Love-To-Hug

Shared department, imo. Here's what I'd do: Magistrate has priority on law. NT Rep has priority on SoP. Both can do terminations, but if one disagrees with a termination the HoS or Captain is the tiebreaker.

I am curious why we don't just make all the stun stuff work like the disabler. Turn all hybrid tasers into disablers, lower the fire rate, and make all the stunsticks require a double tap. You'd probably see riot shotguns used WITHOUT changing the rounds to lethal if that happens.

This doesn't address my argument at all.

I think the point is being missed to a great extent here. There is a limit to the security force, and the amount of antagonists we have in a given round is meant to be tailored to that amount of Security*. It's part of the balance of the round. The problem is borgs allow that limit to be surpassed to such a degree that, in that round for instance, there was essentially +50% more Security than there would normally be. *(And, to reiterate, the HoP simply increasing the officer limit is not the same thing, as it requires additional equipment from cargo, an experienced HoP, coordination in command chat, and then waiting for players to take the slots and get up to speed. Whereas secborgs start with everything they need and have sometimes been lurking dchat so already have an idea of what's going on, and even if they try not to act on that info it's still a situation they are comfortable going into.)

I addressed that later on. The shadowlings remarked after the round that while you did indeed make the kills, the secborgs were fanned out to such a degree they were being whittled down and unable to find thrall targets without a secborg being dangerously nearby.

A 3-5 limit is exceedingly high. That's still a 50% increase to the force. I'm of the opinion they should be removed entirely, but a lot of people like them for aesthetic reasons, such as my friend Travelling Merchant... and I can sympathize with this. In my opinion, 2 on high peak and 1 every other time would be reasonable.

uh... it's not irrelevant, and while they have weaknesses you are overlooking their strengths. they provide all access for themselves and any officers they are with. their flaws are hard to take advantage of in a big fight. They can spam the disabler. Generally the warden should be conducting searches and processing. And they can deal with a crowd just fine with their stunbaton energy tied to their batteries. The only good point here is the lack of lethals from range, but given they can make it far easier for accompanying officers to use theirs and their durability in the face of other station threats, it's not really that big of a deal.

It requires coordination with both the HoS and the Captain and a competent cargo that can get the orders properly delivered. It is also considered a faux pas to do unless on at least blue with the security forces feeling strained.

You can bet they would though if it wasn't such a pain (by design) to support a greater force.

I was referring to the HoP's ability to increase security slots.

The main reason it works like this is to make it harder for the security force to be increased as that has a major impact on the balance of game rounds.

This doesn't address the main point of secborgs not being accounted for in the current meta of Security vs Antags. A 50% increase of the security force is immense. HoPs being able to increase the slots does not take into account the additional equipment and coordination required to make that happen, not to mention it being considered a Faux pas to do so before necessary.

I don't think the emag is meant to be stealthy, unless you mean like an upgraded emag or something. I always interpreted it as a NT ID card that's been reverse engineered and has a bunch of components to it that don't even really fit in the card anymore. But yes I agree with the overall sentiment.

That may be due to the fact I wasn't a shadowling. I, instead, felt very disappointed a very exciting round turned into a bit of a wet fart due to secborg involvement. I don't see why the idea of removing secborgs is silly when other servers have felt it had a positive impact. Controversial, of course, but silly? That's just silly. I was not even an antag that round. Trying to rile people up by getting under their skin is what I meant by 'bait', and it's what you are still doing.

This is bait. It's not like I just started playing on the server yesterday? Secborgs have always been quite powerful, but the balance dynamic has changed pretty significantly since we became a high-pop server. No longer is Security constantly understaffed at high peak, now they are fully staffed and the small army of borgs makes them a significantly stronger department, and the gametypes don't take a potentially 50% more populated Security dept into consideration. As for the round in question, while there was a secborg in particular that killed the shadowlings, from what I learned from the post-round chat they were being whittled down and had no room to breathe. It was not like the secborg marched in on someone who'd never played the game before, they were overwhelmed and were weakened from past encounters.

Thing is, other servers have tried it, and have found the change to be worth keeping. So it's not like there isn't any precedent.

Obviously make them unable to get usable blood from humanized monkies. Make blood-sucking a power, and make it more obvious. Perhaps make it resemble what it would look like if both the vampire and the victim initiated a grab on each other, as that would be rather distinct. Make the blood-sucking automatically stop when the blood threshold is about to reach an unsafe level, requiring a re-activation of the power to continue draining, which will kill. Institute the 'Vampire: The Masquerade' style mechanic where the victim has no memory of the attack. Big, big font while the draining is happening stating their in-character expectation while their voice is lowered to a whisper. Alternatively, a way to easily mask their identity that can be toggled on and off. An alternative to thralling that can be used on mindshielded targets that simply makes them unwilling to take hostile action against the vampire, perhaps due to supernatural fear. Lower blood cost on thralling. Choosing what powers you get!! Again, VtM would make for great inspiration. Holy Water no longer does damage or suppresses powers, and instead drains usable blood. (Makes vampires more reasonable to imprison)

Security Officers don't spawn with even half of all the gear they need, so that there can be more slots isn't really that valid. A lot of prepwork has to be done to support a larger force. Shipments, deliveries, an experienced HoP, and some coordination within command are all required. Secborgs start with everything they need and are even spaceworthy.

I feel like the power of these things is being significantly downplayed. Even with the weaknesses you describe they're much harder to take down than a standard sec officer, and they don't take up any Security slots, which means it's just a net gain to have them. Furthermore all of Security benefits from their ability to open doors, making stings that much more effective. Very difficult to balance around that.

Run where? Borgs have access to every major area by default and, more importantly, are spaceworthy. Most of the strategies you folks are describing are for traitor rounds, but we have several gametypes. Borgs are quite exceedingly powerful in ling and vamp rounds as well.

The fact they aren't 'real' Security is an issue, yes. As long as they're acting within their lawset they don't need to adhere to SoP. The most you can hope for is the AI to discipline them but the AI is generally so overworked that they have precious little time to try and play HoS to their Secborgs.

The other borgs don't go after antags. They have all access and can spam the holy hell out of the disabler. And even if they couldn't, just having two secborgs together pretty much renders their weaknesses moot. Plus they get really hard to kill with EMPs later into the round when they have bluespace power cells.

Shadowlings aren't the problem here (or rather, they are their own problem). They are an enormous power increase to Security in every single gametype. That they made the shadowling round a joke is just an easy metric to see how powerful they are.

There were only like 4 secborgs in that round. It does not take a lot of them for them to have a gigantic impact on the round. And that's like, a 50% roster increase in officers alone.

Just got out of a shadowling round where things were looking pretty tense at the outset. It was really looking like we, the crew, were going to lose. Bodies were pouring into medbay. Then the secborgs formed a mob that went through maintenance. They were unstoppable. They stomped a mudhole into all the shadowlings. When i mentioned this after the round, someone said they wanted secborgs to stay because 'it's the only way to deal with shadowlings really'... but that kind of proves just how overpowered they are? Other stations have been getting rid of them and I'm really starting to see why. They're an enormous boon to Security in a way that makes the game much harder to balance, where the power difference between a Security team without secborgs and one with secborgs is rather enormous.