A very unpopular suggestion (But needed)

[Medi]

I WILL BE THE BAD GUY AND JUST PUT IT OUT THERE:

 

We really need to up the time it takes to play Security even at a basic level. Very often, I am seeing extremely new people get excited about being in security but by the end of the shift they're so blown out that they're either quitting earlier or not coming back if they somehow managed to survive that nonsense. With that in mind, it's also extremely frustrating to the rest of security who are contesting with antagonists that require a high level of cooperation from security to effectively handle the threat without becoming food / additional access for the bad guy in the process.

Now I am not trying to say that security should only be for elitists nor am I implying in the least bit that I have a perfect track-record of being a security officer despite many hours in the roles and roles around it. Now, given that, why do we think its a good idea if people who are super new are being hip tossed into a role that they are not mechanically ready for in anyway shape or form?

Few ways to potentially handle this:
 

• Require several hours in all job fields (except silicon, command, and special for obvious reasons) OR a total number of hours slightly higher then the sum of those hours in the various fields. Example: +3-+5 hrs per field OR +20hrs total.
• Require an increased number of overall hours of general playtime (non-ghost) that will hopefully have players get exposed to enough outside of security to allow them to go into it more experienced.

 

Due to this sorta move you kinda need to compensate security for the increased requirements. This is due to the fact that as you raise the requirements, people will likely be less inclined to want to reach those requirements.

• Consider adding new cosmetic options for security.
• Consider giving sec Combat Gloves rather then Black Gloves.
• Consider giving sec Additional Access at round start.

Small additions that feel like they're enough  of a perk to want to strive to that degree without being gamebreaking.

 

Edited June 23, 2019 by Medi

[kazboo]

Honestly, you might as well throw this suggestion in for Doctor and Engineer.

I see an equal amount of bad doctors and engineers who really don't know what they're doing and it's just a pain most of the time because if they don't know what they're doing while most of the station counts on them, then it's just no fun for anyone.

I personally don't really have any idea of how to counteract this, because how is anyone going to learn the ropes or basics of a job if they're unable to play it? At the same time, what I said above. It's kind of a pickle.

[Patriotic Hoopoe]

i think its just one of those things you gotta deal with and cant really fix

[SkyPing]

Honestly I wouldn't mind bumping up the security officer playtime compared to the other jobs just because it's such an abusable role, especially for greytide/power-tripping new players.  If you don't have at least a basic grasp of robustness, space law, and hell even the station dynamic, then you're going to have a bad time.  Hell, I don't see this being an unpopular opinion at all, it's just common sense.

Now for an opinion that may very well be unpopular!

5 hours ago, kazboo said:

I personally don't really have any idea of how to counteract this, because how is anyone going to learn the ropes or basics of a job if they're unable to play it? At the same time, what I said above. It's kind of a pickle.

I'd say this is less of a pickle than it seems.  Station incompetence is a fundamental part of as to why this game is still a game.  It's a disaster simulator.  Yes, choosing a department and being able to master it (such as learning how to be an extremely robust Doctor or robust Engineer) is immensely satisfying for a lot of people, and there are many people that come in time and time again that learn, grow, and become valuable assets.  But when there are 100+ moving, individual players, all with different ideas roles and routines, it's easy for things to fall apart and not work smoothly.  You can play scientist and not be able to do anything cause the entire mining team died on Lavaland.  You could be a doctor and be overwhelmed by patients and have zero chemists.  It's part of the game.  If everything ran smoothly every single shift there wouldn't be a point, cause when it does run smoothly it's boring (play medical with a fully competent medical staff and no antags, you'll find yourself tempted to cryo from boredom)  

My problem is that people sometimes get used to the status quo of a perfectly running station.  You get killed by bullshit (which is normal), get mad at it, and then get even madder because a newbie doctor fails to revive you or an newbie engineer failed to cover a breach.  Everyones gotten mad at this game for it's bullshit, including me, including every admin, including every veteran player that's been on the station for a year.  As counter intuitive as this might sound: stop it.  Let the doctor fail to revive you one time without bitching at him.  Let the engineer fuck up and shock himself.  Let mining die (you can't help it).  Every mistake pushes people to get better.  But it's important to remember that with every outburst and every yell of "worst medbay ever" may absolutely crush some poor clueless kids motivation and prevent them from reaching their full potential.

