Ghostdrone

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

SILICON
Ghostdrone
Ghostdrone	Difficulty: Easy Requirements: Play 20 rounds, see here for details. Access Level: Engineering, Maintenance Additional Roleplay Access Level: None Supervisors: None Subordinates: None Responsibilities: Follow your special ghostdrone laws, repair, maintain, and, potentially, renovate the ship/station Guides: Ghostdrone Laws, Construction, Engineering Objects, Guide to Wiring, Power Grid, Gas, this page

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 60 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.

Like remoras on a whale, the ghost drone factories attach themselves to the orbits of structures and form a symbiotic relationship with the people who live there, keeping the station repaired and clean in exchange for the parts they need to repair and sustain themselves. 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.

The object you are looking for 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 viruses.
• 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 lengthy cooldown between each ghostdrone life.
• 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.
  
• You need to wait 3 minutes after your death as a non-drone to become a ghostdrone. After your first death as ghostdrone, it takes 10 minutes to be eligible to respawn as a drone again. Use your time as a drone kindly and wisely!
• 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.
• Like AIs and cyborgs, they can be forced to self-destruct ("killswitched") using the Robotics Control computer.

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. For example:

• Walling off a traitor's kudzu infestation and deconstructing someone's MechComp-based death trap are both violations of law 1.
• Trying to destroy 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.
• Floor tiles x600 - Treading on uncertain ground. These are made of cardboard, so like the structures made by your Cardboard RCD, these tiles can be easily destroyed. You can't really refill the stack, but 600 should be enough for most needs.
• Device Analyzer - A slimmer of fulfillment is present when you see a functioning system.
• 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
• Cardboard Rapid Construction Device - You've a special RCD. It lacks sparks unlike the cyborg or handheld one and only constructs cardboard imitations of walls, floors, doors, and windows. These constructions can be broken easily be living players in just a few seconds. Makes you all the more ignorable.
• Miniaturized lamp manufacturer - Illuminate the emptiness around you. Can make new light bulbs/tubes, replace broken ones, change their color, and remove lights too. Runs off your internal battery rather than metal sheets. See here for some more details on how to use it.
• Cybernetic cleaning spray bottle - Cleaning up mistakes. Functions similarly to a standard spray bottle, in that each use sprays 5 units of space cleaner, but if the amount of cleaner inside is lower than 25, the bottle regenerates 0.75 units of cleaner every few seconds until it's back up to full. You cannot put any other chemicals inside it.
• Integrated sponge - Wiping away until there's nothing left. Works like a regular sponge, except if it gets too full, you can just click on it while it's in your active slot (Hotkey: C for Goon WASD, Z for /tg/style WASD) to drain it out. This has a 5-second cooldown, and unlike standard sponges, it doesn't leak fluid onto the ground.
• 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 Cardboard 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. To be more specific, they are located in:

• Central Maintenance, which has two rechargers located:
  • Above EVA.
  • Above the Owlery and right of the Pool.
• Central Warehouse, near the airlock into space and the arc-smelter/nano-crucible.
• East Maintenance, which is between the Chapel and Janitor's Office. If you've been to Disposals, it's pretty close by, and the drone recharger itself is located above by one of the entrances into the Chapel's crematorium area.
• Medical Storage, located on the very southern end of Medbay, below the staff room and Medical Hangar.
• North East Maintenance. To be even more specific, its charger is in the part above the Kitchen and right of Arrivals, where there's a window looking into the former.
• North West Maintenance. This has three chargers located:
  • Above the Fitness Room/Gym.
  • Above Crew Quarters A.
  • Above Crew Quarters B.
• South East Maintenance, right of Escape. The charger is right outside the entrance into Tech Storage.
• South West Maintenance, which wraps around the northern and eastern parts of Medbay. The chargers are specifically located in the parts:
  • Above Medbay lobby.
  • Below the Morgue, near a trash chute.
• West Maintenance, which is just right of Customs/Bridge Security Checkpoint.
• West Solar Maintenance, which is attached to an array of solar panels sort of left of Security.

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.

There are two on the Ghost Drone Factory way south of the station and four more on-ship, located in the maintenance areas that are:

• Between the Chapel and Bridge.
• Above Engineering and below Mining Staff Room.
• Between the Morgue and the rest of Medbay.
• Left of Hydroponics and right of the AI Chamber.

Besides the three drone rechargers on the Ghost Drone Factory west of the station (specifically a fair distance away from the Escape), there are ten rechargers on-station, located in the following areas:

• Central Inner Maintenance. This is a huge maintenance area that loops around the station. The rechargers are specifically located in the parts:
  • Bordering EVA Storage, in the general northwestern parts of the station. The recharger is right beside the door into the maintenance area.
  • Near the Jazz Lounge. It's kinda out there; the simplest path is probably to enter Central Inner Maintenance via the Gym/Fitness Room and go southward.
  • Above the Owlery, in the western parts and just across the hall from Medbay. If you see twin double doors, go north.
  • Bordering the Pool, situated below Cargo and the main hangar area in the northeast. The recharger is right next to the door to/from Central Innter Maintenance, so you can go for a swim right after. (Don't worry, you're waterproof.)
• North East Maintenance. It's sandwiched between the Chapel and the Detective's Office. The easiest path to the recharger is to go through the Chapel, take the grey doors with big yellow stripes (the ones with thinner yellow stripes go to other parts of the Chapel), and go past the coffins.
• South West Maintenance, specifically the area right behind/south of the Mechanic's Lab. The Mechanic's Lab is itself in the south/southwestern parts, below the Bar.
• Waste Disposal, but it's much closer to the Janitor's Office, which is in the southeast sector. The recharger is by the southern entrance to Janitor's Office.
• West Maintenance, which wraps around Medbay but also runs from as far north as Escape and as far south as the Kitchen. The rechargers are specifically located:
  • Below Escape, specifically the room where the shuttle to Zeta Research Station (aka Outpost Zeta) docks.
  • Between the Kitchen and the Monkey Dome below Genetics/Medical Research. You know how there's a feed chute for the dome that's accessible to the public? There's an entrance to West Maintenance near that, and the recharger is located a hop and skip away from those doors.
  • Left of Robotics. The recharger's right by a room with the power transmission laser and another room that connects to an array of solar panels.

Besides, there are also three more rechargers on Zeta Research Station/Outpost Zeta situated northeast. The rechargers are located in the following rooms:

• Outpost Zeta Waste Disposal, in the southern parts of the outpost, below the rather deceptively-named Observatory
• Research Dock, located on the west end of the outpost, just below where the shuttle to/from the outpost also docks.
• Toxin Storage, in the general center of the outpost and more specifically east of the chemistry lab.

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 Cardboard 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.

Gallery

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