Biomass Processor: Turns corpses and meat into biomass which can be transferred into cloning arrays. Using it on a corpse, meat or gibs will loudly blend/grind the substance. Using it fresh blood and gibs will process them into small amounts of biomass. Using it on machinery that can accept biomass will deposit the biomass. Its transfer rate can be set via right click menu. Blood from syringes can be injected into the processor to yield small amounts of biomass. Integrated Crew Monitor: Obvious.

I'm all for that david, but base level functionality would be preferable; then we can move onto more complex aesthetics. The main thing is making sure my burned out chassis doesn't get passed over at least ten times before someone notices that it's been blown to hell.

Well there you go!

I'm pretty sure the AI can't make Central Command/Captain style red text announcements.

The blinking red light + MMI eject are definitely my favourite combo. A new sprite for destroyed cyborgs in addition would be ideal, but the light would help a lot in the meanwhile, and it would be pretty conspicuous. I've got no beef with recycling a damaged chassis; should be easy enough to code; just have the chassis parts/robotic debris turn into metal sheets when a welder/wrench is used on them.

Even _this_ would be preferable to the current state. In the event of a griefertag, or one that needs to make sure you're silent, yeah. To be fair though, you can control _when_ you eject, so you do that and start screaming bloody murder _after_ shit dies down.

A dead cyborg should be a lot more obvious than it is, and definitely should be recognizable at a glance; had my corpse ignored quite a few times recently because a living borg is virtually indistinguishable from a dead one unless examined. Possible ways to do this: Sparking chassis. Smoking/Smouldering chassis. Blinking red light on chassis. The Cyborg can choose to eject its MMI from its chassis when its systems are critically damaged. Some combination of the above.

Technically the Robotic Console shows you when they're corrupted, as they won't be on the console anymore. Ah, fair enough. The other stuff would still be very nice to have though.

Bump. 10char etc

Conversely I've always found that I have better things to do than a rote, slow and tedious process which yields an uncertain benefit at best, especially on a server as fast paced as Paradise.

Agree; verisimilitude is not the concern here, it's gameplay. No, it just doesn't work like that unless you have at least a pretty good idea of who used the murder weapon/mechanism (generically only true if poisons or department specific weapons are involved outside of other evidence, and good luck if it's something generic).

Why shouldn't it be able to determine all that data, particularly when it is already loaded with specialized medical sensors and takes up a full tile while a handheld scanner is perfectly capable of doing it, and only requires a scalpel incision as a precursor? From a verisimilitude perspective there is not really a good reason why it shouldn't be able to do them. From a gameplay perspective, yes, speed is essential for diagnostic equipment and not autopsies, but at the same time autopsies are pure tedium, so even on this level autopsies in their current form aren't really justifiable (more expansion on this below). Further, virtually every kind of surgery and medical treatment barring those tending to fractures can be circumvented with the cryotube/medbots and the right chemical mix, so yes, automation to that extent actually already exists for these things. That said there is a notable difference between performing surgery which is satisfying and has a substantive and clear impact (in that you're directly helping someone) versus autopsies which are pure tedium, lack satisfaction and have uncertain benefits.

You mean the same magical box that instantly tells you what injuries someone is suffering from in exacting detail, as well as the presence and concentration of several chemicals? Just sayin'. No reason it can do that, but can't also give you a full autopsy with equal rapidity. Can you imagine if we turned this on its head, removed the body scanner, and replaced it with an autopsy equivalent in order to get a full diagnosis? There would be riots among Medbay players. The bottom line is that the autopsy process is long, boring, and adds nothing to the game. If it was going to be abridged, the obvious fix is to reduce the time incisions take and allow the autopsy scan to scan all segments simultaneously.

As a quality of life and convenience fix, correlating this functionality to upgrades would defeat the point.

Body scanners now have an autopsy scanner functionality; because it is invasive it can only be used on non-living subjects (unless emagged, in which case I guess it would cause bleeding and a unit of scalpel brute damage to pretty much every body part of the subject). After a short/no scan time, it will provide a comprehensive full body autopsy, including trace chemicals, injuries, cause of death, time of death, etc... Quality of life change; because a comprehensive incision + handheld autopsy scan on all body segments takes too damn long and .

Hey no problem; I'm just glad someone's working on it! Also after playing Black Mesa, was inspired to submit a build sequence and concept for mobile deployable turrets:

Any progress on the conveyour belts? Also any plans for vacuum tube construction? Would be awesome to built a network that allowed for rapid transportation around the station.

The point of an e-mag is to gain access to things and subvert systems, not create an engineering nightmare (at least not directly).

Added: #7: Add Robot Integrity to Robotics Control Interface: This shows you the system integrity/remaining health % of your robots, and whether or not they have been disabled/corrupted (the latter may already exist; I'm not certain).

Uploading recordings to a storage/records computer might also be a cool idea; wipes the current cartridge, but saves its data and transcript so it can be printed/downloaded later.