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Total Members Voted: 257

[Sukasa]

Server back up.

Too many critical errors...

what errors were these?  I could take a look at fixing some of them.

[Googolplexed]

Well, I see qwertyuiopas suggestion as more of a computer network then anything.
To communicate between machinary, they send a plain ASCII message across the network, similer in syntax to SMTP

Code: [Select]

S: 220 smtp.example.com ESMTP Postfix
C: HELO relay.example.org
S: 250 Hello relay.example.org, I am glad to meet you
C: MAIL FROM:<bob@example.org>
S: 250 Ok
C: RCPT TO:<alice@example.com>
S: 250 Ok
C: RCPT TO:<theboss@example.com>
S: 250 Ok
C: DATA
S: 354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
C: From: "Bob Example" <bob@example.org>
C: To: Alice Example <alice@example.com>
C: Cc: theboss@example.com
C: Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:02:43 -0500

Its fairly close to human readable.
The network could be treated as a mini-internet with messages sent to devices on it. The AI would also be limited by the network.
I think something like this would be cool
"a4b4m1":POWER OFF MAINBREAKER

"a4b4m1"being an address hash, and POWER OFF MAINBREAKER being the command.
It would probebly also require a password or something, but you could grab that by packet-scanning for any AI commands, or breaking into the password control room or something, another idea to control lights for example, would be to manually press the lightswitch yourself, and check what command is being sent

EDIT:Sukasa, that is the error message, it doesn't say anything else
We should probebly start running the server in debug mode though

[Sukasa]

Well, I see qwertyuiopas suggestion as more of a computer network then anything.
To communicate between machinary, they send a plain ASCII message across the network, similer in syntax to SMTP

Code: [Select]

S: 220 smtp.example.com ESMTP Postfix
C: HELO relay.example.org
S: 250 Hello relay.example.org, I am glad to meet you
C: MAIL FROM:<bob@example.org>
S: 250 Ok
C: RCPT TO:<alice@example.com>
S: 250 Ok
C: RCPT TO:<theboss@example.com>
S: 250 Ok
C: DATA
S: 354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
C: From: "Bob Example" <bob@example.org>
C: To: Alice Example <alice@example.com>
C: Cc: theboss@example.com
C: Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:02:43 -0500

Its fairly close to human readable.
The network could be treated as a mini-internet with messages sent to devices on it. The AI would also be limited by the network.
I think something like this would be cool
"a4b4m1":POWER OFF MAINBREAKER

"a4b4m1"being an address hash, and POWER OFF MAINBREAKER being the command.
It would probebly also require a password or something, but you could grab that by packet-scanning for any AI commands, or breaking into the password control room or something, another idea to control lights for example, would be to manually press the lightswitch yourself, and check what command is being sent

EDIT:Sukasa, that is the error message, it doesn't say anything else
We should probebly start running the server in debug mode though

I love this computer network idea.  Might as well add a really simple encryption (obviously, meant to be human-breakable) for some things perhaps.  I would suggest, though, that power cable and network cable be separate, since that way you could do fun things like leave the power cabling connected, but stop the AI from, say, being able to control the equipment in the plasma lab.  Similarly, the AI wouldn't be able to get atmospherics or fire information from sensors in that lab, unless they're connected a different way.  If the code is done right, this sort of thing should be doable without lagging the server to hell and back.

And a debug-mode server would be a good thing, just to get information about crashes.

[qwertyuiopas]

How to do it without lag:
Have all network-enabled devices in a list, where the list is merely a list of IDs. Then have the corresponding data the actual refrence.

So,
netdevices[0] = "A3CB49"
netdevices["A3CB49"] = {refrence}

Or,
netdevices += newdevice.netid
netdevices[newdevice.netid] = newdevice

Thus when you send a message to a device, you only preform one array lookup.

The drawback is that such devices would need to override deletion to remove themselves from the list, but that is easily done.

[Googolplexed]

Yeah, the powernet currently works in a similer way, execept that theres no "key" to access each item.

I actually think that this is quite doable

It would require some balancing for the AI though, otherwise it would be trival to stop a rogue one

[beorn080]

Would this allow people to do things like send a command to open all airlocks at once?

[qwertyuiopas]

However, in the powernets, as far as I know, you never need to access an individual item, except during a complete iteration. There is likely a computation penalty to using non-integer indexes, but it would probably be far less than iterating it yourself to find the matching id.

Would this allow people to do things like send a command to open all airlocks at once?

That would likely require a broadcast packet with a destination device type ID of "airlock", and for the network system to be set up to allow broadcast packets

Code: [Select]

for(var{/network/device/path/here}/n in netdevices)
    n.recieveBroadcast({wharever})And devices to know what type of device they are, and finally, for airlocks to accept the command, since they could reject it for insufficient authorization or someone could have cut the network wire(if wireless, this wire would be one of the standard door internal wires)

But in short, YES, if the implementation meets the specification and the specification isn't reduced before then or otherwise altered to be impossible.

[Googolplexed]

And so we come to one of the big problems

We need some specs before we can actually start coding, this isn't a feature that can just be implented with no planning

Can we get on SS13 to discuss it further ?

[Micro102]

Things to make the AI stronger:

- More atmos, bring back N2O for brig, allow it access to more plasma, and a way to light it.

- Mobile robot. Very basic functions, can break and carry stuff, and operate tools. Very easy to kill.

- Defense for satellite. As of now, it is easier to destroy the sat then to destroy the foyer...


Bugs:

-When cutting the test light wire, screw driving the airlock panel back on resets the test light to "on" even thought the wire is still cut.

-Fake walls are revealed by light

-vats destroyed by fire don't seem to release their contents.

[Sukasa]

Okay, then why don't we start putting some specs together.

We'd need to cover...

Physical connections (how do the nets get determined?)
Internal Representation (How do you access parts of a complete net)
Net Change handling (I cut a wire, what now?)
A communications specification to use in the network (Key issues atm: Point to Point, broadcast, authentication / access integration)
Net Traversal (Can we have multiple nets?  If so, can we communcation between devices on different nets?  How?)
Graphics (Pretty easy part)
Wireless Connections (Should certain machinery types be able to use an implied wireless net?)
(More Here)

One thing that immediately springs to mind with wireless nets is that goonstation (and maybe here, i don't remember) had a device that stopped radios from working near it (static) - this would be a great way to a traitor to prevent wireless devices from working.

Re: the test light: This means that power was restored to the door, since there is backup power too, not just main power.

[Micro102]

That would make the traitor overpowered. He could take out a gun and just shoot until everyone died, and noone would know.

[qwertyuiopas]

It would probably be better to just assume that everything is wireless, because the mappers don't need *another* set of cables to lay out(Except possibly for lighting) and if all you had to do to disable the AI was cut a few wires, it would be imbalanced.

Communication would need two main forms, broadcasts and direct messages, where broadcasts are sent to all devices and direct messages are sent directly to devices by ID. A network reader would likely copy communications to/from either a device it is attached to or maybe nearby devices.

Another possibility is a device that steals the ID of another device, giving the device a new ID and using it's old ID, as it would make an interesting traitor object. Example: set a device to impersonate a brig cell door, and set it to forward communications. However, it could then be used as an override switch by simply having it stop forwarding communications.

[Micro102]

Server crashed 

And I was doing so well too.

[Micro102]

You know how traitors get radios to give them an edge, why not give the AI a new ability, like faking the voice of someone?

[Acanthus117]

You know how traitors get radios to give them an edge, why not give the AI a new ability, like faking the voice of someone?

That sounds cool. Also gives the opportunity for HAL-like awesome.