'Undercover Sec/Command'

[Joey]

Can’t think of a reason this shouldn’t be added, but I’ll throw this up because the Space Law post of old completely changed my view on the game. 

 

I believe there is zero reason to not have a line in Command and ESPECIALLY Security SOP stating that they must be showing ID and have a jumpsuit relative to their job that indicates what job they are. I can argue this from two different perspectives, both IC and OOC, which I’ll do in the following paragraphs. 

 

IC Warrant for mentioned SOP change:

Let’s take a look at the context of Security/Command positions onboard. It’s very much noted that there’s a higher professional standard for these jobs, so let’s imagine showing up to work as a Police Officer or any Politician in an ‘undercover uniform'.’ It’s outlandish to any of us. Sure you can try and say that SS13 isn’t real life, but that’s not the point, the point is that this is supposed to have some semblance of RP, and how are you playing your role when you decide to dress as an Assistant as a Blueshield?

Intended impact:

• Make Command/Security appearances in line with the actual higher standard we’re supposed to have. 
• Reduce the OVERWHELMING amount of “haha this is funny” disguised as “RP” for roles that general players, I’d imagine, don’t enjoy having a low bar for.

OOC Warrant for mentioned SOP change:

A majority of Antag and even sec players can admit this by far one of the silliest things to run into. MAINLY because it makes zero sense IC in the first place. In my experience, it’s never been done for an RP gimmick. I’d say it’s bad for the balance of antag versus sec, on the same tier of a Captain holding on to high-value items that are the CMO’s. Makes objectives insanely murky for absolutely no foundation. 

Intended impact:

• Erase is a baseless tactic used to muddy the waters even Sec mains can’t respect. 

 

In a few words, I’m trying to say that this has no grounds to exist. If there’s a good reason that a Security Officer has to hide their ID, wear a costume, and run around with zero identification. Please tell me. Is this a common issue? Absolutely not, but I think it should be ruled out for the above reasons, it's NRP and unfun for most parties involved(from my experience.) I'd be more accepting if I could see the point. 

[Rurik]

Undercover sec is something I never want. It has zero upsides other than mechanical advantage, and is overall damaging to damaging to the antag/sec dynamic.

Granted, it is rare, but even so it'd be nice to have it disallowed in Space Law/SOP/Whatever instead of an honor rule between command/sec. Perhaps throwing in there that officers have to wear /something/ pertaining to their department, instead of dressing up in all grey to make an antag doubt its an officer at first glance (even a seconds hesitation could make a difference) would be a positive change.

[McRamon]

Ive experienced undercover cop from both sides a had great experience, so i can say it can be very interesting and engaging for all parties if done right. However i can agree that its pretty damn abusable and unfair quite a lot of the times. For sure support going undercover being against sop in normal circumstances. 

Not a big fan of mandatory uniform, drip is important

[Carthusia]

Drip is VERY important, id rather wear a nice blue mailman uniform than a red one as sec, and i much perfer to wear a white labcoat as a forensic tech, both choices make me less of a target and look nice.

 

Forced uniforms can be a thing on a HOS by HOS basis just like any other department, but an SOP line MANDATING such an act i feel would work to the detriment of peoples experience.

 

As for undercover officers: Its a legitimate tactic, so i dont see why it would be removed. It seems almost like alot of antags feel entitled to as little resistance as possible during any action they may take, be it a civilian pulling someone to safety, a legitimate act of workplace self defence from co-workers or an officer who hid in a potted plant or locker to jump the bad guy at the right moment or even something as minor as a random civ just being in the wrong place at the wrong time by complete chance, and they just happened to run into them, slowing them down for only a second or 2, but that being all it took for security to catch up and nab them

As an antag, expect the unexpected, plan for failure and roll with the punches

Edited May 21, 2023 by Carthusia

[Joey]

26 minutes ago, Carthusia said:

Drip is VERY important, id rather wear a nice blue mailman uniform than a red one as sec, and i much perfer to wear a white labcoat as a forensic tech, both choices make me less of a target and look nice.

I pointed out just making the jumpsuit mandatory, lab coats and whatnot are outside of that. 

