Shitty Ideas Time: Roundstart BrainRIPLEYs

[NTSAM]

 

A quick dumb idea I had.

 

A new roundstart-only job that places you into a brain and shoves you into an unequipped RIPLEY. Make the way it works similar to borgs in the sense of name-choosing and whether you're a posibrain or MMI.

 

As previously mentioned you spawn unequipped, this means you still have to rely on the Roboticist to work (Although if this is too shitty it can be changed to whatever you guys suggest or whatever) but otherwise you're just a brain in a RIPLEY.

 

Cannot be selected midround - Roundstart only.

 

[Keroman]

What would the benefit of this be over, say, being a mining or engineering borg at round start?

[NTSAM]

 

1) Being a mech with armoring

2) You can carry the mining box with you with a clamp and autopickup stuff

3) No laws

4) No bound AI.

 

[Keroman]

 

1) Fair enough. Miners get hardsuits which give less armor than a Ripley has. Because of the slight delay in a Ripley's drill attack, however, Ripleys can't touch hivelords unless the hivelord gets cornered.

2) Mining cyborgs can drag the ore boxes just fine. It's true that the Ripley's autopickup and the fact they mine a 1x3 section of wall means they'd be faster than mining borgs.

3) For mining cyborgs the laws rarely matter unless they're subverted or the AI is malf. If you're worried about those you may as well play an IPC miner.

4) Also useful to play an IPC miner if you're worried about that.

 

I fully agree that if you have a robotics team that immediately furnishes you with a drill, clamp, scanner, and beacon you could get out there and mine faster. That depends entirely on the Roboticists (and whether or not there even are any). Also keep in mind that a brain-in-a-mech doesn't really have the same ability to interact with stuff as a borg. They couldn't get down to the mining asteroid without someone operating the shuttle computer for them. Cycling the airlock isn't an issue because they can just walk out the plastic flaps (fun fact, spacepods can fly through plastic flaps too!)

 

So assuming everyone is in place to get them set up and down to the asteroid ASAP they could absolutely get to mining a little faster than your average miner.

 

I realize that Ripleys aren't just used for mining, of course, so an engineering Ripley could potentially start on various construction/demolition projects (again, as soon as they're outfitted by the Roboticist). They couldn't necessarily assist with setting up the tesla/singulo or solars but they could be very helpful if you're attempting a large-scale project like making the construction station or Russian station habitable.