(Proposal) Raise minimum expectations of security to at least not ignore crime.

[NamelessFairy]

Low effort idea thread just to see where this goes. Imagine a security rule along the lines of "As security you should attempt to resolve crimes that you witness or are reported to you unless IC circumstances prevent you". With precedents such as ignoring minor crimes to pursue a greater crime that's reported before/after is fine, or roleplay type interactions like a security officer taking a bribe to look away from a minor non-antagonistic crime being fine. Basically as long as you can come up for a reason why your ignoring a report about a stolen pair of gloves its fine.

Security tends to act like a anti-antagonist military in a lot of cases, ignoring some of the smaller crimes like theft and B&E requiring the victims of those crimes to take action themselves. This kinda sucks and I think it would be better if players could actually rely on the station security to help them when things go wrong for them.

[sinfulbliss]

Very, very strongly against this. Sec is already an understaffed job in most situations that players don’t enjoy playing generally, adding even more requirements to it will exacerbate the problem.

Not a fan of all these sort of rules cropping up that set these standards but then chuck in a lazy caveat of “…But if you have any reason not to you’re fine.” At that point all you’re doing is ahelp skill testing, can the player think of something convincing on the spot in the ahelp or not? Getting bwoinked for NOT arresting for minor crimes, even if you have good reason and the admin agrees, is enough to turn someone completely off the security role — which most people are already turned off of without admin help.

If you want less minor crime I recommend playing security and being the change you want to see. People ignore it more on LRP because it’s almost always a bad idea to waste 10 min on some B&E while whatever real threats are around fester and go undetected. Even if you have literally nothing to do you’re still often justified ignoring minor crimes on LRP as sec.

[kinnebian]

im completely against limiting player agency in ways like this; it would just discourage people from playing security

[Vekter]

I dislike this idea because I feel like it turns into us trying to punish people who are prioritizing certain issues over others. Do we bonk and note a sec officer who's preoccupied with a revolution and doesn't arrest someone who's tiding?

I think issues where a sec officer is actively and consistently being negligent could be handled by admins if it gets bad enough.

[Higgin]

im completely against limiting player agency in ways like this; it would just discourage people from playing security

hard to sort out my thoughts on this neatly, but I agree with this up front - the more you proscribe how the job has to be done and that it must without exception, at some point, the more you incentivize people away from those jobs and towards ones with greater freedom, less liability (i.e. assistant. non-head)

I do not want to conscience the notion of people having grounds to complain OOCly about security not being there as a rulebreak alongside all the possible ways security, especially on MRP, can court scrutiny for the ways in which they do show up if they try

When it's one secoff who got killed/stripped by a team of antags 15-30m into the shift, I should have no claim to them running headlong back into that instead of sitting in the bar or playing CAS if it suits them

Such a claim would only be justified if it was also incumbent on everyone else crew-aligned to help against or at least not help people committing crimes - the judgment of and discretion around which is a major part of the art of playing security at least when it comes to plausibly nonantag crime - a lot of nuance dies when antags get involved because the rules entitle them to be, and a lot of people are conditioned to treat/play them as , dispositional bad-faith actors

The problem that spawns this proposal, as I see it, is that there's an expectation - explicitly in the RP ruleset - that security and command, when present, will step in and be the ones to force a settlement to issues with violence if necessary on the crew's behalf - not unlike there's an expectation that if I roll doctor and there are engineers, I'm not going to plan on going to engineering roundstart to set up the engine, and they aren't going to set up an entire in--house chem factory and surgery to revive people instead of fixing breaches

It sucks to present to what you'd hope would be a responsible person - who starts with all the tools and some degree of protection in policy for more effectively and finally resolving issues of deviant behavior - and to get told that you were mistaken for not having prepared to kill everyone you meet from the word 'go'

It's one of the reasons I like playing shaft miner on lowpop - the ability to not engage with this shitty dilemma except as to show up like some mysterious uncle bearing treats/tricks for folks while not forgoing the ability to put down the dog who decides it'll be fun to play "tag" in a low-pressure environment around chasms and hungry fauna

[DaydreamIQ]

From experience, its rather difficult to deal with shitters while there's a lot of actual dangerous antags running around. To the point where I wish we had some sort of rule which explicitly stopped people from fucking with sec as a non-antag but hey gotta have our 'conflict' that lets antags have a free pass for half the round while the understaffed sec team deals with john assistant 2009 who decided to break into the brig for the 15th time to be wacky.

