/tg/Station 13

I got to play detective the other day and had a pretty successful round I'd say, but I noticed that my gun appeared to not do anything but kill people. I ahelped about it and the active admins confirmed that yep, the detective revolver is just for mercilessly braining anyone you dislike. That's technically a purpose, but really, what the fuck kind of role is that supposed to play in the kit for a detective?? What's the point of it? You solve the crime, you mark the guy as a target for arrest for petty theft, then you see him in the halls and INSTANTLY GO STRAIGHT TO KILLING HIM? I'll admit it is pretty funny to shoot the mime who won't fuck off for ten whole seconds once or twice to watch him limp away, but I'm a detective, damnit. It could at least stagger the perp and force him to crawl around or something. I get that we're not doing hardstuns anymore but it could at least do SOMETHING to perhaps aid in my journey to interrogate the perp other than bring him inches from death, at which point I doubt he'd be super compliant.

What noir detective ISN'T packing a big ass revolver?

Harry Dresden is packing heat. Naoto Shirogane is packing heat.

Columbo is packing heat.


It's practically a rule that fictional detectives carry a six shooter.

its for the aesthetic you fucking clown what kind of a dumb question is this
when you're deep in maint scanning for clues and the killer suddenly comes around the corner swinging his knife is when you pull out your revolver and dome him 6 times like the loose cannon you are, only to get fired by your boss for killing your only lead, sinking into a deep depression with only clear spirits remaining your only friend as you solve the case anyway, badge or no.

You're a loose cannon, terranaut. You're off the case!

terranaut wrote:its for the aesthetic you fucking clown

yeah no shit you illiterate twat, but i'm talking about gameplay-wise, like for instance:

It used to stun but at some point they changed it. After a bit of searching, I found the PR: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/39891

Personally not a change I've really minded, shooting people with it is very fun and I guess I don't really find myself in the position of having to arrest people as detective very often anyway.

PKPenguin321 wrote:

terranaut wrote:its for the aesthetic you fucking clown

yeah no shit you illiterate twat, but i'm talking about gameplay-wise, like for instance:

should've mentioned that in your first post instead of complaining about a gun fulfilling the very surprising use case of killing people
twat yourself out of a window

Mostly for self defence since the detective is not supposed to be the one arresting people, which may just be frowned upon but if you start braining people to arrest them for petty crimes admins are definitely going to start noticing

Aesthetic importance aside, back in the era of StunStation13, it was an interesting down-and-slightly-to-the-side adjustment from sec tasers. It stunned, but only briefly. It did damage, but not that much. It was enough to keep you safe from basic problems, and not much else.

Without having been readjusted properly for the new era of combat mechanics, it doesn't really fulfill any purpose except the aesthetic, being unsuited to stunning and to killing alike.

The point of it is to be able to investigate crimes scenes in maint without getting stinkhanded and killed without resistance.

I believe it being lethal only actually deters the detective from making arrests which is a good thing. Also it is cool.

>least do SOMETHING to perhaps aid in my journey to interrogate the perp

It is not supposed to do this, if the suspect won't talk to you willingly an officer is supposed to arrest him.

It's bait for new and old players to get bwoinked over.

Old players think it's filled with stun bullets and the only way to use it is unload every shot in them.

New players think "oh I come with this I should use it".

Just like real cops.

iamgoofball wrote:What noir detective ISN'T packing a big ass revolver?

Harry Dresden is packing heat.

Spoiler:

Naoto Shirogane is packing heat.

Columbo is packing heat.


It's practically a rule that fictional detectives carry a six shooter.

columbo hardly ever carried a revolver you clungus he frequently mentions that he keeps it locked up down town because he doesn't like the noise it makes when it goes off

Most of its damage is still stamina right?

You go down after 2 shots, but by then you only have 50 brute, so you are seriously wounded, but not crit.