Now then, Security.  The biggest exception.  Security (or shitcurity) isn't just hard because of the power and responsibility; doctors and engineers also have power, except in different fields.  It's because it's so confrontational.  When you fuck up people will without fail call you shitcurity.  When you let them go they will continue calling you shitcurity.  Even when you were 100% in the right and justified you will still be called shitcurity.  It is without a doubt the most thankless, abused, and misunderstood job in this fucking game, and playing or maining it is honestly exhausting, emotionally draining, and sometimes straight up not fun.  People walking into that job for the first time not knowing what kind of hell that job is will be absolutely crushed.

Job timers are only the half of it.  They should be upped for security, or a bigger and bolder warning should be put on the job so that people fully understand why not to play it.  But honestly, if people truly want security to be better they're going to have to stop treating security like shit.  Good security players have thick skins by default so stop intentionally trying to break them and make them feel bad.  They won't lash out at you, they'll just give up on the job and leave.  You're not making it worth it.  Appreciate and respect them, and if you don't like what they're doing then go play the role yourself and set a good example to others instead.  And also don't be afraid to have fun sometimes as a sec officer: roleplay, dick around in the bar, let them miss a couple obvious antags because the department is a mess, understand the difference between a power trip and a legitimate mistake.

TL;DR: Game is fucked and chaotic, don't expect perfection from anyone.

Edit: I uh, almost forgot to add my opinions on the main suggestion

-Raise time for Security, other jobs are probably fine but Sec because yknow, abuse of power and also no one wants to play sec

-The station fundamentally hates sec so much anyways that I don't feel like any more incentives would bring anyone back unless they were security buffs.  Hey, the department changes made in the past 4 years (there's been like 2 reworks) might be enough for *myself* to start up the job again.

Pardon the rant and don't be afraid to respond to me, I didn't proof read.

Edited June 24, 2019 by Ping

[Patriotic Hoopoe]

sounds about right ping tbh. i dont think ic rage on security is bad, but ooc rage is def bad in the way you've described.

[Eler00]

Imo we should increase sec playtime requirement and the introduce a security cadet role to compensate. That way new players can still play security but it is guaranteed you also have some veterans, and you can give cadets less equipment to make them less of a loot pinata.

[Kyet]

• Security being bad at their job, and players hating security, are both symptoms of the same problem: security has a very high player burnout rate.
• The burnout rate of sec means it is typically staffed by less experienced players, relative to other less stressful jobs.
• Fixing this requires efforts on both fronts - cracking down on players being shitty to security for no reason, AND helping sec get better at their jobs, faster.
• The former would require us doing things like bwoinking people who self-antag, harass security as non-antags, or just create a toxic atmosphere for security.
• The latter will require us to make structural changes that help sec be better at their jobs, such as having a 10m timer that's actually tracked in prisoner processing to prevent people being accidentally left in there too long.

[Landerlow]

Personally I am all for increased playtime requirements, and some form of basic access to other departments, especially for medbay and engineering. Kyet also made a very valid point about cracking down on people being shitty to security for no reason. That is also one of the biggest grievances security players have, I think. I myself find that when you have people who actually roleplay and treat security properly, I can play decently with them in return, it goes both ways., It's not always the security player(s) that behave shitty. 

 

I am all for  harsher crackdowns and punishments for self-antagging and for being toxic. I think that is one of the biggest problems, not so much the experience of officers. After all, even IF you increase the playtime requirements, STILL someoen who will play officer for a first time will have to get used to it, even if you have experience in other roles. 

[Medi]

As far as ensuring a certain level of competence and understanding of not only the game itself but space law, I think time does a generally good job at managing that. I also think that Kyet's right that the culture around security is terrible and generally you can see that as a thing across many severs made worse by a lot of popular players propagating it. So it's not that just OUR server has a toxic attitude towards sec but MOST servers have a toxic attitude towards security.

A lot of this has to be mended more or less by the Security team presenting itself in a better light to begin with. Frequently getting laws wrong, frequently harming people, frequently keeping people in processing for far too long with inadequate evidence. Cracking down and punishing actual shitcurity to at least a minor extent can help with this matter with the intent of the punishments being "corrective action" rather then trying to make them want to quit all together.

