Changes to identification of talking masked people with stolen id's

[NoWolfie]

         I always found it kind of strange of how every person on the ship knows voice and face of every other crewmember. While fixing it completely seems impossible to implement properly, i suggest changing how people hear masked crewmembers with stolen ids.

In next examples let's us X as original identity, Y as stolen identity

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Example1:
Scientist stole engineer's id and is now walking around masked. He speaks something, every person sees his phrase as "X as Y says:", even assistant which just arrived on station and never seen or heard neither X or Y guy. Scientist gets in trouble.
How i see it work with new system:
Scientist stole engineer's id and is now walking around masked. He walks into a bar in with bunch of people sitting there, doing bar stuff. Scientist orders drink and since nobody in a bar neither is from science or engineering departments, they see his phrase as "Y says:" If there was another scientist in bar, he would see impersonator's speech as "X as Y says:" since he remembers the voice and is able to see stolen id.
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Example2: Guy from engineering is a syndicate agent with QM assasination mission. He steals identity of cargo technician, and moves into a room with another technician and CE which is there for paperwork/ordering BSE parts/etc. Syndicate agent asks that cargo technician about location of QM, and both CE and that cargo tech percieve that guy differently.
Since Y works in cargo, cargo technician knows how people in his department sound like, and he hears agent as "Unknown as Y says:"
CE knows his people, and sees stolen id, which agent is wearing and recognizes him by voice and hears him as "X as Y says:"
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        So with new system, how you hear masked person changes depending if you are:
In same department as impersonator, you will hear "X as Y says:" since you remember voice of your colleagues, and see his id, you understand who is it.
In same department as impersonator's target, you will hear "Unknown as Y says:" since you remember voice of your colleagues, and you understand that this is someone else using your colleague's id.
Security with voice recognition device (from now on VRD) in your pocket , device will constantly correlate speakers's voices around you to their equipped id's data. If inconsistencies are found, device begins to *beep*.
Neither in same department as X or Y, you will hear impersonator as "Y says:"

Implying that arriving people are late for work, this system should work on them as well.
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Then:
Captains would know voice of every head of department, voice of NT rep, their blueshield

Heads would know voices of each others plus NT rep and blueshield.
Heads would know voices of people in their departments.
HOP would know voices of every civillian role plus people from service department

Since janitors are silent eyes of station, they would know voices of every crewmember on station.
Same applies to mime.
Chief knows voice of IAA.

Everyone would know annoying voice of clown.
Everyone knows voice of their department's head as well as captain's voice.

Noone except for HOP will recognize voices of civillians, making sneaking easier for them for drawback of having no access, and not knowing any voices.
Civillians don't know any voices beside for captain's and hop's (maybe add bartender to this list)
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About VRD(voice recognition device) i mentioned earlier:
In order for security forces to be still a threat for impersonators, i want them to have some kind of device, simular to universal voice recorder in size and design, but different by function.
What it does is it will constantly record samples of people speaking around device owner, correlate voice to id card equipped, and if there is something wrong it will *beep* loudly. 
(Maybe add function of adding problematic sample to little storage, which will be shown during transcript print with fluff information from id card and problematic statement itself, but i think that would be op, since it will make stolen id unusable, due to security knowing that it've been stolen.)
EMP's will break VRD's completely, making them always ignore problematic speakers, and beep randomly anytime someone talks around it.
 
I imagine detective having one as well, which will have its own skin, and will work against syndicate voice changers too.
In turn, syndicate voice changers won't trigger usual VRD's, and will get ability to chameleon into different types of masks, and for badassery, change into blood-red cigar.
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I hope i won't screw up images.

[Thamuel]

I think this idea is quite good as it adds a degree of realism and a new challenge of trying to not speak in front of certain people. On the other hand, the main problem I can see is the question of how this will work over comms. Additionally, I think the HoP shouldn't be able to know all civilians as that seems quite powerful and unrealistic while the janitor knowing everyone's voice is also overly powerful.

[SkeletalElite]

Don't know if I like this. Seems like it would just get annoying and most players would see through it. It would also breed more distrust over comms and I dont think thats a good thing.

 

The sec thing also seems annoying. 4 civs in the bar and one of them is disguised, better tase everyone and search them becaues its code red and I can do that.

