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This is a comprehensive guide for the new player who wants to start playing security without becoming too overwhelmed when starting. There are a lot of things to know in regards to positions, best practices, equipment, etc. So, for the sake of brevity, this guide will only address the core basics of most things as to stay relevant for the longest time possible. Table of Contents: 1. Security Roles and Duties 2. Security Equipment 3. Basics of Law and SOP 4. How to Arrest / Brig 5. FAQ / Understanding Advanced Concepts SECURITY ROLES AND DUTIES Security Officers The basic security officer is primarily responsible for actually patrolling, arresting, and responding to threats appropriately. They are given their authority via Space Law, Security SOP, and Legal SOP. It should be mentioned that they are far from all powerful and are held to the standards outlined in those same guidelines. As a new member of security, you should start out here and become proficient in this job prior to branching off and joining other jobs (except for Detective). Detective This is a rather interesting role within security as they are responsible for using their Forensic Analyzer (see gear section for more details) to help security figure out who committed crimes. Additionally, they are charged with launching investigations that are a breach of Space Law and may require someone to be jailed. By default the detective actually does NOT have the authority to make arrests per SOP unless it is a matter of life or death. Don't get confused, just because you work for security does not make you a security officer, as such, you should not be attempting to do their jobs. You are there to assist them and in times of dire need, only then can you expect to potentially get in on the action. NOTE: You are the only one who spawns with a .38 with rubber rounds as well as a shoulder holster. The shoulder holster accepts the .38 as well as tazers. You can holster and unholster such weapons from and to your hand with the hotkey "H". Security Pod Pilot The Security Pod Pilot is given an armed space pod that is plated to give resistance against damage. The pod is armed with disabler and can be re-equipped with lethal lasers should the situation require it. Outside of piloting duties, the security pod pilot acts much like a regular security officer in that they are permitted to make arrests and patrol as they deem fit. The cost to play this role is currently 30 Karma points. Brig Physician The Brig Physician is a great role for those who enjoy medical but want a different flavor of it. The Brig Physician is in no way permitted to operate as a security officer yet they are given access to security areas as a way to help treat wounded officers and prisoners. Understand that unlike a regular doctor you have two additional requirements: 1. To be cautious with prisoners as they will want to kill you for your ID and subsequent access. 2. You have to pretty much build up Brig bay yourself to have scanners and gain the means of preforming surgery. It's unlocked for 5 Karma points. Warden The warden is labeled as a "Very Difficult" role to play and for a good reason. They are the ones primarily responsible for actually brigging, overseeing the armory and weapons distribution to security, and maintaining the integrity of security's brigs / cell systems. This job REQUIRES a strong knowledge of Space Law, Security SOP, and Legal SOP as it is the basis for how you will go about determining who gets brigged for how long and where. This includes working with short term and long term prisoners as well as knowing when people cannot be safely briged at all. Additionally, you are considered the "second in command" of Security thus you are required to have a strong understanding of not only your job but everyone's job as to effectively lead them. It is advised that you play several shifts in the fields of Security Officer and Detective prior to becoming the Warden. Head of Security The Head of Security is, as the namesake implies, the leader of security and thus the person with the highest amount of responsibilities and the highest amount of authority. You report to the Captain and Central Command but are under the magistrate's purview like everyone else when it comes to Space Law. You are also the third in line for the captain's chair if the Head of Personnel (HOP) goes missing. It is highly advised that you have no less then 20 hours minimum prior to even looking at attempting this job. Additionally, you should have spent a few shifts as both Security Officer and Warden at least prior to attempting this job. SECURITY EQUIPMENT The title of this section is also a hyperlink to the actual Security Items wiki. Rather then go line for line about what each object does, I am going to more over go over the proper use and function of items that you will typically interact with as a member of security. Bare in mind that I won't cover armor or worn equipment aside from the Security HUD as I feel they don't really warrant a lot of explanation. IMPORTANT NOTE: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE DISABLERS, TASERS, OR STUN BATONS ON NON-HUMANOIDS ESPECIALLY AS THEY ARE IMMUNE. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STUN, TASER, OR FLASH SPIDERS, XENOS, OR OTHER CREATURES LIKE THAT AS THEY WILL SIMPLY LAUGH AT YOU WHILE RIPPING YOUR FACE OFF. YOU ARE TO KILL THESE CREATURES ON SIGHT INSTEAD, DON'T TRY TO STUN AND ARREST THEM. Stun Baton The ultimate symbol of space justice, this device is capable of emitting a very strong shock when applied to organic humanoids that will stun them on the ground long enough for you to apply handcuffs or zip restraints. To activate the device, hold it in hand and hit Z or Y (use / activate hotkeys) to enable it, you should hear it buzz to life. Be aware of your Intent. You SHOULD be on HELP intent when using this device to bring someone into custody. If activated, it will both stun and harm someone if you are on other intents which WILL get you into trouble if you're doing it in the wrong situation. However, for situations in which you are dealing with subjects who you need to dispatch, it's a very good if not powerful tool to use against someone's head to cave it in. Times you will use it to attempt to kill persons include: Syndicate