On the flip side, giving security more freedoms to actually handle said toxic people would likely go over better as a community thing then having admin intervention for it. It's already in General SOP that creating a hostile work environment can get you demoted. Either way there needs to be a written, well understood, and easy bar to measure what is considered acceptable verses unacceptable when it comes to calling out security as it would be wrong to silence players all together when security is legitimately acting up.

[Regular Joe]

On issues with security, the attitude is indeed a problem, and it is so in both fronts as of mentioned above. Attitude, namely, excessive bitterness on failing or misconducting security and then the problem-making attitude in the department. Though, there is an another factor to be considered. Bad stuff happening with security, caused by security, results at least as much because of the sheer amount of work to do, as because of poor quality of action and-or greyshirting customers. Overflow of events is the third factor. It's like a snowball: first there is a large crew and-or good antagging, then there is a failing part in the sec machine, then there is angry greyshirts because of shitcurity, and then sec has too much work to overcome it. And same indegrients with different order lead to the same result, and so on.

Making a playtime requirement to sec could snip few potential problems out, namely prevent few "failures in the sec machine" from that snowball. Adminning toxic behaviour towards sec a few more.

- - -

Another measure could be altering the security department itself. Having my two cents on this subject - the sec instructor suggestion, not too far ago, was initiated by the same issue as this thread I'd say. That was about of having one more person to herd the red-shirted flock as their dedicated job. Reception for that was initially mixed, though, as of that role could be played bad aswell and the job thought for the instructor is already done by experienced officers on their own initiative.

Security cadets, as mentioned here, could be an another solution. For, just a playtime limit - while it might root out certain way-too-rookies - has the issue of having played on the server does not guarantee they know how to sec. Having a cadet role, in the other hand, if playtime requirements are considered for the actual officers, could endorse people to play sec and be recognized as what their job title says, a cadet, one who is learning the ropes. And well, each of us starts from the beginning with sec, as with other roles. Learning goes by mistakes. There must be room for mistakes, by, attitude - a cadet system could be helping in that, for it could be a tool to contain some of the effects of the mistakes (loot pinatas as mentioned, and people would probably more easily forgive a cadet).

 

13 hours ago, Medi said:

Cracking down and punishing actual shitcurity to at least a minor extent can help with this matter with the intent of the punishments being "corrective action" rather then trying to make them want to quit all together.

On the flip side, giving security more freedoms to actually handle said toxic people would likely go over better as a community thing then having admin intervention for it. I

This is one good answer for security doing bad, but the problem is, that while the Space Law and SOP already permits this, the workload for HoS, Warden and-or the officers able to judge it, are often too heavy for them - to even become aware of somebody doing it bad as a sec. Same goes for taking action with the issues. That's the primary reason I like the idea of cadets or-and instructors, while either would not be a perfect system, either would help fellow seccies, busy they are, to note somebody might need guidance (cadets) and have somebody dedicated to give it and work around with issues in action (the instructor).

Or something else, something that buffs security - IMO to make something, that should almost always to be done by somebody in sec by their own initiative, to happen more certainly. Be it good conduct, overseeing and helping those in need, sanctionizing bad stuff, having 10-minute timers at processing, anyhow helping to deal with the effects of the overflow of events. Good to have a talk about these!

- - -

Then again, Ping's post is great.

On 6/24/2019 at 5:51 AM, Ping said:

Station incompetence is a fundamental part of as to why this game is still a game.  It's a disaster simulator. 

We, both as security and their customers, should remember this. You don't always even need shitcuriting or toxic greyshirts to put the snowball on the move. Even if you do the best that you could figure out to do, out of a situation, it just might lead to more chaos happening. And we should be enjoying it... however it's hard to be enjoyed if you get roasted too much.

On 6/24/2019 at 5:51 AM, Ping said:

My problem is that people sometimes get used to the status quo of a perfectly running station...

 

..but honestly, if people truly want security to be better they're going to have to stop treating security like shit. And also don't be afraid to have fun sometimes as a sec officer: roleplay, dick around in the bar, let them miss a couple obvious antags because the department is a mess, understand the difference between a power trip and a legitimate mistake.

TL;DR: Game is fucked and chaotic, don't expect perfection from anyone.

