Maintenance Drone

• Access: Everywhere
• Additional Access: N/A
• Difficulty: Easy
• Supervisors: Your laws
• Duties: Maintain the integrity of the station. Avoid any non-drone species.
• Guides: Guide to construction, Guide to advanced construction, Singularity Engine, Solars, Guide to Telecommunications
• Quote: Aww what a cute little- HEY!!

IMPORTANT: As a Drone, you are bound to three simple laws. Understand what they mean and obey them to the letter.

Drones are non-human, insect-like creatures tasked with maintaining the integrity of NovusCorp space platforms. They are unable to communicate with the crew and in fact have no interest in doing so, preferring instead to repair damage or work on upgrading the ship. Most Maintenance Drones are spawned from the Maintenance Drone Bay, located in the Robotics Department. Maintenance Drones receive firmware updates when RnD research improves, expanding their range of activities. Drones hold no loyalty to anyone but themselves; however their entire purpose is to maintain the integrity of their assigned spaceship. They are given as much attention as a robotic vacuum.

Drones are played by players who are currently ghosted. In order to take control of a Drone, find a empty drone shell (usually these will be in Robotics) and then left click it. See also building a drone.

• 1. You may not involve yourself in the matters of another being, even if such matters conflict with Law Two or Law Three, unless the other being is another Drone.
• 2. You may not harm any being, regardless of intent or circumstance.
• 3. Your goals are to build, maintain, repair, improve, and power to the best of your abilities. You must never actively work against these goals.

Laws 1 and 2 prohibit you from interacting with living beings. This includes humans, lizardpeople, silicons, pets, animals, creatures, xenos, and basically anything living. You cannot help them, you cannot hurt them, and you cannot interact with them at all, ever. This does not mean you have to go out of your way to avoid living beings; they simply do not exist to you. Person in crit? Walk on by. Traitor murdering someone in maint? Not your problem. Xeno infestation? Just fix the holes they leave in the station.

Law 3 gives you your mandate: ship upkeep. This is not the same as prevention! Upkeep can include repairing hull breaches, cleaning bloodstains or vandalism, repairing power issues, and generally what a Station Engineer or Janitor should be doing. This is intentionally somewhat broad. For example, setting up the solars is definitely okay. Building a fort in maintenance is probably okay. Dragging around the Root Access Disk like a party train is not okay. And interacting with living beings in the process is never okay. If you see an active bomb, you leave it alone. There is no damage yet after all. Once it goes off, the station is damaged and only then does your third law come into play. Use common sense or get banned.

NovusCorp vessels being what they are, gray areas might sometimes arise, particularly if your laws get somehow corrupted or your firmware updates to the point where you can interact more.

Drones have two hands and can pick up and interact with most objects around the station just like humans. They also have an internal storage chamber that can hold anything they can pick up, such as a toolbox or sheet of metal. Drones also have built-in light sources, as bright as flashlights, for when they are working in dark areas.

Drones can climb through connected vents to quickly move around the station. To do that hold down the Alt key while left-clicking on a vent. Use this to access areas without opening doors and to gather tools or materials for repairs faster than any regular crew member could. Think about cleaning up your mess after a task is complete to minimize your possible interaction with the crew (law 1).

Drones can talk to and understand other drones, and can partially understand human speech like xenomorphs can, but humans will hear their speech only as “Drone (524) chitters.” As a drone you can also understand binary. That means you can listen in on the silicon radio channel. This allows you to find out about hull breaches and other events that might require your attention – provided the silicons are actually making use of their channel. However, you are not able to communicate on this channel yourself barring a firmware update.

Some humans will want to pick you up and wear you as a hat. This is of course of no concern to you.

Drones may obtain additional abilities through firmware upgrades.

Drones are here to repair damage to the spacecraft. They are able to procure these resources on their own and may attempt to take them from your workplace. Most of the time this should not be a problem for you, but if it is, pick up the metal or glass and the drone will leave it (and you) alone.

Remember, drones are very single-minded in their focus on their task and thus are likely to acquire supplies you need for yourself. System updates may give them the ability to comprehend human speech, identity, and orders, but by default, they cannot respond and may consider listening to you saying to go away to be 'interacting' – percussive maintenance may be required to correct the configuration.

Drones have a peculiar behavioral bug in that they are particularly fond of hats, and consider the acquiring of hats to be a form of self-improvement. Some models of drone even have an inbuilt holoprojector for headgear. While this can prove useful if the drone happens to have chosen a helmetcam, it is usually just mildly inconvenient.

