Station AI customizations

[chromiumboy]

About the PR

The station AI can now customize the core and holographic projections from a list of predefined options. These customizations can be accessed when the AI is inserted in an AI core, right-clicks on it, and chooses the appropriate verb from the menu

Why / Balance

This grants AI players a way of personalizing their appearance

This PR works towards fulfilling #33954

Technical details

The system works similarly to loadouts. The customization options are prototypes, which are defined in yaml for ease of adding new / modifying old options in the future. The majority of the logic that handles the players changing their appearance and applying to their avatar is contained in SharedStationAiSystem.Customization

Media

Demonstration of the system

Screenshots

Requirements

• [X I have read and am following the Pull Request and Changelog Guidelines.
• I have added media to this PR or it does not require an ingame showcase.

Breaking changes

N/A

Changelog

🆑

• add: Station AIs can personalize the appearance of their cores and holograms by right-clicking the AI core in which they are inserted and selecting 'AI customization' from the list

[github-actions]

RSI Diff Bot; head commit 52162bc merging into c4542ee
This PR makes changes to 1 or more RSIs. Here is a summary of all changes:

Resources/Textures/Mobs/Silicon/holograms.rsi

State	Old	New	Status
ai_cat			Added
ai_dog			Added
ai_face			Added
ai_female			Added
ai_male			Added

Resources/Textures/Mobs/Silicon/station_ai.rsi

State	Old	New	Status
ai_angel			Added
ai_angel_dead			Added
ai_bliss			Added
ai_clown			Added
ai_clown_dead			Added
ai_dorf			Added
ai_heartline			Added
ai_heartline_dead			Added
ai_smiley			Added

Edit: diff updated after 52162bc

[TheShuEd]

I don't think this approach is quite right, and it will be difficult to expand. I would suggest implementation through some Generic !type: loadouts entries that are applied to the player entity as EntityEffects or something similar when connecting to the game. In this case, extending the new selection functionality via loadouts will be much easier and more convenient

[chromiumboy]

I don't think this approach is quite right, and it will be difficult to expand. I would suggest implementation through some Generic !type: loadouts entries that are applied to the player entity as EntityEffects or something similar when connecting to the game. In this case, extending the new selection functionality via loadouts will be much easier and more convenient

Station AI behave very differently to crew in that they don't carry items and their entity is hidden away in their core, so their customization data needs to be handled differently. Also loadouts are intended for storing data between rounds, while AI customizations are done in round and do not persist (PJB was insistent that the AI not have loadouts for these customizations and they should be dynamically changeable)

[slarticodefast]

I didn't look at all of the code, but couldn't these simply be a normal entity prototype instead of a custom one?
With the hologram shader and a generic visualizer for the dead state.

[chromiumboy]

Oh, that's a good idea. I can spawn a dummy entity and use sprite view to give a preview with the hologram shader too. I'll have a look. Can the client see entities in null space?

[chromiumboy]

Not sure if the iconography would work well as an entity proto though

[slarticodefast]

Can the client see entities in null space

Oh, that part might be a little more tricky. You may be able to simply spawn them clientside?

[IProduceWidgets]

Cat and corgi I'm not sure are a good idea because they're not easily distinguishable from real cats or real corgis. The humans at least have a unique "outfit" on.

[forgotmyotheraccount]

Cat and corgi I'm not sure are a good idea because they're not easily distinguishable from real cats or real corgis.

they're blue

[IProduceWidgets]

Cat and corgi I'm not sure are a good idea because they're not easily distinguishable from real cats or real corgis.

they're blue

always are

[Tayrtahn]

I'm wondering if these should specify female human appearance, etc. Maybe have options for the AI to appear as other playable races too?

[chromiumboy]

I can update the description but I don't have plans to make options for other races, I'm using already available sprites for the holograms

[Tayrtahn]

Sounds good. If they're wanted, someone can add them later.

[chromiumboy]

Cat and corgi I'm not sure are a good idea because they're not easily distinguishable from real cats or real corgis. The humans at least have a unique "outfit" on.

Fair point, but they're cute!

[Emisse]

do borgs have the tool/chassis selection on spawn yet? if yes, this should be wrapped into that system. otherwise this should be expanded into a generic system that fits that. i havent kept up on the silicons sphere of things in a while though due to busy but thats my input.

[vladkaron14R]

Hello, can I find out if I can upload my sprite to the kernel so that only I can see it?

[SlimmSlamm]

do borgs have the tool/chassis selection on spawn yet? if yes, this should be wrapped into that system. otherwise this should be expanded into a generic system that fits that. i havent kept up on the silicons sphere of things in a while though due to busy but thats my input.

they got chassis selection on spawn a month ago i believe.

[chromiumboy]

do borgs have the tool/chassis selection on spawn yet? if yes, this should be wrapped into that system. otherwise this should be expanded into a generic system that fits that. i havent kept up on the silicons sphere of things in a while though due to busy but thats my input.

Yes, borg type selection is in, see #32586

I'm not sure about merging these two systems together as they function somewhat differently / have different uses. Borg switching is a one off event that changes the entire entity, while station AI customization is repeatable and ony affects appearance. The customizations also have to follow the AI so if they are inserted into a new core, the customizations get reapplied, while borgs don't need to worry about that

But if we really want a single generic system to handle all this, I'm gunna leave it to someone else. I'm not really interested in rewriting this code again, I've done that once already to meet PJB's requirements

[ruddygreat]

Could you add AI name customisation to this as well, or would that be too out of scope?
Being saddled with a random name at the start of a round is kinda just annoying.

[he1acdvv]

Cat and corgi I'm not sure are a good idea because they're not easily distinguishable from real cats or real corgis. The humans at least have a unique "outfit" on.

You might be colorblind.
( Unless you've meant cognizine entities talking, which is a rare exception. )