Edit: I uh, almost forgot to add my opinions on the main suggestion

-Raise time for Security, other jobs are probably fine but Sec because yknow, abuse of power and also no one wants to play sec

-The station fundamentally hates sec so much anyways that I don't feel like any more incentives would bring anyone back unless they were security buffs.  Hey, the department changes made in the past 4 years (there's been like 2 reworks) might be enough for *myself* to start up the job again.

Pardon the rant and don't be afraid to respond to me, I didn't proof read.

So I'll conclude mine with quoting this. The attitude could be worse, though. In my opinion it's okay or good usually, but from time to time it's bad. As Landerlow says, the fun thing is that it goes both ways. Many times just speaking reasonably to greyshirts as sec makes them to actually behave reasonably. And being a customer at the red hotel, doing the same to officers might just have the same effect. How could this be endorsed... personal action, foremost, changes regarding to sec, maybe, a maybe just for deciding what might be difficult.

Edited June 25, 2019 by Regular Joe

[Allfd]

Another part of this, is its just not fun to play security.  A lot of the gameplay is forced and repetitive.

As a small example

The station will always end up on red, and you will always need to convince the warden to hand out weapons that you can't be trusted with on green, because security are the mall cops.  The appearance of being mall cops opens security to random acts of greytide (I am guilty of this).  Random acts of greytide disarm spam leads to many security players, just being on the edge of calling it quits.  Part of the reason for this appearance of being mall cops, is that most of our players are based in the United States.  In the US, all police, even volunteer ones, are armed.  While mall cops are not, corporate security is often armed outright, this is especially true at things like chemical plants, or research labs.  The harder it is for the police to get somewhere quickly, and the more expensive/dangerous the thing in question is, the more likely security will be armed.

The private security guard who watches the self checkout machines at my local supermarket is armed.  For the country most of our players live in, if you see unarmed security, their job is to call the police if they see something and not get involved themselves.  (Source: I worked my way through college in Florida as a security guard.)

Security in SS13 are mall cops, they are therefore treated like mall cops, and it should not be surprising if they have the same turnover (burnout) as mall cops.

[Kane]

I had an idea that seemed promising to me at first but then, as I thought about it more, I realized would not work for several reasons. I will share it anyway because I think the intent behind it is good, I just can't find a good way to implement it and maybe someone can. So the following is just me thinking out loud.

Miners have an incentive to bring ore to the ORM because they can get cool stuff with miner points. Security Officers could also unlock better equipment by doing their jobs well. I remember we had an admin even where security got "enforcers" (they were 9mm iirc). 

The problem is how to measure security officer success? Number of arrests would not work because that would create a bad incentive. No breaking SoP or Space Law for a number of minutes? That would just create the need for an entire new job to supervise them with cameras just like an AI. Would that be fun job? And wouldn't that job have similar security problems of their own? And wouldn't the new gear be irrelevant once the armory if opened? 

tl;dr: Incentives to be a good security officer would help with some of the issues but I can't think of a single good way to implement them.

[Pokebro2000]

8 hours ago, Kane said:

I had an idea that seemed promising to me at first but then, as I thought about it more, I realized would not work for several reasons. I will share it anyway because I think the intent behind it is good, I just can't find a good way to implement it and maybe someone can. So the following is just me thinking out loud.

Miners have an incentive to bring ore to the ORM because they can get cool stuff with miner points. Security Officers could also unlock better equipment by doing their jobs well. I remember we had an admin even where security got "enforcers" (they were 9mm iirc). 

The problem is how to measure security officer success? Number of arrests would not work because that would create a bad incentive. No breaking SoP or Space Law for a number of minutes? That would just create the need for an entire new job to supervise them with cameras just like an AI. Would that be fun job? And wouldn't that job have similar security problems of their own? And wouldn't the new gear be irrelevant once the armory if opened? 

tl;dr: Incentives to be a good security officer would help with some of the issues but I can't think of a single good way to implement them.

Idea: doesnt the HoS have access to medals to give promising officers? And what if having the HoS' approval led to better gear, fancier clothes, and distinction from the rest?

[davidchan]

I feel the HoS needs better defining at what their role is and more discipline to HoS's who shirk their duties to go valid hunt. I've never been a fan of how much combat gear they get in the first place (much of it being on par or within spitting distance of Captain's gear.) For a job people profess is vital to the well being of the station, Chain of Command should have it last in line for Captainship if that is true, since someone competent needs to be in that job and other departments can still function with their head serving as Acting Captain.

