[Security Rework]

16 hours ago, BottomQuark said:

Ok so. Let me talk about roles:

1. Constable
I don't see any real reason to make another role for it, I personally as security officer prefer handling greytides than hunting antags. But why not make it alt-title for Security Officer, that would work the same as Medical Doctor and Surgeon, and it works fine in medbay.

2. Dispatcher
I'm not so sure about that one, I don't have anything against that, but do we need it? Watching cameras all the time might and propably will be boring, it sounds more like Warden's/Detective's job in free time.

3. Armorer
Someone suggested to make "Brig Technician/Brig Engineer" role here, and it basicly got denied ((even if I love the idea)). If Armorer would be a thing, I'd combine these 2 roles ((Brig tech+Armorer in one. I still love the idea of Brig Technician, even if I understand why idea was denied))

4. Detective
More than dispatcher, I'd like to see 1 additional det slot at the start of the round, and making detectives watch camera in free time ((Maybe alt-title Dispatcher?))

About "Job auto-availability", that's good idea, but I'd limit that just to general occupations like Medical Doctor/Scientist/Engineer/Security Officer/Botanist/Janitor

About "Difficulty communicating and cooperating" From what you said, you focused on inter-department communication. For me solution is to auto-assign officers to department and giving them additional radio channel. From what I know para used to have something like that, I'm not sure. 

 

15 hours ago, Pennwick said:

Personally I feel the Constable, Dispatcher, and Armorer are adding too much complexity.

The constable is only needed if you add in the Hooligans and I personally feel like they're a bad idea. If they are implemented it should probably be entirely separate decision.

The dispatcher I have a lot of issue with. Who keeps an eye out, co-ordinates officers and helps with processing when needed? THE HEAD OF SECURITY. This is kinda what the head should be doing, not acting as a Sec Officer+, you're the head of the department, you're supposed to be delegating, not rushing in with your special gun and coat.

The Armorer stepping over a lot of lines that shouldn't be. Its kind of a 'security takes what it needs' thing that I sometimes worry about with the brig doctor. RnD is usually happy to print out whatever you need if you send a PDA message to the right person or get them to notice the Requests console. The issue is that you don't know who's the RnD guy and the console is almost always ignored but if science gets the message they're usually happy to provide. Delivering is a bit of an issue but they're usually willing to take a few minutes to drag you a locker of stuff. Or you could try to get Cargo to schedule a MULE pickup but getting a tech who knows how to do that is pretty rare.

If you wanted to add someone to the Brig roster I'd make it an Assistant Warden or a Brig Officer. Full SO access but not supposed to carry a gun or baton. Their job is to help with processing, watch the prisoners and attend to their needs, keep the records nice and tidy, go check with RnD for potential upgrades, and if time permits, watch the cameras. It'd take some pressure off the Warden and give a more laid back option to security types who want a round off from "catchin' the antags".

First off, thank you both for the critiques. I definitely appreciate you taking the time to read my spiel.

Re the Constable: Making it an alt-title means that a) newbies often won't find the title in the first place, that b) it'll have the same responsibilities and duties as any other officer, resulting in anyone wanting to greytide-wrangle getting roped into antagonist-hunting by simple necessity, not to mention that c) the role would have the same SOP, gear, and duties as normal. It also wouldn't provide an earlier-unlocked role for newbies to dip their feet into playing Sec, rendering that design goal moot. Making it an alternate-title might work for the design goal of "having a lower-intensity Sec role for experienced players," but it'd be very detrimental for the goal of "providing a simpler and easier role for newbies to learn the job." I'd argue for the necessity of the Constable position given how steep the Sec learning curve is, and how many people are scared away by that alone.

Re the Dispatcher: The issue is fundamentally one of overpopulation. Having the Detective or Warden juggle watching cams in their free time makes sense with 50-something players on the server, but that's downright impossible with 100+ players around. And as mentioned, the gear rework - making Security HUDs read-only and adding a camera to Security headsets - adds a lot more potential work. Sec Officers having their own cameras by default (as opposed to the kludged-together workarounds like carrying around a Video Camera and having someone watch one of the TVs station-wide, or carrying a GPS so that their body might be found) would be helpful for keeping them in the round if they're attacked, but it does require someone to watch 'em for the rework to actually be useful. Additionally, it provides another "lower-intensity" role for both newbies looking to learn how Security functions and experienced players looking for a slower-paced round; both the Warden and Detective roles are fairly high-intensity in practice.

Re the Armorer: I can't speak for people arguing against it, but I would suggest that anyone who has an issue with the job consider the argument I made here. In line with that same argument, a key design goal behind the Armorer role was of improving departmental cooperation and avoiding the "Security island" issue. The Armorer is a Scientist rather than a member of Security, with all the baggage attached to that - they answer to the RD, they're under Science SOP, they aren't allowed to make arrests, etc etc etc. The two key elements of the role are a mindshield and having access to Security comms from roundstart, since the goal here was to provide a Scientist who had clear communication and trust with Security.

Re the Detective: Given the original design goal of the Detective (MOAR HARDBOILED) and the issue of a lack of crimes on lower populations, I'd settled instead for having additional 'Forensic Technician' slots open up as the population increased. That being said, I'd hardly be against that myself; I've certainly run my feet ragged when playing as the Detective, and I can't count how many times I've seen cases go cold due to a Detective being overworked, delinquent, or both.

Regarding "difficulty cooperating:" I'd be for having departmental checkpoints myself, although the response from the server maintainers was that it was a no-go. On the whole I definitely agree with you there, though, and I'd definitely like to see Sec Officers start with an 'assignment' to a particular department along with the armband and encryption key to go with it. I mentioned that in my argument in the other thread, but forgot to include it here - apologies. I can understand not wanting to include departmental access or Security checkpoints in different departments, but just having comms access - hell, doing the same for other departments too - could do a lot to overcome the recurring "departmental island" issue.

 

15 hours ago, tzo said:

You make some good points:

• We lack enough job slots to handle our population.
• Having more game modes that scale based on sec pop, rather than having static numbers, might help.
• Job auto-scaling would help too.
• There's been a lot of people bringing up 'sec cadets' for many different reasons over the years. Perhaps it is time to give them a try.

However, there are several issues with what you propose:

• You're conflating a lot of problems together. You might have more luck trying to tackle them separately. Getting consensus about what to do in tackling even ONE of these areas would be a challenge.
• There are some proposals in here which are just outright not viable. For example, the idea of a 'sec armorer'. It would drastically change game balance. Even more than brig phys, and brig phys is already disliked by some people because its being used in a way far more sec-favorable than intended. It was intended to allow a medic to treat prisoners, but it gets used as sec's personal medic and excuse to never visit medbay. Hooligans are just greytide... but worse. We get enough chaos from greytide as is, we don't want to legitimize it.
• These ideas are not prioritized. There so much here that realistically, we can't implement all of this at once even if we did agree with it all (which many won't). Instead of throwing out every possible idea, pick the... two or so ideas you think would help most, try to build consensus around those. Once they're merged, then look to iterate and improve on them.

Thanks. I went for a comprehensive rework because individual reforms have been shot down on the basis of being "not comprehensive enough." Given that, I figured that I might as well propose a sweeping framework to avoid that particular critique; that being said, if there's one thing I would love to see implemented, it's scaling antagonist numbers to Sec rather than to playercount. I simply can't emphasize that enough: it (should be) a relatively easy change to implement, and one that's sorely needed given the issue of low Security numbers in the first place.

In line with your critique about ordering this all into something more compact, here's a more compact framework which should hopefully make the whole mess a little more legible. It's in order of perceived importance, but the goal is to provide ideas and inspiration rather than a list of demands - coders, please pick and choose as you see fit:

 

Dealing with the overpopulation problem:

A. Antagonist balance: Make antagonist numbers (Shadowling, changeling+vampire, traitor+vampire, etc etc etc.) scale with Security playercount, rather than total playercount.

B. Job auto-creation: Additional jobs in all departments (see above) are automatically added depending on total playercount.

Helping newbies:

A. Add an alternate "Security Cadet" title to the Security Officer role.

B. Constable: An early-unlocking role with fewer responsibilities than the standard Sec Officer job. (will also help with the overpopulation issue) Additional details, including proposed SOP and starting equipment, detailed above.

Improving department cooperation:

A. Comms: Security Officers start with an armband and encryption key of another major department in their packs (Engineering, Science, Medical, or Cargo), and their starting text would additionally state that "You are assigned to the [name] department to assist them with security-related issues." I'd like to see the same for other departments. such as giving Engineers a department to focus on and the like, minus Security (since without a mindshield, it'd be potentially compromising Sec comms from the start).

B. Armorer: A Scientist with a fancy title, a mindshield, and Security comms. Can be trusted with Sec comms from the start.

Helping newbies:

A. Add a "Security Cadet" title to the Security Officer role, for anyone wanting to indicate that they're new at the job.

B. Constable: An early-unlocking role with fewer responsibilities than the standard Sec Officer job (will also help with the overpopulation issue). Meant to be focused on the "protect and serve" side of policing, and to be well out of the way of the usual Sec-antag fight if possible. Additional details available above.

Making Sec Officers less of a target:

A. Make HUDSunglasses read-only, so that antagonists won't be able to remove an *Arrest* status as easily.

B. Add a non-deactivating camera to Security bowman headsets, so that Sec Officers can be found more easily when they're in trouble.

C. Dispatcher: the Detective and Warden have their own full-time jobs to do, and can't spend their time watching over the cameras of a half-dozen officers on their lonesome. Therefore, a 'Dispatcher' role can watch the new (and old) cameras, update records, monitor comms, manning the front desk of the Brig, etc. (it'll also help with the overpopulation issue).

Misc. proposed changes (low-priority):

A. A yellow "Inspect" status, separate from the standard *Arrest* one, so that a cooperative suspect can be brought to the Brig without getting Beepsky'd.

B. Making X-Ray less ridiculously effective, so that antagonists have an easier time of escaping Security. Currently, X-Ray provides complete full-screen vision, /and/ nightvision capability to boot. Removing the night-vision power alone would make it less effective, and therefore increase the importance of supporting roles like the Detective and Dispatcher in ensuring that an antagonist is caught.

C. Hooligan: A low-level antagonist with miscellaneous goals like enriching themselves via theft, or similar actions. Basically, an effort to encourage low-level crime and an active black market, rather than making antagonistic behavior on the server be just about the big bad antags of the round.

D. Make the HoS have a small karma-lock of 5 points. Given how critical the role is to ensuring a good Security team (and how much trouble a bad HoS can cause for the crew as a whole), this should improve the competence of the average HoS per round.

[Security Rework]

 

Basic issue: Security is often understaffed, severely enough that it's a major topic of concern. The statistics are pretty clear: most people just don't find Security a fun enough job to play.

 

General causes:

A. Overpopulation: The server routinely hits over 120 players, with the map and game balanced for closer to ~50 player size. The population issue leads to moments like this, where the station's regular jobs are rapidly filled, and anyone hoping to join is left to either ghost, go as an assistant, or salt about it on Reddit. Perhaps more pertinent, though, it also leads to a ridiculously large Assistant playercount with little productive work to do (i.e. greytiding galore), and:

B. Excessive antagonist numbers: Most game modes assign antags based on the total number of players, not the total number of Security players. Combined with the overpopulation problem, this can lead to a fairly ridiculous Sec-antag imbalance once the server reaches 80+ players as it commonly does. I've often seen hilarious imbalances where antagonists like changelings, vampires, or shadowlings (who are designed to reliably win or tie a 1v1 confrontations) outnumbering Sec members at roundstart. Furthermore:

C. General overwork: Between prisoner processing, greytiders, responding to crew calls for "SEC DORMS" and the like, or simple Public Relations requirements (manning the front desk, responding to accusations of Sec misbehavior, etc), there are far too many tasks for the average Sec Officer to handle at once.

D. Being "valid:" Regular Security Officers are seen as valid targets for antagonists, which means that they're frequently attacked, killed, and taken out of the round (husked, spaced, decapitated, etc.). This is obviously fairly un-fun for the officer getting valid-ed in this fashion, which contributes to the Sec staffing issue. The two most common reasons for this include reducing Sec numbers, and taking their gear.

E. Escalation and capability gaps: Security Officers rarely "level up" throughout a round, despite there being plenty of legal methods for doing so. Few of them get implant/augment surgery, for instance, and the average officer rarely gets even basic equipment like holsters. Much of this is due to the aforementioned overwork, as there's always something else requiring their attention. However, much of this is also due to:

F. Difficulty communicating and cooperating: There's a significant lack of cooperation between different departments, and mechanically, there are few methods of encouraging that cooperation short of "Heads of Staff chatting on private Command comms." Scientists, Botanists, Engineers, and Cargo techs all lack access to Security comms and areas, and vice versa, resulting in different departments generally heading off to do their own thing (Cargonia, Engistan-Atmosia, Medistan, Scientopia, etc.).

G. A difficult learning curve: There's no "learner's course" for Security, and no way for a newbie to easily mark themselves as one without drawing trouble down on their own head. This is a problem in other jobs, of course, but the high requirements placed on Sec makes this much more notable, and more of a barrier to entry for prospective members.

Conclusion: There are some long-standing problems like the issue of Security Officers being whacked for their loot or the learning curve for the job, but the more recent issue is simply the overwhelming playerbase size and the attendant issues which go along with it.

 

Goals:

Overall: Mechanically encourage more-positive player interactions involving Security by lowering the demand on individual players, allowing for more-casual participation, and reducing the negative consequences involved with the role. Tl;dr make Security more fun to play.

A. Balance the Sec-antag numbers so that Security isn't completely overwhelmed by the threat of the day.

B. Add in specialized Sec roles to help with the overwork (and also let people play those specific elements of Sec without getting swept up in the general antagonist-hunt).

C. Try to keep Sec players from being taken out of the game quite as easily.

D. Give new players more ways to "stretch their legs" by either indicating they're a newbie, or by playing a Security role which is less-intense than the 'frontline' ones.

 

Game-mechanics changes:

A. The "AutoTraitor" approach: Currently, the AutoTraitor gamemode balances antagonists with Security Officers, the legitimate antag-hunters. New traitors are generated either from existing players or from new arrivals depending on the number of Sec players in the round, to keep from overwhelming them. I'd like to see this mechanic extended to other antags (changelings, vampires, and shadowlings in particular) to keep Security from being overwhelmed from the get-go.