Nuclear Operatives, Wizards, Non-Organic/Non-Humanoid Antagonists such as spiders and blobs, Pirates, Ashwalkers, Syndicate Traitors with Holoparasites, Changelings, Empowered Vampires, etc. The common theme here is that you cannot arrest / contain these creatures or lack an obligation to do so. Hybrid Taser The "Hybrid" aspect of the Hybrid Taser refers to its unique function of being able to switch between Taser and Disabler mode by using the activation key (z/y). In Taser mode, the device will appear yellow along the top as shown in the picture and will fire a single, powerful stun that will instantly down most humanoids for more then enough time to advance and arrest them. The downside to this mode is that it has a very slow firing rate and takes a few seconds to charge again before the next taser round is able to be fired, thus making it a mode very reliant on your ability to aim and anticipate your targets movements. The second mode is disabler mode which will make the device appear to be blue on top instead of yellow. In this mode, the device will fire blue beams that drain the target's stamina when they make contact. Unlike the taser, it takes multiple disabler shots to take down a standard person however each successful shot will actually make the target progressively slower as their stamina is sapped. Additionally, unlike the taser you can fire the disabler rather rapidly making it a better choice for those who are unsure how well they will hit their target or if their target is very fast/mobile. Note that people will automatically start recovering from stamina damage over time if not given more damage to their stamina. Rechargers Perhaps one of the most important pieces of equipment that are actually on the station. Rechargers come in two varieties, wall mounted ones like those next to the armory entrance door, and those that are small semi-portable ones like in the picture. Rechargers accept energy based weapons such as stun batons, tasers, energy guns, laser guns, and more and apply power to them to refill the internal batteries. You will know that the charger is done charging when it starts flashing yellow. Additionally, you can move non-wall mounted ones via a wrench, note that they must be wrenched in place prior to being used. Flash Flashes are extremely effective weapons against those who lack eye protection or against machine enemies such as Cyborgs as it overloads their sensors and stuns them. Note that there are some races such as the Vulpkanin and Kidians who have very sensitive eye-sight and it is considered cruel and sometimes punishable to use them against them due to this as you will always cause eye damage when you use this device, it just hurts them more then others. To use this device, stand right next to your target with it in hand and left click on them. Pepper Spray Like flashes, stuns targets who are not wearing appropriate eye protection. Unlike flashes that can go through most eyewear, any eye/headwear tends to block this effect and as such its very situational. The advantage of using this device is that it can be used more then a flash, it can be refilled unlike a flash, and can be be devastating to groups of people. Use of this device is the same as a flash yet can be deployed while aiming at a floor rather then a specific individual. Flashbangs Small grenades that emit bright flashes of light and sound and will down targets for a short time. Note that the down time on flashbangs is actually relatively short thus it is advised that if you manage to use this against an uncooperative target you rush them immediately with a followup stun from a device like a stun-baton. Note that using flashbangs inappropriately can and will get you reprimanded or fired. To use the device, hold in hand and activate. You will automatically have thrown turned on when this happens, thus you can simply left click in the direction you wish to toss it. Handcuffs Handcuffs are an EXTREMELY important tool to understand how to use properly. Handcuffs are the reusable version of Zipcuffs, this comes with advantages and disadvantages. Handcuffs will last you the entire shift and so long as you keep up with them and don't leave them on someone or laying somewhere, they're your trusty restraint system. The downside is that they lack the ability to distinguish between good and bad guys, thus the badguy can steal handcuffs from you if you leave them on them and use them on you or other targets later. To use handcuffs, stand next to your target with handcuffs in hand and left click on them, this will start a small countdown timer and will give a rather loud sound and chat notice. Once in restraints, the subject will drop whatever they were holding in their hands and will be unable to activate things around them but can run into doors to escape. It is advised that you drag them around IMMEDIATELY by control + left clicking them. You can also restrain people to chairs, beds, and pipes by dragging a restrained persons sprite over the target, left clicking the subject-holding-dragging-and releasing the left click over the item you're wanting to restrain them to. This adds another layer of security as it is something else they have to break out of prior to breaking out of handcuffs. Subjects can Resist to break out of handcuffs and will succeed after about a minute of not moving (hotkey B) thus you can stop them by simply moving them for a brief moment or interrupting them with a stun. To remove handcuffs from someone, left click and drag their sprite to your sprite while standing close to them. This will open their inventory interface. At the bottom you will see "Handcuffed" left click that and you will start to remove them. NOTE: If you choose to restrain someone to a bed while setting up their brig cell charges via the computer outside the cell please make sure that you recover your cuffs. You can do this by having your baton activated and in hand, removing their cuffs, stunning them quickly, and recovering your cuffs prior to leaving. DO NOT LEAVE HANDCUFFS ON PEOPLE OR THEY WILL BREAK OUT OF THEM EVENTUALLY AND USE THEM ON YOU LATER. NOTE: KEEP A PAIR OF HANDCUFFS IN YOUR POCKET! The longer it takes for you to reach and grab your handcuffs the higher the chance someone gets up and beats you to death. Do NOT keep your handcuffs in your bag, belt, and especially not in a box