Automaton AI Customization

[Castrato]

I like this concept. It has lots of potential. Maybe those useless Cardian cards could have a use after all.

[Theytak]

I've been thinking about how we've been asking for more control over our automaton's WS, and also about how it would be nice to be able to utilize the puppets to proc yellow if we could, and I came up with a wonky-spitballed idea that reminded me of this thread.

Maneuver Cards

Basically, you take cor's quickdraw elemental cards, and combine them with cardian cards, in some low level alchemy synth. I mean the 8 original QD cards, btw, excluding trump. Basically, the cards go in your ammo slot, and act as maneuvers for the automaton, but ONLY in the decision making process. They have no effect on attachment potency. There would be 3 tiers, based on the cardian card used:

Light Crystal:
Quick Draw Card x3
Cardian Card x1

Tier 1:
Cardian 2, 3, 4, Jack cards: NQ: Jack of (element) x33 HQ1: Jack of (element) x66 HQ2/3: Jack of (element) x99
Cardian 5, 6, 7, Queen cards: NQ: Queen of (element) x33 HQ1: Queen of (element) x66 HQ2/3: Queen of (element) x99
Cardian 8, 9, 10, King cards: NQ: King of (element) x33 HQ1: King of (element) x66 HQ2/3: King of (element) x99

full list:
Jack/Queen/King of Flames (Fire Maneuver)
Jack/Queen/King of Tides (Water Maneuver)
Jack/Queen/King of Storms (Thunder Maneuver)
Jack/Queen/King of Tremors (Earth Maneuver)
Jack/Queen/King of Gales (Wind Maneuver)
Jack/Queen/King of Frost (Ice Maneuver)
Jack/Queen/King of Shadows (Dark Maneuver)
Jack/Queen/King of Radiance (Light Maneuver)

Each tier acts as a different number of maneuvers; Jacks are 1, Queens are 2, Kings are 3, and again, this only applies to decision making. Each tier of card will effectively negate one of the actual maneuvers' ability to influence decisions. For example, with King of Storms cards equipped, you can have 3x fire maneuvers active, but valoredge would still use String Shredder. Each ws would consume 1 card. Additionally, although they wouldn't affect attachments like loudspeaker or tension spring, cards could be used in place of, or in addition to, maneuvers that would be consumed by attachments (still capping at 3). For example, having a Jack of Radiance card would allow you to use eraser regardless of what maneuvers you had up. The automaton would prioritize card tiers over maneuvers, so say for barrage turbine, if you had Jack of Gales equipped and 3 wind maneuvers, it would eat 1 card and 2 maneuvers, not 3 cards; queens would be 1 card and 1 maneuver, kings would be 1 card. However for activating these abilities, you would still need to have at least one of the correct maneuver active (so you can't use King of Frost and 3x water maneuvers to tap in to the extra MAB from mana channeler, you'd have to have at least 1 ice maneuver active to trigger ice maker).

However, the cards would work slightly differently with stormwaker/harlequin frames. Instead of deciding ws priority, they would modify spellcasting, depending on the head equipped.
Spiritreaver: Modifies Elemental Spell Tier
Soulsoother: Modifies Cure/Regen Spell Tier
Stormwaker: Modifies both Elemental and Cure Spell Tiers

Basically, each head would react to cards like so:
All: Cards will be consumed for matching maneuver consuming attachments
Valoredge, Sharpshot, and Harlequin: Cards act as top priority for deciding WS
Spiritreaver:
- No card: as is
- King of: Tier V elemental spell matching card
- Queen of: Tier IV elemental spell matching card
- Jack of: Tier III elemental spell matching card
Soulsoother:
- No card: Cure VI, Cure V with less HP lost (I mean how it currently works on the test server); Regen IV
- King of Radiance: Cure V, Cure IV with with less HP lost
- Queen of Radiance: Cure IV, Cure III with less HP lost
- Jack of Radiance: Cure III, Cure II with less HP lost
- King of Tides: Regen III
- Queen of Tides: Regen II
- Jack of Tides: Regen I
Stormwaker:
- No card: as is
- King of: Tier IV elemental spell; Cure III
- Queen of: Tier III elemental spell; Cure II
- Jack of: Tier II elemental spell; Cure I

Note that cards wouldn't allow a spell to be cast outside of its recast timer, its category recast, or the global recast. If the proper timers aren't all up the puppet would cast the spell that would otherwise be its first choice for the given recast/maneuver situation.


Would this be horrible for our inventory? absolutely. Would it be an annoying, unnecessary system? Yep. Would it solve a lot of problems we have with WS priority and spellcast AI? yea it would. Would it be easier to implement than SE fucking with the AI and not telling us what they did? Definitely. But as I said, this is just a spitball brainstorm idea.