Circuit Cloning

A general area for the general things that generally happen in our server.

Should we have circuit cloning?

Yes
7
64%
No
4
36%
 
Total votes : 11

Re: Circuit Cloning

Postby Scree » Sun Jul 15, 2018 8:41 am

15 metal sheets might as well be free, metal is so abundant as to be zero-cost even if cargo and mining aren't doing their jobs.

Turreus summed up my thoughts on the matter:
and to be honest? with enough experience, you don't need a one-button solution to put together a circuit; even complex devices are just a few clicks from being put together once you understand how they work. Circuit cloning would just make things easier on the lazy folks, the ones who don't even understand how it works and just pastes the codes others make. Perhaps it's elitist of me to say that, but I do think some things should take actual effort to master.


As someone who tends to mainly play engineering, I've seen this exact process happen with the supermatter setup - countless people that just join, run through the step-by-step guide on the wiki that tells you what to do but not why, think they're ready for CE because they've successfully made the engine produce power, then when something goes wrong they completely panic because it's apparent that they don't actually know a single thing about how the thing they're playing with actually works, they just followed a list of instructions that somebody else compiled for them and called it a day.

Circuit cloning via copy-paste would be the equivalent of taking the engine setup and adding a big button labeled "set up engine" that configures all the pumps and pipes for you. Sure, it'd "save work" each round, but suddenly we'd find ourselves with an engineering staff that have literally never had to engage with any engineering mechanics because one guy just solved it all in advance.
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Re: Circuit Cloning

Postby Knightfall » Sun Jul 15, 2018 2:18 pm

Scree wrote:15 metal sheets might as well be free, metal is so abundant as to be zero-cost even if cargo and mining aren't doing their jobs.

Turreus summed up my thoughts on the matter:
and to be honest? with enough experience, you don't need a one-button solution to put together a circuit; even complex devices are just a few clicks from being put together once you understand how they work. Circuit cloning would just make things easier on the lazy folks, the ones who don't even understand how it works and just pastes the codes others make. Perhaps it's elitist of me to say that, but I do think some things should take actual effort to master.


As someone who tends to mainly play engineering, I've seen this exact process happen with the supermatter setup - countless people that just join, run through the step-by-step guide on the wiki that tells you what to do but not why, think they're ready for CE because they've successfully made the engine produce power, then when something goes wrong they completely panic because it's apparent that they don't actually know a single thing about how the thing they're playing with actually works, they just followed a list of instructions that somebody else compiled for them and called it a day.

Circuit cloning via copy-paste would be the equivalent of taking the engine setup and adding a big button labeled "set up engine" that configures all the pumps and pipes for you. Sure, it'd "save work" each round, but suddenly we'd find ourselves with an engineering staff that have literally never had to engage with any engineering mechanics because one guy just solved it all in advance.


I agree that there would be people who would suddenly start using circuits who have no idea how because it would suddenly be easier to do so, but is that a bad thing? People set up the engine and never learn anything about it because they HAVE to, it must be set up every round. Circuits have no such need to be made, if someone is using them it's because they want to. Making circuits easier to get into, people having examples they can work off of, would help people learn one of the hardest things to master. Of course some people would never learn and just use pre-mades, but others would take the time to actually learn how it works because it'd be less of a challenge to do so.
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Re: Circuit Cloning

Postby Scree » Mon Jul 16, 2018 4:53 pm

The thing is, the instant someone puts some insane design onto the wiki (or some googledoc they've made themselves and not actually put on the wiki) then it's as good as freely available at roundstart.

Some of the things you can do with circuits are things that aren't available as research designs.

If we wouldn't add them to the protolathe for balance reasons, why would we allow a one-click method for just any yahoo to spit them out without even a significant material requirement?
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Re: Circuit Cloning

Postby Knightfall » Mon Jul 16, 2018 6:53 pm

Because most of these so called insane designs can't even be fully cloned, they require finishing work, sometimes quite a bit at that before being usable. The extent of most people's knowledge of circuits is "I heard someone made something that did something crazy, sounds OP to clone", even though they are unwieldy to use at the best of times and require you to know how circuits work to operate, unless the person who made it specifically adds in user friendly features which is much harder than it sounds.

Name one insane circuit design made on Virgo, and I bet I can point out the downsides in it to the point where it doesn't sound so insane anymore.
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Re: Circuit Cloning

Postby Kazkin » Wed Jul 18, 2018 9:55 am

Have to agree with Knightfall on this. I've been designing my own circuits of the last two weeks and even with cloning there is severe limitation on the power you think it has.The two primary problems with circuits render them dangerous to use unless a solo antag is out to kill everyone.

Turrets and Combat Drones
There is currently no way on our code to make a way for the AI to care who is between it and its target. The moment it scans one it opens fire, so a super turret with five guns might scan a target and then empty every shot into the scientist next to it because it correctly scanned a target behind them. Combat drones have the same problem as they move around, giving little regard to who is in their way they simply start shooting. Now in my meddling I discovered using a very short range tends to make it safer but with how the tick system works is not as good. The tick that scans for targets may not scan the moment a target is in range, meaning shots can be avoided. For a non-antag player this makes the turrets highly dangerous as they could kill their team mates and face serious IC repercussions. If our code was anywhere near the level of /tg/ code I might say we should consider it but as it the combat potential is playing with fire at best.

Auto-Docs or Hypos
These require chemistry access to do anything, this is quite important. Are they better than med bots or what a player doctor can do? Potentially, as long as you stick to the four basic damage types and clone damage, because that is all a auto-doc can mess with code wise. Anything else it can't pull the values from the person or do anything with. The potential for a combat stim injector or a constant medical doc exists yet the server already has 2 methods to replicate this that requires far less work. You have nif healers, which are pretty basic and not that great for sure, but the same principle applies. Then you have mega pills, which is a meta term for a pill loaded down with multiple chems just 1 point under their OD limit. Example being a 29 Bica, 16 Tricord, 5 Tramadol, 5 Inaprov, 5 Hyperzine. Pop the 1 of 12 pills from your pill bottle every time you need it and bam, super heals. The mega pill method has allowed me to stay stable and healing myself even when I'm up to 180 brute. Works when I pass out too.

Circuits are just another tool that are no less or more powerful than existing tools.
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