within your bag as this takes WAY too long to reach. Zipties Function the exact same as a pair of handcuffs but are not reusable. Once they are removed from the suspect they will be "cut" and unusable again. You cannot make them re-usable so do not waste the time and effort in trying. Security HUDs These stylish glasses will act as not only protection against flashes and pepperspray (provided that you get one that have BOTH lenses) but also allows you to see people's jobs as listed on their IDs as well as their wanted status. Rather then going through what all the icons will look like for jobs, just go around the station and learn by shift + left clicking on people to examine them and their jobs. Note that if they are not wearing an ID it will show up as a black box with a question mark in the middle of it. Note that if they are not wearing an ID and disguising themselves with a mask, you will not get a notice of their wanted status. If someone is wanted there will be a giant red "W" below their job indicator, meaning this person has a warrant for their arrest. If they have a grey X they're set for execution and if the situation calls, use lethal force against them. If they have an orange "P" they're a prisoner, and if they're outside of the brig you should probably arrest them. If they have a blue "R" they were released from jail after serving time. How do I see if someone's wanted? Can I see why someone is wanted? The answer to both is YES! Shift left click on someone to examine them, you'll see something come up that looks like this, the name of the person was removed for their protection. Notice at the bottom we see "Criminal Status, Security Records, Physical Status, and Medical records*. Criminal Status refers to their warrant status, in this case this person is set to arrest. If they were not wanted previously it would show "NONE" instead. We can edit their criminal status by left clicking that option which will bring up a screen that allows us to set their wanted status to whatever we see the need to do. Note that after setting their status you'll be prompted to type a reason, this is important to do as we'll see in the next couple of steps. Below "Criminal Status" is "Security Records". If we want to see WHY she is set to arrest, we're going to need to check there to see what's up. When we click on the "View" next to the "Security Records" option we'll get a chat notice that looks like this: Above we see details of their major and minor crimes. Under the Minor and Major Crimes and their details, officers who are sitting at a Security Records Computer can edit that information to reflect Why a subject was previously arrested. Whoever set this noted that they had an EMP kit but didn't elaborate in the details. Under that you see "NOTES" this is flavor text that can be added by the actual player of that character. As you notice we STILL don't see WHY they are set to "Arrest' so to find that let's keep digging, only option is "View Comment Log". When we hit that we get this little box: Ah ha, we can see the officer who set it, when they set it, and why they set it per the comment box they filled out at that time. In this case, they were a suspected Enemy of the Corporation, thus someone who is highly dangerous and will likely end up in perma brig. Basics of Law and SOP As previously mentioned, Sec have not one, not two, but three guidelines that govern their actions and authority. That is Space Law, Security SOP, and Legal SOP. Space law, describes the laws and conditions for various laws to have been broken on the station as well as the time and consideration aspects that come with said charge. Each part of Space Law is assigned a 3 part number such as 103 which is the code for Drug Possession. This is an extremely important number for a lot of reasons as it tells you a lot about the charge itself. The first number is a one, denoting the severity of the crime where 1 is the lowest and 5 is the absolute highest. The next two numbers denotes the Classification of that crime, as such all 03 related offenses are drug offenses where the only difference is severity. Space Law comes with a very good Quick Reference that shows this concept very well. Top of the table shows the level of the crime while the side of the table relates to the TYPE of crime, this is important to understand for a concept known as Crime Stacking which is a no-go. A person cannot be charged for something that shares the same CATEGORY of charge, regardless of the changes in SEVERITY. For example, you cannot charge someone with Petty Theft, Robbery, Theft, and Grand Theft (as they are all the same category since they share the last two numbers) at the same time, but you can charge someone for Indecent exposure, Abuse of Confiscated Equipment, and Theft (as they don't share the last two numbers). To understand more about Space Law, you NEED to read it at some point prior to playing Security as it's both impossible and impractical for me to outline all the details within it. Security SOP, like all departmental SOPs, describes the standards by which a person in a specific job is expected to respond to a change in the Alert Level of the station. These are also reflected to a degree in the "General SOP" area. It's important for you to read and understand these concepts as they are essentially the protocol you're expected to uphold based on the current alert level. This means that on code RED you are authorized to randomly search people but on code GREEN you can't even arrest someone without first speaking to them. You NEED to understand the difference in what you can and cannot do. Legal SOP is a bit special in that it described the methods and procedures for appropriately tossing someone in jail for short term, permanently, or executing them in a lawful manner. Security can, has been, and will be held responsible for illegal executions. Just because you have the power to do so doesn't mean you can kill people whenever and wherever you like. Even if someone is slotted for execution, they're due a proper execution via proper means such as the electric chair, lethal injection, or some other means. Read and understand Legal SOP as it pertains to your situation. Unlike most SOP, this one is the most strictly followed due to the gravity of what it deals with. Deviation from Legal SOP is generally seen as a one-way ticket to demotion, jail, or your own execution. How to Arrest / Brig As mentioned above, your methodology for arresting someone will largely depend on the current alert level and the nature of why they're being arrested. In this section we're going to break this down into a simplified checklist that will hopefully give you a guideline as to how to address a situation in the best manner possible. 