pAI improvements

[robocob27]

Right now pAIs are useless, unless you are new, and new players do not know where they are found or if they even exist. I think pAIs shold have some improvements:

• Apart from the health that pAIs have, add also a battery which cannot be removed or upgraded, recharged from a cable someone has to connect to a PDA or an APC, the PDA would be very slow but with no risks (it can also connect to cyborg rechargers, mechs, mules... But it will have a chance of damaging the pAI, damaging its battery or electrocuting it for 15 seconds; if there is a large amount of power in the power grid the APC can be somewhat risky)
• While in chasis form, be able to have one "hand" being able to grab a small object or pull with a 30% speed reduction a medium object.
• While in chasis form, be able to push buttons such as light switches and open doors which anyone without and id could open.
• Only by order or previous order of its DNA master, be able to electrify itself while not in chasis mode. This can be done with +power or -power, each one costs a different amount of battery percentage and leads to various outcomes, including falling off of someones pocket/hands or making someone fall and be stuned without any damage for 2 seconds for -power and eletrocuting someone and dealing burn damage, with a small chance of a desfibrilation effect and an even smaller chance of using up to 80% of the battery life for +power
• While in chasis form, consume more battery than in normal form and have less resistance to attacks and instead of collapsing back to normal when interacted or hit by someone keep on chasis form. The pAI can be interacted with to collapse it, but only by the master (if the master did not insert his DNA enzymes then anyone can do this

This things could lead to a more active use of pAI, maybe restricted to command, who knows!

[Spacemanspark]

pAIs aren't meant to be little more than talkative companions with a few neat features to go with it. 

 

As is they're already fairly useful, especially being a player controlled death alarm. 

[Dinarzad]

9 hours ago, Spacemanspark said:

pAIs aren't meant to be little more than talkative companions with a few neat features to go with it. 

 

As is they're already fairly useful, especially being a player controlled death alarm. 

Given all the other ghost roles we have added into Paradise since pAI's, them being intentionally designed in such a manner seems increasingly more questionable, when comparatively, you can spawn as an ash walker and literally hunt miners in your territory or golems, or plant people or any number of roles that not only provide things to do, tangible things with tangible gameplay and rewards, but still enable you to roleplay.

You can get the same experience as a pAI as a sentient creature (A pretty common event roll.) Except the sentient creature could also be something on the level of Sergeant Araneus and be capable of doing things beyond talk.

I understand Paradise is not a democracy, this has been established frequently enough. But I also hope you'll understand that this response gets increasingly harder to take seriously and harder to swallow as time goes on and more and more ghost roles are added that blow anything a pAI can do out of the water. Particularly when there's only one or two on station to start with and almost nobody bothers to actually print out more.

[Tayswift]

pAIs are a mostly flavor + RP role because we're still an MRP server and there's still room for that kind of thing. When people put themselves up for pAI, they're not necessarily looking to be holoparasite lite. Lavaland ghost roles are cordoned off in Lavaland, so unless you want pAIs to have additional restrictions (restricted to Lavaland, capped number, or something like that), I don't see why they should become capable of combat.

[Dinarzad]

I don't think becoming combat-capable is necessary (Or even desirable) but the modules they're supplied with at current are dubiously useful at best.
I mean, their 'host bioscan' module tells you even less then an un-upgraded health analyzer or even just a medical chip inserted into a PDA.  That's... sort of depressing.  It just sort of says "Hey. There's damage here" and their body temperature and that's genuinely about it.  No read out of what limb is damage like analyzers, nothing.

pAI becoming capable of attacking or defending someone was never my intent to imply.  What I would like pAI to supply is information. Currently the information they can provide to people is questionably useful, Records access is rarely needed except for Security, and they don't look at it half the time either.  The one use there would be helping over-burdened Wardens with managing Security Records, but they cannot write Records, only read them. (To prevent ghostly griefing, which is understandable, but drastically impairs usefulness.)  The atmos analyzer is never needed, the people who need to worry about atmospherics have far better tools to handle it then you do, and the analyzer tool you have is incapable of scanning anomalies, so just grabbing a basic one available literally everywhere on station, is still a better option then you.

I would prefer pAI become more utility or information tools, something akin to an SS13 equivalent to a Smartphone.  And I would honestly sacrifice the "Living Death alarm" aspect if that helped achieve it, I don't feel that's exactly interesting gameplay for anyone, the host, the pAI or the antag being foiled.  I would much rather pAI can hear the radio, but be unable to speak on it, if it meant giving them some TLC in the terms of more impactful modules.