Edited March 23, 2018 by SkeletalElite

[Pckables]

I actually really like this from an RP point of view. It doesn't make impersonation easier without a voice changer, since you won't want to talk when in the department of who's ID you stole, but it at least makes it easier to stay in cover in the halls. Might make antags spend less time hiding in maintenance all round.
It's a bit of a letdown when i'm trying to stay undercover as an antag and want to RP a bit with a victim, but know that talking at all will instantly blow my cover (especially true as a vampire).

I'm on the fence about the Janitors knowing all the voices of the crew. I've seen enough Janitors go validhunting with beartraps already, I'd rather not give them anymore fuel.

The issue I see with this is coding. How is familiarity determined?
Say we have 3 engineers at round start, obviously they are familiar with each other and recognize their voices. What about Engineer #4 that comes on the shuttle later? What if then we get Engineer #5 who job transferred from Cargo?
Is familiarity coded into the players when they enter the game? What's the deciding factor?

[Mitchs98]

Ehh. I dislike this. I feel it would lead to more sec trying to valid arrest people at random to search them. They'll always find some kind of excuse. Person not wearing the right clothes, etc. etc. Though it IS annoying and WOULD make sense for their name to AT-LEAST be the name on the ID(Or enforce the whole masked identity thing more), I don't really see this working in anyones' favor in the long run.

 

[NoWolfie]

16 hours ago, Thamuel said:

Additionally, I think the HoP shouldn't be able to know all civilians as that seems quite powerful and unrealistic while the janitor knowing everyone's voice is also overly powerful.

8 hours ago, Pckables said:

I'm on the fence about the Janitors knowing all the voices of the crew. I've seen enough Janitors go validhunting with beartraps already, I'd rather not give them anymore fuel.

Its still a concept, we could go without Janitors knowing all the voices just fine, i guess someone may want to balance that aspect out.

8 hours ago, Pckables said:

The issue I see with this is coding. How is familiarity determined?
Say we have 3 engineers at round start, obviously they are familiar with each other and recognize their voices. What about Engineer #4 that comes on the shuttle later? What if then we get Engineer #5 who job transferred from Cargo?
Is familiarity coded into the players when they enter the game? What's the deciding factor?

I believe there is variable for each character of their occupaton from their arrival on station, i guess it could be referred to that.
Since Engineer #4 would be late to shift, he already knows people from his department and will know their voices, while they will know his voice as well.
Engineer #5 will have knowledge of voices same as cargo technician.

We could go without VRD at all, i thought of it just to balance out the new sneaking abilities, maybe just give one only to HOS and one to detective?

[MarsMond]

One problem i would have with that, is that it mechanically enforces your characters knowledge. We do have people who are in relationships with others on the station, and suddenly, you can't seem to connect their voice to them because they are in another department?

There also would be the problem of the radio, if you would need to see an ID to link the voice to a person, you would mostly hear unknowns, and such, as civilian, you can't be sure if the call of a plasma fire in science that spread into the hallways would be from an engineer or scientist, to warn people about it, or just a bored cargo tech.
Given how tcomms can add job titles to the person speaking on comms, i always figured that they are more than just simple headsets, and would work as a voice identification device, or at least would tell you what tcomms tells you about them.

[NoWolfie]

14 hours ago, MarsMond said:

There also would be the problem of the radio, if you would need to see an ID to link the voice to a person

You don't need to see id to link the voice to a person, characters already start with knowledge of their role, and since people talking in radio are identified by their id, same rules apply. So if that somebody was screaming as cargo tech, QM and other tech could see that this is "unknown as cargo tech", others would hear stolen tech's voice. If that guy was actually cargo tech, then it would sound just like it sounds now.
In examples i pointed out people seeing ids, as to select whether person would see who masked as somebody else, or just unknown (meaning no id equipped at all)
As about masked, id-less assistants, maybe radio would still print their job if said assistant isn't using syndicate voice changer? Not sure how to fix this to be honest, suggestions are always welcome.

14 hours ago, MarsMond said:

One problem i would have with that, is that it mechanically enforces your characters knowledge. We do have people who are in relationships with others on the station, and suddenly, you can't seem to connect their voice to them because they are in another department?

Could we add few entries in character's creation menu for exceptions?
Two people writing in fields of their own character name of other character and at some point in time, there would be check whether these two characters in each other lists, if true, they are adding each others to list of known voices.

So Player1 with character named Bill who would be medical doctor, writes in field "Andrew"
Player2 with character called Andrew who will be civillian, writes in field "Bill"
At some point in time (first time hearing each other?), game checks for matching names in character's "memories" and adds them to exception list.
Then:
Bill has knowledge of Medbay personnel + Andrew
Andrew has no knowledge of voices (since is civillian) besides for Bill

Also there should be a limit of entries in this list to avoid abusing system by putting too much of people into the list. Maybe 1 permanent entry and about 6 entires but only 3 random of them getting added to list in beginning of each round? For left out people, include rp reasons such as "Sounding different today", "Been a while", "My audio receiving module is glitching today", etc.