1. Identify the wanted person. 2. If time permits, check why they are wanted. See above for how to do that via the Sec HUD. 3. Radio for backup/call out the location of the arrest. It's more important to do this then to rush into the arrest due to the fact that if you fail and they get the upper hand, you've got no backup coming. It's worth taking a moment to do this for your own safety. Even something as simple as "BACKUP MEDBAY" in sec comms is effective. 4. If time and situation permits, make initial contact with the person via speaking. If the person is running away, resisting, fighting back, or has killed people already you may wish to take a more aggressive approach to them. 5. If they are compliant, every attempt possible should be made to take them to security without handcuffs on unless the alert level or situation requires it. If you had to stun the person, you should be applying your handcuffs as soon as they are stunned. Proceed to then left control + left click drag them towards processing. 6. Buckle them to a chair and open their inventory. Based on the current threat and their charges, you should conduct a reasonably through search of their person to include: headset (traitors especially), PDAs (Traitors especially), pockets, bags, jackets, boxes within bags, eyewear, masks, etc. 7. Take note of any contraband items OR items that were used in a crime. Despite items such as tools being legal, if they were used in a crime such as Breaking and Entering, they are to be confiscated in the same manner as contraband. 8. Take them to their appropriate cell. We will not discuss Perma brig protocol as it is well discussed in Legal SOP. Proceed to then take the cuffed subject and buckle them to the bed and exit the room. 9. On the walls outside of the cell you will find a black screen, left click on it to open the cell computer. The first thing you enter is the TIME you plan to brig them for based on Space Law and modifiers or Magistrate direction. 10. Proceed to Activate the cell, this will prompt you for the subject's Name and what they are wanted for. If you did it correctly, they're status should automatically be shifted to "Prisoner". 11. Re-enter the cell and recover your handcuffs. If the subject is violent, consider stunning them, removing the cuffs, stunning them again, recover the cuffs, and quickly exit while they are still stunned. 12. Update the records by hand via a Security Records Terminal IF they're missing a record. FAQ / Advanced Concepts I and other mentors / Sec-Mains will try to provide answers to FAQs as we get them. Some of the biggest I will go ahead and address if I can: Q: How do I silence my boots? A: Use tape on your jackboots, you don't even have to take them off. This will immediately silence them and make it so that badguys stop knowing where you are before you even see them. Q: Can other members of the crew help Security? A: Only on specific occasions such as massive threats to the station such as Blobs, Nukies, Wizards, etc. Things such as Vampires, Traitors, and Changelings should be left to Security to Hunt. If you see someone being attacked or You are being attacked, you are always in the right for defending yourself/others you are witnessing being attacked with the amount of force necessary to FLEE. You should NOT attempt to kill the antagonist if it can be helped as that is NOT your job. Q: Can Security use confiscated items? A: The only item they are allowed to use per Space Law is the Syndicate Encryption Key to help listen for and identify other traitors. All other traitor items/gear is contraband, even to Sec. Q: Can the IAA / Magistrate Order Sec around? A: No, not really. The IAA especially have no control over security and are there as advisory roles at best. They're there to make sure they remain neutral to the entire case and approach it from the direction of fairness to SOP and Space Law, not whatever would be in the best interest of Sec, NT, or the subject involved. The Magistrate has the power and ability to overrule even the captain in matters of Space Law but ONLY space law. The magistrate CANNOT order security officers to do anything other then arrest and brig people, they cannot order the warden to open the armory nor could they order the HOS to break the law. Q: When does the armory open up? A: The armory is open, per SOP, during times when Security requires lethal solutions to their problems. Such times include: Wizards, Blobs, Xenomorphs, Empowered Vampires, Syndicate Nukies, Aggressive Traitors, etc. Q: What's the Ion Rifle for? A: The Ion rifle does component damage rather then burn/toxin/brute/suffocation damage, thus it is only good against borgs and synthetic targets. When it hits, it bursts and will disable electronics around that zone approximately 1 tile. This means that it will disable headsets, internal synthetic organs, robotic limbs, cameras, etc - So please be careful! Q: What weapons are good for what? A: Understanding your threat is important for this question. Due to their composition, blobs are inherently weak to burn damage however they have a special thing called Reflective blobs which can Bounce laser / energy based weaponry back at the source, thus using something like shotguns that are Projectile based damage are a lot SAFER option despite being a bit weaker against them. Additionally, flashbangs are extremely effective against blobs and will destroy multiple tiles of blobs if they're weakened, just an additional tip. Projectile based weaponry are also preferred against E-Sword users, such as nukies and traitors. The reasoning is that an e-sword has a 100% chance to reflect energy based weapons back to the source in the direction that they are facing but only have about a 70% chance to deflect projectiles. Thus, it's a safer alternative when you can't sneak up on your target. Against all other station threats laser weapons have a lot more advantages on top of their ability to be recharged.

