A change in antag knowledge

[saywat_the_15th]

This could work.

[MrRogueAce]

 

What about emags? (I can't remember if that's a stealthy item or no)

I wish there was a better way of hiding that....

Cause that tends to ruin an antag round very quickly (if found)

 

[Dumbdumn5]

 

I'm heavily against this, for reasons stated above, but also because I, as an administrator, would in no way shape or form feel comfortable in having to enforce something I myself would disagree with, on somebody else who I normally would have no administrative problems with, and who could be doing nothing else wrong where they would have been just fine before this type of change, and that goes for almost all proposed restrictions of currently allowed knowledge. It's just not right for me, in the moral sense.

 

Past has shown that it doesn't work due to the change from the rules how they were and the rules how they are now. Mechanically they don't work too easily because there are easy tests for every item. Based on player reactions and experiences in the past with how loyalty implants used to be, people weren't very keen on having restrictions in terms of how they handle things placed on them, leading me to believe that this would end up with similar complaints.

 

The ideas for mechanical changes and R&D interaction sound genuinely interesting, and I think you might have a point there if you're looking for something to change regarding the stealth aspects of the items.

 

[Renomaki]

 

Keeping stealth items stealthy is a good way to prevent this form of powergaming. In fact, we could use even MORE stealth items to encourage stealth and intellectual covert ops, such as maybe a pistol pen or different types of stealth bombs (because I wouldn't be surprised if people caught on to pizzabombs by now).. That, and more ways to hide the true use of stealth items.

 

I also wouldn't mind a change in SoP preventing officers from patrolling maints on green.. That has been an issue, and I normally try to reduce it as HoS, but there will still be people who insist on doing their patrol in maint on green, even if there is no reason to do so. It gives antags a private place to do things on green, so having officers running in there when there is no proper incentive to is kinda overkill.

 

[necaladun]

 

Keeping stealth items stealthy is a good way to prevent this form of powergaming. In fact, we could use even MORE stealth items to encourage stealth and intellectual covert ops, such as maybe a pistol pen or different types of stealth bombs (because I wouldn't be surprised if people caught on to pizzabombs by now).. That, and more ways to hide the true use of stealth items.

 

Variety is good. Pizza bombs. Carp bombs. Pot plant bombs. Medkit bombs. Make people worry everything is a bomb!

 

I also wouldn't mind a change in SoP preventing officers from patrolling maints on green.. That has been an issue, and I normally try to reduce it as HoS, but there will still be people who insist on doing their patrol in maint on green, even if there is no reason to do so. It gives antags a private place to do things on green, so having officers running in there when there is no proper incentive to is kinda overkill.

 

I usually do it because I'm bored tbh. Not even hoping to catch antags. I find a stroll through maint relaxing.

 

It'd be weird if one green sec were the only people not allowed in maint though.

 

[Spacemanspark]

 

When I play as a civilian, I often hop into maintenance and to explore. One of the reasons I do this is specifically so traitors and whatnot can get to me, because sitting in an overpopulated place like the bar for the entire shift is pretty boring, and probably doesn't give the antag any fun trying to get me either.

[spoiler2]And no I don't do this for shadowlings/ cult/ rev/ et cetera. Please don't do that.[/spoiler2]

 

[saywat_the_15th]

 

 also wouldn't mind a change in SoP  also wouldn't mind a change in SoP preventing officers from patrolling maints on green.. That has been an issue, and I normally try to reduce it as HoS, but there will still be people who insist on doing their patrol in maint on green, even if there is no reason to do so. It gives antags a private place to do things on green, so having officers running in there when there is no proper incentive to is kinda overkill.

 

Wouldn't make sense if civilians would be able to go into maint but station security couldn't. I mean if i go in maint, it's not to catch some traitor having a syndicate sponsored uplink shopping spree. [spoiler2]gotta get dat lusty xeno poster[/spoiler2]

 

[Farya]

 

What about emags? (I can't remember if that's a stealthy item or no)

I wish there was a better way of hiding that....