If more HoS players did their actual job of running security, dealing with incidents as they come up and firing incompetent officers Security would be better department to play in general. I count on one hand the number of rounds I've played Warden and had a competent and capable of HoS running the department and not leaving all the administrative duties to me while they ran around in maint alone.

There also needs to be more attempts to kill this 'Us vs Them' mentality that has taken hold in Security. Security trusts no one who didn't spawn with an implant. They don't hire from the manifest, they don't let engineers and doctors in to do their job as needed, and they certainly don't interact in any meaningful ways with the crew unless it's to arrest them, beat them or brutalize people. Yes, I'm aware there is a sizeable greytide population that makes it their goal to harass Security and make their live shit. But hard to blame the playerbase for disliking a role that is professed to be entirely combat based, that gets authority over the rest of the crew and is given almost free reign to do what ever they want in the name of valids.

I could write novels over everything that is wrong with our current security meta and policies, but it generally boils down to their SOP is a joke that disappears the instant antags are confirmed, their chain of command and checks and balances to keep them from overbearing on the crew for no reason simply don't do their job, their over reliance on the concept of mindshield/loyalty implants makes them actively avoid interacting with other players when they are aren't arresting them. Not all of our security players are bad, but a significant portion  of our regular security players certainly reinforce the stereotype that security players only play the game to kill people.

[Regular Joe]

Agreeing highly with davidchan’s.

Speaking of HoS, though, during highpop, fulfilling all the necessary duties is at least demanding, and while that is fine, it quickly becomes overwhelming if there is a single or few bad-attitude or outright nonsense officers present for you to spot, correct and process along with the situation at hand.

IMO it’s often too much work for one person (when they are to do it), saying as a player who enjoy the role despite that. I have had way, way less stuff to worry about in the same timespan, in a kind of similar roles on missions irl. As of, even a simple inf squad got their job parted to each head, so is the command and control done too. Though it's a game and a disaster simulator so we don't want perfection nor irl stuff, far from it. Either we don't want too set-into-stone ways and job allocation to the departments, as of part of the fun is, that it is a sandbox of roles, which you can play as you see the best, SoP and rules in accordance. But some (more) ways to tackle the work overflow for sec, and the HoS in specific would still do, for the sake of enjoying the game at those roles. So that you don't so often get the feeling that you've got everything at your hands.

At least, if something tires me while in sec, they are the situations in which you got too much priority things to do. In example greyshirts, not by they being greyshirts necessarily, but when there is too many of them to interact with, prior to applying the baton if so. What results is annoyance to each side. I think this happens to those sec players who want to care about doing it fine enough. While being overwhelmed is acceptable and a part of the game, a bit less often would do. Overwhelmed with priority stuff: namely with cases that affect significantly to the rounds of the other players - not meaning how sec fares against antags.

 

TLDR;

Have the HoS role and their jobs defined better?

Make a part of what currently falls for a HoS to do, to be a job of somebody else in sec?

Warden/HoS duty sharing?

That instructor stuff? Or cadets?

Job timers, as suggested here. Yes for them from me, though concern there is that you learn sec by playing it so help of these will be limited.

 

Or something else to make the present good meta to happen more often, to endorse the good attitude in sec and better attitude towards them. As we know sec's much more fun to play, and more fun to interact with, when there is people doing it good present. 

 

Edited June 26, 2019 by Regular Joe

[Medi]

Okay, so that this doesn't become a stale suggestion where nothing gets done let's at least point out the various parts of this suggestion and see if they can be implemented or if further discussion / amending is required.

1. Raise the base time requirement for security to be at least approximately 20 hours as a member of the crew (ghosting / observing time should not count). I would personally prefer that the time that they're waiting for those 20 hours be done in a job field other then trader/civilian/greytide but it's w/e.

2. The Warden and Magistrate should both be assisting the Head of Security with training / correcting the behavior of Security Officers.

3. The HOS should be given the means of demoting a Security Officer if they see fit to do so based on reasonable evidence that the officer is inept, a danger to themselves or others, or some other egregious offense that limits corrective action. The Captain should, of course, be the one supervising and checking the HOS's ability to actually function in their job capacity.

