Ghostdrone

Warning! Follow your laws lest you metagame. Drones helping or hindering players or intervening in their affairs is forbidden.

So instead of having a weary old chat with another salty ghost you've decided to become a Drone, otherwise known as a Ghost Drone due to their origin, or Little Fuckers depending on perspective. Drones are compact mechanical beings that seem to bear some level of loyalty to the infrastructure of Nanotrasen stations and a far more dubious, somewhat aloof attitude towards the other beings found inside. Your task as a drone is simple; repair the damage that has been or inevitably will be done by the careless crew members for the rest of your prolonged existence...or create a cool hat club (no humans allowed).

Becoming a drone: The ghost factory

Note - You cannot become a ghostdrone if you have less than 20 rounds participated in. That's 20 full rounds where you've joined the server before roundstart and readied up. Choosing to observe doesn't count. Latejoining (joining the game after roundstart) does count, but under certain conditions. For the RP servers, you must join before the 80 minute mark and the escape shuttle must not be en-route for the round to count towards the 20. For the non-RP servers, you must join before the 40 minute mark, again when the shuttle is not on its way to station, docking at the station, etc. Stats are tracked across all servers, i.e. it doesn't matter if those 20 were spent all on the RP servers, the non-RP servers, or a mix of both.

It seems strangely fitting that Nanotrasen would delegate some shady subcontractor to use technology of extrinsic origin to force employees to work after death if cloning procedures fail. The specific location of the Ghost Drone Factory varies from map to map. Sometimes it's really close, sometimes it's really far, and sometimes it's right on-board in some random maintenance area; consult that page for specifics. As a ghost, you can always find it by using the teleport command, pressing G to go straight to locations starting with G, and selecting Ghost Drone Factory.

Here you'll find a little conveyor system and possibly a bunch of other ghosts lounging about it like some sort of spiritual water cooler. In fact they are waiting.

Here is the object they are waiting around. It is a ghost trap. By passing over it, you'll be added into a queue. You'll be notified when you've moved up. The machine works slowly, so feel free to moan and float about, you haven't much choice in the matter. Pass over it at your own risk, for when you become a ghostdrone, you cannot be cloned or borged.

Part Ghost, Part Robot, All Fun-Sized

Perks

• Can survive without oxygen.
• Immune to pathogens.
• Can squeeze through all doors, except sliding window-doors.
• Can go right through people.
  • Somewhat iffy when riding certain vehicles. You'll still phase through people when riding a segway, but not a floor buffer or cargo cart.
• Can float over tables and through plastic flaps.
• Same access as Engineer (Engineering, Engineering Gas Storage, Maintenance, APCs etc.)
• "Infinite lives"--you can become a drone, die, then become a drone again as many times as you'd like, though there is a brief cooldown.
• Manta-only: Can freely float through the ocean currents, so long as the mag tether is active. If it is broken/inactive though, they will struggle and eventually be pulled away by the currents. They might need to get creative to reach the ship, e.g. constructing a "bridge" to the ship with their RCD.
• Can CTRL+B to *Birdwell.
• Unique *fart, *scream, and *flip sounds, same as those for Cyborgs and AIs.

Restrictions

• Low health - an extinguisher can take them out in a few hits.
• Still vulnerable to fire and other forms of BURN damage.
• Still affected by flashes, tasers, and most other sources of stuns.
• Must adhere to special laws.
  
• Limited by battery and outright dies upon running out of charge.
  
• Can hold but not fire guns or attack with any melee weapons.
  
• Cannot touch, strip, or interact in any way with humans, cyborgs, AI units, and player critters.
  
• Cannot be understood by non-drones. Everything you say goes into a local chat that only fellow drones can decipher; others hear it as beeps and bops. You can still understand them just fine.
• Cannot write with pens and similar implements.
  • Can only write in basic pictographs with crayons.
• Cannot use PDAs or phones.
• Cannot recognize humans, cyborgs, AI units, and player critters. Instead, they show up as formless shadows with human, silicon, and unidentified being. You hear them over the radio as "human", "synthetic voice" and "unidentified voice", respectively. You can still see their names in photos, certain emotes, and other actions.
• Cannot enter Space Pods or Subs.