B. Job auto-availability: As it stands, the only way for new jobs to appear in-game is via someone with ID Modification access (i.e. the Captain or HoP) mechanically adding new job slots, or by demoting existing players. The job-slot mechanic is intentionally slowed to a rate of one modification per minute, to prevent ridiculous imbalances, but this leads to the situation above where there simply are no jobs available whatsoever. In order to head off some of the issue of "too little work" and the attendant strain on Sec, I'd like to see the following jobs automatically increase:

           -Every ten new players above 50 (i.e. 60, 70, 80, etc.), one new job slot for each of the following: Station Engineer, Security Officer, Scientist, Medical Doctor, Constable (see below)

          -Every twenty new players above 60 (i.e. 80, 100, 120), one new job slot for: Botanist, Atmos Tech, Roboticist, Shaft Miner, Cargo Technician, Janitor, Forensics Technician (i.e. Detective, but starts with a Forensics Scanner)

          -Every thirty new players above 60 (i.e. 90, 120), one new job slot for: Chef, Dispatcher (see below)

 

New jobs:

1. Constable: A lower-intensity Security role with the duty of handling the non-antag-focused portion of Security. Expected to spend a lot of time around the Bar corralling drunks and greytiders.

2. Dispatcher: A lower-intensity Security role with the duty of watching station cameras and getting officers to where they need to be. Also positioned to assist with processing and prisoners as needed.

3. Armorer: A Science role, but starts with a mindshield and access to Sec comms. Expected to help gear up the Sec team over the course of a shift.

Spoiler

Constable:

-Two Constable positions at roundstart, with additional positions auto-increasing as player population increases (can be manually increased).

-Unlocks after 5-10 days of play (regular officers unlock after 30, if I remember correctly)

-Starting Access: Maintenance, Brig, Prison Wing, Holding Cells. Does NOT have Security or Armory access

-Starting Equipment: Constable Uniform (standard 10% melee defense), black gloves, body armor, HUDSunglasses, a Corporate Officer hat, and a Security headset. Backpack contains: a flash, pepperspray, first-aid kit, a 'Mission Briefing' paper (see below), and a copy of Security SOP. (The hat is meant to provide a visual difference between Constables and Officers, and the SOP and first-aid kit are meant to reinforce the Constable's 'Public Safety' role). Does NOT start with a tazer, stunbaton, or handcuffs (to emphasize their less-violent role, to limit the harm a shitty Constable can do, and to make them less of a target for antags).

-Starting Location: Bar (to reinforce their 'public safety' role). If possible, a separate 'Constable Ready Room' near the Bar area would also be handy.

-Starting Text: 'You are the Constable. Your job is to serve and protect the station crew.'

-Starts with a paper in their backpack (labeled 'Constable Mission Briefing'): "

[logo][br][br]Mission Briefing: Constable[br]

[br]All right, officer, time to earn that pay. Remember:[br]-As a Constable, you're out there to keep the crew safe. Let the Security Officers chase down the bad guys; your job is to keep the peace.[br]-Work with the crew when you can, even when they're breaking the law. Just saying 'please' can make arrests a lot easier for you.[br]-When someone's causing trouble and won't come in quietly, set their criminal status to *Arrest* and let the Securitron robots take them down. Better that they get hit than you![br]-Read up on Space Law and Security SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), and do your best to follow it. If you have questions about it, don't be afraid to ask IA (Internal Affairs), the Magistrate, or your boss the Head of Security for help.[br][br]Good luck out there, and stay safe! I want you coming home happy, not in a bodybag.[br][br]John Smith, Field Training Officer"  (This paper is meant to give a little guidance for someone who's brand-new to the job, rather than just dumping them in with no prompting)

---

Armorer:

-One Armorer position (unique, cannot be increased). Karma-locked, 30 points. Member of Science, answers to the RD.

-Starting Access: Maintenance, Brig, Science, R&D, Toxins, Xenobiology. Does NOT have Armory, Security, or Robotics access (the lack of Armory access helps keep the Warden relevant, and makes the Armorer less of a loot-pinata target, since they'll be outside of the Brig so often)

-Starting Equipment: Science uniform, Security headset, tool-belt with basic tools. (To emphasize their gear-focused role) Does NOT start with a tazer or handcuffs (to emphasize that they aren't supposed to be making arrests)

-Starting Location: R&D or Toxins

-Starting Text: 'You are the Armorer. Your job is to assist the station's Security team by maintaining, repairing, and improving their equipment.'

---

Security Dispatcher:

-One Dispatcher at roundstart, with more depending on station population. Can be manually increased.

-Starting Access: Maintenance, Brig, Security, Prison Wing

-Starting Equipment: Dispatcher's Uniform (already exists, just rarely used), body armor, Security beret, Security headset, HUDSunglasses. Does NOT start with a tazer or handcuffs (to emphasize that they aren't supposed to be making arrests)

-Starting Location: Security Briefing Room

-Starting text: 'You are the Security Dispatcher. Your job is to monitor the station's Security team, and to help them get where they're needed.'

 

New SOPs:

Constable - Code Green:

1. Constables are required to state the reasons behind an arrest before any further action is taken. Exception is made if the suspect refuses to stop;

2. Constables must attempt to bring all suspects or witnesses to the Brig without handcuffing or incapacitating them. Should the suspect not cooperate, the Constable should change the suspect's arrest status to *Arrest* and alert the station's Security team;

3. The Constable shall not attempt to subdue an uncooperative suspect on their own. If attacked, the Constable is expected to retreat and call for backup;

4. Constables are permitted to carry a flash, a flashbang, and a can of pepperspray;

5. Constables may not demand access to the interior of other Departments during routine patrols. Exception is made if the Constable is responding to an emergency;

6. Constables are not permitted to have weapons drawn during regular patrols;

7. Constables are permitted to conduct searches, provided there is reasonable evidence/suspicion that the person in question has committed a crime. Any further searches require a warrant from the Head of Security, Captain or Magistrate;

8. Lethal Force is not authorized unless there is a direct threat to the station's integrity or the Constable's life.

Constable - Code Blue:

1. Guidelines 1, 2, 4 and 8 are carried over from Code Green;

2. Constables are permitted to carry non-lethal equipment such as a tazer, stunbaton and handcuffs, at the discretion of the Warden or Head of Security. Lethal weapons are allowed only during severe emergencies, such as a 'Blob' organism outbreak or attack by a Syndicate strike team;

3. Constables are permitted to attempt to subdue uncooperative suspects on their own, although this is not recommended;

4. Constables may demand entry to specific Departments during regular patrols;

5. Constables may randomly search crewmembers, but are not allowed to apply any degree of force unless said crewmember acts overtly hostile. Crew who refuse to be searched may be stunned and cuffed for the search;

6. Constables are permitted to leave prisoners bucklecuffed should they act hostile.

Constable - Code Red:

1. Guidelines 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are carried over from Code Blue;

2. Constables may arrest crewmembers with no stated reason if there is evidence they are involved in criminal activities;

3. During a Code Red, crewmembers must remain in their respective departments (Civilians are to remain in the Bar, Chapel, or Departures). Constables may forcefully relocate crewmembers to their respective Departments if necessary.

 

(The Constable SOP is taken from the Security Officer SOP, just with a greater focus on non-violent action. Let me know if you think anything should be revised here)

 

Armorer - Code Green:

1. The Armorer may not perform arrests, process prisoners, or perform searches under any circumstances;

2. The Armorer may carry a flash and a can of pepperspray;

3. The Armorer shall work to maintain, repair, and improve existing Security equipment. However, all new lethal weaponry shall be immediately transported to the Armory for secure storage, and may not be carried on the Armorer's person. Exception is made for extreme circumstances, such as a 'Blob' organism outbreak or attack by a Syndicate strike team;

4. The Armorer may manufacture implants and augments for use by Security personnel. However, installation of these implants shall be voluntary, and performed by the Brig Physician (if available);

Armorer - Code Blue:

1. Guidelines 1, 3, and 4 carry over from Code Green.

2. In addition to their existing tools, the Armorer may carry a tazer for self-defense.

Armorer - Code Red:

1. All guidelines carry over from Code Blue.

(Goes under the Science SOP)

---

Dispatcher - Code Green:

1. The Security Dispatcher may not perform arrests, process prisoners, or perform searches unless given specific permission by the Head of Security or Warden. Exception is made if there are no active Officers or Warden;

2. The Dispatcher may not unholster their weapons unless a clear and present danger to their life is present;

3. The Dispatcher may carry a flash, a flashbang, and a can of pepperspray. However, they are not to use these weapons except in self-defense. Exception is made for extreme circumstances, such as a 'Blob' organism outbreak or attack by a Syndicate strike team;

4. The Dispatcher shall monitor the station's Security personnel, and may direct them to where they are most needed. However, the Dispatcher does not outrank any other member of the Security team, and should conduct themselves accordingly;

5. The Dispatcher is expected to assist the Warden in updating and maintaining arrest records.

Dispatcher - Code Blue:

1. Guidelines 1, 4, and 5 carry over from Code Green.

2. The Dispatcher may unholster their weapons as needed, although this is not recommended.

3. In addition to their existing tools, the Dispatcher may carry a stunbaton and tazer as available.

Armorer - Code Red:

1. Guidelines 2 and 3 carry over from Code Green.

2. The Dispatcher may carry lethal weapons, at the discretion of the Head of Security.

 

Notes: The Constable is a role for either newbies (unlocks sooner, fewer responsibilities) or someone looking to play the non-violent side of Sec (fewer responsibilities). Although you can still play the role as a regular officer if you want, it's meant to let you play as the CSO/SRO archetype without forcing you into the "Sec vs. antag" shenanigans which happen most shifts. Much like the 'Global Antag Candidacy' button we have now, if you want to play Sec without having to 1v1 a vampire in Maint, go play a Constable and smoke a fat blunt with the Botanists before telling greytiders to 'just chill, man.'

By contrast, the Armorer is meant to let Sec 'scale' up as the shift goes on, by providing a mindshielded Scientist who can be trusted with Sec comms from roundstart. This is meant to keep Sec Officers from being as horribly outgunned by the usual AEG/teleshield/meth-using Science traitors who could otherwise kill the shit out of them with little effort. The job is meant for the mad-scientist sort of player: you're downright expected to make cool toys, deliver cool augments to the BrigPhys to keep 'em from getting bored, and are trusted enough by Sec that they'll actually let you put cool chem implants in their teeth.

The Dispatcher is a role for helping minimize the amount of chaos inherent with Sec: their job is to watch cameras religiously, update records, and to get officers to where they're supposed to be. Although the Warden can help with this, ultimately the Warden has too many plates to juggle at once: processing prisoners, distributing gear, checking in with perma'd prisoners, etc etc etc. The Dispatcher is effectively a second (or third, or fourth) Warden who'll be watching dem cameras, updating dem records, and generally keeping the (un-fun) chaos to a dull roar rather than a full crescendo.

 

Tweaks to existing jobs:

Spoiler

Security Officer:

-Number of officers to scale with population. With the AutoTraitor mechanic, this'll allow more antagonists as well as Officers, which should keep the game interesting.

Detective:

-Adds additional 'Forensic Technicians' to scale with player count: one Forensic Tech at 80, one at 100, another at 120, etc. The Forensic Technician role does NOT open at roundstart (not enough crimes immediately to justify 'em), but becomes available at 15 minutes into the game for new-spawning players depending on the player count.

-Forensic Technicians have the same rank and access as the Detective, and follow the same SOP.

-Forensic Technicians start with the Forensic Tech uniform, body armor, a Security beret, a Sec headset, sunglasses, a tazer, a flash, a telebaton, a forensic scanner, an evidence bag box, a pair of handcuffs, and a universal recorder. This should give 'em enough to hit the ground running.

Notes: This should help the Forensics role scale with the number of players, to keep the Detective from getting overwhelmed with 100+ players running around and causing trouble all at once. It should also let more players try the Forensics side of Sec, which is otherwise relatively inaccessible with only one Detective per game.

Head of Security:

-Karma-locked, 5 points.

Notes: This relatively minimal lock should help keep most absolute gobshits from playing the job, given how critical the HoS is to a good Sec team.

As before, these additions are primarily meant to scale the Sec team up with the total playercount per game. One Detective is definitely enough for a 40-person game, but when there's a good 115 players running around, suddenly they're a little overwhelmed. These tweaks are meant to minimize the general chaos going on; they won't prevent people from being dipshits, but they'll minimize the effect of the 'bad apple' sort of rank-and-file Sec players by increasing the numbers to compensate.

 

New antag role:

Spoiler

Hooligan:

-Starting numbers: based on # of starting Constables. 1:1 hooligan:Constable ratio, +/-1.

-Starting role: Any EXCEPT for Heads or mindshielded personnel

-Starting equipment: N/A

-Starting text: 'You are the Hooligan. You are seeking to accomplish a criminal goal through underhanded means. [br][small]Note: You are NOT allowed to kill or otherwise completely end other players' rounds. Your job as an antagonist is to make the round a little more interesting. When in doubt, type 'adminhelp' to ask if something you plan on doing is OK.[/small]'

-Starting objectives are one of the following:

1. You want to get rich. Amass at least [X] amount in credits. (This is meant to encourage petty theft and similar criminal activity)

2. You want a particularly hard-to-get item. Acquire [Y] restricted item: a TYRANT AI module (Scientists and Roboticists excluded), a combat shotgun (Cargo Techs and the QM excluded), an Atmospherics Firesuit (Engineers and Atmos Techs excluded), etc etc etc. (This is meant to encourage black-market trading, racketeering, and similar activities)

3. You've got a grudge. Ensure that Person [Z] is arrested/demoted/etc. (Not as sure about this one, since it could be taken as license to grief, but I figure I should mention it anyway)

4. You're a little crazy. [Insert Abductor-victim objective here, i.e. 'find your lover on the station,' 'amass corpses,' etc.]

Notes: The goal here is to provide a decent number of low-level antagonists who're causing minor, but measurable, amounts of trouble. This is meant to provide license to perform a little griefing, but less 'Maint murderboning' and more 'steal someone's ID to drain their bank account' and the like. This could be expanded with basic gear that could be purchased with in-game cash (insulated gloves, etc.) to provide an incentive for more low-level crime. While that might seem a bit counterproductive, I think Security would be more enjoyable if their targets weren't always well-powered antagonists and were sometimes just mundane opponents like a greytider mugging someone for cash.

 

Gear changes:

Spoiler

Security HUDs: No longer able to update Sec statuses; updating someone's arrest record will require a dedicated console. This should keep antags from being able to rapidly remove their arrest status, and force them to avoid any place with Security 'bots in it. On the flipside, this'll also make Security checkpoints important places for both Seccies and antags, since they'll have a records console there.

Security bowman headsets: Encryption keys no longer able to be removed, and Security headsets start with a video camera which can't be deactivated (idea shamelessly stolen from Colonial Marines. Antags can still steal the headset if they want, but it'll open them up to being tracked wherever they go. Additionally, it'll let Dispatchers watch cams much more closely, even when Sec Officers are running around Maint.

POSSIBLE update to stunbatons: only usable by someone with a mindshield, a la the /tg/ mindshield firing pins. This would let Constables carry 'em more safely, since they couldn't be easily stripped and used against them by greytiders. At the same time, I'd like to avoid giving all the advantages to Sec, and this seems like it might be a step too far. Thoughts?