4. Hired persons who are being openly hostile / toxic towards security, especially over communications, should be subject to IA investigation (since they need more to do anyway). Following such, a recommendation to demote may be given to the head of that department. If they decline their judgement is obviously subject to CC oversight. From that point, CC can bring the hammer down if necessary on the persons involved or the entire department (because who doesn't love group punishment for two people).

5. Implement a new book called "Guide to Station Patrol" which outlines the very BASICS such as gear & use of gear, SOP, common issues, etc. The goal of which being something very quick and easy to read that will give a new security player the foundations to build upon rather then them going out into the station with taser in one hand, baton in the other, and arresting someone by harmbatonning for graffiti.  

[SkyPing]

9 hours ago, Medi said:

1. Raise the base time requirement for security to be at least approximately 20 hours as a member of the crew (ghosting / observing time should not count). I would personally prefer that the time that they're waiting for those 20 hours be done in a job field other then trader/civilian/greytide but it's w/e.

2. The Warden and Magistrate should both be assisting the Head of Security with training / correcting the behavior of Security Officers.

3. The HOS should be given the means of demoting a Security Officer if they see fit to do so based on reasonable evidence that the officer is inept, a danger to themselves or others, or some other egregious offense that limits corrective action. The Captain should, of course, be the one supervising and checking the HOS's ability to actually function in their job capacity.

4. Hired persons who are being openly hostile / toxic towards security, especially over communications, should be subject to IA investigation (since they need more to do anyway). Following such, a recommendation to demote may be given to the head of that department. If they decline their judgement is obviously subject to CC oversight. From that point, CC can bring the hammer down if necessary on the persons involved or the entire department (because who doesn't love group punishment for two people).

5. Implement a new book called "Guide to Station Patrol" which outlines the very BASICS such as gear & use of gear, SOP, common issues, etc. The goal of which being something very quick and easy to read that will give a new security player the foundations to build upon rather then them going out into the station with taser in one hand, baton in the other, and arresting someone by harmbatonning for graffiti.  

I love everything and I also like the idea of 4.  4 would need to have it's own suggestion thread where it's broken down and discussed heavily because there might be room for abuse (or maybe no room for abuse, I dunno, someone make a suggestion thread.)

[Coul]

I'll gladly offer up time to do some code work once this is more fleshed out and approved by staff. I very much support these concerns and it's quite jarring to see HEADS OF SECURITY, people who should be commanding, training and being a role model to all security officer often being as if not more confused than their officers about how playing security works. I think while officers need time requirement to be boosted the head of security needs an even further time requirement boost as only experienced people should be taking a role that requires that level of responsibility because if you get stuck with a bad head of security it's even that much harder to take care of troublesome officers

[davidchan]

15 hours ago, Medi said:

2. The Warden and Magistrate should both be assisting the Head of Security with training / correcting the behavior of Security Officers.

Not fond of this. Warden already has a full plate with monitoring the brig, seeing go prisoners are safe and compliant and ensuring sentencing is appropriate and taken care of. Picking up slack of the HoS is no good and neither is hand holding officers. Security Officers patrol outside of the brig and Warden should be in the brig at all times unless on break or an emergency. The overlap between these jobs is minimal and the two should only have direct interaction when brigging crew and antags.

 

If the HoS doesn't have the time to direct security and train one or two rookies I want to know what they are doing instead because their job in the current state of the game is make sure security doesn't die and make sure security isn't killing people without approval.

[Medi]

7 hours ago, davidchan said:

Not fond of this. Warden already has a full plate with monitoring the brig, seeing go prisoners are safe and compliant and ensuring sentencing is appropriate and taken care of. Picking up slack of the HoS is no good and neither is hand holding officers. Security Officers patrol outside of the brig and Warden should be in the brig at all times unless on break or an emergency. The overlap between these jobs is minimal and the two should only have direct interaction when brigging crew and antags.

 

If the HoS doesn't have the time to direct security and train one or two rookies I want to know what they are doing instead because their job in the current state of the game is make sure security doesn't die and make sure security isn't killing people without approval.

As much as I agree that it SHOULDN'T be a factor there needs to be some oversight and guidance for fledgling officers. Hell, you could even give that sorta expectation to the pod pilot since they need to be a bit more experienced usually to unlock the job.