I think adding special revolver rounds that reveal the dna of whomever you're shooting might be neat

Or shooting out lighting, or shooting other stuff... seems like we just need to add alternate rounds

Armhulen wrote:I think adding special revolver rounds that reveal the dna of whomever you're shooting might be neat

Or shooting out lighting, or shooting other stuff... seems like we just need to add alternate rounds

just shoot someone and take a blood sample off the ground or wall

terranaut wrote:

Armhulen wrote:I think adding special revolver rounds that reveal the dna of whomever you're shooting might be neat

Or shooting out lighting, or shooting other stuff... seems like we just need to add alternate rounds

just shoot someone and take a blood sample off the ground or wall

you know new players would use it if you shot at a target and the bullet beeped out the dna string of the person you shot

make bullets with little fins and rockets so ur first shot sends a targeting signal and the rest bend around the corners and slap them in the dink for high stakes maint shootouts

nobody mentioned .38 trac yet

The detective shouldn't arrest people but shooting stuff out of peoples hands would be sick

Maybe shooting hats off too

Super Aggro Crag wrote:

iamgoofball wrote:What noir detective ISN'T packing a big ass revolver?

Harry Dresden is packing heat.

Spoiler:

Naoto Shirogane is packing heat.

Columbo is packing heat.


It's practically a rule that fictional detectives carry a six shooter.

columbo hardly ever carried a revolver you clungus he frequently mentions that he keeps it locked up down town because he doesn't like the noise it makes when it goes off

Yeah but he still.owned one!

cacogen wrote:It used to stun but at some point they changed it. After a bit of searching, I found the PR: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/39891

Personally not a change I've really minded, shooting people with it is very fun and I guess I don't really find myself in the position of having to arrest people as detective very often anyway.

really makes you think

The point of detective's revolver is "paw! You are ded!"

Super Aggro Crag wrote:make bullets with little fins and rockets so ur first shot sends a targeting signal and the rest bend around the corners and slap them in the dink for high stakes maint shootouts

possible and actually pretty easy

nianjiilical wrote:

cacogen wrote:It used to stun but at some point they changed it. After a bit of searching, I found the PR: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/39891

Personally not a change I've really minded, shooting people with it is very fun and I guess I don't really find myself in the position of having to arrest people as detective very often anyway.

really makes you think

Kryson wrote:I believe it being lethal only actually deters the detective from making arrests which is a good thing. Also it is cool.

god I can just see it
"hmmm I want to talk to this person about a crime" PEW PEW PEW CUFF "whoa man it's only a stun why are you being an asshole about answering my questions that's pretty suspicious I guess that's our suspect"

Armhulen wrote:I think adding special revolver rounds that reveal the dna of whomever you're shooting might be neat

Or shooting out lighting, or shooting other stuff... seems like we just need to add alternate rounds

DNA might not be so useful, but on the topic of tracking the perp, maybe they could put in short-lived tracker things (like 5 minutes of uptime or something) and you could watch their movements with the tracking implant console. The bullets could still do full damage like they do but now even if you don't wanna basically kill the perp by shooting him to death there's still a reason to tag him with your gun at least once, and it fits the whole "help sec find the criminal" thing that detectives do.

my only gripe with the det's revolver is that it's actually dogshit at self defense, its only particularly good at gunning down defenseless people or people who aren't fighting back. back when it 1 hit stunned it was actually very functional at self defense, it just carried the side effect of also being good in general for combat. anything that requires more than 2 hits with no rider effects on hit (like a stun baton's confusion effect) will be completely useless as a "get off me" tool in an actual scenario where you are being assailed by something actually dangerous. the nerfs to his revolver have only solidified it as a tool for summary executions, because it cant do anything else -functionally-.
what i'm trying to say is, if coderbus wants the det revolver to be used for more than just pumping 4 shots into a handcuffed guy's head, it actually needs to be buffed. at a baseline a weapon that does lethal damage will at minimum always have the function of being wielded against helpless individuals, no matter how bad you make it. so the solution is to actually make it useful for other things to shift the player's priorities and perceived uses. if you, for example, buff it's damage so its not literally a worse stetchkin, it may find more successful uses when a detective gets jumped in maint, but the amount of times its used to kill some random guy you knocked down with your baton will likely stay the same. there is no getting rid of the murder part of the revolver unless you strip it of damage completely, but that completely destroys the fantasy of the item. i think we just need to accept that some detectives will arbitrarily decide to use their gun for lethals instead of bashing your skull in with their baton and move on.

edit to actually answer the op
the theoretical purpose of the revolver is the intimidation factor. approaching a potentially hostile perp with the intent of questioning them puts them through a risk benefit analysis where they can do the following:
1: avoid you, thus are presumed guilty by security
2: attack you, but this could go wrong and you are known to be armed with lethal weaponry
3: go through the questioning process, which can have a myriad of results that are irrelevant to the OP

it also dissuades people from randomly attacking you in whatever isolated shithole part of the station you are investigating. only theoretically, of course. in practice none of this matters and people are just gonna merk you thanks to how weak your tools are overall.

