Robotics Overhaul Proposal

[CharlotteBones128]

Added Robotics Overhaul Proposal.md to the Proposal folder in the Science folder.

After playing on a 50 pop server for ~100hrs, and predominantly playing Researcher and RD, I found I had issues with Robotics.
Thus, I have done my best to follow the Feature Proposal page on the docs to make and refine this Robotics rework proposal.

[Ratonero500]

I dont know if i like the idea of science ioning their borgs, i always through about ion stormed borgs as equipment getting damaged, i do not see how sci would damage their own equipment on purpose, but i do like the idea of already ioned borgs giving science points.

[CharlotteBones128]

That is an interesting point!
That part was a suggestion to help give Robotics agency over this form of point creation, otherwise you'd be reliant on random Ion Storms, which aren't reliable and take a while to start happening.

Also, Science loves blowing up Sci with artis. And Anoms are all about dangerous things that damage things (and scientists), but are kept around because of points. I think giving a borg an abberant law fits with Sciences pattern. It also is the logical outcome of allowing this to make points, if it makes points people will want a way to cause it.

[Ratonero500]

Good reason, but borgs letting themselves be ioned doesnt break their laws?, like if borg let themselves be ioned then they can no longer guarantee that they will follow their laws, other than that i see no problem with this doc and really like it.

[walksanatora]

it would be nice if we had some kind of "borg rack" that borgs had to be on inorder to swap out modules. and also just ssos happened to be used for ioning borgs. thatway you could "plausable denability" a borg into "getting a module upgrade" when you are instead gonna be warping their laws.

[Ratonero500]

That seems like a good excuse to make borgs enter the machine, also with the amount of points given, how does it calculate it?, with amount of laws given/removed?, with sci being the department that risks it for sucess, it would make sense that a law that makes a borg pry open bridge doors should give more points than a law that has no practical application.
For this i suggest making a separate words pool for the machine, in which certain words have risk percentage and then the total is calculated counting all the words in a law and combining them, this would also make those laws that are senseless to not appear on the machine use and make using it always a risk.
Ie. Machine gives dangerous and active laws more often.

[CharlotteBones128]

Yes, the metalaw of Borgs not being allowed to consent to a law change does cause issues with this, I agree.
Therefore, maybe the Ion Generator should be a handheld item instead? Or there could be an exception for the Ion Generator in the metalaw?
(Unless the metalaw is a fork thing in which case ignore me)

As for what ion laws give what points, that will involve looking at how ion laws are generated (is it a static list, or a modular list?) and assigning points based on that. In general, anything that changes a borgs perception on crew should give good points, though - the intent is to give IC and OOC reasons not to just scrap an Ion Borg the moment they happen.

[Ratonero500]

By metalaw do you refer to crewsimov default?, i only play in wizden so if laws for borgs are different in other forks i cant tell.
Other issues i can think of that may need resolving:
-with borgs unable to consent, sci will need to force/trick them into being ioned, this may breed a hate relationship between robotics and borgs, as borg will see robotics not as a source of upgrades and repairs but as a source of possible annoyance.
-too many ioned borgs, with this change sci may ion every borg of the station if they can, making borgs with intact lawset a rare sight on some shifts.
-relation ai-borg, i heard some plans to sync ai and borgs lawset, ioned borg tend to disobey ai and as such ai may lose that role as head of silicons.

[CharlotteBones128]

By metalaw do you refer to crewsimov default?, i only play in wizden so if laws for borgs are different in other forks i cant tell.

This might just be a thing for the fork I play then - there is a rule on the fork's rule page that says "borgs cannot consent to a law change", which is I think to prevent them just going out to get emag'd or seeking science out every time they get ion'd to get a new chassis.

-with borgs unable to consent, sci will need to force/trick them into being ioned, this may breed a hate relationship between robotics and borgs, as borg will see robotics not as a source of upgrades and repairs but as a source of possible annoyance.