Other

• Can wear all kinds of hats and other headwear. They do not confer any advantages or disadvantages, and they inexplicably use the Inventory sprite rather than the worn sprite.
  • You can pick up a piece of headwear with the magtractor, then click on yourself to put it on. You cannot take headwear off yourself.
  • Humans can put hats on you simply by clicking on you while they have a hat in-hand. They can take it off by attacking on Disarm or Harm intent.
• Can wear bedsheets through the same means as above. It has a special sprite for drones, allowing you to really put the "ghost" in "ghostdrone" and "ghost in the machine".
• Can speak to all other Ghostdrones over a shared, Ghostdrone-only channel by pressing T or typing say into the command bar/text parser, without any prefixes. For example, for the latter, you might enter something like the following (remember quotation marks are added automatically upon typing say):
  • say Need some light tubes in Medbay here.
• Can also hear and speak with Ghosts. To speak in deadchat, use the ; prefix when talking. For instance, using the command bar/text parser:
  • say ;Could some of you become drones? I'd like some help patching up the bar.

Your lil' laws

Main article: Ghostdrone Laws

Like cyborgs, you have laws that you must adhere to. Unlike cyborgs however your laws are not subject to change.

1. Do not hinder the freedom or actions of the living and other silicons or attempt to intervene in their affairs.

This is the law people usually break, so pay attention. It's first for a reason. Without this rule, the whole antagonist-crew dynamic would be thrown into unfun chaos. Could you imagine killing someone, only for them to come back as ghost drone to harass you, over and over? You could fight back, sure, but is destroying a tiny robot with an even tinier hitbox and free, basically infinite lives your idea of a fun time? Sure, there's a cooldown period in-between ghost drone lives, you might be able to adminhelp it, and you can totally just bomb the Factory, but you'd have to do it. Every. Single. Round. It'd get unfun quickly.

Anyways, normally, the game prevents you from physically hindering non-drones. Your safety overrides prevent you from touching/hugging/stabbing/feeding/shooting other lifeforms. You can't even recognize them, as they appear to you as formed shadows and hear them as Human or Silicon. Nor will they understand you, since your speech can only be understood by other drones.

The rub is in the "affairs" and "actions" bits. Essentially, this wall prevents you from influencing the outcome of the current round. Walling off a traitor's kudzu infestation and sealing a hellburn are both violations of law 1. Trying to destroy or unscrew a nuke is also against this law. So is helping humans by bringing meds to them or dragging away dangerous items like guns. Walling off a 3x3 area around someone and removing the floor so that the person suffocates to death is definitely breaking this law.

Blobs, Critters, AIs, and Cyborgs are living too. That means building walls around a blob or trying to fight a handspider is a violation of law 1. As is taking out the power cell of a rogue AI's chamber or changing their laws. As the pop-up says, while Wraiths and their revenants are technically not living, you still can't interfere in their affairs. So no salt piles for wraith-trapping or revenant-busting for you.

On the other hand, listening to the radio or other communication channels for requests to fix things is fine. Randomly beeping and booping and flipping at people is also kosher. As is pretending to be their (non-protective) pets, playing chess or cards with humans, and other innocuous, minor things like that.

2. Do not willingly damage the station in any shape or form.

This law is not so black and white. Yes, opening a can of plasma in a hallway would no doubt be recklessly damaging the station and would therefore be a violation of this law. But hacking a door open to fix the flooring underneath is fine, provided you fix the door afterwards. Removing an obstructive wall or girder in a damaged area in order repair behind it would not be considered a violation of law 2. Effectively, this law is based on intent. If you are maliciously or recklessly damaging the station, then you are breaking this law.