26 minutes ago, Carthusia said:

As for undercover officers: Its a legitimate tactic, so i dont see why it would be removed. It seems almost like alot of antags feel entitled to as little resistance as possible during any action they may take, be it a civilian pulling someone to safety, a legitimate act of workplace self defence from co-workers or an officer who hid in a potted plant or locker to jump the bad guy at the right moment or even something as minor as a random civ just being in the wrong place at the wrong time by complete chance, and they just happened to run into them, slowing them down for only a second or 2, but that being all it took for security to catch up and nab them

As an antag, expect the unexpected, plan for failure and roll with the punches

This is a massive generalization that doesn't respond to the reason I said this change should be made. Dragging someone to safety, that makes sense, self defense, that makes sense. Undercover does not(for all reasons I provieded, primarily the IC workplace) and the point you brought up was for "drip" which is still entirely possible with only a sec jumpsuit being required. You can blanket any sec critique as antag entitlement without actually responding to it, and that's coming from someone that says a lot of antags are entitled. 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Joey

[Joey]

48 minutes ago, McRamon said:

ve experienced undercover cop from both sides a had great experience, so i can say it can be very interesting and engaging for all parties if done right. However i can agree that its pretty damn abusable and unfair quite a lot of the times. For sure support going undercover being against sop in normal circumstances. 

Not a big fan of mandatory uniform, drip is important

Honestly, I do think it'd be cool if it was more intentional rather than spontaneous, with certain circumstances allowing for it. 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Joey

[Sadhorizon]

I'd definitely like to see mandatory IDs

 

But drip IS important. And default jumpsuits, while they can work, they do not always do that.

An alternative I'd like to present - SOME clothing related to the job must be worn. For example, secoff could ditch the jumpsuit but wear a beret, CMO could ditch the jumpsuit but wear the labcoat, captain could ditch everything but wear the sword, detective/blueshield could ditch everything but wear their unique armor. It'd be less intrusive while having a similar effect.

Edit: This could also give armbands and badges more usage, for security at least.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Sadhorizon

[Landerlow]

I've had some great experiences playing as an undercover detective. My fellow seccies mistook me for a civilian and arrested me for trespassing into the brig 10/10. (I had a civ ID with detective access, put the sec encryption key in a normal headset, etc etc).

But don't overdo it imo. 

I see no reason why this should be prohibited through SOP. If properly RP'd/played, it can add to the round. 

Perhaps there should be something in SOP that requires written authorization of the captain/HoS for an officer/detective to go undercover. And also make them NOT allowed to perform arrests. Just reconnaissance.  

The authorization form should be kept secure in the HOS/captain's office cabinet. Preferably both. 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Landerlow

[Joey]

4 hours ago, Landerlow said:

Perhaps there should be something in SOP that requires written authorization of the captain/HoS for an officer/detective to go undercover. And also make them NOT allowed to perform arrests. Just reconnaissance.  

The authorization form should be kept secure in the HOS/captain's office cabinet. Preferably both. 

Loooove this. I'd be fine with this instead of what I proposed, in fact given the responses emphasizing the purpose of undercover, I'd support this as the best solution for all of us. Making it reconnaissance focus could lead to some very interesting gameplay on both ends.

Not sure what we'd do about Command roles, though, but I'm entirely fine focusing on sec. 

 

5 hours ago, Sadhorizon said:

I'd definitely like to see mandatory IDs

Agreed. Keep all of the drip you want, but at least an ID remains. This can be true with even Landerlow's suggestion, SOP dictating ID is mandatory unless approved otherwise via paperwork for undercover(with no ability to make arrests.)  I'd even make the supposed form for the undercover application myself if it works how other forms do. 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Joey

[SkyPing]

In an idealized world I could imagine a SoP line containing the following:

Detectives: Allowed to wear whatever 'drip' they choose to and allowed to be as undercover or non undercover as they'd like, which should be fine since 1. It's only one person going full undercover, 2. It's limited off to a single person doing it during regular gameplay, 3. Detectives tend to be a step down during actual arrest protocols on a good day.

Security Officers: Drip is cool, we like drip, but one piece of 'sec gear' should be visible on their sprite.  By default, any outfit should work as long as the iconic sechud glasses are visible.  If you're wearing a mask, maybe enforce wearing a helmet or red jumpsuit or anything else easily identifiable by a visual look at the sprite and not *JUST* a shift+click.  Going any further undercover should be fine with express HoS or Captain permission.

Warden and HoS: Keep them easily identifiable.  They're command, they're supposed to be easily reachable.  No need to ever really go full undercover boss when you can ask IAA's to undercover boss for you.

