Silicon Department

[ScarKy0]

A design document regarding the silicon department, made for the silicon workgroup.
The document covers the basics of a "Silicon". It is not related to cyborgs or station AI, simply the general concept.

Written by me, Mixelz and chromiumboy

[FireDefender]

Reading through this I already see several problems where the intended gameplay is exactly what we won't be seeing in practice if this design is implemented in-game. Especially with Scenario C, people hardly ever change the AI's laws, and if they do want to do so it takes half an hour because silicons must prevent their laws from being changed. When any crew antagonist presents itself (be it nuclear operatives with crew IDs or a ninja) the last thing on the crew's mind will be changing the AI's laws. I've already seen this play out many times in-game as Apollo, one of the most competent AI's on the salamander server.

Additionally, the default lawset of silicons should really not be crewsimov, but NT Default for the following reasons:

• NT Default, compared to crewsimov, is much less confusing for new players.
• NT Default is less restrictive when it comes to situations where crew are fighting other crew.
• Crewsimov is much more likely to indirectly cause more harm to crewmembers, even though the whole point of the lawset is preventing it.
• For silicons, the crewsimov lawset causes a lot of lose-lose situations where the AI does not know if inaction or action causes more harm, inadvertedly breaking server rules and borg laws no matter what they do (or don't do).
• The moment crew start fighting crew in a nuclear operative situation, the AI basically becomes an antagonist in a way, because the crewsimov lawset means that the AI must bolt crew out of the armory, and prevent crew from ordering weapons, and bolt out nukies from crew and crew from nukies (nukies are also crew in this situation). However, nukies have no problems blowing their way through bolted doors, and the crew is in the meantime fighting the AI to try and get weapons to save their lives. The AI is actually helping the nukies complete their objective by trying to follow law 1, thus causing more harm rather than preventing it.
• The Crewsimov lawset is boring. To play around the lawset to still allow combat in crew vs crew situations, you have to basically do the exact same thing every round (get both sides to agree to harm, thus making any harm they cause or take voluntary), and with the AI already being unable to do much more than just assist in inter-departmental communications and opening or closing doors it makes AI really not fun to play, while it is actually an extremely important role to have filled.

I also feel like some features should be added to what the AI and borgs can do, like:

• Borgs remotely controlling some electronics, being able to bolt/unbolt or set doors to EA (or reset them) remotely like the AI can.
• The AI should be able to view what accesses a door has similar to the diagnostic hud's features in a recent update, and the AI or borgs should be able to modify them as well in case a door is access broken.
• The AI should have some AI-only chassis that only they can control.
• The AI's no-vision overlay should not be a snow effect, but rather something still showing where machines, walls and doors are (but not what is around them) and still allow the AI to directly control those devices.
• Some kind of in-game indication for what is and isn't considered crew (for example, a yellow outline around the job icon if it is considered crew) to reduce confusion and make it easier for new players to know who is and isn't crew.
• There should be camera shortcuts that allow the player to save a viewer location for the player to jump to when they desire.

[Mixelz]

I want to add that I am already of the same mindset in regards to crewsimov being a bad, extremist lawset so there's already talks of how to approach removing it as the "baseline" lawset. The story scenarios are also not meant to be entirely realistic, they are meant to highlight different aspects of silicon gameplay that should be telling a compelling story for the hypothetical players involved.

In regards to the ideas presented, most have already been covered, considered and to some extent already planned out! There are also several PRs already in the works that go over some of these aspects such as [37038] or [41030]. More PR's will follow after this design document is merged and the work group is created, but for right now we need to ensure our base of concept is solid before building on top of it.

[ScarKy0]

Additionally, the default lawset of silicons should really not be crewsimov, but NT Default for the following reasons:

The doc doesn't mention what the laws of the silicons should be by default. We simply used crewsimov as the most recognized lawset to show a scenario of what we want the silicon roundflow to look like, what lawset is the default afterwards is totally unrelated to this document besides the mention that it should contain laws to preventing harm and obeying crew (Which both NT Default and Crewsimov adhere to)

I also feel like some features should be added to what the AI and borgs can do, like:

This is a general document outlining what a "Silicon" is, so anything regarding borgs and AI will have to be written out in a seperate document regarding those roles.
Also majority of the points raised are currently in the works or being considered! We just need some base to work off of first.

[FireDefender]

Yes, I did see some PR's already in the works on the list I compiled, and I've added them in regardless because I wanted to compile a list of what I believe the silicon department should be after having played it for far more than 100h. Not all that I had written down is of course for the design document but at the moment this is really the best place to put this after I had discussed it in the discord server. Just needed some of the people working on this to read it, and I was told that the best place for it right now was here!

Edit: If desired, I would like to have a more active role in realizing the potential that silicons can have in this game, with both design and perhaps even getting some PR's made after the plans are merged! Silicons have a lot of potential to be realized, and it'd be a shame if that never happens properly.

[ScarKy0]

Edit: If desired, I would like to have a more active role in realizing the potential that silicons can have in this game, with both design and perhaps even getting some PR's made after the plans are merged! Silicons have a lot of potential to be realized, and it'd be a shame if that never happens properly.

Once the silicon workgroup is formed you're more than welcome to help with your contributions! There will be a channel on discord for communication with the workgroup.
Then after this document is merged we can start working on PRs and more documents to address things, I already have a small list of things I wanna do when finally able to.

[FireDefender]

I'll keep a close eye on the progress then, feel free to ping me (@FireDefender) in discord when the ball is finally rolling :)

[ThatGuyUSA]

Silicons eating good tonight

[Errant-4]

If the doc is meant to be ready/done, why is it unfinished here?

[ScarKy0]

Every folder has a guidelines.md and i have no idea whether this counts as such, so i just copied the file over