maintman

Yeah, zipties are faster to put on than handcuffs. I'm not sure whether the zipties or cable cuffs should have the faster cuffing time, but for balance reasons the cable cuffs probably needs it. The problem I have with zipties breaking upon any kind of removal is that there usually just isn't enough to last you a whole round if people actually use them. Of course, an increase in amount would alleviate this, but would still leave behind the other issues that should be addressed. I don't exactly agree with your prisoner point. This might go for only some sec officers, but I always take out a flash or pepperspray in my opposite hand to ensure that any resistance is stopped, or if they manage to disarm me, not be able to stun me back because of my gear. You can also just run out of the cell when you take the cuffs off and use the mounted flash, but flashing and pepperspraying people feels nice. Zipties should be a middle ground between handcuffs and cablecuffs, because as it stands they're essentially just breakable and pretty limited versions of cablecuffs.

I like. You basically just simplified what I was trying to get at, not that I'm complaining. Cuffing times might be iffy though, they'd probably have to scale with a taser bolt (5 secs) or stun baton strike (7 secs) and actually give you a chance to get over to cuff them or pull out your cuffs.

I've only recently gotten back into SS13 after a few months of hiatus so my info might be off (Looking at the wiki as I make this but I'm not getting much), but as it stands there's really no reason to be getting or using zipties when you can just use handcuffs or some cable cuffs (Which are really just unbreakable zipties). I play sec sometimes when I get tired of gateway exploration, and always grab some zipties because I think they look cool and don't want to hog all the actual cuffs. I got a few ideas to buff zipties or at least make them on par with it's two counterparts. Not all of these ideas have to be used, but I hope at least some of them are considered. Make zipties a lot harder to break. While they aren't like their cold steel brethren, they're still very hard to break out of unless you're very strong or under the influence of drugs. I wouldn't give them the resist timer of handcuffs for balance reasons, but they need a little boost. Remove ziptie breakage upon assisted removal. I know they're supposed to be disposable and cheap, but they shouldn't break upon removal in terms of someone else attempting to take them off you, that process requires something like wirecutters or a lighter. Make them reusable when taken off by someone else and broken upon struggling out of them at least. Make it so that zipties are stackable in maybe sets of 3 or 4, similar to actual riot police. Carrying around a bunch of handcuffs on your body takes up a good chunk of space when in high intensity situations, you could be using that space for another gun or something. The stacks should still be pocket or beltable as well, nothing's stopping you from slapping a carabiner on and clipping them on. Nerf cable coils and swap their properties. The cable coils will instead break upon removal or enough struggling and the zipties won't. There's tons of cable coil on the station, meaning endless amounts of unbreakable makeshift handcuffs. Compare that to the limited amount that sec gets, which correct me if I'm wrong, is about 10 to 15. There's no advantage to using zipties, an actual product used by police, over some cables tied together. I was going to add another point suggesting the decrease of handcuffing speed when using zipties, but in my time using them I never actually paid attention to whether zipties were faster than handcuffs or not. If I got something wrong, correct me. Zipties need some love, man.