"Whatever's poking me back there had better be an unsecured stun baton or so help me..." Coders experimented with using TG's "Peacekeeper Borgs" for a while. Unfortunately it was less "amusing hugbots" and more "lag-inducing avalanche of cookies" and "can't hear anything because of harm alarm spam." Portrait of Cecilia for practice. I decided it looked way too serious for SS13 so I thought to myself, "what would lighten this up?" Cult regalia. We had a large cult update that came along with an number of unique and unusual bugs features: For instance, player-controlled mouse cultists. Another amusing bug feature was that cult knives inflicted a 1-hit kill through instant bloodloss. Well, amusing for the cultists I assume. Sec, not so much. COME ON AND SLAM!!!

current sketches of sprites

Hi! I was thinking of making a sort of clothing pack, a medium(ish) project in which I add a bunch of community suggestion clothing ideas, either as loadouts or as general items you can get from clothing vendors/job lockers. At the moment the items I have are two new Security uniforms (smart red shirts, with a trousers/skirt variant, sprites for all races ready) a blue bow dress (will need other race compatability) and ideas for different kinds of turtlenecks (based on the tacticool but with suit sensors enabled, possibly loadout options, current colours are beige and red, but open to more colour suggestions). I'd like anyone who has an idea for outfits, uniforms, shoes or hats to give me suggestions so I can flesh out the pack and hopefully bring (even more) customisation to the playerbase. Thank you!

Katie O'Claire, friendly neighbourhood atmospheric technician

Shirt with a duck on it

I'd enjoy a loadout version of the regular turtleneck we already have just so we can have the fashion of that jumpsuit but still have suit sensors.

As I understand it, the general issue we're talking about here is "The Security department doesn't have enough competent regular players; how do we change this?" I can't guarantee I have a great answer, but as someone who plays HoS on a regular basis and, as a player occasionally described as "competent" by members of the community, I'll offer my two cents. I'm going to start by saying something obvious: Playing in the Security Department is very tense and nerve-wracking by its very nature. Playing as Warden or Security Officer in the early round is tense and yet also very boring, as anyone in those roles essentially needs to wait for the antags to make their first move before the action can really start. Often times I'll see the security department start with 5-6 officers, only for 3-4 of those officers to jump into cryostorage before the first 30 minutes of the round have passed. This is why I love playing HoS but cannot stand playing as a regular officer and can barely stomach warden: the HoS almost always has something to keep them busy from the start of the round to the end, but regular officers are often stuck wandering around aimlessly until they get that call of "H-H-HA-A-LP M-M-A-A-IN-T-T-T!", or they run face-first into an antag. Since antags are packed to the gills with easy methods of killing someone without warning, the average sec officer will not survive the latter scenario. This isn't a situation that necessarily can be changed, nor am I certain that it even should be changed. But it's worth keeping in mind that the feeling of vulnerability and nervousness tends to make playing regular security a pain in the ass on its own. On top of that, nobody really expects much of you as a regular sec officer: You have access to basically nothing other than a few doors in the brig, your body armor is useful for essentially jack shit since EVA boots, area-of-effect stuns and stun resistance decide the outcome of more battles than a few points of reduced brute damage ever did, and default security officer uniforms are honestly pretty ugly to look at. These are conditions that, while unfortunate, can't really be changed without asking coders to invest exorbitant amounts of free time into designing new systems from scratch, so it's less stressful in the long run to just accept them as things that cannot be changed. I cannot speak to what other "competent sec regulars" think about the above conditions, but I personally get around it by playing as HoS. That said, there's still quite a few circumstances and situations that appear repeatedly, and whittle down my enthusiasm to continue playing and often contribute to my decisions to go on hiatus from SS13. I'll outline a few below, and in each case, I've put some thought into why they generally irritate me and how I think small adjustments could make those situations easier to handle: Situation 1: Unstoppable Space Assholes The first situation I'll describe is when security has simply become outclassed by one or more antags. Either sec has lost too many officers in a single really bad engagement, or an antag has a particularly brutal gimmick that they used to systematically kill off security officers (such as a gimmick combining spacelube with holo atmos barriers and several extremely well-placed holes in maint leading into the deadly vacuum of space). The armory is empty, pod pilot's dead. Bonus points if the antag(s) in question continuously taunt security over the security radio channel using bowman headsets looted from dead security officers, additional bonus points if the antag(s) have killed the pod pilot and are camped out in EVA knowing that security cannot follow them effectively due to all EVA suits being taken. Extra-Bonus Bonus Bonus points if the antag(s) set up a security records console offstation and uses their stolen security IDs to constantly set everyone on the station to arrest with cheeky messages left in their notes. There's a specific player or two I could name who absolutely love to pull this every time they're selected for an infiltration antag role, but