Cause that tends to ruin an antag round very quickly (if found)

Allow to paint them into normal ID using HoP computer? Or place an ID sticker from vending machine on them.

 

[Regen]

 

My primary consideration here is the complete disregard of character roleplay. IC documentation is filled to the brim with references to antags and their items, so it's clear NT has a full working understanding of them- the crew would be told this information before signing on, not to mention the vast majority of players having run into each type of antag on multiple occasions at this point. If we restricted character knowledge, especially by role, you are no longer roleplaying your character- you are now roleplaying a job. This closes off a huge variety of character options, security players especially lose any ability to roleplay as veterans, constantly having to act like it's their first time running into any trouble. There's also the problem Neca noted of people who're playing jobs outside of their character's department not being allowed to retain knowledge.

 

 

But that is exactly what you ARE doing, there are already restrictions on what your character can do to prevent "marry sues" everywhere, and how do you begin to explain the captain who was a janitor last shift, or vice versa. It does not add up.

Characters retaining knowledge over rounds has massive flaws in them, and we have NEVER said that its "canon"

 

[IcyV]

 

While I don't agree that *all* knowledge should be forbidden, people do take it to an excessive degree today. Someone said a weird thing that may imply them as a traitor in the most vague sense? Full strip, check their PDA and headset, question everyone they know, and hold them for questioning for half of a round. Just to make sure. They could be traitor scum after all.

 

I think a good extent would be that the crew doesn't know about special powers/abilities that unique antags have save for the basics. e.g. Shadowlings do very bad things when they are allowed in the dark, changelings can drain people and become them, traitors were paid by other people and have equipment most people normally don't have. God only knows why any of them are there, who exactly would send them, and the detailed list of things they can do and what they have.

 

It should be: Holy shit, some guy has a pistol? Call security!

 

It shouldn't be: That guy has a pen on his ear. Shoot and bucklecuff him to make sure it isn't an energy dagger.

 

[Renomaki]

 

 

I also wouldn't mind a change in SoP preventing officers from patrolling maints on green.. That has been an issue, and I normally try to reduce it as HoS, but there will still be people who insist on doing their patrol in maint on green, even if there is no reason to do so. It gives antags a private place to do things on green, so having officers running in there when there is no proper incentive to is kinda overkill.

 

I usually do it because I'm bored tbh. Not even hoping to catch antags. I find a stroll through maint relaxing.

 

It'd be weird if one green sec were the only people not allowed in maint though.

 

My thoughts on the matter is to reduce Validhunting. While it is heavily frowned upon for other jobs to go patrolling maints when they should be doing their jobs, officers are given a licence to validhunt, since that is their job.. So of course they check every nook and canny while they are in there and aren't expected to be punished for it.

 

However, on green, I expect officers to be focused on keeping the peace in the main halls. You aren't going to help much in maints, and going out of your way to fuck up a traitor you found prepping a disguise or sucking the life out of someone in one of the many rooms in there on green is a bit excessive.. Players should be rewarded for stealth and keeping the alert from going to blue too soon. Blue and higher is punishment for sloppy work as a traitor, after all.. Getting screwed over because someone found you with a megabomb in maints on green really blows..

 

That is why I figure it would make more sense to discourage green maint patrols, and only allow it on blue or higher.. But then again, that is just me.

 

[Deanthelis]

 

Making stealth antag items (let's face it, it's just Traitor items - no other faction has stealth anything) actually sneaky is a good idea. Making it so only R&D or - here's a novel idea, the DETECTIVE - able to identify the item as a Syndicate one is a great way to get more cooperation going (and for people to listen to the Detective already goddamnit).