Edited June 19, 2019 by Dinarzad

[Regular Joe]

22 hours ago, Dinarzad said:

I don't think becoming combat-capable is necessary (Or even desirable) but the modules they're supplied with at current are dubiously useful at best.
I mean, their 'host bioscan' module tells you even less then an un-upgraded health analyzer or even just a medical chip inserted into a PDA.  That's... sort of depressing.  It just sort of says "Hey. There's damage here" and their body temperature and that's genuinely about it.  No read out of what limb is damage like analyzers, nothing.

pAI becoming capable of attacking or defending someone was never my intent to imply.  What I would like pAI to supply is information. Currently the information they can provide to people is questionably useful, Records access is rarely needed except for Security, and they don't look at it half the time either.  The one use there would be helping over-burdened Wardens with managing Security Records, but they cannot write Records, only read them. (To prevent ghostly griefing, which is understandable, but drastically impairs usefulness.)  The atmos analyzer is never needed, the people who need to worry about atmospherics have far better tools to handle it then you do, and the analyzer tool you have is incapable of scanning anomalies, so just grabbing a basic one available literally everywhere on station, is still a better option then you.

I would prefer pAI become more utility or information tools, something akin to an SS13 equivalent to a Smartphone.  And I would honestly sacrifice the "Living Death alarm" aspect if that helped achieve it, I don't feel that's exactly interesting gameplay for anyone, the host, the pAI or the antag being foiled.  I would much rather pAI can hear the radio, but be unable to speak on it, if it meant giving them some TLC in the terms of more impactful modules.

Bit like the PDAs have few more functions with the departmental cartridges. pAI is a small role and it is fine as such, yet some extra possibilities for them to do, fitting the frame of a portable synthetic assistant that can’t act on it’s own, would be neat. Or, as Dinarzad says, make it more an actual utility and information tool as it is supposed to be, along with being a flavour/RP little thing, for the present tools for that are limited. 

So could it be an idea to try out, to boost the present information tools a bit? Or to add other small things there? I would personally love a pAI that could print out paperwork, take photos and make recordings, that would be a must-have for a detective and probably entertaining for an unit to play. Combat and additional movement capabilities to the chassis mode, no thanks, but information tools, oh yes!

Edited June 20, 2019 by Regular Joe

[Jamuro]

It might be too much work but in my opinion the ideal upgrade would be job/department specific cartiges that can extend the pAIs functionality.

Some of them could even be locked behind research levels.

There are a lot of possible extensions i can think of ... the real question tough still is if they could be considered worth the required development work.

 

Rough ideas that come to mind:

Sec cartridge: 

Being able to dispense a handcuff every few minutes and being able to recharge stun batons in your pAI.

 

Medical/paramedic cartirdge:

The pAi can create about 10 units of either saline of epi every minute or two in syringe form, just enough for basic shock/cardiac treatment in case nothing else is at hand.

Or maybe that is it's research dependend upgrade and the basic form has access to the crew monitoring system or even a crew locator.

 

Mining upgrade:

It could get a basic meson scanner but with an extended view of nearby enemies, to help warn the miner.

Maybe as an upgrade it could even work as a small emergency oxy tank?

 

Janitor cartridge:

Matter conversion ... meaning it works like a trashbag, but the trash put into it fuels the item creation side of its functionality.

Like for example lightbulbs could be made or even very small not refuelable spray cans with space cleaner (to prevent clown-lube abuse)

 

Engineering:

Honestly not sure about that one but maybe a diagnostic system ... you use the pAI on a damaged machine or tell it what you want to build and it can give you a readout of the required components or steps needed to fix the machine/door/...

I just see too often engineers that get confused half way trough repairing something and then suddenly disappear to never be seen again

 

Bureaucratic upgrade:

Allows the pAi to work like a fax or copy machine with maybe as researchable upgrade the ability to function like a telecom console (the ones that allow you to use the radio with tcoms down) Of course with a significant delay inbetween uses to prevent spam.

 

Illegal cartridge:

Maybe the pAI can even be used for small time crime with an illegal upgrade that lets it work like a multitool, but the electricution form hacking ends up also damaging the pAI severly.

That said, this would be a bit too similar to the door jack ... but maybe someone else can come up with something fun that could be considered usefull but not too impactfull.

Edited June 22, 2019 by Jamuro

[Carthusia]

Perhaps one thing that could be added to them:

 

If the chassis chosen is an animal capable of it, the ability to crawl through vents.

 

Never understood why a maint drone styled PAI couldnt crawl into the vents, imagine a Syndicate operative with a PAI, they send it ahead to scout, locate patrols, units etc.