it's by no means exclusive to a few individuals. This is annoying when it's just one player doing it, but sometimes there'll be a round where it's two or three extremely competent changelings working together or two or three vamps who've reached fullpower. I have yet to see a security player get trapped in this sort of a situation without getting extremely tilted over it. I have a suggestion on how these situations could be made more bearable, but I'll leave it to the end. Situation 2: Mary Sue Edgelord Antagonists Shadowlings Go to youtube, crank "In the End" (or any other Linkin Park song that puts a little too much work into being "dark and edgy") at full volume, and you have a summary of your average Security experience during a Shadowling round. Except the average Linkin Park song only makes you suffer for about three to four minutes while the suffering of a Shadowling round can last anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour and a half depending on how quickly the Shadowlings gather up thralls. More than anything else, Shadowling rounds in specific burn me out and turn me away from Paradise more than anything I've experienced in this game. (Yes, that includes rounds where I've been transform stung, cluwned, laughter demon'd, ganked by vindictive AIs moments away from the shuttle, and mindswapped by wizards who devote the rest of the round to doing the most embarrassing shit imagineable while mindswapped into my character's body). I list this as reason #2 as Shadowlings are considerably rarer than hyper-competent antagonists, but even one Shadowling round is more than any security player needs to put up with. I have had the intense misfortune of playing as HoS during multiple Shadowling rounds and not once have I ever had fun, even the few times where the Shadowlings didn't ascend and kill everyone, and not once have I ever seen a Shadowling round through to the end and seen, "OOC: Man, that shadowling round was so fun!". Nobody has ever said that. It's an antag type that, despite receiving several adjustments, was built upon horrendously and fundamentally flawed design principles. You want an example of these design principles? When Shadowlings were first added, they could use their area-of-effect stuns on people through walls with no direct line-of-sight (they still can if I'm not mistaken), Shadowling enthrallment not only skipped over mindshields completely, but was also impossible to detect and impossible to reverse, Shadowlings could use guns with no restrictions, stun and enthrall crew members without even hatching first, and even shadowling thralls used to have a single target stun+mute ability of their own that lasted several times longer than the average stun weapon or slip--this particular thrall stun worked even when the thralls were blindfolded and cuffed. Shadowlings were ported from another codebase, so our coders are not responsible for their initial state. However, while the coders have put an immense amount of work into making Shadowlings something that isn't, well, fucking bullshit, my experience of reading dchat and OOC after Shadowling rounds leads me to conclude that the only players who enjoy themselves during a Shadowling round are the Shadowlings themselves, and nobody else. My personal aversion to Shadowlings is enough that the simple possibility of being duped into playing sec during a Shadowling round often has me choosing to observe instead of play, or just to close BYOND altogether and find something off my Steam library rather than inflict a Shadowlings round on myself. Situation 3: Surprise Adminbus I initially really didn't want to make this its own entry for a few different reasons, but I still have faith that Paradise's admins prefer to hear feedback and criticism rather than let it fester silently until their players leave without a word, so I'll out and say it: Admin events often paint a giant crosshair on the security department that nobody in security is ready for, and having the department wiped out by admin-spawned or admin-controlled antags is not something that feels fun, ever. This has happened enough times in recent memory (as in, three times in one month) that I feel the need to point it out. This includes more than one situation where the admins have admitted to spawning in as Terror Spiders and giving themselves free breaks such as spawning in swarms of NPC Terrorspiders and forcing eggs to hatch instantly and mature into full-grown terrors without any delay, another round where a Syndicate Infiltration Team was spawned with the intention of assaulting the Brig in particular (and a Terrorspider batch spawned directly after the Syndicate Infiltration Team withdrew, and no ERT was called because fuck me for liking security I guess), and a round where a 'pirate raid' event basically degenerated into "five syndicate agents and five nukeops in pirate costumes are given a green light to murderbone all of sec without warning." I don't think tallying up grudges against individuals on the staff team is really worth the energy, and I don't want to burn bridges here, so I'll try to put this as directly as possible: I want to continue playing and enjoying Security. When Admin Events take that enjoyment away, I lose the desire to continue playing security. Situation 4: Greytide? To be honest, I don't actually find that I have a huge problem with greytide on the server at present. On an average shift, truly dedicated 'greytiders' never number more than 1-3 at most, and they're usually not coordinated with eachother, nor do they inflict undue harm. The admins, I find, are very active and effective when it comes to curbing more extreme and harmful Greytiders, while I perceive minor acts of Greytide as a sort of departmental inoculation, in which new officers learn how to avoid getting sucker-punched, blindsided and humiliated in safe non-catastrophic manner, without disastrous