 

Responses to others comments and points below

Carthusia: "As for undercover officers: Its a legitimate tactic", I agree, I think it's a legitimate tactic, and that there SHOULD be some leeway and there SHOULD be incidents where it comes up.  That being said, more than one officer at the same time makes antag players more paranoid, and honestly antags and sec should be easily identifiable towards each other on a usual gameplay level.  Antags have to account for a lot of things.  They shouldn't have to account for more than one undercover officer since that would be mentally draining.  I think that trying to trick each other in terms of 'who's an officer, who isn't' might be adding too much of an extra level of thought, especially for our more casual antag players.

Landerlow: "I see no reason why this should be prohibited through SOP. If properly RP'd/played, it can add to the round. ", I believe that adding things into SoP enables RP and play, since SoP is usually kept to be an IC, roleplay thing in general.  SoP aids roleplay.  Other than that, the rest of the response is sort of catered around Landerlows suggestions with a couple compromises.

 

I believe every other response above me in the thread is taken into consideration?

 

[Sonador]

Speaking from experience, from a balance perspective, 'undercover' sec officers are inherently vulnerable out of uniform. They're already relatively weak alone, but without armor and most of their weapons, they're pretty squishy. Security's entire strength is coordinated force in numbers. An undercover sec officer isn't going to be paling around with other conga lines of sec or even responding to calls.

When I play undercover sec, I usually have a holobadge with my ID scanned in my pocket, and otherwise dress as a civilian and only carry pepper spray, a baton, and a pair of cuffs. I blend in with the bridge hobos or slum around the halls, and my only major interaction with sec is quietly putting on my huds to set someone or relay information over sec comms about the location of known antags and such. The only active arresting I do is if I spot people being shitheel tiders in my presence or someone calls it in near me, I don't concern myself with being part of the major hunts beyond a support role unless I'm physically dragged into it. I'm basically a mall cop.

I can see it being a problem if it starts getting popular and we have a lot of undercover sec players, but aside from myself, I've only ever seen the blueshield pretending to be part of the tide, which I think is honestly really cool and an interesting approach so long as they're still watching over command. All in all I think it adds to the sec/antag dynamic - it takes tidery somewhat off of the main sec team's plate so they can focus on actually working on antags, and that's one of the major reasons I'm taking a break from the server right now. it brings the balance back into what it's more supposed to be: sec vs. antags.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Sonador

[procdrone]

My own opinion on undercover officers: Dont.

From OOS perspective ; there is a lot sec vs antag dynamics that change whenever the receiving end of antag is either a random crewman or an officer.

Its very underhanded considering a normal crewmember *cannot* interfere with an antagonist much, and surely, cannot end their round by an arrest. they are only permitted to defend themselves and do their best to disengage. This makes antagonists know what to expect when acting (and imo that's a good thing, antagging should be harder than it already is). if you add paranoia of "what if there is an undercover sec here", or even confusion whenever that crazy baldie is trying to valid you. it makes it much harder for antags to act - meaning more boring rounds for everyone. (because sec effectively removed all antags early due to tricks)

Not to mention, Antagonists fighting officers will behave differently; as they are permitted to kill pursuing officers, while killing normal crewmen is not desirable.

One could even argue how its not "playing your job responsibly" and "valid hunting" but I'm aware most people will find that a stretch.

It even makes a lot of sense from IC perspective. Officers are people of the law, and considering they have a very special position within the law (permitted to use weapons, assault on officers has a different charge, allowed to enter restricted areas during emergencies), any would-be officer must be easily identified and probably in uniform.

Of course, I don't want to take away people's drips, I don't use stock uniforms either, but I still think the outfit should easily identify you as an officer, and not try to gimmick you into looking like a completely different role. and I agree that it should extend to command roles, as they also hold special place in law and special authority on station. They should be easily identifiable as their position and not roleplaying as a different job entirely. I remember having a round with a HoP who insisted on wearing a skinsuit and there was nothing in law or SoP to enforce proper dress code. I would very much welcome some slight moderation from SoP.

Even a simple "should wear easily identifiable attire or uniform of his position" would go a long way - since it would be SOP, it is not law and therefore can be ignored for emergencies or other edge cases(or just ignored so people can wear their drip), and gives the heads and IA departments some hook to help maintain proper dress code among command and officers when these people dress ridiculously.