Note: The goals here are to make Officers less likely to be attacked in the first place, and more likely to come home alive. With a camera active on them 24/7 and Dispatchers watching those cams, it's harder to just whisk away an Officer for a quick murder. On the flipside, between their HUDs being read-only and their headsets being a dangerous item to carry around, looting them for gear becomes a much less attractive plan. Should an Officer pursue an antag 1v1 into the middle of Maint, then they're still liable to get cryostung/glared/etc. and taken down quickly, of course, but it'll increase the odds of their body being recovered and the player not getting ejected from the game.

 

Quality-of-life changes:

A. The "Security Cadet" name: Much like an Engineer can call themselves an "Electrician," I'd like Sec Officers to be able to name themselves "Security Cadets" or the like. This would let a newbie announce themselves as one in a mechanically-simple fashion, without any changes in the gear or access they receive in the process. (I'd also love to see that for other jobs, but Sec has perhaps the worst learning curve, so I figure that'd be the best place to start)

B. An "Inspect" arrest status: The current standard arrest statuses are *Arrest*, Incarcerated, Paroled, or Released. This is all well and good for antag-hunting, but when dealing with Code Green-level issues like "Grey McTide might have made a stunprod, please check his pack," there's no way to mark someone for arrest without also sic'ing the bots on them. I'd like to bring someone in quietly like SOP demands, but if they go by Beepsky or an ED-209 with an *Arrest* status active, they're heading to the Brig in cuffs whether I want it or not. A yellow "Inspect" status would mean "arrest this person, but do it nicely," and work in conjunction with the standard one.

 

 

Conclusion:

This is a lot to read through, and I apologize for the length. At the same time, I think that the lack of Security players is due in large part to the job simply being unenjoyable, and I'd like to see the job made more fun rather than just focusing on the antag greentext rate. If you'd like to add to this* or suggest a rework, please keep that in mind. I'd like to see some means of rewarding success on Sec's part aside from just redtext (some way of rating how safe they kept the station...?), for instance, so if anyone's got an idea of how to implement that, I'm all ears.

 

 

 

*Slith-Skaar had suggested a rework of the X-Ray gene and implant to make it less ridiculously effective, for instance. This'd let antags get away more easily from Sec and in turn make the Detective's and Dispatchers' jobs more valuable in catching them, which I think is all-around a good idea.

[Making the Singularity and Tesla equal]

@Anticept covered everything that needs saying, I think. The Tesla's ease of use makes it the engine of choice for the lazy engineer (i.e. most of us), the singulo's extra power output is effectively meaningless, and Lord Singuloth's occasional EMP outburst makes him a tad lethal for the 'borgs, IPCs, or robo-limbed among us. Rather than trying to 'nerf' the Tesla, it seems more reasonable to offer some fun-but-optional benefit to running the more complicated engine.* And of course, once you provide a tangible benefit to MOAR POWAH, then you incentivize risky behavior like running the singularity at a higher output to gain more power/cargo points, with the attendant risk of a Singuloose.

 

*Prince TEG, of course, sneers at the spat between Lord Singuloth and Lady Tesla. When your engine output can only be measured in scientific notation, you've got a bit of a leg up on the competition.

[New Karma Role: Brig Technician]

On 4/27/2018 at 12:44 PM, Fox McCloud said:

No department is meant to be an island unto itself

Are we playing the same game?

Sorry for my own snark, but the SS13 departments are so siloed that it spawned its own gamemode. "Departments should cooperate" is certainly a nice sentiment, but mechanically-speaking, it's a Herculean task. Let's go over the specifics:

-Poor communications: Departments have different radios, and with very few individuals having the encryption keys for multiple departments (Geneticists and the Brig Physician being interesting exceptions). Even Command members are generally restricted to the comms of their own departments and the secret Command channel, with any inter-departmental communication being carried out either in person, via PDA, or over the spammed Common chat. GoodSam the Helpful Scientist might want to give Medbay a hand, but he has no easy means of communicating with them, nor of listening to their issues to know exactly what they need and when.

-Territory and territoriality: Departments have their own, well-marked turf, and departmental members are justifiably cantankerous about others stepping foot in that area. ID-locked doors and trespassing laws keep departmental members away from each other outside of emergencies or antagonist activity. Face-to-face interaction between members of different departments is generally rare and limited to common areas (or Medbay, since Mebay gets traipsed over despite doctors' protests nearly every shift). When your only interactions with another department are via yelling at them over general comms or banging on their front door, I think it's fairly obvious why inter-departmental relations might be somewhat strained.

-Few means of inter-departmental compellence: As a frequent Chief Engineer, I see this issue crop up quite a bit with regards to the station goals. I need Cargo to send me the BSA crate, or Botany to actually get some plant DNA samples for effing once. I ask 'em over general comms to carry out whatever action I need done, and wait, and wait, and wait...When Cargo blows its points on pizzas and party hats instead of ordering what I need, or Xenobiology dismisses me outright, my options are extremely limited. I can ask 'em nicely or try to guilt-trip the offending party into compliance, ask the relevant Head of Staff to discipline them, or hope that the Captain will take time from every other task they have to address my fairly minor inter-departmental issue. My only other forceful options are downright illegal: refusing medical care to another department as the CMO, cutting power or venting atmos as the CE, telescience-stealing gear as the RD - well, I'm sure you can see how practices like those were institutionalized into the Nations gamemode. It's downright infuriating at times, and it shouldn't be any wonder that more-seasoned players spend extra effort to avoid ending up reliant on other departments in the first place.

These are all examples of centrifugal factors, as Hartshorne would call them: social forces which divide people and push them apart. The station has divided physical geography, segregated communications, underdeveloped command structures, and a siloed departmental architecture which encourages strife rather than cooperation. Forcing cooperation, like with the science R&D update a year or so ago (removing Science's autolathe in the hopes that they'd go to Cargo instead) largely just results in players implementing a work-around. In cases where one can't be implemented, such as the station goals, there certainly are interactions, just not good ones. The flipside is categorized as centripedal forces, or things which bring people together, and currently there's a lot missing:

-Few shared departmental goals: Engineering keeps the lights on, Medbay keeps the crew healthy, Sec keeps 'em safe, Research powergames like crazy...all well and good in theory, but in practice these general aims don't interact closely with each other. There are a couple exceptions to this rule, such as the station goals (primarily Cargo/Engineering, although Botany and Science get involved in the BSA and DNA Vault), but by and large different departments don't have much reason to go out of their way to cooperate.

-A lack of focus on individuals: as a Engineer or Scientist , for example, your remit is (technically) the entire bloody station. You're supposed to either maintain or improve, respectively, the entire Cyberiad - or worse, Metastation - with no guidance provided beyond that. I'm sure you've heard of the importance of singling people out when trying to compel action during an emergency, i.e. pointing at someone when saying "call 911" instead of just asking a crowd as a whole? Consider that same phenomenon here, and how to overcome it; I've got some suggestions below, but I'm sure there are others.

-Few means of rewarding good behavior: As a frequent Command player, I would kill for my own medal box - and I'm not talking about that bloody captaincy medal. There's a quote attributed to Napoleon about how "a soldier will fight long and hard for a length of colored ribbon," and as a Captain, I've seen clear positive effects of handing out medals appropriately. I try to do my best by congratulating helpful people via announcements, but I'd love to see actual mechanical, institutionalized means of promoting and rewarding cooperation and good player behavior.

 

You've argued pretty clearly how you want to encourage inter-departmental interactions, and at least in theory I'm not opposed. My issue with that is that not all interactions are good ones, and that the current game mechanics allow unwanted player behaviors while preventing or suppressing desirable ones. Using that as a rhetorical starting point, let's talk about achievable means of encouraging positive behaviors:

-Medal box: As mentioned, gib relevant medals plz. Seriously, I would love to be able to decorate helpful people in an in-game way. Other means of giving either individuals or departments an 'attaboy' would always be appreciated - a "Most Helpful Department" trophy that the Captain could hand out, for instance?

-More inter-departmental goals: Additional means of congratulating one department assisting another at round end, for instance. Game mechanics like Medbay getting a tally of how many members of other departments were healed or saved during the shift ("3 Security Officers, 1 Scientist, and 2 Botanists were revived inside Medbay this shift/8830 health points were gained back in Medbay," etc.), or everyone getting the option to commend a particular department at round-end ("[Science] was commended the most this shift, by 12 non-Science players"), would provide some means of encouragement for desirable behavior.

-Departmental assignments: The generic members of large departments (Scientists, Engineers, Security Officers, etc.) start with an 'assignment' to another department. They get an armband and relevant radio encryption key in their packs at roundstart, along with an initial briefing reading something like "You have been assigned to the Medbay/Science/etc. department. You are to assist them as best you can." This would cut out the issues of a lack of comms and the deindividuation issue of being a single person in a larger department: when someone in Medbay starts complaining about the broken window in the front lobby, Joe Schmoe the Medbay Engineer is positioned to both hear about the issue (due to having access to Medbay's comms) and act (due to having a greater sense of responsibility towards Medbay than any other Engineer).

Of course, I'm sure any Sec players reading this are already wincing at the thought of Sec comms being compromised from the very start by some well-meaning effort like this - but if the person with Sec comms is mindshielded, then the issue is moot, no? I'd trace the efforts which led to the Brig Physician and this proposed Brig Technician as trying to overcome the antagonist issue in this same way, and although I agree that the proposed Brig Technician role doesn't have enough to do currently, I do appreciate the effort at making a Sec/Engineering hybrid rather than the usual in-game response of "say ; ENGIS TO BRIG PLEASE and pray that someone actually responds." Certainly, as CE I've blown off Sec asking for help with something in order to deal with some other issue, because I've no particular attachment to dealing with their issues, and no reward for prioritizing helping them.

 

In that sense, I would argue that the Brig Physician is largely a positive force for inter-departmental cooperation, rather than being a "departmental island," as you put it. They have both Medical and Security comms, along with access to both departments, and remit to help patients in both areas. In practice, while Brig Physicians will set up surgery nearly every shift, I honestly can't even remember the last time I've seen one set up cryo or cloning (sometime this past January, perhaps?). Brig Physicians carry out surgery because the two ORs are usually overworked by the massive player population and all the injuries they accrue, but for other issues (making meds, cloning, getting viruses, etc.) Brig Physicians work through Medbay in an honestly-heartwarming example of inter-departmental cooperation. If you want to make them more inter-departmental, then I'd suggest making the BrigPhys a Medical role rather than a Security one, and placing them under command of the CMO rather than the HoS. While they'll still spend most of their time in the Brigbay due to simple circumstance, it'll provide the Brig Physician with more of a reason to be in the Medbay, and encourage them to participate more over there rather than just staying in Sec.

You could do the same with the OP's proposed 'Brig Technician' role, too. Rename them to the 'High-Security Engineer' or something similar, and have them start in Engineering under the command of the Chief Engineer; their only Sec-specific gear would be Brig access and a Security encryption key. Rather than being just responsible for helping in the Brig, they'd be responsible for any restricted area that needs a pair of hands (or when there's no engieborgs, again); you could further encourage that by having them start with a basic trashbag and a box of lightbulbs to indicate their role's mundane remit. With a roundstart mindshield, they could be trusted have Sec comms without turning it into a massive RNG gamble of "will they roll antag and compromise Security comms from the get-go?" Without their own office to turn into a fortress, though, and still being otherwise treated as a regular Engineer, the role's mechanics would encourage them to act merely as an Engineer with the goal of helping out Security in particular.

 

 

Tl;dr version: Departments can interact in bad ways (yelling over comms) as well as good ones. The focus should be on encouraging good interactions, rather than just any interactions whatsoever.

[Shadowling Rebalancing / Rework]

1 hour ago, davidchan said:

You're going to pretend that Thralls are infinite resource and Slings can run forever, when a typical vampire can easily get 5000 blood or more by draining the blood they can practically get for free from genetics? To top this all off, Slings take heavy damage from common light sources like flares that can't be veiled, every emergency toolkit has these, candles in the chapel and library and random spawns throughout maint will kill a Sling faster than the chapel can kill a low level vamp.

You're right that vamps can just cheeseball their way to victory with easy sources of blood, and I agree that I'd like to see that corrected. The /tg/ planned vampire implementation had a good division between "clean" and "dirty" blood, where only sucking actual players gave vampires points to spend; I'd like to see something similar implemented here. As @EvadableMoxiepoints out, though, the gameplay mechanics don't require vampires to be powergamey shits in the same way they do for shadowlings. And indeed, vampires who use monkeys as a blood source get roundly mocked in deadchat precisely because they're powergaming like a mofo.

Ultimately, I think Moxie put it best: it's not just that the gamemode is so unbalanced, it's that it's predictable and boring. I've got my issues with the unbalanced issues of vampires, but I've had plenty of vampires ask me politely to grab some of my blood, versus the ones who cablecuffed me in Maint and took a sip or two, or the ones who just drained me dry. And thematically, the vampire win-mode can be either 'tear a bloody path through Sec and force a Red/Gamma ERT,' a stealthy route to greentext, or a couple different variations in between. Shadowling...doesn't.

[Shadowling Rebalancing / Rework]

8 hours ago, davidchan said:

Can someone explain to me why Shadowling, a roundtype that's at least fun to play in any of the roles involved with the struggle, is suddenly becoming hated and reviled despite multiple departments having the means and tools to limit or fight back against the slings, when roundtypes like vampire exist with blatant power gaming, mismatched kit, entirely unfun to combat and no real weaknesses?

 

The fact that there is at least 1 PR up right now trying to nerf Slings when not a damn person has touched vampire as of now is troubling.

Let's compare the two for a second. Yes, vampires are pretty bullshit, and I wouldn't mind some of their more ridiculous abilities getting a nerf (Glare's 30-second cooldown getting bumped up to 60, for instance - I'm really sick of the constant stuns from even low-level vamps I'm trying to perma). But compare vampire abilities to shadowling ones (see my post on pg. 1):

A. Stuns: Glare, Hypnotize, Chiroptean Screech.

B. Self-healing: Rejuvenate/Rejuvenate+

C. Utility: Vampiric Vision/Full Power, Cloak of Darkness, Enthrall

D. Escape: Shapeshift, Shadowstep, Mist Form

E. Other: Summon Bats, Diseased Touch

Vampires have a shitload of stun abilities; they can absolutely rock a 1v1 fight with all their stuns, and so long as they have blood, can escape countless times. But note the abilities they don't have, because vampires have a couple glaring weaknesses which can absolutely be countered. Vampires lack:

A. Lack of heals: Vampires get Rejuvenate - contrast that with shadowlings constantly healing while in darkness (and Rapid Re-Hatch, and Drain Life, and Black Recuperation...). Past the low-key healing and stun removal it provides, vampires are left relying on chems and their own limp pecker to keep themselves alive. I trust you can see where this is going, yes? Even with just their starting equipment and no assistance from other departments, a competent Sec member or two can suss out the not-too-difficult strategy of "grab a shotgun, load it for bear buckshot, aim for the legs." A couple buckshot rounds to the legs and a vampire's down to limping, half-speed if they remembered to grab some splints from Medbay. A couple more to the chest and head, and the vampire's stuck relying on epinephrine autoinjectors merely to stay alive, let alone any bloodloss from internal or superficial bleeding. Vampires can dominate a single fight, yes, but their lack of heals puts them at extreme weakness to the damage of extrended fights. A shadowling who takes the same damage will just run away, passively heal up on the move (or Rapid Re-Hatch if he wants to speed it up), and hey presto he's ready to rock. I should note that Rapid Re-Hatch is also specifically designed to counter more exotic, harder-healing damage types like cellular or genetic damage: hitting a 'sling with a Decloner or somehow glomping them with a slime won't do a thing.

