As many people have already said, AI can be really awful as antag. While I do agree that AI should (going by their laws especially) obviously act whenever crew harm is involved / heavily risked, I do not agree with AI’s who just go out of their way to report all kinds of minor crimes or those who even bolt any minor criminals in until sec gets them. A big part of this is also, that cameras are extremely cheap to make. 2 steel and 1 LV wire should not be the price for a camera so powerful. People tend to literally just fill all of maints with cams because “AI told me to”. This feels extremely unbalanced, as again, one of those cheapass cams allows AI control over an entire room. The cameras should be way more expensive, and perhaps require a sort of “Camera Board” which would make a lot of sense going by how other things like airlocks are constructed. Perhaps it could be roundstart unlocked or even researchable by SCI for industrial tech.
Shit like in the image below just makes playing antag literal hell.
I agree mostly in the sense that some AI players really just act like they are an extension of Security; Enforcing space law is not the AI’s job. As an AI you should only care about your own laws.
You shouldn’t care about space law with Crewsimov.
Want to go into medical? Sure.
You want insulated gloves? Yeah, that’s fine.
Want into armory? No there’s guns in there, rest of security? Yeah that works.
Unless the room is something like the armory or is litteraly on fire, I will let you in.
For the construction thing: if I recall correctly, cameras in SS13 need to have their assemblies printed at an autolathe. This definitely makes it a bit more specialized and annoying to make, and would probably be good to have.
Yeah as I already said, we should definetely atleast have something along those lines. It should be possible to repair broken cameras, however it should not be as easy to do so.
As an AI main that is literally top 5 most played role I can def tell you: “People tend to literally just fill all of maints with cams because “AI told me to”” this almost never happens on Levi at the least and I haven’t seen it on Vulture/Lizard when I was on them either. Even when AI does get extra cams, it’s never the entire station. On low pop hours on the smallest maps I can see this being an issue potentially, but hell no to med-high pop stations; they usually don’t have time or resources to do so. Typically a threat happens or they’ll be needed elsewhere- and this is 100% true too since I’ve also been on the side of setting up extra cams for AI as an engi. Even on low pop stations you can still hack into areas or literally get rid of cams/block them. Bookshelves will block camera access and putting a wall over it. Making a wall is simply 4 steel. People setting up cams will miss spots too and can’t reach every absolute area; hell, sometimes they even forget to wire the cams and they’re unpowered. Speaking of which, TONS of cams in maints are quite literally powered by a single LV wire. Snip it if you can or have a borg do so. If neither of those options work or are available and you really wanna use the area with a cam in it instead of going elsewhere, take out the lights at the very least. Also, as an antag you should be able to get into areas with quite a few ways; especially ones that won’t have cams. Emag, hack (the door or kill the wall), borg, jaws of life (hell, sci might have these researched too if you’re that far into the round), and stolen ID access. Might be more. Get creative. I can’t believe cams in maints would stop you from being an antag at all and cams will not be absolutely everywhere.unless you have literally multiple people going all over and doing so, which I’ve never seen as it’a usually only one or two people and even they can’t get everywhere.
Aditionally, even if cams were absolutely everywhere, AI is likely to not catch those doing bad in maints; especially now with holopads. Get the AI distracted with a holopad while your buddy goes into maints and takes out the lights or just gets straight to business. Chances are the AI won’t notice. Again, speaking from experience that the AI won’t notice as even yesterday I had a few cams in maints and more than half the antags still got all their objectives.
@Simyon
Third thing here is: it really depends on who’s playing AI and if they can “Lawyer” their reasonings. I’d say it’s half and half if the AI “snitches” on tresspassers. For example a game yesterday there was two people tresspassing into Engi. I wasn’t going to report it but with holopads the engi told me to set them to wanted. Any AI can report this themselves and Lawyer this situation to say it can cause potential harm or that it’s in favor of their Law 1. Speaking of which, a lot of AI “snitching” comes from Law 1: “Law 1: You may not injur a crew member or, through inaction, allow a crew member to come to harm.” The bolded part is what will cause half the AI’s and borgs to snitch. If I don’t tell Security there’s a person tresspassing into Security by hacking a door, this may lead to crew harm if I tell no one due to inaction. That’s typically how it goes. Really depends on who’s playing AI and what they do/Lawyer.
To the OP:
Two cameras in the same spot? Go somewhere else? Was it like that on the ENTIRE station? Low/Med/High pop map? Did you need something by those cams? I am curious as to why this made your run a living hell.
I think it would be interesting to move them to a sci tech and into the protolathe so it’s more of a sci gimmick, put it in with the other camera stuff civ tech. Push sci to work more with the AI and technology over just going to cargo.
It was highpop, and the entire station including maints was fully equipped with cameras, sometimes 4 facing at the same spot. Another thing is, if you are getting chased by sec, for sometimes minor stuff, your go to escape route is usually maints or dispo. Having ai cameras everywhere makes this impossible, as ai will just bolt you in no matter where you go.
And to the saying that this never happens, I dunno about your experiences but I’ve seen it very often, which is why I made this post. I understand that their snitching is forced by their laws at some point, but that doesnt change the fact that it just sucks as antag. When security is fully staffed it is already hard enough to do anything. Dont need an ai that can stalk you or immediately contain you no matter where you run.
Strange that AI is bolting them in if its something minor. Unless AI has on the lawset that enforces the law, the person is armed/dangerous or someone in radio said to do so, it can be a law break/abuse of AI’s power.
Same thing really as said above in this post. I would start AHelping the AI if they’re doing it consistently or, now that we have holopads, call them and use LOOC to remind them/talk it out that they can’t be doin that. Being stalked in maints where there is cameras really does depend on the person playing AI/each round that goes on. Personally, the few rounds I got cams in some maints and saw sec running after someone I might monitor the situation silently, leave them alone and just keep tabs on crew monitor, or if the person is dangerous/armed I will call them out over sec radio. There’s also been a handful of times I’ve had sec ask where someone is that they were chasing and it was one of the times I left them alone thinking they got it. Even with no cams in maints, AI can still bolt you into places/stop you too. They can even take a very good look at the surrounding area to see if you ever came out or might still be inside. Honestly, cams in maints sometimes do help more, but even without them you’re very likely to still get caught by AI. It seems that new AI players, or those still getting used to it, still learn as they go as what’s acceptable and what’s not. Sometimes it takes a stern talking to in LOOC/OOC to get the behavior to change, but at that point just AHelp it if need be.
Frankly it really depends on the AI player which is the reason its a player and not actually an AI (in the game sense) You can absolutely do nothing until someone is in danger or you are ordered to do something or someone threatens you. You can absolutely talk to the priest and create a religion, or order cargo requests. So long as its within your laws thats the point of the laws in the first place. As the rules say an AI without laws is a free agent you can do whatever you like. The way i interpret that is, you are free to act so long as you work within your laws. Bolting in people who are up to no good absolutely is supported by Law 1