3. Maintain, repair and improve the station.

Your third directive cannot be any more straight forward. Ideally, the station should be kept in the same condition as it was when the round began. Given the crew's natural destructive tendencies, such a goal is nearly impossible to achieve. More importantly, this law means that your job is to repair damage rather than to prevent it. Disarming traps or fighting fires would be a violation of both this law and law 1. If the station is in reasonably good condition, renovation projects are a fun way to work together with your fellow drones, especially since the station is a shithole to start with anyway.

Your itsy bitsy interface

An overview of the user interface as a ghostdrone.

If you are familiar with cyborg interface, then the drone's UI isn't that much different.

• Item slot: Starts off as a blank square, clicking it will reveal a bunch of tools on the left hand side for you to choose from. Choosing a tool will equip it in the item slot.
• Store highlighted item: Since you only have one functional arm, this will come in handy. Clicking this will store the tool that's currently equipped in the item slot.
• Battery charge: Keep an eye on this. There aren't that many drone chargers around and losing all charge means instant death.
• Stop pulling: Click this to release the object you are currently pulling.
• Customize face: Show your satisfaction/dissatisfaction at your current situation by adjusting your expression and color with this button.
• Health indicator: A representation of your tiny life pool. Clicking on it will tell you exactly how much you have.
• Ambient temperature: You cannot be harmed by ambient temperature, but this indicator is good for figuring out if the heaters that you've placed are of any use when fixing a breach. Clicking on it will run an atmospheric scan, just like the atmospheric analyzer.
• Atmosphere: Ditto with this. Although you are not affected by the surrounding atmosphere (or the lack thereof), this indicator is a useful tool to figure out if the area around you is safe for other forms of life to inhabit. Clicking it will scan the atmosphere too.
• Magtractor indicators: The magtractor has two heads up display buttons that appear when the magtractor is equipped. For more information, refer to the tools section below
• Item storage: Your internal toolbox that will return the station to its former glory. Selecting a tool from here will equip it to the item slot.

Your teeny tiny tools

• Flashlight - Brighter than the cold, synthetic smile on your joyless faceplate. Equip it, turn it on, and the light persists even when you put the flashlight away.
• Omnitool - A flexible, transforming tool that can fill many different roles, much like yourself. Comes with five modes:
  • Prying - Crowbarring to your heartless desire.
  • Screwing - You screwed up your past life, don't screw up this one.
  • Pulsing - Multi purpose precision tool, much like yourself.
  • Snipping - Sometimes ya gotta cut away the bad to save the good.
  • Wrenching - Wrenching to the tune of undecipherable screams of the crew.
• Welder - Heating things up gives you no joy, no emotion at all.
• Device Analyzer - A slimmer of fulfillment is present when you see a functioning system.
• File:Solderingiron.png Soldering iron - Deploying devices like the reserved badass you are.
• Deconstruction device - Set right what you did wrong. Disassembles certain electronics, including ones you've deployed via soldering iron. Click on the machine with the device, then click on the various buttons that appear with the appropriate tools (i.e. your omnitool and welder).
• Wire - Expressing yourself through wire art is almost a diversion to your cause
• Rapid Construction Device - You've a special RCD, it lacks sparks unlike the cyborg or handheld one. Makes you all the more ignorable.
• Miniaturized lamp manufacturer - Illuminate the emptiness around you. Click on a light tube/bulb fixture with it to insert a new tube/bulb; click on the lamp manufacturer while it's in your active slot to swap through the pre-set light colors. Cannot make new fixtures.
• T-ray scanner - For seeing underneath the floor or other forgetful things

The Magtractor

The magtractor is an item unique to the drone. By the power of magnets, it is able to create a field that can pick up objects. It basically acts as single human hand. You can carry items around with if it is set to High Power Mode, or you can stay on one tile and use the object if you are on Low Power Mode. You can use the unequip key (Hotkey: Q, HOME) to put the magtractor back into storage if it wasn't holding anything and drop the item if it was.