B. Crowd-control harm abilities - vamps can stun, but they can't force an entire Sec team to fall back to Medbay based on their abilities alone. Even a newbie shadowling can just pop Icy Veins, with its no-cost, 25-second cooldown, and congrats, you've just incapacitated an entire group of pursuers at once. For bonus points, Icy Veins completely ignores the insulating effects of hardsuits, which means that insulating things like a 'suit are actually a detriment and will freeze you to death if you're not careful. I've nearly died on EVA from a 'sling popping Icy Veins (while they were still inside the station), and taking critical harm during my desperate rush to a warm environment. Boosted 'slings also have Drain Life and Sonic Screech, both of which have no cost other than their cooldowns, to quickly and easily lay the hurt on pursuers and to force 'em to retreat to heal up.

C. EMP: A shadowling with an easy-peasy three thralls gets access to an area-effect EMP in the form of Sonic Screech. Cyborgs are your best friend against vampires; they're not a one-size-kills-all, and can of course be countered via normal means (the Cyborg Control Console, regular old EMPs, subverting the AI/getting Robotics on your side, etc.). However, vampires don't have an easy counter to wipe out a pursuing 'borg in the field, which makes Secborgs very effective at countering vampire stuns and assisting in that same attrition-fight which vampires are on the losing side of. Shadowlings? Sonic Screech, get some hits in, run away if necessary, rinse and repeat until you've a dead 'borg.

D. Ability cost/cooldown: Even at full power, without blood vampires only get Rejuvenate, Glare, Vampiric Vision, and Cloak of Darkness. Every other ability they have costs them blood, a scarce resource which they have to quite literally fight to get. Along with their lack of easy and effective self-heals, a vampire literally can't keep running forever; I literally can't recall how many vamps I've either killed myself or assisted in killing/capturing simply by chasing them until they were bloodless and forced to fight. Additionally, note the vampire ability cooldowns: only three of them are under 60 seconds (Glare, Rejuvenate, and Shadowstep), and most are considerably more. Their one proper crowd-control ability, Chiroptean Screech, is on a significant 3-minute cooldown and costs 'em 30 blood to boot.

Shadowlings, well...let's start off with their complete lack of ability cost. They don't need to fight for blood, wait for their Chemicals to recharge, or do anything other than pop their abilities the moment they come off cooldown. And hoo boy, their cooldowns are positively crazy to look at: 30 seconds for Shadow Walk and Glare, 15 seconds for Veil, 25 for Icy Veins, 10 seconds for Drain Life (an AoE 'heal friendlies, harm baddies' ability, mind you), 30 seconds for Sonic Screech - need I go on? Shadowlings have only three abilities with 60-second cooldowns, (Rapid Re-Hatch, Blindness Smoke, and Black Recuperation), and none with longer cooldowns.

 

 

To summarize: You can attrite even a full-powered vampire down to the point of helplessness and eventually death. Their large-scale abilities all have significant cooldowns, and cost them blood which is difficult to replace on the move. Keep up the pressure, keep inflicting hard-to-heal damage, don't let them stop to recuperate, and even a god-tier vampire can (and often has) been taken out. I commanded an ERT which did exactly that against a bunch of rampaging vampires a day ago: my two inquisitorial ERT members set their sights on one of the nastiest vamps, and just keep doggedly pursuing him until he was literally and figuratively out of juice. Once he couldn't use the bulk of his abilities for lack of blood, he was vulnerable and brought to a straight-up conflict: 2 chainswords, 1 vamp.

Shadowlings are effectively immune to attrition: they don't depend on a limited resource a la vampires or changelings, and they're specifically designed to be immune to lasting damage. With 'slings, the shoe's on the other foot: any pursuer is constantly forced to heal again and again, because shadowlings have oodles of AoE-damage abilities which they can (and do) pop every minute or less. As a pursuer, you can feel like you're inflicting lasting harm against a vampire even if they just mistform away: you're forcing them to waste their scarce blood, and that's a sense of accomplishment even if you don't land a single hit. With a 'sling, you'll be left limping away towards warmth, with the knowledge that nothing will really slow down a shadowling short of a serious case of death. Shadowlings aren't just mechanically difficult to fight against, they're infuriating to boot.

[The Circus]

I'm too boring to be much of a good hypnotist/fortune-teller myself, but yes, these would be pretty hilarious roles to see. I also like the idea of merging the clown/mime office into a larger circus office; you could also expand it into that otherwise-unused hallway north of the Clown/Mime office and southwest of the Courtroom if you needed enough space for the different characters. Anyway, my thoughts on the individual characters:

1. Fortune-teller: Absolute gold. Lots of opportunities for silly shenanigans all the way through the round, and routes for different types of gameplay for the fortune-teller (playing it straight and trying to get actionable intel with well-worded prayers, leading people astray with terrible fortune-telling, or just going full slapstick and making up loads of silly prophecies involving the Captain and a couple cans of lube).

2. Hypnotist: P. much the same as above. You could either become psychologist part-II with actual Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, or go the full chicken route.

3. One Man Band: I like it, but there are some issues relative to the other characters. For one, the character's gear makes him a prime target for greytiders to attack and steal; he'll need some sort of skill or ID-locking system to keep his kit from getting jacked. Secondly, he'll be a target role for greytiders, since the griefing opportunities are pretty self-evident. Finally, there's plenty of other musical instruments already on-station; you may need to do quite a bit of work to make the One-Man Band clearly distinct from the other roles

4. Entertainer gear: the Human Cannon sounds p. hilarious, as does the unicycle and the fake cake. I'm a bit worried about the fake poo, though, as that sounds like it's got a lot of unfortunate greytide-griefing opportunities.

 

That all being said, I think the basic idea is pretty awesome. Here's a couple suggestions for additional roles and how to organize 'em:

A. The 'Entertainer' position: the Clown and Mime will probably get grandfathered in here, but adding another four more roles (or more, depending on coder stamina&inspiration) could get a bit ridiculous. Therefore, I'd suggest making a catch-all 'Entertainer' role which you can apply for, with a separate option in the menu to select your preferred position you'd want. This might end up being too difficult to code, but if it's feasible, I'd like some method of cutting the number of roles down to a manageable size.

B. Animal Tamer: I'd argue the key part of any of these new roles is what specific thing they can do which elevates them above the status of a greytider with a funny name. The Barber's a p. iffy role, for instance, because anyone can change their appearance with access to a mirror at any time. Meanwhile, the Clown and Mime have both gear, tricks, and a general schtick which set them apart from any rando Civilian. Therefore, I'd suggest an 'Animal Tamer' role who starts with the ability to issue simple animal mobs simple commands. 'Go,' 'Stay,' etc. are all in their lexicon, and they'll be able to communicate with player-run animal mobs without needing a Voice Recorder. And of course, their special Syndie kit would be a Guide to Advanced Animal Training or the like, which teaches them the ability to issue 'Maul,' Stun,' and/or 'Kill' commands. Additional roles in this same vein could be fire-twirling/swallowing, juggling, and so on.

[Shadowling Rebalancing / Rework]

19 hours ago, bryanayalalugo said:

Why not make shadowlings be separate individuals?

Meaning that they do not communicate with each other, nor do they share the same thralls with each other or know the thralls of other shadowlings.

That way, they have to compete with each other and go beyond their abilities, since they are immune to their own abilities, instead of it just being mostly a shadowling vs. sec thing.

I never understood myself to why shadowlings would work together, since you are ascending to godhood, why should there be others to share/take your spot?

I definitely like your idea, although I wonder about issues with regards to execution. Either they'll all have to be on the same hivemind 'net (with all the confusion that'll go with it), or they'll have to be separated into different hivemind comm-nets (which is probably a coding nightmare). Perhaps different slings/thralls would speak on the same 'net, but with a different language so that different 'slings are incomprehensible to each other?

[Shadowling Rebalancing / Rework]

I hate the shadowling gamemode with a passion, because at heart it's just so ridiculously mechanically unbalanced. Conceptually, I can understand where the designer was probably coming from: a Maintenance-bound antagonist who plays on a lot of our fears of the unknown, capable of turning friend against friend and leeching off of them in pursuit of ultimate power. All well and good, at least in theory. Let's talk about the practice:

A. Almost no weaknesses for shadowlings. Let's talk about the ridiculous abilities shadowlings can rock right from the get-go:

  1. Hivemind communication between all shadowlings and thralls, with no indicators and no limits. Traitors, vampires, and cultists wish they had that sort of capability.

  2. Numbers: Aside from being stupidly mechanically powerful (see below), shadowlings come in groups of 2-4. Unlike AutoTraitor, this number is calibrated only to server numbers rather than Sec numbers, so you can quite easily have shadowling equaling or outnumbering Sec at roundstart. No guesses as to how that round's going to end!

  3. Cooperation: Shadowlings have no mechanical reason to fight and every reason to cooperate. Traitors and changelings can't claim that.

  4. Complete concealment prior to hatching. There's no sussing them out when they're weak, short of dumb luck or admin intervention.

  5. Base abilities: Steady wound healing (heal ability #1), stun reduction (equivalent to somewhere between a CNS Rebooter and active adrenal implant), along with night/thermal vision. Compensated slightly by damage from all light sources, and increased damage from light-based weapons.

  6. Glare (30 second cooldown): Stuns and mutes for a good 10-15 seconds, because why should a sling's victims have any chance of fighting back? Works while cuffed, tabled, or grounded, just in case you had any realistic hopes of winning 1v1s with a 'sling.

  7. Veil (15! second cooldown): Knocks out all electrical light sources in a wide area.  We can't have our poor darling antags getting hurt, after all.

  8. Shadow Walk (30 second cooldown): Escape ability #1. The shadowling becomes invisible, moves quickly, and goes through obstacles.

  9. Icy Veins (25 second cooldown): Crowd-control ability #1. Just b'cuz.

  10. Collective Mind (30 seconds): Thematically it's supposed to be the shadowlings reaching into their thralls' mind to leech off of 'em, but mechanically it's completely harmless. Of course.

  11. Rapid Re-Hatch (60 seconds): Heal ability #2. Shit, even wizards don't have rapid-healing covered without specc'ing into a Staff of Healing. Shadowlings get this right from the start, of course.

 

But that's just the starter pack, everyone! Let's look at the extra-fun things shadowlings can rock later on as well:

12. Sonic Screech (3 thralls, 30 second cooldown): Crowd-control ability #2, now with extra EMP! Also destroys windows for shits'n'giggles.

13. Blindness Smoke (5 thralls, 60 second cooldown): Escape ability #2. Big pile of smoke which hurts enemies and heals allies without obscuring vision.

14. Drain Life (7 thralls, 10! second cooldown): Heal ability #3, crowd-control ability #3. Causes 50 damage (25 brute, 25 burn) to local non-thralls while healing the 'ling.

15. Black Recuperation (9 thralls, 60 second cooldown): Heal ability #4, also can resurrect a thrall (unlike cultists, no sacrifice needed), also can empower thralls into being even more kickass. Because of course.

16. Destroy Engine (one-time use): Sacrifice a thrall to push the shuttle timer back to 15 minutes.

17: Ascend: Win round, get to shit on everyone for funsies. Yaaaay, so much fun for everyone. Wheeeee.

Let's compare shadowlings to other antags to note exactly how bullshit this is in practice:

i. Cult: Shadowlings can convert faster, and unlike with cults, mindshields are just a speedbump for their conversion ability. Compared to "load 'em up with holy water (and mannitol if you're nice)," shadowling conversion is considerably harder to remove. Unlike cultists, shadowlings can communicate silently, and since the recent (very necessary) cult change, cultists can't just teleport their way out of the Brig when they're captured (even a newbie shadowling, of course, can just just Veil/Icy Veins/Shadow Walk their way out of trouble and Rapid Re-Hatch away any damage). Unlike cultists, shadowlings also have a shitload of effective healing abilities, and of course they can be absolute combat monsters with zero prep-time needed (whereas cultists are largely reliant on their runes/talismans; sans those, they're no more dangerous than any other well-equipped crewmember). About the only way in which cults are more powerful is their ability to 'snowball' via summoning constructs and individual capability, but that relies on finding and converting capable converts. Unless the shadowlings themselves are gibbering idiots, then they'll just use their god-tier lategame abilities to dunk on any organized resistance and let their thralls mop up the rest.

ii. Wizard: An individual shadowling is only slightly weaker than a wiznerd, and unlike normal one-bearded-army wizard games, 'slings come in large numbers. Large games will have up to 4! shadowlings running around, with no difficulty coordinating with each other due to their abilities synergizing well with each other.

iii. Changeling: Changelings have a hivemind, but it's nicely undercut by their lack of cooperation. Changelings can probably trust each other, but mechanically they can't be sure since some of them might have an 'assassinate/assume identity' objective against each other. Needless to say, shadowlings don't have the same weakness. And while changelings can regenerate themselves from literal death and have some nasty crowd-control abilities, their abilities are all mechanically limited by a number of Evolution Points and the common 'Chemicals' pool; a changeling can't simultaneously spec into 'being a combat monster' and use all their fun abilities at the same time. And of course, changelings don't have thralls to serve as meatshields for 'em.

iv. Vampire: While vampires are also p. bullshit, with a boatload of escape (Rejuvenate, Shadowstep, and Mist Form), crowd-control (Summon Bats), and stun abilities (Chiroptean Screech, Glare, and Hypnotize) to call on, they've got several glaring weaknesses. For one, they don't have a hivemind 'communicate' ability, so they can't cooperate to the same ridiculous degree that shadowlings and their thralls can. For two, they lack the umpty-bajillion shadowling healing abilities, which lets individual encounters do lasting damage against them. And finally, rather than just relying on time cooldowns, vampire abilities all draw from the same Blood pool which is difficult to replenish (unless you're a FILTHY CASUAL who uses humanized monkeys, of course). Even if they don't stand a chance of 1v1ing a vampire, Sec can stand a chance against even a competent vampire with just starting equipment: buckshot and holy-water tranq darts in riot shotguns, group attacks, and constant pressure to drain a vampire's blood pool until they're dry and can actually be taken down.

v. Traitors: No. Just...no.

