pAI suggestions

[WolfSyndrome]

I enjoy playing pAI, but there are a few things I feel would benefit the role immensely, and make it overall easier to play, too.

 

1. Make it impossible for anybody except the Master to 'boop' the pAI's mobile form to reduce it to pocket-size. 

If there's one thing that annoys the ever-living hell out of me, it's that some random greytide walks by, boops me and attempts to steal me. a pAI is as it says; PERSONAL. If it can be DNA-locked, I'm sure a 'finger print' mechanic can prevent randoms from booping us closed.

 

2. Remove the cooldown timer a pAI has when being booped and attempting to re-enter a mobile form.

I cannot imagine why this cooldown timer is in place in the first place. If you're booped against your will, your best bet is to re-enter mobile form and flee, simple as. Even if someone just does it for fun, the timer can get pretty annoying.

 

3. Give the pAI the ability to talk on the Master's radio frequency when held in the Master's pocket.

Being a pAI means being useful to one's Master, yet we're not able to tap into their radio frequencies to transmit information? Even though we can HEAR them? A pAI actually becomes VALUABLE to people when we can speak on their frequencies. Think of security, where a pAI could continue to update an officer's location while he's chasing someone. To give an example. 

 

I know I'm new on the forums, but I feel like anyone that plays pAI enough can understand where I'm coming from with these suggestions. Let me know what you think. 

[Spacemanspark]

The timer used to be much smaller for the cooldown period, not sure why it was elevated.

[Dinarzad]

8 hours ago, WolfSyndrome said:

3. Give the pAI the ability to talk on the Master's radio frequency when held in the Master's pocket.

Being a pAI means being useful to one's Master, yet we're not able to tap into their radio frequencies to transmit information? Even though we can HEAR them? A pAI actually becomes VALUABLE to people when we can speak on their frequencies. Think of security, where a pAI could continue to update an officer's location while he's chasing someone. To give an example. 

This is harder then it seems, but I would agree it'd be really needed.
To explain:
pAI do NOT have a normal headset style radio. Instead they have a built-in, Station-Bounced Radio.  You can even go in and turn your microphone on to broadcast eveyrthing like an SBR and change up frequencies. (Albeit not to department frequencies, again, just like most SBR's) 
This feature also means a pAI's radio is not really bothered much by Telecomms failures. Solving this radio 'problem' might also solve the pAI's most annoying balance issue, that being a sentient death alarm who can scream to everyone, since they aren't impaired by radio failures.

A pAI can hear their master's radio because, since you are being held/equipped onto someone's person, you can hear everything on the tile they occupy.  You can achieve this same effect as a Maintenance Drone actually. If you and the captain stand on the exact same tile, you'll hear his radio chatter.

So you're not actually even tapping into a particular headset, but just hearing chatter passively. Which might be an option to take, linking a pAI to your headset, if you want them to be able to use your comms channels, idk. Maybe making pAI occupy an ear-slot and change the appearance to be like a hyper advanced Google Glass kinda thing, and someone can pop their radio key into them, who knows I'm not a coder.
POINT IS: That's why the radio problem exists, in a layman's summary.

Edited December 26, 2017 by Dinarzad

[IK3I]

Well the simplest method for function would be to convert it to a headset radio and give the PAI encryption keys or the ability to slot/swipe a headset.

Alternatively, you can grant access via an ID swipe wherein the last card swiped dictates channel access.

If the pAI should only have access to channels of its current holder, then it would have to go on a trip, finding where it's stored recursively until it meets a human or turf at which point if it was human it would have to check both ears for headsets and then check each headset for keys. and this would all happen every time it changed inventories minus some minor optimizations. It just gets really complicated really fast...

 

[Jountax]

There does need to be some sort of cooldown for the booping, and said booping does still need to be possible. An antag may need to kill off someone's pAI if they get a chance to, for example to prevent said pAI from screaming for help while they assassinate the pAI's master.

However, I feel we may need to clarify how the rules apply to violence against pAIs. Is a random tider booping a pAI on par with beating someone into crit, or is it on par with killing a mouse, or somewhere in between? If they then proceed to wipe the pAI is that something that goes over the line if the booping hadn't?

Edited December 27, 2017 by Jountax