diff --git a/src/docs/species/IPC.md b/src/docs/species/IPC.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7bdb9f --- /dev/null +++ b/src/docs/species/IPC.md @@ -0,0 +1,94 @@ +# Purpose +**I**ntegrated **P**ositronic **C**hassis (I.P.C.s) are a wholly robotic and artificial species based on the Silicon technology that underpins NanoTrasen Cyborgs, Station AI's, and Personal AIs. +Unlike other Silicon, IPCs are fully and unquestionably Sapient, Sentient, and Sophonts. + +IPCs exist to fill the niche of a Playable Machine in ways that Silicons can't: maintaining full access to Roleplay, Freedom, and Job Mechanics. To this end IPCs have no Laws, have full hands, and therefore also have to integrate and interact with the mechanics of Space Station 14 in ways that other Silicons can get away with not doing. + +IPCs originate from Space Station 13. The iteration found on 14 was created on a Spanish fork called DS14 and then reworked on EE - it lacks features of the original implementations and made different balancing decisions. +# Features +While IPCs have been in Space Station 14 for a while now, their sole implementation has been heavily criticized. As such, I thought it best to investigate how various 13 servers handled the species to try and see if these issues were present there or not. + +When it comes to pre-existing inpsiration, the primary sources are Paradise Station SS13, starcup's MKCs, and my own work on overhauling IPCs for BoxStation (a small private fork). +## Basic Features +Playing an IPC should *feel* like you are a machine. IPCs should not feel like being a Urist in a tin suit - the experience of being a machine, a digital entity, should be reinforced by mechanics and not just left to the realm of roleplay. + +IPCs should +- Be sensitive to atmospheric pressure + - On every Space Station 13 fork I found, IPCs still required pressure-proof suits to enter space. +- Be sensitive to atmospheric temperature + - Machines, especially computers, are notorious for their high sensitivity to temperature. +- Not require to breathe +- Have greater resistances to physical damage, but greater weaknesses to energy damage +- Run on Electricity, not food & drink +- Suffer consequences from being EMP'd +- Be immune to organic-only concerns +- Suffer from unique mechanical and digital concerns +## IPC Energy +IPCs run on Electricity. They do not use standard power cells, instead relying on specialized energy storage mediums built into their chassis. +IPCs will need to regularly and routinely recharge their internal supply, and can do so by plugging themselves into APCs or standard Robot Recharging Stations, as well as by draining the energy from standard power cells. +## Brains: Positironics vs MMIs +The brain of an IPC, its central thinking core, is historically found in the torso. This allows an IPC to continue to move around even when beheaded, at the cost of losing their sensory mechanisms. The sprite for the positronic brain of an IPC might benefit from being different to a Borgs MMI, as to better signal to other players that it was an IPC that was gibbed, or to otherwise clearly display the two as different entities. + +In the setting of Space Station 14, there are two methods of generating the central thinking core of a Silicon entity: Artificial Positronic brains, and organic brains inserted into a Man-Machine Interface (MMI). There is no reason to suspect that the architecture of IPCs is fundamentally incompatible with MMIs, and as such an ideal trait to develop is one that swaps the default positronic for an MMI. +## Reagents and Healing +Healing an IPC should primarily feel like *Repairing* or *Debugging*. + +On every Space Station 13 server I could find, IPCs are described as "not being able to process **most** drugs". In fact, on 13's Paradise Station, IPCs have their own category of non-organic reagents they can take advantage of (that Vox can utilize as well). + +As IPCs do not have cells, organic blood, or lungs they cannot take Airloss, Bloodloss, Posion, or Cellular damage. +However, as they have corruptible data, they should take a unique but somewhat equivalent Data damage, in the Genetics category. +## Blood +Blood acts as one of 14's combat balancers that must be tactically considered before engaging in any combat. Therefore, by giving IPCs a bloodstream equivalent, we prevent them from being able to instantly outclass organics in a drawn out fight. + +When you abstract the nature of what blood does for an organic (carrying nutrients & oxygen, and managing temperature for mammals; hydraulics for arachnids), there are a handful of substances that one might expect to find inside a complex sapient robot that we could utilize. +- Coolant +- Lubricant +- Hydraulic Fluid + +To create a more unique design for IPC 'blood': +- IPCs cannot naturally regenerate blood +- IPCs take longer to stop bleeding +- IPCs either + - Bleed slower + - Don't suffer from consequences of bloodloss until 70% (organics suffer at 90%) +### Possibilities around Food & Drink +Whether or not robots can eat or drink is something that every sci-fi setting handles differently. Some settings have machines be able to eat metal, some have them unable to eat anything at all. +An ideal state would be to allow IPCs to 'opt in' to simulating taste and digestion, which in turn could open up design space for unique synthetic food and drink. + +In Space Station 13, there was a drink that could get IPCs drunk, and in the popular television franchise Star Trek there was a drink that could get organics temporarily fake-drunk. +### Repairing an IPC +The standard method for treating an organic is to bring them to medbay, scan their damage, and then injecting the appropriate chemical. Treating an IPC should not look like this. + +Currently in 13 & 14, repairing an IPC is a simple matter. Simply by using welders and wires, IPCs can be fully restored. The problem this system presents is the ease of repair - it is a trivial matter for an IPC to keep on them the items of their own repair and thus not engage, either mechanically or in terms of roleplay, with other players who have set out to heal. +In 13, from what I can tell this was alleviated by the welder and wires being used as part of a surgical process, and with a third item acting as an omni topical however being expensive or difficult to obtain. + +Without surgery, the simplest method for IPC repair that encourages them to engage with other players who have set out to heal is to create unique topicals that can only be produced by the job that heals IPCs. +### Reagents for Synthetics +One of the primary avenues of integrating IPCs with the extensive and complex reagent mechanics of Space Station 14 is by defining if a reagent can be used by Organics, Synthetics, or Both. + +For example, medicine such as bicaridine will have no effect on a robot but will treat the wounds of an organic, lubricants may do nothing to organics but could speed up robots, and acids will eat away at both. + +To prevent these reagents from becoming entirely useless if not a single IPC is on station, they should not be exclusive to IPCs but should instead be allowed to affect any entity with mechanical or digital elements, such as Synthetics, Vox, or heavily Cyberneticized individuals. + +Synthetic Reagents should primarily focus on three areas: +- Nanite Suspensions +- Data injections, such as malware +- Industrial substances, such as thermal pastes, lubricants, and coolants. +# Balance Concerns +- With flat Brute resists, IPCs may be harder to kill in combat with conventional means +- Because IPCs don't breathe, they don't have to worry about carrying gas tanks, and can use that slot for other things (such as weapons or minijets) +# Pros & Cons +As an IPC, you will take less damage from most common attacks, but will be harder to heal. You won't have a lot of reagents to heal you and many to harm you. Repairing an IPC takes time and can't be set and forget. +While you do not need to eat or drink, you still need to manage your internal energy. +IPCs have a major weakness to EMPs and being electrocuted. +# C# Needs +- Organ swapping code + - Choosing between a Posi or an MMI + - Opt-in stomach +- Reagent Tags + - This can also alternatively be achieved with a metabolizer reagent whitelist, or a unique metabolizer for synthetic-only reagents +- Energy drinking + - IPCs should be able to continue to sip APCs, but also sip batteries in an emergency +# Licensing Concerns & Recoding +All foundational IPC code is either AGPL or not of sufficient quality. +***IPCs require a Full Recode.***