Code Red needs to be reworked

[Germ Man]

As it stands, Code Red does not carry as much weight as it should. I'd much prefer if Code Red was used if the station is in serious trouble, and not because someone confirmed a single EoC.

However, changing the exact specifics about alerts is not what I am going to propose.
What I propose is that we change the way Code Red is initiated. Ironically, I want it to be accessed even easier than it is now:
An aditional option for the Captain to call for Code Red by himself, much like Code Blue.

This way, command can either argue and coordinate a code red, or the captain can simply iniate it with the push of a button.
However, Central Command will hold him accountable for this ability. This makes it so the captain does not nilly willy authorize code red because the clown stole his medal box.
In adition to that, lowering the alert back to blue should require two command IDs to be swiped, as to make Code Red a more persistent state. One that feels more dire. One that cannot just be cancelled because you feel like it.

[IzzaBinSeen]

Most the time comand agrees to it quite easily to set up code red, especially when the a high ranking official gets shot or that station has a explosion somewhere. The A.I determines the damage and where its located as well to see if it was sabatoge or some dumb anomaly or a person being an idiot. Mostly everyone coordinates to wether we go code red or not, its quite easy to activate it actually.

Edited January 18, 2018 by IzzaBinSeen

[Bxil]

Code red should be harder to activate. I hate when we have a single EoC in perma and because of that we keep on red all day.

[TrainTN]

Code Red is easy to turn on as-is, and it'll stay turned on the entire shift. Not that it even matters much anymore because people will still act as they usually do, since the majority of the round is Code Red most of the time it's hard to really pay attention or care about it. Making easier to turn on or harder to turn off isn't going to alleviate any of that. No one ever really has a reason to turn it off either because by that point some of the antags are probably going loud and will be spending the rest of the round yakety saxing through maintenance and robusting all the officers, and even if they all somehow get caught, Code Red will stay on purely out of paranoia. Which, again, doesn't really matter to anyone who isn't Security. The alert blares are just background noise, the blinky red lights are just decoration.

[Eler00]

Don't make it hard to turn on, make there be serious consequences for having it turned on. Make the cargo shuttle take longer, or make CC reject deliveries for points (You have a serious issue that effectively requires martial law and you just keep mining and sending us stuff back?) or something else that will seriously hurt the station's productivity.

[Germ Man]

2 hours ago, TrainTN said:

Code Red is easy to turn on as-is, and it'll stay turned on the entire shift. Not that it even matters much anymore because people will still act as they usually do, since the majority of the round is Code Red most of the time it's hard to really pay attention or care about it. Making easier to turn on or harder to turn off isn't going to alleviate any of that. No one ever really has a reason to turn it off either because by that point some of the antags are probably going loud and will be spending the rest of the round yakety saxing through maintenance and robusting all the officers, and even if they all somehow get caught, Code Red will stay on purely out of paranoia. Which, again, doesn't really matter to anyone who isn't Security. The alert blares are just background noise, the blinky red lights are just decoration.

And that's why I dislike the way we treat code red.
I want it to be easier to access, but make it less desirable.

Going to code red right now cancels all the automated traffic anouncments in chat. Which means that there's probably a sort of SoP prohibiting space travel around a Code Red station.
Expand that to Cargo, as TDS said.
Forbid all EVA during code red, forbid miners and engineers to move to/from their outposts, have departments be put under curfew, any non-sec that's caught in the hallways gets in trouble.
Enforce actual random searches, rather than pretending to randomly search people, while you just round up some suspect.

Make Code Red an actually serious event, instead of "We saw an Emag, keep doing your stuff while those lights flash red, it doesn't actually mean anything"
Make it hell for every department, so people only initiate it when it's actually neccesary.

That's why I also think it should be harder to cancel. Because it just IS such a serious situation.
It'd also make Central Command more likely to assemble an actually useful ERT if code red carries an actual weight besides brightly colored lights flashing up.

[TrainTN]

46 minutes ago, Germ Man said:

And that's why I dislike the way we treat code red.
I want it to be easier to access, but make it less desirable.

Going to code red right now cancels all the automated traffic anouncments in chat. Which means that there's probably a sort of SoP prohibiting space travel around a Code Red station.
Expand that to Cargo, as TDS said.
Forbid all EVA during code red, forbid miners and engineers to move to/from their outposts, have departments be put under curfew, any non-sec that's caught in the hallways gets in trouble.
Enforce actual random searches, rather than pretending to randomly search people, while you just round up some suspect.

Make Code Red an actually serious event, instead of "We saw an Emag, keep doing your stuff while those lights flash red, it doesn't actually mean anything"
Make it hell for every department, so people only initiate it when it's actually neccesary.

That's why I also think it should be harder to cancel. Because it just IS such a serious situation.
It'd also make Central Command more likely to assemble an actually useful ERT if code red carries an actual weight besides brightly colored lights flashing up.

If people actually took it seriously, Code Red would essentially shut the station down into a full-on police state/martial law situation. Which would be effective if it somehow didn't cause half the server to riot since everyone has an inner graytider in 'em. But more importantly, Code Red is to be initiated when there is a certain threat to the station, which can range anywhere from nuclear operatives to a single traitor with a stetchkin hiding in maintenance. Both are equally valid threats in the eyes of SoP but the latter shouldn't enforce such an iron grip on the station and its going-ons. It would stifle the round for anyone who isn't Security, and personally I don't want to be forced to sit in my closet for an hour as janitor. Speaking of nuke ops, the suggested idea of affecting cargo would mean you can't have Code Red and order guns for the crew to defend itself at the same time. Just a thought.

Personally, I would rearrange the alert levels some. Maybe add in a new Code Yellow to take the place of the current Code Red (there is a threat to the station), and bump Code Red up to this more extreme "martial law" state (there is a threat to the station forcing an immediate state of emergency)?

Edited January 19, 2018 by TrainTN

[SkeletalElite]

Yes please. Replace current code Red with a Code Amber and make a more serious code red that actually impacts the round in some way but make it only temporary.

[ShovelTime]

On 19/01/2018 at 10:15 AM, SkeletalElite said:

Yes please. Replace current code Red with a Code Amber and make a more serious code red that actually impacts the round in some way but make it only temporary.

I agree with Skeletal here. I think we can expand on that and include different alert levels for different hazard, such as a viral outbreak or for the singulo/tesla going beserk.

[Streaky Haddock]

I would really like it if there were different flavours of alerts that could give different departments increased/decreased power as a result. Like black alert giving executive power over to engineering in the same way red alert does to security. Or something.

[TyOmaha]

Yeah honestly..code red is pretty mundane now.