 

Conclusion: Even starting off, shadowlings can outdo other antagonists even in areas they're supposed to excel in. They can hivemind and convert better than other conversion antags, can kick ass on par or better than other 'superhero' antags, and their thematic disadvantages are just that - themes. This leads into a further problem of shadowlings:

 

B. The Fun of Being A Thrall: There's no mechanical downside whatsoever to being a thrall. The one and only time you could ever be screwed over by a shadowling is if you're the one thrall selected to be the sacrifice for the Destroy Engine ability. Aside from that you've got zip, zilch, and nada to worry about. All of that flavor text about 'being a tool of eldritch powers' is just that; the game mechanics simply don't back it up. Let's cover the specifics of thralldom:

1. Night sight: Free night vision, of course.

2. Hivemind comms: No delay, no whispering, no downside.

3: Guise: Can hide in shadows, just b'cuz.

4: Deconversion: Slow, difficult, and requires a complicated surgery with a full set of tools. No field deconversions here!

5: No reconversion penalty: Once you've been deconverted, literally nothing's stopping you from running riiiight back into Maint to get converted again.

6: No endgame penalty: Shadowling ascension = "license to validhunt /everyone./" Of course.

Conclusion: As others have already mentioned, becoming a shadowling thrall is mechanically an upgrade. I'd happily kill a few greytiders to get myself permanent night-sight, heh.

 

C. Fun: Fighting a shadowling is quite frankly un-fun, by and large. You're going to get absolutely dunked on in close combat, and unlike with a vampire, you can't rely on building up damage over time on a 'sling since they can regenerate their injuries so easily. There's no way of "thrall-proofing" anyone or anything, and shadowling ascension means getting shit on with no ability to do anything about it. Given all that, is it any surprise that people choose to join the winning side?

Furthermore, methods for fighting 'slings are equally un-fun. As a CE, the moment shadowlings are reported I get my hardsuit and RCD and get to space ASAP. I deconstruct every Maint window I can find and carve larger Maint areas open to space, and instruct my team to do the same. This is an effective and capable strategy at boxing in shadowlings, and it's hilarious to watch the civvies "hunting" shadowlings go flying off into space, but it's obviously not fun for them. This sort of escalatory, tit-for-tat bullshit does not make for fun and happy gaming, and I'd like to not have to engage in it.

 

 

 

D. Summarized Issues and Proposed Solutions:

1. Shadowling powers: Unlike other 'group' antags (everyone except wizards, basically), shadowling abilities are all just cooldown-based. In addition to the cooldown (to prevent spamming), I'd like to see shadowling abilities actually harm their thralls in some way. Every time a shadowling uses one of their combat abilities (Glare, Icy Veins, etc.) it deals a flat 10-25 damage to all thralls in game. This'll provide a mechanic similar to the one vampires have to deal with, where Sec putting pressure on the shadowling has lasting effects of some way. It should also sufficiently de-incentivize thralldom that people won't blindly charge in to get re-thralled for shits'n'giggles, and provide a boost to the "parasitism" theme which shadowlings are supposed to have.

2. Shadowling area weakness - escape: Remove Shadow Walk (escape ability #1) and Blindness Smoke (escape ability #2). This'll give shadowlings an actual, real area in which they're weak: wizards have lack of numbers, vampires have lack of healing, etc. Mind you, they'll still have Veil, automatic stun reduction/heals in darkness, Icy Veins, Glare, Sonic Screech, Drain Life, and their thralls to help 'em either win the fight or just run away (where the auto-darkness heals and Rapid Re-Hatch will rapidly patch 'em back up). However, since shadowlings can rapidly heal themselves back up, removing their rapid-escape capabilities gives Sec a chance in hell of actually taking one out.

3. Mindshields: I have no idea why anyone thought it'd be a good idea for shadowlings to be able to remove mindshields without surgery, but that's just plain stupid. Want to subvert the Captain? Then do it the old-fashioned way with a table and a set of surgical tools. If Cargo's on-point, this would also cut down on repeat thralldom (thank Christ).

4. Repeat thralldom: No matter how it's penalized, some people are going to love their chance to murder sans consequences too much to give up becoming a thrall. We can't realistically stop that from happening the first time around, but if it's a repeat occurrence, then game mechanics can come into play. I'd support the 'player gets replaced by a ghost' to keep from penalizing the shadowling while still penalizing whichever player is causing trouble, although you'd also have to make sure that anyone removed from game in this fashion can't just re-enter if another shitter gets repeatedly thralled.

5. Ascension: Quite frankly, I'd like to replace ascension entirely with a cutscene a la nuclear detonation, but I imagine that simple inertia and people loving the whole 'god-complex fantasy' will keep it going. Still, an easy way to penalize thralldom without affecting gameplay is to have all thralls be killed on ascension, like cults have. It'll reinforce the "they're actually evil, who'da thunk?" nature of shadowlings, and provide a real penalty to being a thrall.

[Security numbers]

On 4/4/2018 at 3:55 PM, McRamon said:

I think this all is probably too much, but if you only leave dispatcher as a new job with additional duties to bring to warden new toys from science and get information other people might want to share (sometimes after i observed a crime i want to alert security and i dont want to bother hos so i have to figure out somehow who is from the selection of officers will not ignore my information, and if i had dispatchers to contact with, whos job is to collect such information and to make sure active officers get updated info about situation, i would be so happy)

 

They could really reduce stress and help with organisation 

I hear what you're saying, but adding a dispatcher role doesn't solve the issue of people not playing Sec in the first place. It /helps/ it a little, sure, since it gives people a method of getting involved without having to beat feet 'round the station, but it doesn't solve all the other issues (Sec Officers being seen as mere lootboxes by antags, far too many antags spawning given Security numbers, no means short of the Captain himself (who's frequently completely useless and/or dead) for resetting the station synthetics, etc etc etc.). The issue is multi-faceted, which means that a solution should probably be the same. Short of just cranking the antag numbers waaaaaaay down (which is a no-go for obvious reasons), I can't think of a single 'quick-fix' that would realistically address most of the different concerns here in one go.

 

10 hours ago, Jountax said:

I for one would play the shit out of constable if it was added. Armorer sounds like it's kinda stepping on science's toes, but if it was added as is I'd play the shit out of that too. I love making wacky inventions and giving them to a department that can use them.

Thanks! Although I obviously want to keep the game balanced, I also wanted to propose roles that sounded fun to play - good to hear I'm not the only one who'd be up to play 'em. My thoughts with regard to the Armorer is that there's such a massive, gaping need for additional gear for Sec - I've gotten tech shotshells...twice, three times ever maybe? - that even having a dedicated role for the job wouldn't be able to fill that demand entirely. If a Scientist wants to make cool toys for Sec, there's still the usuals - along with thermite paste and turret construction, dental implants, cavity implants (flashes, flashlights, etc.), regular implants, and of course actually installing and training new Seccies on all the shiny gear which they're about to receive. And of course, there's still oodles of shotgun shells which could stand to be made, and Robotics's job of constructing bots, 'borgs, and mechs for Sec isn't affected in the slightest.

Secondly, as someone who's tried to kit out Sec while in Science before, a big issue is simply getting them to trust you. In that sense, I'd like to have a role with a foot in both departments to help 'em actually get along. Genetics does this (a little) for Medical-Science, and the Pod Pilot can do this with Engineering via the Mechanic. I'd like to encourage more cooperation between departments, by making roles that encourage and reward cooperation.

[Security numbers]

In the interests of making a more easily-comprehended list of activities to potentially implement:

New jobs:

Spoiler

Constable:

-Up to 4 Constable positions available at roundstart: 1 at 1-30 players, 2 at 31-50, 3 at 51-75, and 4 at 76+

-Unlocks after 5-10 days of play (regular officers unlock after 30, if I remember correctly)

-Starting Access: Maintenance, Brig, Prison Wing, Holding Cells (possibly Kitchen, Bar, and Hydroponics). Does NOT have Security or Armory access

-Starting Equipment: Constable Uniform (standard 10% melee defense), black gloves, body armor, HUDSunglasses, a Corporate Officer hat, and a Security headset. Backpack contains: a flash, pepperspray, first-aid kit, a 'Mission Briefing' paper (see below), and a copy of Space Law. (The hat is meant to provide a visual difference between Constables and Officers, and the Space Law and first-aid kit are meant to reinforce the Constable's 'Public Safety' role). Does NOT start with a tazer, stunbaton, or handcuffs (to emphasize their less-violent role, and to make them less of a target for antags).

-Starting Location: Bar (to reinforce their 'public safety' role). If possible, a separate 'Constable Ready Room' near the Bar area would also be handy.

-Starting Text: 'You are the Constable. Your job is to serve and protect the station crew.'

-Starts with a paper in their backpack (labeled 'Constable Mission Briefing'): "

[logo][br][br]Mission Briefing: Constable[br]

[br]All right, rookie, time to earn that pay. Remember:[br]-As a Constable, you're out there to keep the crew safe. Let the Security Officers chase down the bad guys; your job is to keep the peace.[br]-Work with the crew when you can, even when they're breaking the law. Just saying 'please' can make arrests a lot easier for you.[br]-When someone's causing trouble and won't come in quietly, set their criminal status to *Arrest* and let the Securitron robots take them down. Better that they get hit than you![br]-Read up on Space Law and SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), and do your best to follow it. If you have questions about it, don't be afraid to ask IA (Internal Affairs), the Magistrate, or your boss the Head of Security for help.[br][br]Good luck out there, and stay safe! I want you coming home happy, not in a bodybag.[br][br]John Smith, Field Training Officer"  (This paper is meant to give a little guidance for someone who's brand-new to the job, rather than just dumping them in with no prompting)

---

Armorer:

-One Armorer position. Karma-locked, 30 points.

-Starting Access: Maintenance, Brig, Security, Prison Wing, Science, R&D, Toxins, Xenobiology. Does NOT have Armory or Robotics access (the lack of Armory access helps keep the Warden relevant, and makes the Armorer less of a loot-pinata target, since they'll be outside of the Brig so often)

-Starting Equipment: Security uniform, body armor, helmet, Security headset, tool-belt with basic tools. (To emphasize their gear-focused role) Does NOT start with a tazer or handcuffs (to emphasize that they aren't supposed to be making arrests)

-Starting Location: Armorer's Workshop (a new location somewhere in the Brig; details below)

-Starting Text: 'You are the Armorer. Your job is to assist the station's Security team by maintaining, repairing, and improving their equipment.'

-Armorer's Workshop: 4x4 space, recommended that it gets slotted in between the Sec bathrooms and the Secure Armory. Contains an R&D console, Protolathe, and Exosuit Fabricator. Does NOT contain an Autolathe or Circuit Imprinter (although I assume most competent Armorers will quickly acquire the boards for these from R&D).

---

Security Dispatcher:

-1-3 Dispatchers: 1 at 1-50 players, 2 at 51-100, 3 at 100+ players

-Starting Access: Maintenance, Brig, Security, Prison Wing

-Starting Equipment: Dispatcher's Uniform (already exists, just rarely used), body armor, Security beret, Security headset, HUDSunglasses. Does NOT start with a tazer or handcuffs (to emphasize that they aren't supposed to be making arrests)

-Starting Location: Security Briefing Room

-Starting text: 'You are the Security Dispatcher. Your job is to monitor the station's Security team, and to help them get where they're needed.'

 

New SOPs:

Constable - Code Green:

1. Constables are required to state the reasons behind an arrest before any further action is taken. Exception is made if the suspect refuses to stop;

2. Constables must attempt to bring all suspects or witnesses to the Brig without handcuffing or incapacitating them. Should the suspect not cooperate, the Constable should change the suspect's arrest status to *Arrest* and alert the station's Security team;

3. The Constable shall not attempt to subdue an uncooperative suspect on their own. If attacked, the Constable is expected to retreat and call for backup;

4. Constables are permitted to carry a flash, a flashbang, and a can of pepperspray;

5. Constables may not demand access to the interior of other Departments during routine patrols. Exception is made if the Constable is responding to an emergency;

6. Constables are not permitted to have weapons drawn during regular patrols;

7. Constables are permitted to conduct searches, provided there is reasonable evidence/suspicion that the person in question has committed a crime. Any further searches require a warrant from the Head of Security, Captain or Magistrate;

8. Lethal Force is not authorized unless there is a direct threat to the station's integrity or the Constable's life.

Constable - Code Blue:

1. Guidelines 1, 2, 4 and 8 are carried over from Code Green;

2. Constables are permitted to carry non-lethal equipment such as a tazer, stunbaton and handcuffs, at the discretion of the Warden or Head of Security. Lethal weapons are allowed only during severe emergencies, such as a 'Blob' organism outbreak or attack by a Syndicate strike team;

3. Constables are permitted to attempt to subdue uncooperative suspects on their own, although this is not recommended;

4. Constables may demand entry to specific Departments during regular patrols;

5. Constables may randomly search crewmembers, but are not allowed to apply any degree of force unless said crewmember acts overtly hostile. Crew who refuse to be searched may be stunned and cuffed for the search;

6. Constables are permitted to leave prisoners bucklecuffed should they act hostile.

Constable - Code Red:

1. Guidelines 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are carried over from Code Blue;

2. Constables may arrest crewmembers with no stated reason if there is evidence they are involved in criminal activities;

3. During a Code Red, crewmembers must remain in their respective departments (Civilians are to remain in the Bar, Chapel, or Departures). Constables may forcefully relocate crewmembers to their respective Departments if necessary.

 

(The Constable SOP is taken from the Security Officer SOP, just with a greater focus on non-violent action. Let me know if you think anything should be revised here)

 

Armorer - Code Green:

1. The Armorer may not perform arrests, process prisoners, or perform searches unless given specific permission by the Head of Security or Warden. Exception is made if there are no active Officers or Warden;

2. The Armorer may not unholster their weapons unless a clear and present danger to their life is present;

3. The Armorer may carry a flash, a stunbaton, a flashbang, a can of pepperspray, a tazer (or similar non-lethal ranged weapon), and a pair of handcuffs;

4. The Armorer shall work to maintain, repair, and improve existing Security equipment. However, all new lethal weaponry shall be immediately transported to the Armory for secure storage, and may not be carried on regular patrol. Exception is made for extreme circumstances, such as a 'Blob' organism outbreak or attack by a Syndicate strike team;

5. The Armorer may manufacture implants and augments for use by Security personnel. However, installation of these implants shall be voluntary, and performed by the Brig Physician (if available);

Armorer - Code Blue:

1. Guidelines 1, 4, and 5 carry over from Code Green.

2. The Armorer may unholster their weapons as needed, although this is not recommended.

3. In addition to their existing tools, the Armorer may carry a non-lethal weapon with a lethal setting, such as an Advanced Energy Gun. However, they are expected to use the weapon's non-lethal settings under regular circumstances. Lethal Force is only permitted if there is a direct threat to the station's integrity or the Armorer's life.