Ideally, I'd want borgs to have a Better relation with sci/robotics through this. This is definitely something that will need to be fully considered and adressed.

-too many ioned borgs, with this change sci may ion every borg of the station if they can, making borgs with intact lawset a rare sight on some shifts.

True, they might need an Anomaly Vessel equivalent to study the ion'd borgs to somewhat limit this then

-relation ai-borg, i heard some plans to sync ai and borgs lawset, ioned borg tend to disobey ai and as such ai may lose that role as head of silicons.

I don't know if there is anything concrete on this, but personally I don't like it. I play borgs sometimes, and you're already mandatorily subservient to crew. Making the AI another mandatory master would feel very limiting. If that gets merged, I'm sure some happy medium between the ideas can be found, though.

[Ratonero500]

Other than that i really like this iteration of robotics, most i like is the part of using ioned borgs to gain research points and the experimental modules.

[Warpzoned]

Took a gander, like it tons! Do have some suggestions though.

Ion Storm Borg Laws Generate Research points

Adding onto this, I think it'd be great if we also made more use of modules as the bread-winner when it came to point-making rather than subjugating the borgs to a treatment similar to that of anomalies (ie. scan X (Anomaly), record the scanner's data on Y (Server), Y (Server) makes points independently); it could be something along the lines of:

• Start round as roboticist
• Ask borgs to bee-line their way into the scanning machine one-by-one
• See possible point-generation based on their laws (Presumably they'd all be worth the same as it's round-start laws)
• Decide which borgs to insert the point-generating module on, and which to not (One could have lighter responsibilities and hence have his module slots taken up by a point-generation module (Or more, even? Unsure whether to put module-stacking on the table), whereas the other could want to become a mediborg and therefore not be able to)

Also, there's this one episode in Futurama where Bender attempts to give his kid a bending module but the space where said module would've gone was being taken up by a memory module, and if taken out he would effectively turn amnesiac, I'd love it if the game took a similar direction of "Core Modules" that would offer universal stuff to all/most borgs, but could be taken out to make space for more stuff, whilst consequentially hindering the borg in some manner.

P.S.: There's this super cool doc on hardsuit categorization and abilities I think it could be worth going through #335, it goes somewhat in-depth about what each hardsuit would do individually and perhaps you could also expand on it as your proposal contains exosuit fabrication? Just a thought!

[Ratonero500]

Also, there's this one episode in Futurama where Bender attempts to give his kid a bending module but the space where said module would've gone was being taken up by a memory module, and if taken out he would effectively turn amnesiac, I'd love it if the game took a similar direction of "Core Modules" that would offer universal stuff to all/most borgs, but could be taken out to make space for more stuff, whilst consequentially hindering the borg in some manner.

I think the original iteration of coolborgs was something like this, a borg couldnt even speak without modules and you would have to decide on giving it more tools or more interaction/quality of life, the doc was on the defunct docs webpage for space station 14 and i tried to go there but it seems it no longer exist.

[Djungelskog2]

I don't think robotics should generate research points, its the same as RnD where it's a reward for the research points you already earned, where it's then used to help out the crew and such

[Djungelskog2]

It goes in the opposite direction of this doc but robotics is something that's basically already understood by NT and it should be focused on controlling or upgrading already existing parts of borgs and being IPC doctors (I know, it's out of scope) rather than actively breaking borgs laws for research. I also don't think this touches on AI or lawsharing (correct me if I'm wrong) and the section at the end just makes me think it would turn into another/alternate cargo pipeline (how chef and cargo interact currently)

[Ratonero500]

I don't think robotics should generate research points, its the same as RnD where it's a reward for the research points you already earned, where it's then used to help out the crew and such

I like the idea of them generating points from ioned borgs, but i still dont think that sci should ion the borgs themselves.
Because i like the idea of sci gaining points from ion generated laws, since these ion storms and their seemingly random effects on borgs would be an interesting phenomenom in-universe.

