Why would a military robot be programmed to disregard nonhuman targets in the first place? Wouldn’t it be expected to potentially have to fight other robots? Are we supposed to believe some programmer took the time to add a clause like that, even as the world was being eaten by nonhuman monsters? Wouldn’t they be a lot more likely to just put them in “SHOOT EVERYTHING” mode?
It feels like a lame cop-out for wanting zombies and robots on the same team but not having any actual sensible reason for that to be the case.
Yeah, I agree. To have turrets behave the way they behave, much more likely would be deliberate attempt to program them to shoot nothing but humans, not screw up.
Well, yes and no. I suppose you’d have to think about if they came equipped with some kind of failsafe. Shit’s hitting the fan but at the end of the day you don’t want your own machines shooting your own machines. At the very least, there’d be a core part in there that would detect the signal on a robot indicating that it is, in fact, the very same kind of robot as the thing scanning it, which would be the default so as to avoid catastrophic breakdown of the perimeter they’re trying to hold.
Granted it kind of broke down anyway, but at the end of the day, drones don’t shoot themselves. THAT much makes sense. Everything beyond that starts to get pretty muddy, however.
What MUST happen is that the machines must shoot humans. ALL humans. That’s the lore’s law right there. When you start to look closer, it makes more sense that the machines would also shoot the zeds than them not. That’s also taking care of a balance concern; machines and robots being on the same side…just…no. In fact, I’d vouch for all the “factions” of creatures and things all being hostile to one another. None of them are explicitly allied or help each other, but I guess that’s another suggestion thread.
And if you wanted to go the route and say 'they done fucked up and hit the SHOOT EVERYTHING" button, that also is permissible. But either way, you gotta shoot all the things or half the things. Anything short of that is broken.
In an effort to combat the new threats of both large amounts of undead humans and various otherworldly horrors, the automated security forces are quickly reprogrammed to behave much more aggressively, killing threats instead of just trying to arrest them if they were supposed to, and adopting a much wider view of what constitutes a threat. Unfortunately, this backfires - they still fail to identify the undead as humans, and continue to ignore them since animals can't be criminals, but the new settings lead them to turn on the human "trespassers" running the security network, and the networked security systems identify almost any living human as a hostile threat to be eliminated. The larger network itself collapses shortly afterwards, leaving no way to adjust the settings back, as each security unit - police station, military turret, autonomous hunter vehicle - reverts to independent control operating under the last instructions received
That’s one day after the portals opened and hell was breaking loose, with zeds rapidly increasing in number and Nether critters popping out (some did OK, some not so much: rather more chaotic than the situation at game start, five days after the portals opened). FWIW, triffids, giant insects, and fungaloids hadn’t yet made themselves apparent, so the bots don’t have a paradigm for 'em. Special zeds might well have the same problem.
Milbots disregarded nonhuman targets such as foxes, wolves, cougars, and bears because those aren’t likely to be a threat, cannot be criminals, and aren’t worth wasting ammo on. The operators tried to program 'em for zeds but botched.
Zeds don’t breathe, and if folks like we can make them no longer warm. Would make IR pretty crappy, though. I tend to think of 'em as not warm enough to have a human heat-signature.
[quote=“KA101, post:5245, topic:42”]Spare you having to look it up:
In an effort to combat the new threats of both large amounts of undead humans and various otherworldly horrors, the automated security forces are quickly reprogrammed to behave much more aggressively, killing threats instead of just trying to arrest them if they were supposed to, and adopting a much wider view of what constitutes a threat. Unfortunately, this backfires - they still fail to identify the undead as humans, and continue to ignore them since animals can't be criminals, but the new settings lead them to turn on the human "trespassers" running the security network, and the networked security systems identify almost any living human as a hostile threat to be eliminated. The larger network itself collapses shortly afterwards, leaving no way to adjust the settings back, as each security unit - police station, military turret, autonomous hunter vehicle - reverts to independent control operating under the last instructions received
That’s one day after the portals opened and hell was breaking loose, with zeds rapidly increasing in number and Nether critters popping out (some did OK, some not so much: rather more chaotic than the situation at game start, five days after the portals opened). FWIW, triffids, giant insects, and fungaloids hadn’t yet made themselves apparent, so the bots don’t have a paradigm for 'em. Special zeds might well have the same problem.
Milbots disregarded nonhuman targets such as foxes, wolves, cougars, and bears because those aren’t likely to be a threat, cannot be criminals, and aren’t worth wasting ammo on. The operators tried to program 'em for zeds but botched.
Zeds don’t breathe, and if folks like we can make them no longer warm. Would make IR pretty crappy, though. I tend to think of 'em as not warm enough to have a human heat-signature.[/quote]
So if the Chinese had invaded with an army of robots, the American robots would have all just stood there and done nothing. Because only humans can be criminals, and military robots care about who criminals are for some reason. Also, in a world where combat robots are established technology, the ability to shoot nonhuman targets isn’t just a simple toggle. Nope, it’s a crazy idea that no one has ever considered before and which has to be added on the fly so it can be conveniently botched.