Armorer - Code Red:

1. Guidelines 2 and 3 carry over from Code Green.

2. The Armorer may carry lethal weapons, at the discretion of the Head of Security.

---

Dispatcher - Code Green:

1. The Security Dispatcher may not perform arrests, process prisoners, or perform searches unless given specific permission by the Head of Security or Warden. Exception is made if there are no active Officers or Warden;

2. The Dispatcher may not unholster their weapons unless a clear and present danger to their life is present;

3. The Dispatcher may carry a flash, a flashbang, and a can of pepperspray. However, they are not to use these weapons except in self-defense. Exception is made for extreme circumstances, such as a 'Blob' organism outbreak or attack by a Syndicate strike team;

4. The Dispatcher shall monitor the station's Security personnel, and may direct them to where they are most needed. However, the Dispatcher does not outrank any other member of the Security team, and should conduct themselves accordingly;

5. The Dispatcher is expected to assist the Warden in updating and maintaining arrest records.

Dispatcher - Code Blue:

1. Guidelines 1, 4, and 5 carry over from Code Green.

2. The Dispatcher may unholster their weapons as needed, although this is not recommended.

3. In addition to their existing tools, the Dispatcher may carry a stunbaton and tazer as available.

Armorer - Code Red:

1. Guidelines 2 and 3 carry over from Code Green.

2. The Dispatcher may carry lethal weapons, at the discretion of the Head of Security.

 

Notes: The Constable is a role for either newbies (unlocks sooner, fewer responsibilities) or someone looking to play the non-violent side of Sec (fewer responsibilities). Although you can still play the role as a regular officer if you want, it's meant to let you play as the CSO/SRO archetype without forcing you into the "Sec vs. antag" shenanigans which happen most shifts. Much like the 'Global Antag Candidacy' button we have now, if you want to play Sec without having to 1v1 a vampire in Maint, go play a Constable and smoke a fat blunt with the Botanists before telling greytiders to 'just chill, man.'

By contrast, the Armorer is meant to let Sec 'scale' up as the shift goes on, by giving them an officer with the access and purview to get them all the cool toys which R&D can print. This is meant to keep Sec Officers from being as horribly outgunned by the usual AEG/teleshield/meth-using Science traitors who could otherwise kill the shit out of them with little effort. The job is meant for the mad-scientist sort of player: you're downright expected to make cool toys, deliver cool augments to the BrigPhys to keep 'em from getting bored, and are trusted enough by Sec that they'll actually let you put cool chem implants in their teeth.

The Dispatcher is a role for helping minimize the amount of chaos inherent with Sec: their job is to watch cameras religiously, update records, and to get officers to where they're supposed to be. Although the Warden can help with this, ultimately the Warden has too many plates to juggle at once: processing prisoners, distributing gear, checking in with perma'd prisoners, etc etc etc. The Dispatcher is effectively a second (or third, or fourth) Warden who'll be watching dem cameras, updating dem records, and generally keeping the (un-fun) chaos to a dull roar rather than a full crescendo.

 

Tweaks to existing jobs:

Spoiler

Security Officer:

-Number of officers scales with population. I'd recommend something like 1:10 or so (i.e. a new Security Officer role starts open for every 10 players above 70).

Detective:

-Adds additional 'Forensic Technicians' to scale with player count: one Forensic Tech at 51-100 players, and another at 100+ players. The Forensic Technician role does NOT open at roundstart (not enough crimes immediately to justify 'em), but becomes available at 15 minutes into the game for new-spawning players depending on the player count.

-Forensic Technicians have the same rank and access as the Detective, and follow the same SOP.

-Forensic Technicians start with the Forensic Tech uniform, body armor, a Security beret, a Sec headset, sunglasses, a tazer, a flash, a telebaton, a forensic scanner, an evidence bag box, a pair of handcuffs, and a universal recorder. This should give 'em enough to hit the ground running.

Notes: This should help the Forensics role scale with the number of players, to keep the Detective from getting overwhelmed with 100+ players running around and causing trouble all at once. It should also let more players try the Forensics side of Sec, which is otherwise relatively inaccessible with only one Detective per game.

Head of Security:

-Karma-locked, 5 points.

Notes: This relatively minimal lock should help keep most absolute gobshits from playing the job, given how critical the HoS is to a good Sec team.

As before, these additions are primarily meant to scale the Sec team up with the total playercount per game. One Detective is definitely enough for a 40-person game, but when there's a good 115 players running around, suddenly they're a little overwhelmed. These tweaks are meant to minimize the general chaos going on; they won't prevent people from being dipshits, but they'll minimize the effect of the 'bad apple' sort of rank-and-file Sec players by increasing the numbers to compensate.

 

New antag roles:

Spoiler

Hooligan:

-Starting numbers: based on # of starting Constables. 1:1 hooligan:Constable ratio, +/-1.

-Starting role: Any EXCEPT for Heads or mindshielded personnel

-Starting equipment: N/A

-Starting text: 'You are the Hooligan. You are seeking to accomplish a criminal goal through underhanded means. [br][small]Note: You are NOT allowed to kill or otherwise completely end other players' rounds. Your job as an antagonist is to make the round a little more interesting. When in doubt, type 'adminhelp' to ask if something you plan on doing is OK.[/small]'

-Starting objectives are one of the following:

1. You want to get rich. Amass at least [X] amount in credits. (This is meant to encourage petty theft and similar criminal activity)

2. You want a particularly hard-to-get item. Acquire [Y] restricted item: a TYRANT AI module (Scientists and Roboticists excluded), a combat shotgun (Cargo Techs and the QM excluded), an Atmospherics Firesuit (Engineers and Atmos Techs excluded), etc etc etc. (This is meant to encourage black-market trading, racketeering, and similar activities)

3. You've got a grudge. Ensure that Person [Z] is arrested/demoted/etc. (Not as sure about this one, since it could be taken as license to grief, but I figure I should mention it anyway)

4. You're a little crazy. [Insert Abductor-victim objective here, i.e. 'find your lover on the station,' 'amass corpses,' etc.]

Notes: The goal here is to provide a decent number of low-level antagonists who're causing minor, but measurable, amounts of trouble. This is meant to provide license to perform a little griefing, but less 'Maint murderboning' and more 'steal someone's ID to drain their bank account' and the like.

 

Revisions to existing antag roles: Changeling, Vampire, ling+traitor, traitor+vampire: Adjust spawning antag #'s to be in line with the Auto-Traitor gamemode. This should be relatively doable, and should also limit the amount of rounds where an understaffed Sec gets ganged-up on and murderboned by antags.

While this is a pretty simple change, it's probably the most important fix on this whole list. Not getting ganked five minutes in by a group of 'lings which outnumbered my whole starting Sec team would be awfully nice.

 

Map changes:

Spoiler

Departmental Checkpoints: All Sec Officers start with the relevant armband, ID upgrade, and radio encryption key for one of the other four major departments (Medical, Engineering, Science, or Cargo). Up to two Officers per dept.

Armorer's Workshop: 4x4 space, somewhere in Security. Protolathe, Exosuit Fabricator, and R&D Console.

Constable Ready Room: (Ideally) a 4x4 space at or near the Bar area, with basic Sec gear.

 

Gear changes:

Spoiler

Security HUDs: No longer able to update Sec statuses; updating someone's arrest record will require a dedicated console. This should keep antags from being able to rapidly remove their arrest status, and force them to avoid any place with Security 'bots in it. On the flipside, this'll also make Security checkpoints important places for both Seccies and antags, since they'll have a records console there.

Security bowman headsets: Encryption keys no longer able to be removed, and Security headsets start with a video camera which can't be deactivated (idea shamelessly stolen from Colonial Marines. Antags can still steal the headset if they want, but it'll open them up to being tracked wherever they go. Additionally, it'll let Dispatchers watch cams much more closely, even when Sec Officers are running around Maint.

POSSIBLE update to stunbatons: only usable by someone with a mindshield, a la the /tg/ mindshield firing pins. This would let Constables carry 'em more safely, since they couldn't be easily stripped and used against them by greytiders. At the same time, I'd like to avoid giving all the advantages to Sec, and this seems like it might be a step too far. Thoughts?

 

[Security numbers]

I play Pod Pilot to avoid the 'daily grind' of Sec and the usual shitty behavior which goes on, and I've stopped playing Sec at all recently due to the generally terrible behavior one has to deal with in that area. I'd argue these issues are the most pressing:

 

1. Lack of numbers/backup: I take lone patrols for granted when playing as the pod pilot, but that shouldn't be the norm for regular officers. Some of that is due to simple incompetence on Sec's part, but even when there are decent players in red, they're often too overworked and overstressed to help out. Certainly, I've often ignored well-meaning people waiting in the Sec lobby because I've simply too much shit to deal with at the time (Warden getting beaten up in the Prison Wing, tator on the loose in the Old Bar, etc.).

Proposed solution #1: Increase friendly numbers. One position I'd really like to see is an 'Armorer,' a karma-locked role whose purpose is to kit out Security members with shiny kit from R&D. The current process for Sec members getting nice gear relies on individuals doing it themselves, or the planets aligning and you get a nice three-way with Lady Luck and Admiral Awesome. Having an Armorer would ensure that Sec would actually be as well-armed as the antags they're chasing (for once).*

I'd love to see more secborgs, but I'm not sure how to actually get more on-station short of "volunteers+Robotics actually being competent for once." Perhaps give the Armorer Robotics access and add a secondary Exosuit Fabber in Sec to let 'em construct more during the shift?

Finally, another method of rapidly increasing numbers might be via CentComm-led reinforcements once officers start to go down. Events like the classic "half of the active officers just got murderblended in Sci Maintenance" could trigger a notice for in-game admins ("X number of starting officers have died out of Y total"), with an agreed-upon SOP for replacements ("Once two or more officers have died, reinforce the station with ERT secborgs at a rate of 1:1 or 1:2").

Proposed solution #2: Decrease the overall threat. I don't want to simply decrease the number of baddies in the round, but perhaps changing their objectives to be less focused on violence might be effective. Things like Goon's "hooligans" (a small number of players given license to stir up non-lethal trouble around the station) to leaven up the number of hyper-lethal changelings, vampires, etc. might be useful, for instance. As it stands, baddies like changelings and vampires have every incentive to kill off Sec Officers since they're unlikely to receive clemency from them in return. Making baddies be actually containable and minimizing the number of valid kills might improve Sec-antag relations.

---

2. Lack of outside help: Science is easily the biggest offender here, but "people shitting on Sec right until they need it" is a station-wide problem. Not getting assistance from Medical, Engineering, etc. is both difficult to overcome and demotivating to deal with. I've straight-up given up and resigned mid-shift once or twice when the flak from other departments has gotten to be too much.

Proposed solution #1: Make the RD start mindshielded, and give them access to Security comms a la the HoP. This'll give Sec a natural ally in one of the most troublesome departments right from the start, and give them a means of fighting back against 'big' events like sabotaged tcomms, a subverted AI, and so on (which they're otherwise helpless against).**

Proposed solution #2: Randomly assign Sec Officers to different departments /tg-style, depending on their preferences. Officers start with basic access to that department, along with an appropriate armband, ID card upgrade, and encryption key in their backpack at roundstart. There'll be a maximum of two Officers per department (Cargo/Service, Medical, Engineer, Science), which should improve Sec's responsiveness to other departments throughout the round.

Proposed solution #3: Give IAA a 'mission briefing' a la the NT Rep and Blueshield, and let them select the title 'Court Reporter' for themselves. IA Agents often lack for direction, and giving them a little more of a push in a productive direction ("watch over Sec and other areas, here's a stack of criminal-investigation and IA-inspection forms to use," etc.) might help make them more effective.

---

3. Incompetence: I've been called on for dangerous on-station duties as the pod pilot because I could be trusted to be competent. The average officer's competence is...suspect, and there's little way of telling between the good and bad ones short of metaknowledge or finding out in practice.

Proposed solution #1: Make the 'standard' Sec Officer job be a 'Deputy' or similar subordinate title, and make the bonafide Officer position (plus extra-departmental access/comms, i.e. Engineering or Medical) require a minimal amount of karma, like 5 or so. This'll mark the more-experienced officers out for everyone involved, while putting the newer officers together in the Brig rather than stringing them out station-wide to be picked off. The Warden and HoS would also be karma-locked (5 karma or so), enough to make the positions desirable without making them too difficult to get.

Proposed solution #2: Alternatively to having newbies be 'Deputies,' perhaps have a 'Peace Officer' position which is explicitly meant to stay out of validhunting - and in return, is not normally a 'valid' target for antags. Basically, someone whose job is to wrangle drunks even when the rest of the department is going to shit.

Proposed solution #3: Trainees. I'd be happy to have Aurorastation-style trainee positions for all departments /anyway/***, but it'd be helpful to have a more protected one for people looking to dip their toes into the Sec side of things without getting it ripped off in the process.

---

I'd add that SkeletalElite, R1f73r, and tzo all offer some good ideas above. I'd also agree with Normalyman's point about the 'competition' between Sec and antags, and I'd suggest trying to improve that by making antags and Sec less...well, antagonistic if possible. I'm not entirely sure how to do that without going too far in either direction, but overall, I'd support making more antag objectives be less-violent - more abductor-style :fun: objectives rather than "kill the HoS/steal the NAD," etc.

 

 

*Armorer: Karma-locked, 30 points, starts mindshielded. Basic access to both Security (Brig, Security) and Science (R&D, Science, Toxins, Xenobiology). This would basically be a cross between Security and Science, and their primary job would be to kit out other members of the Sec team. This would also have the beneficial side effect of helping ensure that R&D gets done at a decent pace, which is something a lot of other jobs depend on.

**Despite the fun I can get up to as an antagonist CE, I'd generally support making the Head positions be mindshielded. We have enough dipshit heads piss off and ignore their job already; adding bonafide antagonism to the mix makes getting competent leaders a rarity rather than the norm.

***Trainees could be in every major department (Engineering, Sec, Science, Medical, Cargo) and half the Service ones too (Hydroponics, the Kitchen and Bar). Trainees would have the same access as 'regular' roles but just a different title, which would let people sign up for the role and admit their ignorance without sacrificing any gear or access in the process.

[On Contraband Abuse and Sec...]

As the pod pilot in question, I suppose I should add my $.02 regarding the situation:

1. I got the M-90GL from the Syndie supply base out in space. Only turrets were harmed in the acquiring of yonder weapon.

2. I didn't break into the supply base particularly for the M-90 (only one mag and no reloads available); my real prize was the thermal glasses, since they're a huge help when patrolling the station exterior. The Syndie medkit and related gear was my #2 goal, since the combat defibrillator and stims are a huge help in case of srsface trouble. The stims ended up being a literal lifesaver in that fight against the traitor, since I couldn't rely on the same memechems that they had cooked up earlier in SciChem.

3. The gun had previously been taking up locker space, but I did keep the M-90 on me after a methed-out traitor wielding a shitload of firepower and stolen Sec gear burst through Sec while murdering several other officers in the process. Shame, shame on me.

4. After trying to fight the traitor at range with an AEG (which didn't work well because they kept healing up with synthflesh + meth), and having taken damage in the process, I broke out the M-90 and used it on burst with the hope of causing fractures+IB, then popped its one grenade at 'em before falling back.