[CharlotteBones128]

So, first off, I do want to say/reiterate that Ion laws making points is a thing I added here For Borgs, that Robotics could do that would make Robotics a hair more meaningful as a department with a wardrobe vendor and station beacon.

It is not intended to by itself fix Robotics. None of the Short-Term stuff, even if all included, would fully fix robotics, because they would still lack an actual Thing To Do.

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its the same as RnD where it's a reward for the research points you already earned, where it's then used to help out the crew and such

So My thing with this is, R&D isn't a department of science, its a function of science. Robotics is structured as a Department or actual branch of science.
The current SS14 Wiki Page says that the Science Department and R&D are synonyms:

Science (commonly called R&D or RnD) is a large department that is composed of a few sections. The sections that are under the science department includes Robotics, Anomalous Research, and Xenoarcheology.

The current (placeholder) Science overview found in this github says this:

Science is responsible for researching and prototyping new technologies that unlock benefits for the whole station. They perform experimentation on various strange phenomenon to find new discoveries that improve the station.

• Primary Goal: Unlocking and providing technology(not necessarily as items) needed to upgrade the station and improve quality of life for other departments.
• Secondary Goal: Utilizing in-house experiments & technology (i.e artifacts, xenobiology) to create benefits or risks to the station.

So while I and these statements agree that Robotics should do Development, it's also part of the Research part of it. Which is the fun part of playing science imo and what I'm trying to give Robotics with this document.

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It goes in the opposite direction of this doc but robotics is something that's basically already understood by NT and it should be focused on controlling or upgrading already existing parts of borgs and being IPC doctors

I agree, NT is really adept at Borgs. They are also pretty adept at Bluespace and Chemicals but you still find them researching and iterating when those are anomalies, and you still have to research a lot of Borg upgrade techs.

This is why I pushed for Robotics to be Research through Iteration, rather than XenoArchaeology and Anomalies, which are Research through Observation. I also pushed for a field of robotics that isn't necessarily present in SS14 yet, Mecha (Armored Core, Gundam, Evangelion, etc).
Because I felt it was the field of SciFi robotics that would be the easiest to do iterative research testing for without feeling redundant from what NT is capable of already.

I also don't think this touches on AI or lawsharing

It does not, my focus was first and foremost on Robotics as Something You Can Do, which I focus on in the Long-Term section, then Things that are missing that Robotics Could Do, found mainly in the Short-Term section. AI or Lawsharing falls out of the scope of these, mainly to avoid proposal creep, and also because the AI is new and there are plenty of discussions around the AI-Borg relationship already present in my experience.

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and the section at the end just makes me think it would turn into another/alternate cargo pipeline (how chef and cargo interact currently)

So, this is something I am worried about and was really hoping I would get more feedback on. I primarily play Science, Cargo, and MedBay.
Ultimately though, its hard to think of something that needs materials that doesn't fall on asking Cargo, so I tried to get creative by contemplating other ways materials can be gathered (like asking Sec for confescated Contra, maybe asking Chem for specialized lubricant or cryo tube chems, or Botany for weird living grown mecha components) - I also focused on what can be gained from Salvage, as I feel the feature is also a good opportunity to foster better connections for Salvage to do on-station, as a common complaint I hear in my SS14 circles is "Salvage is disconnected from the rest of the station."

[CharlotteBones128]

I don't think robotics should generate research points, its the same as RnD where it's a reward for the research points you already earned, where it's then used to help out the crew and such

I like the idea of them generating points from ioned borgs, but i still dont think that sci should ion the borgs themselves. Because i like the idea of sci gaining points from ion generated laws, since these ion storms and their seemingly random effects on borgs would be an interesting phenomenom in-universe.

Ultimately, generating points from Ion laws is to give strong IC reasons to keep Ion borgs around other than "I can't make a new chassis for them" or "They aren't actively beating people to death."