the answer is because it is cool

PKPenguin321 wrote:

Armhulen wrote:I think adding special revolver rounds that reveal the dna of whomever you're shooting might be neat

Or shooting out lighting, or shooting other stuff... seems like we just need to add alternate rounds

DNA might not be so useful, but on the topic of tracking the perp, maybe they could put in short-lived tracker things (like 5 minutes of uptime or something) and you could watch their movements with the tracking implant console. The bullets could still do full damage like they do but now even if you don't wanna basically kill the perp by shooting him to death there's still a reason to tag him with your gun at least once, and it fits the whole "help sec find the criminal" thing that detectives do.

Tone really doesn't translate well so I have no clue if this is sarcastic or not.

NoxVS wrote:

PKPenguin321 wrote:

Armhulen wrote:I think adding special revolver rounds that reveal the dna of whomever you're shooting might be neat

Or shooting out lighting, or shooting other stuff... seems like we just need to add alternate rounds

DNA might not be so useful, but on the topic of tracking the perp, maybe they could put in short-lived tracker things (like 5 minutes of uptime or something) and you could watch their movements with the tracking implant console. The bullets could still do full damage like they do but now even if you don't wanna basically kill the perp by shooting him to death there's still a reason to tag him with your gun at least once, and it fits the whole "help sec find the criminal" thing that detectives do.

Tone really doesn't translate well so I have no clue if this is sarcastic or not.

Not sarcastic at all, though I'll admit that it's kind of a weird concept.

PKPenguin321 wrote:

NoxVS wrote:

PKPenguin321 wrote:

Armhulen wrote:I think adding special revolver rounds that reveal the dna of whomever you're shooting might be neat

Or shooting out lighting, or shooting other stuff... seems like we just need to add alternate rounds

DNA might not be so useful, but on the topic of tracking the perp, maybe they could put in short-lived tracker things (like 5 minutes of uptime or something) and you could watch their movements with the tracking implant console. The bullets could still do full damage like they do but now even if you don't wanna basically kill the perp by shooting him to death there's still a reason to tag him with your gun at least once, and it fits the whole "help sec find the criminal" thing that detectives do.

Tone really doesn't translate well so I have no clue if this is sarcastic or not.

Not sarcastic at all, though I'll admit that it's kind of a weird concept.

We kinda have those already. .38 TRAC bullets. Gives whoever you shoot them with a temporary tracker, like the tracking implant.

Give detective his thermals back. Let him get drill bullets that drill through a wall do he can shoot maint criminals

Super Aggro Crag wrote:Give detective his thermals back. Let him get drill bullets that drill through a wall do he can shoot maint criminals

add that one gun from that one episode of deep space nine with the seeing-through-walls sniper scope and a transporter on the front that transports the bullet through the walls

Okay but what if we mash these ideas up

Give the Detective a tracker round that makes the target visible through walls to people with SecHUDs for like 3 minutes

(Disclaimer, I have no idea what a nightmare this would be to code)

Ah how far the ballistic taser has fallen. (Good riddance)

This has an easy fix tbh if you want it to be actually analogus to a security disabler. Just make it do mostly stam and a bit of brute, like beanbags (not equal to bean bags stamina, the 25 damage rn is a good value)

Does it ultimately matter? Not really. It's just a shit low damage gun that doesn't do much beyond it's niche application against any threat immune to specifically lasers, which is not really healthy to begin with.

Screemonster wrote:add that one gun from that one episode of deep space nine with the seeing-through-walls sniper scope and a transporter on the front that transports the bullet through the walls

X-ray lasers exist. Paired with the thermal mutation you could ping someone through a wall with it.

Det gets a revolver so that he always has a gun him, as the role that's intended to work largely seperately of sec forces and needs to defend himself, but isnt an officer and doesnt get their smorgasbord of crowd control / detaining loot

The sad thing is that the detective revolver is literally the most reliable weapon security has, only thing that won’t get deflected by eshields and juggernauts and ammo is cheap as hell.

confused rock wrote:The sad thing is that the detective revolver is literally the most reliable weapon security has, only thing that won’t get deflected by eshields and juggernauts and ammo is cheap as hell.

Sec needs a cannon

Load cannon with grapeshot

It does 15 damage because coders hate scatter weapons

Its lethal only so that the detective has better protection and fear factor from being fucked with while investigating while making it a rule violation for them to attempt to arrest people.

