Allow pAI's to look at consoles

[joonasm]

It would make sense for pAI's to be able to look at consoles in their mobile form the same way that ghost currently can.

[Keroman]

 

I fully agree with this as it provides 2 benefits:

A) It allows pAIs to better assist the person who activated them. They may not be able to DO anything with the console but they can see the screen and direct their user on what to do to achieve whatever results are desired. Some people might have the console screens memorized - most do not.

 

B) It would allow for someone to take a pAI role as a learning experience. A pAI could watch on the console when someone is doing R&D an see exactly what's going on. pAIs fill a very niche role - they can use their modules to assist with some very specific things, they can provide company to their owner, they can call for help when their owner is attacked, and that's about it. I think they should be able to pull objects (not people or animals!) as well, but beyond that a player who wants to learn could sign up to be a pAI with someone who's willing to show them how any given job works.

 

[fludd12]

An idea I had a while back was that the pAI door interface could be used on consoles and machinery as well, so the pAI could control equipment for its owner, as long as it wasn't moved. Simply looking at the consoles could be cool, too.

[Aestras]

And pAI's being able to whisper to/with the person holding them.

[Keroman]

Whispers work if the pAI is in their mobile chassis form, although it would definitely make more sense if it just worked whether the pAI was mobile or not, so long as it's in the same square or within 1 square of the person whispering, just like whispering to other players works.

[Nomzy]

Only just looking at the consoles is fine by me, allowing them to edit them...might be a bit of a risk, yeah?

[Holyass]

What not give them limited access to consoles, they can mess with it but not really Mess mess with it.

[Keroman]

 

I would say that if we're going to talk about allowing pAIs to have more control over the game world we should take a look at other roles that players can spawn in as from observation/ghost mode. Top of the list for having some ability to affect the game world would be a posi-brain set up as an AI. That seems like a pretty rare occurrence to me, and for good reason.

 

A step down from that I would classify posi-brain cyborgs as well as adamantine golems. They can both affect the game world in just about the same way that a normal player can albeit with some restrictions (module restrictions and slaved to AI for borgs/slaved to owner for Golems)

 

One more step down from that and you have things like maintenance drones, pAIs, and diona nymphs, and animals. They can have a minor effect on the game but with a larger number of restrictions than cyborgs or golems.

 

If we gave pAIs the ability to control consoles it would put them somewhere between tier 3 (drones/current pAIs/nymphs) and tier 2 (borgs/golems). Since a pAI is generally meant as an assistant to the person who activated it I would say it's probably not necessary for them to be able to actively control a console, but as I said before in this thread giving them the ability to see the console and what their "owner" is doing on it is absolutely essential for them to fulfill their role as an assistant.

 

I'm also very much of a mind that pAIs should be able to drag objects (maybe just smaller objects but not things that wouldn't fit into a backpack). Poly can pick stuff up (feathery asshole that he is). As far as I'm aware other animals (Runtime, Ian, etc.) can pull objects behind them. It would very much make sense for pAIs to be able to do the same.