Things We Hate to Think About: "Malfunction," and what are station threats, anyway?

[BotanyIsCondom]

This post is shorter than usual, as well as a few days late. I'll choose to blame the ice storm in my area.

Right. Malfunction was a gamemode in which the AI personality (or maybe core) sent to the station was subverted before being installed. The AI had one simple objective:

Do not allow any lifeforms, be it organic or synthetic to escape on the shuttle alive. AIs, Cyborgs, Maintenance drones, and pAIs are not considered alive.

Rather, that is how it is worded now, to eliminate confusion about IPCs. The spirit of the objective has remained the same, but the gamemode has not. A traitor AI will now have the very same hijack-esque objective, and like most hijacks, they almost always fail horribly in this objective. Unlike most hijackers, they aren't encouraged to use this to "do whatever." Perhaps more importantly, they are extremely easily ousted as "malf," (and we'll talk about that soon) and when that happens, they are then valid to the entire crew. This is very much unlike other hijacking antagonists, and it's a remnant of the old Malfunction gamemode.

Here's a list of ways the AI immediately becomes valid to the entire crew.

Spoiler

• The doomsday device is activated. This is certainly a good reason to go all "up-in-arms," and the crew have about eight minutes to stop the AI in this situation. Usually, though, they're thermiting into the satellite way before that, because one of the following has happened.
• Any APC is hacked. A hacked APC is distinguishable from an emagged APC in several ways, to the point where a trained engineer can tell them apart 100% of the time, but I will not elaborate, because I believe this is an issue and I don't wish to expedite it.
• A synced borg does something against it's laws.
• The AI is placed in an intellicard. This will usually not happen, because the AI will try to kill you for trying.
• The AI has shunted.
• Any of the following modules are chosen and used by the AI:

1. AI Turret Upgrade (Difficult to test for)
2. Destroy RCDs (Immediately obvious)
3. Mech Domination (Immediately obvious on mechs that don't have AI beacons)
4. Thermal Sensor Override (The fire alarm one.) (Difficult to test for)
5. Air Alarm Safety Override (The air alarm one.) (Immediately obvious)
6. Robotic Factory (Immediately obvious)
7. Upgrade Camera Network (Immediately obvious to camera consoles, IIRC)
8. Enhanced surveillance (I don't know if this works with camera consoles)
9. Core Camera Cracker (Immediately obvious to camera consoles)
10. Cyborg Emitter Upgrade (Immediately obvious)
11. Machine Overload (Immediately obvious)
12. Machine Override (Immediately obvious)
13. Blackout (Immediately obvious)
14. Reactivate Camera Network (Difficult to test for)
    
    Notably, the only modules that don't immediately give you away are hostile station lockdown (as it is a midround event as well) and the lip-reading camera module, which may or may not give you away with camera consoles. AI turrets and the fire alarm module won't give you away until they do something, but they wont do anything either.

Of course, you never have to use APCs or CPU modules as AI, and if no one leaves on the emergency shuttle, you technically get a green flag on your hijack objective anyway. You'll have to protect the shuttle for three minutes because you don't have an emag, however. After not hacking APCs or doing anything loud for two hours, assuming your cyborgs haven't ousted you, and you start hacking a little bit before the shuttle, the best case scenario might land you at departures with several cyborgs, 150 CPU and white-hot plasma burning everyone in sight. Best of luck dealing with anyone that has a hardsuit and tools, as well as all the other traitors that want on the shuttle for their own objectives.

Most of the CPU modules are not friendly to stealth malf AIs, especially after the gamemode was removed and the modules reworked. Ironically, after the removal of the gamemode all about the malfunctioning AI, it has only become easier to identify when you need to blow the borgs and call the shuttle.

The reason crew is allowed to arm up, as stated before, is because the malfunctioning AI is a remnant of the old gamemode. The excuse in this mode was very similar to the crew fighting a blob, or xenomorphs, terror spiders. They are considered "station threats," and are balanced around the crew arming up and killing them. With the removal of the gamemode, the round no longer technically ends after the AI dies, but the shuttle will probably be called anyway.

The AI is still considered a station threat currently, because malf AI will always have hijack, and it is assumed malf AI will always try to doomsday. If we want to give AI players more versatility, the first step would be removing the guaranteed hijack objective, and treating it like any other traitor. The second step would be no longer considering it a station threat until it starts to doomsday. There could be stealthier modules, a way to temporarily hack borgs that wasn't a death sentence for AI or the borg. Or perhaps the antagonist is fine as it is, and we should just stop calling the shuttle after we kill the threat.

[procdrone]

I do have to say Malf objectives being ALWAYS 1) kill someone 2) highjack does get a bit stale, when you can exactly expect what AI has to do everytime. Sadly, I really dont have any ideas for more objectives for AI. Hack X APCs? Have X cyborgs? AIs dont have inventory so all "take/steal" objectives are out of the question.