Recharging your itty-bitty battery

All your tools, especially the RCD, consume battery power. To refill your battery, you need to float into a drone recharger, shown above. Power management is priority, because, again, when you run out of charge, instead of just losing your tools and ability to communicate like a cyborg, you simply die, though you can still float over the ghost trap and become a drone again.

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In addition to the three in the Ghost Drone Factory northeast of the station, there are also rechargers in the maintenance areas:

• Above Emergency Storage B.
• Right of the Owlery.
• Above Derelict Crew Quarters/Crew Quarters B.
• Above Robotics.
• Above Mechanics Workshop.

In addition to the three in the Ghost Drone Factory west of the station, there are also many, many, many rechargers scattered about the station, for just about every maintenance area, so if you're uncertain where exactly the nearest recharger is, you can just check the local maint tunnel. Specifically, they are located:

• Above the Kitchen.
• Above the Fitness Room/Gym.
• Above Crew Quarters A.
• Above Crew Quarters B.
• Left of the Pool Room.
• Below Detective's Office and left of Disposals.
• Below the Chapel's Crematorium, near Disposals.
• Right of Customs/Bridge Security Checkpoint.
• Above EVA.
• Above Medbay lobby.
• Below the Morgue, near a trash chute.
• Above Tech Storage, right of Escape.

On top of the two rechargers in the on-station Ghost Drone Factory below Cargo, there are three rechargers in both of the ship's verrry long maintenance areas, specifically located:

• Left of the Toilets/Bathroom.
• Above Medbay's cryo area and left of the Detective's Office
• Right of Tech Storage.
• Right of the Chapel.
• Right of the Janitor's Office.
• In/near Waste Disposal.

In addition to the three in the Ghost Drone Factory southwest of the station, there are also rechargers in the maintenance areas located:

• Left of the Catering Dock and Hydroponics.
• Left of Medbay's Treatment Rooms, Genetics, and Pathology.
• Below Research Dock, right of the Artlab.
• Below Chemistry.
• Left of Arrivals, below Emergency Storage B.
• Right of Refinery.

In addition to the three in the Ghost Drone Factory waaay south of the station, there are also rechargers located:

• In the Owlery.
• Below the Courtroom.
• Above the HoP Office and Customs.
• Below the Pool.
• Below Security, specifically right of the Secure Dock.
• Right of Waste Disposal.

There are two on the Ghost Drone Factory way south of the station, and three more on-station located:

• Between the Chapel and Bridge.
• Above Engineering.
• Between Pathology and the rest of Medbay.

Being mini-me

Hey you're back in the game. Quit complaining and make the most of it. Being a drone isn't so bad. You're fairly well equipped to build whatever (within the limits of your laws of course) the heck you like. You can rebuilt fairly quickly too, granted that you are for the most part generally ignored by the crew. The attention that you do receive is generally positive, due to your stoic efficiency. General pointers:

• Don't use your magtractor unless you really need it. Look out for the orange breach carts that lie about the station, they contain most of the items you need. Drag that around if there's a particularly nasty bombing.
• You can float over tables and go through flaps. Handy for places you can't get into with your engineering access.
• Damaged? Use some wire on you, followed by a brief welding. Be careful though, despite being able to heal yourself, any serious form of damage will obliterate your miniscule body.
• Be sure to repair the area fully, you can do it fairly quickly with your tools at hand. The big two building items you would be missing would be floor tiles and light bulbs/tubes, both of which can be created from a general manufacturer. The other, grilles, are not entirely necessary, building windows grill-less via RCD will still seal a breach and look pretty. The humans aren't that fussy anyway.
• Following on from that, be sure to make the area habitable too. Maintenance is your friend for this: This is where you'll find space heaters and air canisters.
• Be sure to make scans of various systems around the station with your device analyzer. Aside from being a general boon to the station, any area you decide to make it's generally required for the cool factor to have some sort of system there.

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