 

It's already a rule that Security can't arrest on suspicion alone, evidence or witness testimony is required; however, much like the Security SoP that's been around forever that clearly states that an arresting officer has to announce who they are arresting prior to making the arrest, giving them the chance to cooperate, it's often completely ignored. If the average officer is physically incapable of confirming that a pen or a mask is a Syndicate item just by looking at it, they have less reasonable cause to demand that a crewmember hand such a thing over outside Red.

 

However, what I see this leading to is, instead of valid-obsessed officers tazing and cuffing people with pens in their ears, examining the pen, and declaring them a traitor, they'll instead taze and cuff people, take the offending pen and the cuffed person to R&D or the Detective, and declare them a traitor. Only this way, if the guy's innocent, the officer's wasted 5-15 minutes of time, not just two.

 

You can't force people not to know things. It doesn't work. Even with the Deathsquad, when Epsilon's announced, people mysteriously start grabbing all the weapons and bombs they can and running to places of safety - even though absolutely no one, ERT or Captain or regular Assistant, should be aware of what it means. Trying to do this with something as large and frequent as antags is, plainly, impossible, and the idea of it, in my less than humble opinion, idiotic at the worst, and blatantly ignorant at best.

 

[Machofish]

 

Making stealth gear more stealth would work.

I personally think this is a better option than forcing sec (often a sluggish and incoherent department without a good HoS, as some forget) to be deliberately even more clumsy and unhelpful.

 

I personally think that rather than making it so that the entirely obvious and easy-to-identify "stealth" equipment just has to be ICly ignored, make it OOCly harder to figure out that someone's stashing traitor gear - make matter compression implants cheaper, smuggler's satchels harder to find, and generally make it so that antag gear can't be explicitly identified unless the traitor is careless, or wants it to be identifiable.

 

This would still give security the flexibility to not act like the obese incompetent cops in every tv show aimed at preteens, and it would demand a return to policework that relies more on investigation and piecing together criminal evidence rather than, "Did you search the suspect hard enough?"

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

Absolutely not. Honestly this is a horrendous idea.

 

Para had "lack of antag" knowledge for all of two months--and in that two months, it was barely enforced and plenty of people "knew it all" anyway. It's now 2.5 years later and everyone and their brother is used to operating in this manner. This would create a a huge new burden on administration, and it invariably leads to accusations of "he couldn't know" every time an antag gets caught (similar to how some individuals cry validhunting after throwing a syndicate minibomb at sec and then getting arrested and permabrigged/executed for it).

 

It's also madly frustrating when it's painfully obvious someone is an antag (because they're bad at it or are actively abusing the fact that players aren't allowed to know), and you're not allowed to act on it because "huuurrrr durrr whuz a chunglung, dey don't exist!"

 

It's not roleplay, as far as I'm concerned, it's a scripted situation with pre-generated responses and pre-set reactions to everything. It's not especially fun, gets old quick, and is, in my opinion, one of the absolute worst forms of antag-coddling out there. If you get caught, you should lose, fair and square. If you act like an obvious antag, then you should get treated like one.

 

As Earthdivine said, this has been tried before--it failed miserably, let's not try it again. We're not high roleplay, have never been, and (should) never be--let's not enforce some of the worst aspects of high RP on Paradise.

 

[SpaceTimeNow]

 

Personally i would like it to be enforced by rules, because i still believe we are playing a RP based game and for me it's not about winning anything, it's just about having a good time for !everyone!. Sadly this is lost on many players, at which point i have to wonder: If they cannot hold themselfs back blatantly abusing their OOC knowledge, are they fit to be part of a RP community? Many people just don't care and see RP communites more like the perfect place to troll or powergame, because in an RP enviroment most players (should) hold themselfs back, making it very easy for someone to be the "best" at something and for some people that is very hard to resist.

 

If you decide to keep those kind of players around and wish to maintain a somewhat RP driven enviroment then you have to minimize the amount of metagaming possible. Stuff like this:

 

- Rarely spawn random traitor items on the map, so having a traitor item does not nessarily confirm you as a full blown antag.