[Miraviel]

Adding relationships to characters can be done though it's a huge project. (Another server has it.)

I really, really love this idea but I'm afraid it is so complicated to code that we will never see it ingame - unless it catches a coder's attention.

However, if there are any ways I can help, I'll be here for it. Knowing everyone's voice immediately (save for the clown's) always bugged me. It'd be terrific to see this implemented.

[IK3I]

On the one hand, you have my attention, on the other hand, I'm not starting this without some admins and at least one maintainer on your side.

[Mitchs98]

13 hours ago, MarsMond said:

One problem i would have with that, is that it mechanically enforces your characters knowledge. We do have people who are in relationships with others on the station, and suddenly, you can't seem to connect their voice to them because they are in another department?

There also would be the problem of the radio, if you would need to see an ID to link the voice to a person, you would mostly hear unknowns, and such, as civilian, you can't be sure if the call of a plasma fire in science that spread into the hallways would be from an engineer or scientist, to warn people about it, or just a bored cargo tech.
Given how tcomms can add job titles to the person speaking on comms, i always figured that they are more than just simple headsets, and would work as a voice identification device, or at least would tell you what tcomms tells you about them.

This also. It makes no good sense for someones husband/girlfriend/best friend/child/pet vulpakanin not to know who the other person is. I forgot to mention this...but yeah now that you mention it that.

[NoWolfie]

Uhhh, i didn't know that this topic would get so much attention, and since i'm posting here for first time, i'm not sure what to do with this suggestion next. Wait for maintainer's attention, or admin attention? Or both?

Scared and confused. I mean, if i could code, i'd try making something already, but since i can't, my efficiency ends here, on an idea, i'm afraid. Hoping someone will notice this thread after a while *shrugs

[Tayswift]

4 hours ago, NoWolfie said:

Uhhh, i didn't know that this topic would get so much attention, and since i'm posting here for first time, i'm not sure what to do with this suggestion next. Wait for maintainer's attention, or admin attention? Or both?

Scared and confused. I mean, if i could code, i'd try making something already, but since i can't, my efficiency ends here, on an idea, i'm afraid. Hoping someone will notice this thread after a while *shrugs

You probably have to persuade a coder into doing it for you or do it yourself (it's not hard to pick up!). My feeling about this is that it introduces too much complexity for not that much reward. Sure it's a little weird that you can tell someone's speaking with a different voice right away, but that's because we don't really have faces or voices in this game, so the names function as proxies for them. This system is way too complicated for too little benefit. If you want to make it easier for people to disguise themselves, just reduce the voice changer price or something...

[shazbot194]

My problem is that this treats everyone like a human male. Yes, it is possible to be a mostly convincing male if you are a male, but what if you grab a female ID who has a high pitched voice while you are grumbly mc grumbleton. You might be able to fool some people, but your 'name' should raise some questions. Not to mention this doesn't seem to have a mechanic for people who you have been talking to. Let's say you are a civi who has talked to the bartender for literally an hour, you should more then know their voice, probably a lot more then the HoP, unless they are in a drunken stuper next to you. Or what about friends, while yes, you should be able to tell your lover'a voice, what about people you hang with every shift, I can name at least 20 people I imagine Patch knows the voice of offhand, if not a lot more, and almost none of them work in medbay or engineering. And lastly, what about species. A human emulating a human voice isn't that hard, you still sound human, but what about a human emulating a Vox, or a human emulating a Diona, a diona emulating an IPC, the list goes on, but you probably can tell when someone is the wrong species from their voice and ID. Could a system like this work, ya, but it would need a ton more then just departmental knowledge. 

[Citinited]

While this idea is interesting in theory, in practice it basically turns into a tedious minigame that you have to do basically every round in order to get enough information to figure out what's going on over the radio.

 

Also, tgstation already tried this, and the consensus was that it was not great. https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/23693

[McRamon]

System is too complicated even for high rp servers and mostly impossible to implement. Concept is nice and logical but... 

[dapocalypse]

On 3/26/2018 at 4:20 PM, McRamon said:

System is too complicated even for high rp servers and mostly impossible to implement. Concept is nice and logical but... 

A coder could find time.