Being detective should not be security+, it has to have drawbacks.

The detective's revolver is for self defense, not performing arrests. Detectives should not be arresting people. If you get attacked as detective and you shoot them and they ahelp then the ""victim"" is a whiny baby and furthermore if you get punished by the admin then the admin lacks common sense and an understanding of the rules.

Radical opinion, but if he's not meant to be making arrests ehy does he have the third best baton in the game (police < telebaton < contractor baton)?

Also, arresting via crit is a legit move. If they deathgasp it's on them. /s

NecromancerAnne wrote:Radical opinion, but if he's not meant to be making arrests ehy does he have the third best baton in the game (police < telebaton < contractor baton)?

Also, arresting via crit is a legit move. If they deathgasp it's on them. /s

Because it's easier to empty the barrel at their head when they're incapacitated in the floor.

its okay to sometimes have things that arent perfectly balanced if it add flavor or is funny imo

Agux909 wrote:

NecromancerAnne wrote:Radical opinion, but if he's not meant to be making arrests ehy does he have the third best baton in the game (police < telebaton < contractor baton)?

Also, arresting via crit is a legit move. If they deathgasp it's on them. /s

Because it's easier to empty the barrel at their head when they're incapacitated in the floor.

It's only 150 brute total across 6 bullets, so it's not possible to kill someone in a single load of .38 (though I think wounds might kill them but that's an rng mechanic). You could unload all 6 bullets and epipen them and be sure they will not die outright (assuming they're not so unlucky as to roll massive amounts of histimine from the formaldehyde). This absolutely will work despite the two potential cases it doesn't so don't worry about it. /s

Or, what you could do instead is just baton shove baton and they can't fight back for the entirety of the arrest. Most people arrest with batons. Disablers divert into limbs too often (thus losing damage outright) to be usable for an arrest, and they do nothing to slow their target if you don't at least fire two shots into their chest (unlikely due to the near certainty of hitting a limb and doing extremely little damage). Unless someone wants to take away the dets baton, they are fully capable of arresting people if they want. They're not any weaker at arresting people than any sec member, hence they often get involved in arrests.

Stamina damage can be and in this thread has been conveniently ignored as part of escalation despite the game evolving towards it being the predominate method for arrests. If detectives are expected to not make arrests because they have a lethal weapon, why do they have an amazing nonlethal one that enables them to arrest people with zero brute damage inflicted and not incuring the wrath of escalation assuming they apparently are subject to it? Is the revolver just a escalation noob trap or admin expectations differing from reality because most of those expectations are nearly half a decade old?

Stickymayhem wrote:The detective shouldn't arrest people but shooting stuff out of peoples hands would be sick

Maybe shooting hats off too

What if instead of damage your bullets shred clothing so eventually your perp is naked?

Bruh. There are so many answers to this I don’t even know where to start.

1) You are investigating active crime scenes, some of them hot with perps that were just there. You need something better than pepperspray and a wooden baton to defend yourself.

2) Aesthetic. It’s “his thing.” Automatics are for active duty police who need the extra mags and ammo. But the detective is undercover, in the shadows looking for clues. So he doesn’t need something to bring down an army - just something reliable, lethal, and concealable. Like a 5-6 shot .38 special.

3) The detective revolver is the only ballistics weapon that has special ammo for detective work. TRAC rounds inflict a bit of brute and also embed the target with a remote tracker for 7 minutes or so. It requires research though so that’s why you never see it. He also gets cool ammo like dumdums, hotshot, and - my favorite - MATCH ricochet rounds.

You’re right the detective isn’t supposed to be arresting, he’s supposed to just be investigating, but the amount of dead detectives I have seen in maint with their revolvers... The reality is they just need it. Yeah, they’ll abuse it sometimes and kill a Mime for a prank, but let’s just ahelp that and move along.

Oh also the fact you can modify it to chamber for 357 is just hilarious and amazing. It’s the perfect risk for a detective to take and things like this just add flavor to the game in a cool way.

PKPenguin321 wrote:

terranaut wrote:its for the aesthetic you fucking clown

yeah no shit you illiterate twat, but i'm talking about gameplay-wise, like for instance:

Spoiler:

Detective revolver is cool and fun, who cares about the gameplay and balance

As present headcoder says:

What the detective truly needs is a shotgun like the Taurus judge