consequences for the rest of security. For instance, if an officer repeatedly refuses to listen to their HoS and fellow officers telling them that, "Dude, wandering around with a taser in one hand and your active stunbaton in your other hand on code green is a bad idea" then by all means that officer deserves to get robusted and dumpstered like the securitrash they are: Having a tolerated margin of greytide just means that when this robusting and dumpstering inevitably happens, the greytider will usually turn in their stolen gear afterwards or limit the amount of chaos that comes from testing security's weakest link. If not for Greytide, then that same officer would be getting dragged off and straight out killed by an antag without anyone in sec knowing, granting that antag free stun weapons, a sec headset and a sec ID which generally paves the way for Unstoppable Space Assholes to occur, as described above. For instance, I once had a warden who silently wandered off into maints on their own and tried to act like a security officer, silent and taser in-hand. A changeling promptly captured the warden, mindswapped into him, and nobody in sec knew until the Warden-changeling had already killed the detective and HoS, and released other lings from custody. Now if a casual greytider had intercepted the warden and given him a well-deserved asskicking before his fateful run-in with the changeling in maint, things probably wouldn't have descended into utter shit for the rest of security. It is the job of HoS to identify and deal with incompetence in sec: If I can't rely on an officer to save themselves from a literally unarmed civilian using nothing but disarm intent, that same officer is going to be nothing but a liability and a dead weight in a crisis situation where, for example, a traitor-changeling with sleeping carp, an armblade, and several beakers of meth decides they're going to give the brig a fresh coat of red paint. That situation is cancerous enough to deal with when there's a competent security team; you don't need a useless assclown Officer tasering you in the back of the head because they hadn't been tested and washed out by the greytide. Situation 5: Radio Abuse? Much like I don't have a huge problem with greytiders, I've never really had a significant issue with people screaming about shitcurity over the radio. Don't get me wrong: it can get risky if you try to simply ignore it without justifying yourself. Honestly? If someone's having trouble because they're getting yelled at by the crew the advice I give them is "suck it up, buttercup." Now, if someone is cussing you out on the comms, the worst thing you can do is lose your head over it. Nothing screams "I AM COMPLETELY IN THE WRONG AND FAIL TO JUSTIFY MYSELF" like responding to verbal criticism with physical force. It's just a pattern of human nature: How many oppressive regimes accidentally sparked violent rebellions because they tried to suppress non-violent protests using violence? If someone is accusing you of monstrous behaviour, the least useful thing you can do in that situation is gratify those accusations by acting like the monster they're accusing you of being. So, as arresting someone for screaming "shitsec" is off the table, the best thing is really to challenge and defeat them in their own arena: public debate. If someone accuses you of being shitsec, ask them to explain why with specific evidence. If they explain why and their reasons are valid then, well, unfortunately that's kind of your fault or the fault of someone in your department that you need to address. If they're just screaming shitsec because they're incompetent self-centred morons or they just want to stir shit up, then you calmly and systematically point out all the gaps and contradictions in their logic before dismissively telling them to stop embarrassing themselves. There may be a temptation to descend into ad hoc attacks or fabrications, but make sure you stick as close to objective fact as possible, and demand as much from whoever's trying to insult you. If you make your point and they don't respond for a few minutes, don't press the matter or you'll just look conceited; they'll probably resume their verbal abuse in a few minutes once they think you're distracted, but the important thing is to take them down a few pegs in the arena of public debate, which seriously hampers their ability to gather much support. If it's just a case that greytiders are causing shit and screaming verbal abuse at you and hurting your feelings because you stopped them from doing annoying stuff, just ignore them and process them in accordance to law. Do give them a chance to explain themselves. Speak calmly and politely, ask them for their side of the story. If they respond in kind or with any sort of eloquence or RP at all, then process them properly and maybe give them a few minutes off if they calm down and have any sort of plausible explanation for their behavior. If they give you an utterly shitty zero-RP response like "No U" or "FUCK YOUR MOM SHITCURITY CUNTS FUCK YOU FUCK YOU!" etc. then here's what you do: Laborcamp. Actually, laborcamp has a very unique quirk to it that you should keep secret until it gets patched, but I'll get to that in a moment. Making Security More Attractive So, enough of the kvetching about what situations make players feel punished for being security. What do I think could help Security players feel better about playing and less likely to say 'fuck it' and play another role or another server? Well I'm glad I asked me, because I've got a few suggestions. Laborcamp So, back to 'laborcamp'. You know how I said it had an unusual quirk to it? Well, here's the deal: It's broken. The Laborcamp is intended to be a system in which prisoners with temporary sentences are forced to do mining, meaning that the only way they can return to the station is if they contribute quantifiable repayment to the