 

I can sympathize with antags complaining about Sec Officers tearing after 'em with contraband gear. It's (usually) one-on-many odds, the rest of the station is usually on Sec's side, and the fellows in red have a lot of more-legal options they can use without having to tap into Evidence Storage or the like. That being said, when an antag ruthlessly abuses the shit out of memechems and every other advantage they can find to murder a bunch of Sec Officers, complaining that the survivors went after them with contraband weapons is a pretty 'crocodile tears' sort of argument to make.

 

If you want to complain about Sec Officers abusing gear, though, I'd agree with you about the issue of Syndie encryption keys. Identifying traitors through their private comms is taking people out of the round needlessly, which is an issue IC and OOC. The dividing line here IMO is the antagonist's actions: I see no issue with Sec breaking laws when the alternative is "getting murderboned by a munchkin'd antag," whereas using Syndie comms isn't justified by that same necessity.

On the whole, I'd argue the primary question to ask is whether the antagonist's actions merit the sort of response that Sec is taking. If Sec Officers are toting around confiscated gear with no immediate threat to their lives (i.e. no nukies, a murderboning antagonist, etc.) then I agree it's ethically dubious and deserves a bwoink. At the same time, I don't feel much remorse for using contraband space loot on someone who'd been doing their best to kill anyone affiliated with Sec up to this point.

[Fastmos: Too Fast? Too Slow? Just Right?]

On 11/4/2017 at 6:31 PM, Allfd said:

The current made up numbers were a gameplay compromise between people who wanted little effect, to those who thought Magboots should also send you flying, just without your feet or ankles.  As for speed of decompression, LINDA is not capable of simulating the speed at which air would leave through a 2 square meter hole at 14.49 Freedom Pressure.

No offense meant, but I'm not sold on the logic here. I don't mind lethal spesswinds, but it's a bit of a stretch to lean on "realism" as your motivating factor when technical constraints means that these spesswinds are unrealistically long-lasting. You're certainly right that major pressure differentials /are/ nasty, but depressurization should ideally be an instant event rather than the long, drawn-out mess that it actually is in practice (and of course, the atomic bombings you cite as an example were also accompanied with a literal firestorm and similar effects, so it's hardly directly comparable to a relatively tame hull breach).

Similarly, real-life humans would have the ability to anchor themselves to stationary objects to handle depressurization, along with minimizing their profile to both minimize the PSI acting on them and to better dodge debris. Here, we've no option for dodging lethal debris other than a 'rest' macro and no way to hold on to walls or the like. This leads to frustration and a perception of a lack of agency on the players' part, where they can get trapped for ages because of slow-cycling pressure yet still tossed and shrapnel'ed the moment they try to do anything.

As a longtime Atmos fan, I like the idea of spesswinds being dangerous, but as it stands the average civvie is basically screwed without access to magboots, which leaves lots of people without much recourse in the event of a hull breach. I'd suggest the following to try and rectify the situation:

1. Have the 'throw' effect on mobs be less effective on someone who's next to a wall or other anchored object. Ideally this wouldn't be necessary, since de- and re-pressurization would happen quickly, but since that's not feasible then we need to account for people holding on to something during the (extended) hurricane. This could be compensated by the same check also forcing people to walk speed or slower: staying close to the wall lets you pull yourself along, but you're not going anywhere at any speed.

2. Decrease the stun effect of a pressure-throw to a maximum of 5 seconds, perhaps again compensating with a less-disabling 'weaken' effect that lasts for a little longer (stamina damage, perhaps?). The goal here would be to bring the stun duration in line with other in-game stun durations: while you could argue about the specifics of how long it would take someone who was sent flying by pressure waves to get back on their feet, the fact remains that in game, 10 seconds is an extremely long time. Making that 'fit' would require re-jiggering all the other stun effects in turn, from tasers to flashbangs (as someone who regularly has to dig taser prongs out of people's asses, I can say pretty confidently that tasers [when they work] disable for a lot longer than 10 seconds). And of course, at the end of the day the ultimate design goal here is enjoyment rather than realism: we're playing 2D spessmen for R&R, not Real Space Life Simulator here.

3. Thank you for the suggestions regarding fixing the 'whirling debris' problem; personally I'd prefer the "prevent 180-degree movement for X time" myself, but I'm no expert on it. Regardless, when applied to both mobs and objects, that seems like it'd stop the whole "circling the drain" effect that can happen around minor pressure differentials like air scrubbers, which would be a tremendous help. One other issue I've seen there, though, involves objects getting stopped by someone who's wearing magboots: you can easily get killed by debris flying in this way, and a block on /reverse/ movement doesn't stop floor tiles from endlessly zooming forward until you're left in crit or just plain dead. Would it be feasible to make objects move forward with progressively less force the second or third time they're thrown? That'd still allow for a first crushing impact, but wouldn't let objects just pile up and cause that lethal "stationary" damage that they currently do.

 

My criticisms aside, thank you for taking the time to revamp the game's atmosphere (literally), and thank you for taking the time to field our complaints and issues. I'll admit that I'm still a bit salty about the number of times I've died to fastmos, but as a frequent CE or Atmos Tech I'd like to see atmospherics become more of a major role in its own right.

[Fires - what's your opinion?]

Man, talk about some incendiary opinions here.

I REGRET NOTHING

13 minutes ago, KingPhilipIII said:

I honestly would  like fires to burn slower. So they're less of an issue that you just wait five seconds for it to burn out and then it cools down and you forget it happened, outside of some burned equipment. I would love to actually get to the fire before it's gone as an atmos tech.

That's a good point. Come to think of it, here's some thoughts regarding adding low-level incidents to a shift:

a. 'Low frequency but high scale:' As it stands, the only really flammable thing that can kick off a major burn is plasma. That's stored safely in Toxins Storage and Atmospherics, with a couple small tanks elsewhere; outside of those sources, though, there's nothing that can really spark a blaze. At the same time, they only tend to get released due to gross incompetence or outright sabotage, and in either case it tends to result in a truly massive burn that regular folks don't have a hope of fighting. That's great for Engineering crew with the gear to survive it, but not for everyone else. Therefore, the obvious solution to this seems to be adding more small-scale fuel sources, which can burn but won't trash half the station if someone goofs.

b. Adding fuel sources: I'd propose making carpets, couches, and other organic substances flammable: they wouldn't go up in a massive fire, but it'd be a room-emptying mess that would require internals at a minimum to fight. Hell, the heat might actually force someone to use one of those emergency firesuits stationwide for their actual purpose even! If I remember my maps correctly, this would make some offices and areas with carpet and wooden furniture more at-risk, but also wouldn't threaten primary hallways and public spaces other than the Bar (and I assume any minor furniture fire there would be quickly contained due to the sheer number of people milling around. Other options include spilled ethanol or other flammable substances, which wouldn't be an inadvertent blaze but would allow for improvised Molotov cocktails to be put together by greytiders, traitors, and anyone else who just likes starting burns.

c. Ignition: Fires require oxygen, fuel, heat, and a spark. Increasing the flammability of carpets and some furniture would provide some regular fuel sources for small burns, and unless Atmos has completely shit the bed then we can assume that there'll be sufficient heat and oxygen available for a burn. However, making this happen would require an ignition source, and ideally one that's under player control. The clearest solution there seems to be cigarettes and other smokes, which is actually the case in real life to boot. Cigarette butts dropped on a carpet or other fuel source would have a low chance over time of sparking a small burn, which could spread if left unchecked. Other ignition sources would presumably include lighters, a lit cigarette, and the usual culprits like welders and active RCDs.

d. Fire as a weapon: Fire's rarely used by round antagonists, and I think a part of that is the lack of a useful method of creating and spreading fire. The most straightforward method of resolving that seems to be making it easy to find and spread fuel sources, i.e. that some splashed-and-ignited Griffeater Gin could be used to block a Maintenance passageway and enable a quick escape. Aside from that, as previously stated I'd love to see and use Molotovs and set fires as a quick diversion, and as a wannabe-firefighter I'd love the chance to take on small blazes on a reasonably-common basis.

[Fires - what's your opinion?]

Hello there, everyone. I've made a suggestion here where I call for making localized fires a bigger part of the random events system. Thing is, as someone who usually gravitates towards Engineering, fires are riiiiight up my alley. I've got the tools, gear, and prerogative to go out and handle 'em, and that's got an obvious impact on my overall opinion of fires. With that in mind, I'd like to ask if anyone else has a strong opinion one way or another about fires breaking out in-game? Bear in mind here that I'm not talking about the usual hull breaches, but about full-blown, bonafide fires, whether one-room or station-wide. Was it an annoyance, something similar to a hull breach where you just had to vacate the room and wait for the whole thing to blow over? Did you ever get involved in trying to fight the fire, and if so, how did it go? What are your thoughts on the mechanics of fire in-game? Let me know what y'think!

[An Ode To Fire(Fighting)]

Earlier today, as the Mechanic I flew back into comms range to find a good chunk of the station on fire. Not just 'breached and blown up,' not the usual busted-up areas vented into space, but a proper full-blown fire - an immovable rod had gone straight through Atmos, breaching the mixing tank and venting the oxygen-plasma Turbine mix into Medbay. Even with some areas open to space, there was a massive cloud of plasma still spreading, and a giant fire brewing in the charred space where OR2 used to be. I dropped everything I was doing, grabbed an Atmos hardsuit (since as usual, there were no Atmos Techs to be had), and charged right in with backpack watertank in hand.

The following fifteen minutes were possibly the most fun I've ever had playing Space Station 13.

Even with the high-end Atmospherics tools, like a backpack unit that can turn swathes of fiery plasma into inert nitrogen, a major fire is a tremendous engineering challenge to be overcome. You've got to try and either focus on removing the oxygen or the fuel source for the fire, and often have to choose between building firebreaks (with metal foam grenades/the Atmos backpack, or just building walls up) or trying to just beat out the fire by repeatedly dousing it. Do you try and vent the atmospherics out to space, bearing in mind the danger that all the flying debris poses to you? Do you instead try and contain the fire away from anything valuable and let it burn itself out, or try and lower the temperature enough to stop the blaze? During this marathon, you will also be on fire - quite literally, mind you. It is complicated, extremely engaging, and involves wading into the middle of a raging inferno to put it out with a combination of skill, tools, and cast-iron balls. Needless to say, it's kind of awesomesauce.

Sadly for Atmospherics, it's also unbelievably rare. I've seen maybe one traitor AI in my whole time on Paradise, and without a hijack objective, regular Atmos Techs are forbidden from venting plasma. Past that there's just the piddly scorcher of the pyroclastic anomaly, Toxins screwups, and the once-in-a-blue-moon abductor plasma organs. Firefighting is easily the highlight of any job dealing with Atmos, yet it almost never actually happens. That round today was the first time I've ever actually had the chance to fight a multi-room fire, and God knows I'd love to dive back into that again. The Atmos Tech job is chronically understaffed, and I would argue that the lack of proper fires to fight is a major part of that limiter. After all, when the most fun part of your job happens once in a blue moon, who would want to go through the trouble of setting up a proper heat exchanger array capable of moving 1,400 liters of gas per minute? When there are no big fires to fight, you're spending 10-30 minutes moving pipes around for no real payoff; being able to empty a room's atmosphere in five seconds or less is pretty awesome, but you need a chance to actually put those capabilities into action.

Therefore, I'd like to suggest the following random events to try and add more firefighting into the game without ruining other people's fun in the process:

1. Changing the pyroclastic anomaly: Currently, when the anomaly 'explodes,' it leaves behind a couple slimes. Since people will be responding to reports of a fire with extinguishers anyway, this is kind of a piddly end to a failed anomaly capture. Compare it with failure-states like the massive translocation of the bluespace anomaly, or the explosion and general mess of flux, gravitational, or vortex anomalies, and the pyroclastic one is a bit underwhelming. Therefore, I'd suggest that its failure-state should instead be spawning a large cloud of plasma and oxygen to set off a reasonably large one-room burn. A single-room inferno with a lot of fuel, heat, and oxygen keeping it active would require actual Atmospherics help to contain and extinguish, rather than the current state where the AI can trivially contain the situation with a simple doorbolt+syphon combo.

2. New Moderate Event: 'Plasma Translocation.' The announcement would presumably be something like 'Bluespace abnormalities detected. Plasma-rich atmosphere has been translocated aboard the station. Expected location: [ROOM].' This would involve around a 50-50 plasma/O2 mix being dumped into one or more rooms on the station, which would then result in a high-pressure 30-40-30 plasma-O2-nitrogen mix in the room itself. However, unlike with the anomaly there's no obvious heat source, and the mix wouldn't immediately ignite; it would require crew incompetence to fail at containing it and to set the whole thing ablaze. Since the average Cyberiad crewmember can barely manage to feed themselves without dying, this would happen in a heartbeat the moment some idiot runs in with a lit welder, but the fact that it could be contained safely with prompt and decisive action would make the inevitable failures much more poignant.

 

Regardless of whether or not these proposals are accepted, I would like to make a case for fire and the job focused around fighting it. I often end up playing as an Atmos Tech when I join mid-round, because the position is so deserted normally. Aside from the technical challenge, I'd argue a bit part of that issue is how the coolest part of the job is so chronically neglected. I can't even remember the last time I hauled out a backpack watertank before today, and I'd love another chance to get set on fire. Please, make Atmos great fun again!

[Powergamers]

On 9/29/2017 at 1:18 AM, Streaky Haddock said:

Dude. This happens. It's part of the job. It's something you have to deal with. I'm not unsympathetic, but this happens to everybody. My advice? Be chill, stay within your assigned limits (unless the station collapses into UTTER chaos) and lighten up. If people see you as a cool dude instead of a quick-to-anger thug then you might find that when you're slipped; iinstead of having your ID stolen it's just your beret or your shoes. 

Or, alternatively, when a 5 day old baldie named Shitheel McNotlongforthisserver grabs your ID and runs you might find your ID returned by a DIFFERENT greyshirt.

Never meta with people, but part of playing on an RP server is forming relationships with people. Instead of railing against power-gamers (when i'm pretty sure your issue is griefers rather than power-gamers) try a bit of diplomacy.

And, hell, if you see someone being an UTTER shitbird then you can ahelp for a reason.

Example: As CE earlier today on a lowpop round, I very unwisely went poking around after some shotgun noises in Maintenance. I found the Blueshield on the round, getting combat-shotty'd by a pair of very robust changelings. As it turned out, one of the 'lings had the objective of escaping on the shuttle with my identity and ID; killing me on the spot would've made their disguise much more effective. I was also the only Head of Staff active, so killing me would've thrown the station (further) into disarray. However, they instead fell back for a second and returned a moment later to taze me as I tried to haul the 'shield away. If I'd been a complete comdom that shift, I can virtually guarantee that they would've just gunned me down on the spot instead of taking the time to neutralize me non-lethally.

