Converts most spans into span procs. Mostly used regex for this and sorted out any compile time errors afterwards so there could be some bugs.
Was initially going to do defines, but ninja said to make it into a proc, and if there's any overhead, they can easily be changed to defines.
Makes it easier to control the formatting and prevents typos when creating spans as it'll runtime if you misspell instead of silently failing.
Reduces the code you need to write when writing spans, as you don't need to close the span as that's automatically handled by the proc.
(Note from Lemon: This should be converted to defines once we update the minimum version to 514. Didn't do it now because byond pain and such)
It's the second try! (First: #48456)
Drones are little robots inspired by Keepers from the Mass Effect games. With laws to maintain both the station, and their distance from the matters of others, they were a great ghost role that let you fix up the station when you were otherwise out of the round. They were in the game for quite a while, but were abused. The abusive players completely ignored the laws and did whatever they wanted. Being tiny ventcrawlers, this became a huge issue for admins.
I attempted to bring them back, this time with some gameplay restrictions to enforce their laws a bit better. It seemed to go well, but I required headmin approval, and this all happened near a headmin election, so the project died.
Recently, some people have wanted to bring drones back. So, they gave me a ring, and I started a discussion with the admin team to see what other changes they would want in addition to the previous ones.
Here are those changes:
They can't interact at all when close to another being, living or dead
Their binary chat has been removed to separate them from AI and borgs
They can only hold a whitelist of items necessary to do their job
They can only interact with machines necessary to do their job
The drone satchel is gone, and drones now have built in basic tools
They also can't interact in some blacklisted high risk areas
Finally, you must play 40 hours total as a Silicon role in order to play as a drone
Additionally, the drone dispenser is not mapped, and the drones must be researched to be constructed.
Why It's Good For The Game
Drones are a fun way to pass the time, and this time they have a lot less freedom. You can still perform the basic function of maintaining the station, but not without difficulty and tedium. This will allow other station roles to perform much better than the drones, while still letting them chug along at their slower pace.