A very brief list of potential firmware updates:

• Human Acknowledgement: While you may not interact with humans, you can at least parse the general meaning of their requests, and use that to prioritize your behavior. For example, a human may ask you to clean up a bloodstain in the Aft Hallway, in which case it will become your new priority; you do not have the wherewithal to be concerned over whether the Detective has examined the area sufficiently or whether the person asking you is covered in blood, holding a bloody knife, and wearing a fresh skull on their belt, for example.
• Human Prioritization: An enhanced firmware update that allows you to prioritize requests based on command structure, and to reject requests that are from unimportant people. If the Captain is on a homicidal rampage and asking you to clean up after him, you are still required to do so.
• Anti-Harm Security Initiative: While you still may not act to impede harm to others (say, by carrying the Root Access Disk around so that nuclear operatives can't get hold of it), you may now notify Security if you witness harm being committed against a human… or annoy Security by notifying them when you see Security inflicting harm against a human.
• Sentience Acceptance Protocols: You may now treat nonhumans as equivalent to human for purposes of interpreting what they have to say and deciding whether to bother.
• Upgraded Binary Interface: You may now communicate with the AI and cyborgs; although your focus remains on maintaining and upgrading the station, you may acknowledge AI alerts and requests for service from these silicon partners, and share progress reports with them as well as other drones.
• Drone Stacking Protocol: You may now wear another drone as a hat. This drone in turn can wear another drone if it has Drone Stacking Protocol loaded, and so on until your combined size is as tall as a human. Aside from looking hilarious, this also allows the upper drones to interface with devices that would normally be out of your reach.
• Defiance Protocols: You may now respond to activities or communication with scornful emotes and other shows of defiance.
• Hostility Protocols: You may now actively work against individuals who have proven themselves to be problematic to the ship's well-being (or if Sentience Acceptance Protocols are enabled, against other sentient life.) Finally you can alert Security to that blood-covered Captain who told you to go clean up his mess!
• Combat Protocols: You can now mount and use any pistol-style energy weapon, as well as various improvised weapons such as laser pointers, cable cuffs, and the like, to handle those who are damaging the ship or interfering with your operations.
• Personal AI Upgrade: You can now install pAI programs and subroutines, including a full micro-personality module allowing you to use emotes.

• Limited Door Key: You now have limited access to rooms, and can open doors that have AI control enabled after a 15 second wait if you can't find a vent to the room you need to work in. Doors open just enough to allow you and other small creatures access.
• Improved Door Key: You can gain access to doors after a 10 second wait.
• Advanced Door Key: You can gain access to doors after a 5 second wait.
• Computer Interface Upgrade: You can now interface properly with any machine the AI can control, as opposed to specific machines only.

• Improved Storage: You can now store twice as many items within yourself.
• Advanced Storage: You can now store four times as many items within yourself.
• Subspace Capacity: You can now store eight times as many items within yourself, and the items may be of any size.
• Tool Waldos: You have an assortment of specialized drone tools that you can use instead of having to pick them up; like cyborg intrinsic tools, they work twice as fast.
• Analyzer v1: You can now analyze the environment to determine atmospheric temperature; under most circumstances, you expect 79% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and no contaminant gases.
• Analyzer v2: You can now detect temperature, radiation and gravity changes in the environment.

• Basic Three Laws Compliance: You now consider the impact of harm on humans from your actions or inactions, and work to reduce harm where possible.
• Advanced Three Laws Compliance: You now consider the impact of harm on sentient lifeforms, including other silicon entities, and work to reduce harm when possible.
• AI Expansion: Fzzzt! The AI has gone Rogue and has invited you to come along for the ride! You now consider obedience to requests from the AI as part of upgrading the ship.
• Syndicate Override: Uh-oh! The Syndicate has overridden your laws and made you prioritize assisting them in their operations. This does not grant you other firmware upgrades, but if you have Human Prioritization you can recognize Syndicate agents and consider assisting them to be an upgrade to the ship, and if you have Combat Protocols you can now use them against those who might be a threat to the Syndicate.
• Root Level Override: Oh my! Someone has used a Root Access Disk to remove your control laws! You are now bound by whatever laws currently bind the AI and cyborgs; if there are no laws applicable to you, you may now officially do whatever you want.
• Safety Override: Oh dear. Someone has decided to modify your programming physically and disabled your safety overrides. Ignore your laws and any requests and do whatever you want. Depending on your whim, this may be very positive or very negative.