- Maybe every so often spawn a bloody rune at round start, which has not cleaned since the last crew left.

- Let a dead nukie or alium drift towards the station every so often

 

To make this stuff believable there has to be quite some coding to be done. I personally would rather enforce rules instead of coding all that. Even if you put in the effort and manage to minimize the amount of metagaming possible via game mechanics then you don't solve the real problem, because you are still left with a good part of your community not being willing to RP. That's what it boils down to me if you metagame.

I don't think that SS13 has what it takes to be a mechanicly driven game!

SS13 is a sandbox, which simply provides you with events and context to RP as a member of a fucked up corporate space station. Just imagine having no chatbox at all, what the hell would you do? SS13 is not a interessting game if you cut out the interaction between the players.

 

[Cobradude]

 

Time to weigh in boy-o.

 

Personally, I play this server over others because it's mid rp, so it's not as chaotic or stupid as low rp but I don't have to use the me verb for every step I take.

One of the bigger appeals here is that you don't have to pretend like you've never seen an emag before, as doing so would make sec infinitely more frustrating and boring than it already can be. The only people this change would help are the poor antag players, and frankly they will get better at it over time.

 

Another argument people use in favour of this is the whole rp thing, but as already stated this is mid rp, and in my own opinion rp shouldn't take priority over game play.

 

[Bradstein]

 

Time to weigh in boy-o.

 

Personally, I play this server over others because it's mid rp, so it's not as chaotic or stupid as low rp but I don't have to use the me verb for every step I take.

One of the bigger appeals here is that you don't have to pretend like you've never seen an emag before, as doing so would make sec infinitely more frustrating and boring than it already can be. The only people this change would help are the poor antag players, and frankly they will get better at it over time.

 

Another argument people use in favour of this is the whole rp thing, but as already stated this is mid rp, and in my own opinion rp shouldn't take priority over game play.

 

I think this thread refers specifically to the stealth items. Syndicate Items that are disguised as something you would normally find on a space station. Items such as emags are pretty unique and easily distinguishable as out of the ordinary, so it makes sense for that to be instantly recognisable by Security and other crew members.

 

Personally, I support the move to add a rule which disallows Security from instantly recognising stealthy items as being hostile ones, everything else is fine to be recognised. It's difficult to be stealthy even with this in place given the general mechanics of the game (i.e. still managing to talk after being stabbed in the eye with a screwdriver) and things such as X-Ray vision, so this step in my view is a great way to improve stealth antaging!

 

[liran424]

Welp. most stealth items (for example the sleepy pen) they live test it on you to prove what they do....

[MrRogueAce]

 

Welp. most stealth items (for example the sleepy pen) they live test it on you to prove what they do....

there's a thing that needs to be reinforced.

Sec testing things on the person they found them on.

like death chem syringes/patches *I have no idea if they can even come in patches*

 

[Da Dman234]

 

Welp. most stealth items (for example the sleepy pen) they live test it on you to prove what they do....

there's a thing that needs to be reinforced.

Sec testing things on the person they found them on.

like death chem syringes/patches *I have no idea if they can even come in patches*

Generally not. You'll only really ever see knockout syringes, since 15 units isn't really enough to kill someone quickly with. Anyone who knows what they're doing will use either a pill, grenade, or bar bottle.

 

Also, both chemists and scientists have a function on their PDA to scan the regents inside an object. Since I assume these would be the only people you'd find with death chems, just borrow their PDA to scan whatever.

 

[Rumiluntti]

 

They are stealthy, as in not instantly noticeable like esword or some shit. When you notice, it's usually too late.

They are stealthy, not utterly impossible to differentiate on closer look.

 

[Jakers457]

It would be nice not to have Security gunning for x-ray vision at round start along with a fervent desire for green text. I mean the challenge is great and I do believe there should be a consequence to screw ups, but I feel Security should tone it down a bit.