 

Either way, someone has to help those poor lost souls. 

[Allfd]

On 6/30/2019 at 1:20 PM, Medi said:

Okay, so that this doesn't become a stale suggestion where nothing gets done let's at least point out the various parts of this suggestion and see if they can be implemented or if further discussion / amending is required.

1. Raise the base time requirement for security to be at least approximately 20 hours as a member of the crew (ghosting / observing time should not count). I would personally prefer that the time that they're waiting for those 20 hours be done in a job field other then trader/civilian/greytide but it's w/e.

2. The Warden and Magistrate should both be assisting the Head of Security with training / correcting the behavior of Security Officers.

3. The HOS should be given the means of demoting a Security Officer if they see fit to do so based on reasonable evidence that the officer is inept, a danger to themselves or others, or some other egregious offense that limits corrective action. The Captain should, of course, be the one supervising and checking the HOS's ability to actually function in their job capacity.

4. Hired persons who are being openly hostile / toxic towards security, especially over communications, should be subject to IA investigation (since they need more to do anyway). Following such, a recommendation to demote may be given to the head of that department. If they decline their judgement is obviously subject to CC oversight. From that point, CC can bring the hammer down if necessary on the persons involved or the entire department (because who doesn't love group punishment for two people).

5. Implement a new book called "Guide to Station Patrol" which outlines the very BASICS such as gear & use of gear, SOP, common issues, etc. The goal of which being something very quick and easy to read that will give a new security player the foundations to build upon rather then them going out into the station with taser in one hand, baton in the other, and arresting someone by harmbatonning for graffiti.  

We already have shifts were almost nobody signs up for security.  Cutting the pool of applicatints and raising the bar for command is going to make that significantly worse.

I think we need to find ways for security to be fun, so that we retain experienced security players.

 

I recently had an incident where security broke their electric chair from zapping a corpse for fun.  So when they dragged in another antag for execution (who for sure had not commited a capitol offense) one of the officers yelled "harmbatton execution!" and they all went at it.

 

Its not one or two new officers, its when most of the officers are new.

 

I used to main security back in the day.  I would not have authorized a harmbaton execution.  However the role changed overtime, when I played it almost exclusively, we had more serious command, and security felt like security.  We all had security webbing and a bunch of gear, more things were illegal, including harrassing security IIRC (and killing pets and desecrating corpses).

 

We had laws to enforce and were better armed.  Also rounds were slower so when things got bad, we had time to get the armory open.

As that started changing, I started playing BS and kinda gave up on security.

 

I unlocked Vox, BS, NT Rep, and pod pilot, all on security karma in very short order.  It was a different time.

 

[Pokebro2000]

7 hours ago, Allfd said:

I think we need to find ways for security to be fun, so that we retain experienced security players.

Exactly this. I've tried security a few times, found it high stress with not enough payoff. Any way to make it more rewarding, or at least forgiving, would be a step in the right direction imo

[Medi]

The appeal of sec is supposed to be that you get action and combat opportunities that the rest of the crew would get punished over. This is the core expectation and function of security, thus where their "fun" should come from. In my experience it's been tainted by the following:

 

- Poor community outlook/greytide

- Officers who end up being more of a liability then an asset due to their lack of experience/understanding

- Lack of means of controlling the flow of chaos that turns conflict from fun to stressful

 

 

Corrections:

- See aforementioned example above

- New antagonists

- More sec equipment/tasks/general things to do

[Coul]

Maybe we should rebalance antags to go off security count instead of station population because it usually leads to security having to deal with more antags than they have officers

[Medi]

13 hours ago, Coul said:

Maybe we should rebalance antags to go off security count instead of station population because it usually leads to security having to deal with more antags than they have officers

I like this, it does make sense but my only concern is antag balance given that officers can be hired during shift or made priority. Thus, players hanging back and not queuing up as sec and joining late would be a meta to break antags and prevent them from being too numerous.

Example: 3 randos queue at round start for sec during high pop. 1 - 2 antags made as a result. Then comes HOS, Warden, Pod pilot, 3 more officers who join late.

 

Potential fixes: either lower the number of available sec slots at round start, based on antag have a minimum of potentially 3-4 antags at round start, or create rules against this which would realistically be hard to enforce.