station in the form of mining materials. Most greytiders, when sent to the mining camp, will die. This is because greytiders have a deadly allergy to being anything other than useless pieces of shit and the sheer idea of being forced to do something that could be described as 'helpful' in order to go back to being a useless fuck is enough to make them alt+f4. Here's the rub, though: The laborcamp is literally broken. As in even if you give a prisoner a reasonable point quota, the laborcamp's shuttle airlocks are not set up properly to allow prisoners to return to the station even if they actually mine and gather minerals. It's basically a secret death sentence you can give to unrepentant greytiders, and I'll confess that if a greytider fails hard enough at RP'ing and has a clearly rule-violating name then I might end up sending them out there despite knowing full well that the laborcamp is in fact bugged and is literally impossible to complete a mining quota there in its current state without an officer actually going up to the labourcamp to tally the mineral stacks by-hand. I figure that the fact the laborcamp does not work properly is on the coder team and the admins, not me as a player, and I'll also send out an ahelp asking for permission to use the laborcamp for temporary sentences before sending anyone out there. So, that's the first item on my wishlist: Make the laborcamp actually work properly. It's a great way to separate the truly malevolent greytiders from players who just went a little too far but are willing to calm down and mine some materials for science in order to return to the round. That basically solves the more severe greytide problems right there. Note that Space Law NEEDS to be updated with a section that specifically states that laborcamp can be used for temporary sentences. Last time I tried to use the laborcamp to dispose of greytiders I got in an extremely pointless and frustrating argument with the HOP who insisted that the laborcamp could not be used for temporary sentences since spacelaw does not explicitly say so (despite the fact that prisoner IDs are supposed to have mineral quotas set for temporary labor sentences and why the fuck would the laborcamp be called the laborcamp if there is literally no incentive for the prisoners to do labor out there at all?) Reduced Powergaming Stigma in Crisis Situations So a few people have suggested giving security more special items and buffs to entice people to play: I strongly disagree. Not only are basically no coders willing to go through all that, but offering sec cool new guns, gadgets or mechanical bonuses is likely to attract exactly the wrong sort of players--namely, the ones running around with both their taser and baton in-hand on code green, ignoring radios, and wearing the default HoS armor. (As an aside, I'd love if donuts actually healed security like they used to before goonchem, but I know even that's asking for too much). Generally, security already can get access to some incredibly potent gear by the end of a productive shift: Genetics powers, RnD guns and implants, and of course robotics usually has at least 1 durand if mining wasn't spawncamped by a colossus or ashdrake. It's my opinion that durands ought to be a bit of a contentious topic, seeing as it's basically impossible for the average antag to actually take down a durand without breaking server rules regarding excessive destruction, let alone rounds where robotics just decides to crank out 5 durands in a row and give them all to sec because they've got nothing better to do (I'd actually be fine with durands being nerfed slightly or at least having a higher resource cost to prevent this sort of mass-production from ruining an antag's round, but that's for another thread). I'd prefer if security had to rely on the competency, cooperation and goodwill of other departments to obtain strong late-game gear, as it gives security a much greater incentive to protect those departments from danger, stay on good terms with the departments, and keep them operational. The main issue here is that there is a rather strong stigma discouraging security from 'powergaming' behaviour that means sec rarely gets their hands on this sort of lategame gear: genetics powers like x-ray, utilities like bags of holding, accelerator lasercannons, anti-stun tooth pills don't see very frequent use amongst security, even when the antags have availed themselves of many of these sorts of upgrades alongside their starting antag abilities and powers. Back all the way to "annoying situation 1", it'd be considerably easier to deal with a gang of fullpowered vamps or rampant changelings if security had more leeway to escalate by getting antistun dental implants or collaborate with the other departments to cook up a few nasty surprises of their own to respond to the powered antags with. TL;DR: People don't play in security because officers dumb; antags smart. Shadowlings dumber than sec most times but shadowlings win anyways because designed by edgelord coder who never wanted his precious creation to lose even when played by imbeciles. Greytide annoying but greytide can be dealt with using laborcamp. To fight smart antags officers should be allowed to escalate and meme it up just as hard as the antags with goonchem meth memes and genetics fuckery if things get far enough out of hand.

I've not been posting regular updates here since the first one. I've done a lot of updating like shrinking virology slightly, adding back in the old medical maint room under genetics, which is now under virology. The new maint that runs from the robotics hallway behind virology and down to medbay maint is now all access as well. The remap is essentially in a ready state right now save for some minor things like making sure doors have the proper access and such. Here is the current iteration of the map: https://affectedarc07.co.uk/ParaMapGen/Images/111.png