[Small change to emagging drones]

I'm bumping this 'un for attention because I nearly had an engine on the loose because of a drone. It took admin intervention (or at least, some guy whose name I didn't recognize and an 'Admin Tool-Belt' around their waist) to undo the damage that a drone caused to containment. If you're interested in causing havoc, a drone is /terrifyingly/ good at it: the crew has no means of stopping you short of physical deconstruction, you get cyborg-level access and ventcrawl to boot, and a pack of tools to cause ten different kinds of trouble. I like having drones around as a CE, but it takes a lot of effort to not just deactivate the fabricators the moment traitors are reported.

[Handheld Drone Controller]

Love it. As it stands, there's no way of dealing with a trolling non-emagged drone short of asploding it, and I'd love a way of calling drones to a location. I have to admit, though, I'd really love more ways of interacting between crew and drones like this, especially when the station starts getting holes blown in it and I need hands (or grippers) on the smoking hole where Cargo used to be bloody yesterday.

[Best and worst antagonists?]

Best: Traitor, changeling, blob, war ops, abductors. Traitors are unpredictable enough that they can be interesting, and have enough gear that they can make cool stuff happen when they actually dip into their fun stuff. Changelings /can/ be fun, although 'lings on their own can get a little snoozeworthy sometimes; it really depends on the antag, I think. I love blob and war ops because they're classic all-hands-on-deck game modes where everyone and their dog can chip in, and abductors make rounds just plain crazy. I'd love to see an abductor team or two added to more rounds mid-way through.

Worst: Vampires - fuck 'em. Their stunlocks and evasions make them annoying as hell to fight, I'm not a fan of the friendly-vamp shenanigans, and a fight against a competent vamp almost invariably descends into Murderbone: A Station Deserted. Shadowlings are also a right pain, since half the greyshirts of the station charge off to get converted five minutes in, and the station's fate is rapidly sealed with most people having no ability to effect the outcome one way or another. Either you validhunt the bastards, get lucky, or die horribly - there's very little in-between. Not a fan of cult either, because it usually ends up being an off-station snoozefest with no suspense or intrigue prior to "SPACE-TIME ANOMALIES DETECTED, PREPARE UR ANUSES." The experience of going from cruise control to an auto-loss is not a fun one.

That being said, I feel like 'slings and cult are at least salvageable as a game mode: cult needs more of an incentive to interact with the station, and people need a reason to not want to be thralled (killed on shadowling ascension, perhaps? That'd allow people to act out their murderous impulses for a while, while still giving them a reason to want to be un-thralled too). I don't see how to 'fix' vampires, though, and I'd be a fan of seeing them bumped entirely.

[Hijacking, and Antags in general]

To add my two cents on a rather charged topic:

I would argue that most antagonists can't add much to the round in their current circumstances. Antags are very predictable, because there's only so many ways you can metaphorically skin a pig (or literally murder someone). This leads to people logically taking the shortest and most effective route of completing their goals, which involves toolboxing someone to death in a dark Maintenance corridor, and not a lot of cool and interesting ways of gettin' dat greentext. The two obvious exceptions here are Blob and War Ops, which remain popular in large part because they allow literally everyone and everyone to get involved in some way. Traitors and changelings tend to play things subtly, however, which results in much more of a cat-and-mouse game of valids vs. validhunters - fine for those people, but not so much for everyone else.

To some degree, we can blame the antagonists themselves for this lack of interesting stuff going down. At the same time, I think that's unfair to someone who's quite rightly feeling like it's them vs. the station. When even other antagonists might well be ordered to kill you, can you blame the antagonist for taking what they believe is the simplest and most efficient route of getting their 'job' done? After all, trying to engage in a hostage scenario or carrying out some complicated, Rube Goldberg-esque scheme is just begging to get disrupted by Robusto McAssistant and his Toolbox of Justice.

Furthermore, as someone who usually plays an involved role in Engineering or Medical, I don't find many antagonists adding much to my round. Unless I'm a direct target in some way, it tends to play out more like a radio drama than something directly involving me. I can remember being happy as a pig in shit recently when someone set bombs. Bombs! Actual explodey-things that required reconstruction! I had to break out my station blueprints from where I'd hidden them (since I know full well they're on the roster of high-risk items) to actually reconstruct the station's powernet. Maybe a week ago, some admins created a quintuple-abductor round, and I got treated to some quality fires courtesy of plasma organs. Do you know how much fun proper firefighting is, when you've got the gear and experience to fight it? I would quite literally kill for good fires to fight, or powersinks to overload, or other issues geared at the areas I generally play in. The closest I've gotten recently to antagonists directly making my round fun has been an emagged drone trying (and failing) to set the engine loose.

I don't have an issue with traitors or changelings as they stand. Both of them are clearly meant to elicit a very particular theme, whether that's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold or just The Thing, and in those circumstances they work quite well. Perma'd prisoners using their codewords over the radio to call for help, or changelings hiding among a mass of greyshirt hooligans, makes for good drama. However, both of those styles only appeal to a certain portion of any round's playerbase, and I would argue that we should look beyond just those antags when looking to keep things interesting. Here are my suggestions for issues meant to complement ye olde antags:

1. 'Hooligans:' Goons have a special kinda-sorta antagonist type whose job is to cause havoc in some particular way. They don't get special resources, but they do get official sanction to cause trouble. We have this in an ad-hoc form - the Hobo King comes to mind here - and I strongly believe in the importance of low-level antags to leaven out the high-level ones. One of the best rounds I ever had when dealing with changelings, for instance, was when I was asked as a Magistrate to pick a 'ling out from a pack of greyshirts who'd been demonstrating in front of the Brig. It was a pretty awesome time of cat-vs-mouse, but it required a lot of low-level shenanigans to allow the one high-level antagonist to blend in. After all, if only one or two people had been causing trouble, then suddenly it's a lot easier to separate the EoC from all the low-level troublemakers who don't need a trip to the permabrig.

Implementation: This would presumably be an opt-in role, with easily-completed tasks like that of an abductor victim. One or two 'hooligans' could be wannabe-rev's, minus flashes, and would have to rely on (gasp!) actual rhetoric and convincing people in order to incite a change in power. Others could be part of an off-station gang, and be ordered to tag areas or carry out some low-level violence. Another person might have a gambling debt which they'd need to pay off via stealing money, or be told that they're having a mental break (i.e. give the poor Psychologist a real role), or be told that they're a pyromaniac and want to start some fires. Some of these roles should be dependent on the station population, i.e. no mental-illness hooligans without a Psychologist to treat 'em, but in general I'd be all for early- and mid-round hooligans as low-level antagonists to add some spice to things. As it stands, most crime tends to either be petty theft or EoC activity, with no in-between; this role is meant to provide some moderately-bad activity that isn't yet another instance of someone emagging in to steal your stuff.

2. Events: I'm a big fan of events, because they give me something to do when I'm in one of the roles I usually settle into. As a CMO or Virologist, a spontaneous disease outbreak generally makes me more happy than a pig in shit, because I get to actually test on monkeys and do all the fun stuff which I would otherwise end up ignoring (again). Anomalies or meteor impacts are fun for Engineering, because they provide a meaningful amount of reconstruction work to do and threaten vital station things like the engine or the power network. Fixing a busted emitter makes you feel important to the station's survival, in a way that setting up the engine for the upteenth time doesn't really capture. I'm not savvy enough with coding to know how feasible these sorts of things are, but I'd love to see a semi-automated system of triggering station-busting events when the station's entirely intact and limiting them when it's taken damage, ditto for personnel health (i.e. spontaneous appendicitis when the whole crew is hale and healthy, and no brainrot outbreaks when half of 'em are already dead).

Regardless, I would argue for a greater number of Bad Things happening unrelated to the regular old antagonists themselves, because I don't believe that traitors or 'clings alone are necessarily sufficient to carry a round forward. When a traitor aims for widespread destruction or does something to injure a bunch of crew at once, then yes they're getting other people involved, but as it stands I think we'd benefit from looking to move things along via other means rather than just the antags themselves.

[Screenshot thread!]

On 9/15/2017 at 7:57 PM, PacifistDalek said:

Behold, MacTavish Station!

A mysterious antagonist jammed CentComm's transmissions and declared that it was to be battle royale amongst all crew members, and that they would slowly destroy the outer edge of the station, and that not killing each other would be punished. The entire engineering department said "Screw that" and grabbed everything nailed down and moved to the Engineering Station.

By the end of the round, we had a working medbay, R&D, robotics lab, plus we all had all-access (thanks to the HoP attacking and then losing to our Mechanic when they returned to the station unawares), had destroyed the station's engie shuttle console and surrounded the Engineering station in a metal foam shell so that we could be attacked, and were expanding our space, building a mech, finishing a chem lab, and prepping one of our engineers for surgery to fix a punctured lung (the surgeon was going to be the one medbay chemist who had kindly requested to join up with us in our escape).

We all voted to stay on the engineering base when the shuttle was called to the main station, and we named our new base in honour of our CE who had done a bang-up job keeping us focused and organized (including before the madness kicked off).

(Had the round not ended, we were going to try starting on an atmos system (though a lack of gas canisters was going to get in the way of that, probably), build a second set of solars with the solars crates we'd brought with, and tried setting up a telecomms system)

I was CE MacTavish, and my team was bloody amazing. I remember seeing the initial text about a 'Battle Royale'-esque setup going out, and asking everyone in Engineering to please make their way to the outpost with every bit of gear they could. Everyone went, and I do mean /everyone/. No BS, no temper-tantrums, no random murderboners; it was a coordinated team effort from start through to round end. This shit right here is why I work Engineering.

I really wish I had the logs to see how much salt was going around in deadchat, though. The admins made two notices about how we'd set up shop on the outpost, but no one came a-knockin' thankfully (we had our welders and a single uncharged retro laser gun between all of us, lol). Apparently deadchat wanted the admins to BSA the outpost, and given how many people were dead and waiting for a new game by the end of the round, I can't blame 'em for being salty.

[The problem with most security officers and the crew.]

From my own experience as Sec, I'd like to add a couple issues and a couple possible solutions:

1. (Under)Staffing: When you bring in Assistant McFuckFace, there's often no one around to assist with processing, searching, and handling his case properly. No one else will update records, or do all the paperwork-y stuff that this job should involve, because you're constantly being dragged away dealing with more griefers and idiots causing trouble (not to mention srsface trouble like cultists, traitors, or other antags). This leads to Sec being even more un-fun than it already is, and encourages people to cut corners and ignore SOP in favor of just trying to not drown; it doesn't make for a fun or rewarding experience for anyone involved. This leads you to not select Sec again, which worsens the under-staffing problem, and the cycle continues ad nauseum.

Proposed solution: Both Stressbay Medbay and Security have the problem of too many urgent problems at once, and in the past as CMO and HoS I've tried to explore the possibility of making a 'junior' position to recruits newbies into the department to help handle some of the chaos. However, it's a difficult thing to try and create ex nihilo in a single round, and as HoS and HoP I've usually run into extreme resistance from other members of Command; they've preferred an empty Sec department to a less-reliable one. I'd like to see a formalized junior position (Deputy, Security Cadet, etc.) for different departments, complete with a uniform and a short primer on How To Job Gud for newbies. Just having an option for recruiting new members into Sec, to start off with more 'bureaucratic' stuff like camera-watching and records-updating, could help alleviate some of the everyday stress that Sec has to deal with.

2. Arrests: While I'm sick of people running away the moment I call for them to stop, on the flipside people may often be unaware that they were under arrest in the first place. That creates a helluva cognitive dissonance, where someone's first warning that they're under arrest is hearing "FACE THE WRATH OF THE GOLDEN BOLT" or Beepsky chasing them down. It's an environment which encourages people to want to fight back, because they feel (whether rightly or wrongly) that Sec has attacked them and they're not allowed to fight back.

Proposed solution: A public "Warrants" system. Sec should have the option (if not the requirement) to publicize an arrest warrant for a crewmember. Obviously suspected vamps/lings/taters wouldn't get a warning ahead of time, but someone spotted trespassing might be a good candidate for a public notice that "You've been charged with A Bad Thing, please surrender yourself and it'll go easy on you." (this would also, of course, require that Sec doesn't immediately stunbuckle the dude if he shows up, but change has gotta be two-way here lol). If that crewmember surrenders to a patrolling officer or turns themselves in at the Brig, then even if charged they'll get the -25% sentence reduction. On the flipside, if they flee into space or Maintenance the moment their warrant is announced, then they'll get slapped with Resisting Arrest. This would require some extra paperwork on Security's part, but as above, that's a problem which could be dealt with separately (or something that could be done by Lawyers/IAA Agents or Magistrates, per their discretion).

Rationale: Much like with real-life traffic stops, a "street arrest" is a dangerous affair. This system is meant to provide a framework for cooperation between arrester and arrestee: the arrester provides a gesture of trust by announcing their intent publicly, and the arrestee reciprocates by following directions at a safe distance. By the time both 'sides' meet, they've both demonstrated a certain degree of trust and are much more inclined to work together (i.e. the Sec officer doesn't stunbuckle the arrestee, and they don't try to murder the officer) than they would otherwise. It's hardly a foolproof solution - the arrestee might get Beepsky'd en route to the Brig, Sec might not communicate well with each other, etc. - but it'd offer a better framework for cooperation to occur than Compli-nator shouts.

3. Boredom (Unemployment): A decent amount of the regular hallway griefing comes about from a simple lack of fun stuff to do. The Gateway is a fun concept, but it's also hobbled by everyone and their dog having to wade through the HoP line to get there. When there aren't any open positions that you want to take, it's not too surprising to see people turn to griefing or just crowbarring up the floors out of a lack of something else to do.

Proposed solution: I'd like to propose a dedicated Sec position for handling the Gateway - a Customs Official, maybe - whose job is to facilitate and monitor Gateway traffic. As it stands, actually monitoring the Gateway is a relatively haphazard affair, and it's something which could be worked in more effectively into regular station life. I'd suggest merging this with the Arrivals Checkpoint - either move that checkpoint further east, or the Gateway further west, and give the office two blast doors to control traffic in and out. With a dedicated position for allowing and monitoring Gateway traffic, that might also allow for stuff like multiple Gateway destinations so that lots of wannabe-treasure hunters can head off to multiple different exotic locales.

Rationale: This wouldn't be a cure-all, but it would alleviate some of the simply boredom-induced BS that makes Security players want to pull their hair out. Making it much more easy and convenient to head off into the unknown would limit the number of troublemakers available to cause trouble back on the station itself, which would keep Sec's action focused more on antags and less on greytide shitheads (which is generally a lot more rewarding for Sec players, as "dying while protecting the station" is a lot easier to rationalize than "died because Assistant McFuckFace got bored").

[Hi!]

Username on Byond is Norwest, and I generally go by David MacTavish in-game (blame the random name generator and lack of an ability to pick a funnier name). I generally go Medical, Engineering, or Security, hope to see y'all on the station!