This is tripe. We may as well delete it from the wiki and replace it with “Robots are on the same team as zombies because screw you!” It would get the point across without insulting one’s intelligence.
Also, I’ve been toying with experimental a bit and, lore aside, there’s just no way these things belong in the game as they are. They’re newbie destroyers, they’re in way too many places, and they really do overshadow everything else and turn the game into a simulation of the Turret Apocalypse. I’m not investing myself in any version that plays like this.
Maybe the bots only measure brainwaves/brain activities and since z’s brainwaves compare to those of an animal, they just leave them aside. This ofc raises the question why they didn’t just change that but whatever. I suggest that since they are detached from the central network, they enter a default emergency setup with basic behavior implemented: stand/defend yout ground. They would warn you one time and if you don’t leave in x turns they attack. Same would go for Zs as well ofc.
Overshadow everything? Most turrets are impotent roadblocks you can trivially avoid even in early game. They newbie destroying powers are mostly limited to wrecking players who don’t know not to lean around corners in unexplored areas during them middle of the day (and would get wrecked by shockers anyway). Regular turrets not only have a short range, but even illuminate area around them so that the only way to miss them is either a really bad playstyle that SHOULD get you killed in any roguelike, or an incredible streak of bad luck.
Now, if you were talking about tank drones or chicken walkers - then I could agree. You can stumble upon them in the night and get a burst in the face. And if you use a flashlight, you can get a random frag in the face without even knowing where it came from. Turrets don’t do that, because the only way for them to attack you before you see them is when you let them do that.
Maybe it’s just me, but it sounds like things are getting a bit heated in here. Keep in mind that CDDA is open source, and as such you can just mod these things out. Discussion is fine, but I’m sensing entitlement from some of these posts which is a shame.
With that being said, I am of the opinion that tank bots and chicken walkers are really problematic. It almost feels like there’s some difficulty creep going on which aims to keep veterans challenged. Of course, I have no idea if that’s actually true since I don’t know how much trouble some of these crazy mobs give some of the better players. I know from personal experience that tank bots and chicken walkers are guaranteed death if they ever show up. Even when I’ve played cheaty characters, they were able to kill me by giving me insane amounts of pain and dropping my stats to 0.
Thankfully, they don’t show up enough for it to actively annoy me very much. If they did, I would probably just remove them. Turrets are fine in my book, they have very little range and are easily avoided most of the time. If you’ve ever played the ‘Ambush’ start with the winter survivor gear and gone into a lab, you know how little damage they can really do through decent armor.
Yeah, yeah, turrets/tanks/robots/walkers. I’m using the terms interchangeably. The little turrets I don’t really mind, except to wonder why only the ones I deploy myself actually know how to shoot monsters.
But the bigger stuff doesn’t belong sitting around in random-ass cities on day one. Zombies are a joke next to the real threat, being blown up from across the map by some crap you never even saw. Letting the robots shoot the zombies is going to make it into even more of a joke. God can you imagine all the noise it’s going to make? And with hordes on? A tank drone will probably clear an entire city while you sit there and wonder how zombies ever took over in the first place.
I mean, can I have like a wooden plank or something to hold up in front of myself while we’re at it? If these robots are THIS finicky with their targeting, it should be trivial to fool them with almost anything. After all, your shape, size, and movement don’t matter, just that your perceived thermal signature, or breathing sounds, or whatever don’t precisely sync up with what they’re looking for.
I would like to point out that as far as I know, enemies/wildlife not actually fighting each other is a technical thing and not 100% a design decision. I remember at one point reading a bounty for wildlife being hostile to each other, and it was mentioned that it was difficult to do.
That doesn’t affect the robot thing of course, since I think that’s actually a lore/design decision.
I like you. I like your suggestions, your writing style, and your ability to provoke intelligent discussion. But I am telling you that robots and factions in general aren’t a lore problem, but a coding problem. If you can code, get on that right away. But until then, you will have to be content with waiting for factions.
So to continue steering this productively, what would need to be rewritten? I’m guessing the aggression system? I occasionally see infighting, but it’s sporadic and seems to be related to monsters in crowds.
I always thought the current robot lore was nothing but a quick excuse to explain the lack of monster infighting. Whales probably never bothered to code that in, and no one has since because well, its actually a lot of not easy coding.
I really dislike the middle of the city barricades too. Sure I can peek into every single corner, window, and door I encounter, and I do; but that’s nethack levels of tedium, and I would rather not have to do that.
Current monster system doesn’t support factions of any sort. At the moment monsters can be hostile, friendly or temporarily friendly and that’s it.
NPCs can have factions, but those seem wonky - your allies probably won’t protect you from an aggressive NPC, for example.
Use the fact that roads in cities are generally orthogonal. Or just travel at night. Their light can be spotted even before they are.
if i good remember player got message about red dot on him before tank bot fire but now it seen to disapear maybe give it back and give it to chicken walker and antimaterial turrent?
It’d be good if there was a warning prompt (like safe mode), but regardless of the safe mode settings. It’d only show up when they’re actively targeting you, so it shouldn’t be too annoying.