[Farquaar]

Security Officers should be allowed to play like Judge Dredd, Chief Wiggum, and everything in between.

[iain0]

Mmm, it's a difficult one this, I don't (as an admin) really want to micromanage sec, or bother them when they're busy asking why they ignored the open shittery in medical.

And on the other hand, as a regular CMO player, it is pretty annoying when you are forced to have the open access department (because some ahole will break all the windows in the place within 5 minutes of shift start if the entire department isn't on emergency access) and all I have to regulate this is a single baton. Chef gets CQC and warden has fancy gloves, but medical is often more of a rabble of chaos than brig or even bar. And then sec may do nothing when the ahole assistant i batoned to stop them killing someone decides to table me 5 times and loot my baton.

Yeah, not sure, boy do I hate having to deal with the latter regularly. If I'm expected to fill in for sec, gimme the gear. Or maybe we need to bwoink the hell outa people who trash all this stuff 5 minutes in rather than it just being a way of life.

(Or, why the complete removal of the emped defib still sucks)

[sinfulbliss]

Yeah, not sure, boy do I hate having to deal with the latter regularly. If I'm expected to fill in for sec, gimme the gear. Or maybe we need to bwoink the hell outa people who trash all this stuff 5 minutes in rather than it just being a way of life.

(Or, why the complete removal of the emped defib still sucks)

For better or worse, medbay is just the most accessible department for people to hang out. It’s where lots of people end up from being injured, and they’re not doing anything — most people are sitting still operating or being in crit, so it’s a good place to talk and mingle. There’s lots of traffic in and out of med too.

Scuffles are very difficult to resolve as a seccie because it’s almost always just picking one side to believe and brigging the other, when both have their own sides and stories. My recommendation would be to reinforce med a bit if you want less traffic, or trying to ignore the people loitering unless they’re being actively disruptive by shoving you and preventing you from doing your job.

[kinnebian]

be the change you want to see and start making deputies to solve the small boy scuffles

[RedBaronFlyer]

In my experience (on Manuel), security doesn't usually ignore minor crimes unless there are more serious threats going on.

Unfortunately, because of the way dynamic and most of the traitors operate, this means that it is almost always a "there are more serious threats at the moment" situation.

I don't think making it a rule would solve this. It feels more like a dynamic/antag issue, and making it a rule would just frustrate and spread the understaffed and stretched-thin sec player pop even more than it already is.

[sinfulbliss]

From experience, its rather difficult to deal with shitters while there's a lot of actual dangerous antags running around. To the point where I wish we had some sort of rule which explicitly stopped people from fucking with sec as a non-antag but hey gotta have our 'conflict' that lets antags have a free pass for half the round while the understaffed sec team deals with john assistant 2009 who decided to break into the brig for the 15th time to be wacky.

To be fair this shouldn’t be happening much on Manuel where rules are stricter, so not sure why you’re encountering that.

Minor crime and people fucking with sec in small ways is often the only thing giving antags a buffer from sec. On LRP where sec can RR an antag for having a single traitor item, it is pretty necessary for there to be some sort of buffer that prevents gamer seccies from instantly RR’ing the threats, and it just so happens rando John Assistant slipping them on their way to brig, or creating a chase and investigation because someone reported them for breaking into engineering, works perfectly for that.

[iain0]

For better or worse, medbay is just the most accessible department for people to hang out. It’s where lots of people end up from being injured, and they’re not doing anything — most people are sitting still operating or being in crit, so it’s a good place to talk and mingle. There’s lots of traffic in and out of med too.

Mostly made so by people breaking down every non reinforced window in the department, bypassing every airlock, which was the more relevant part I guess, I might like to have that stopped.

[CPTANT]

Fine as a roleplay suggestion, shitty as a rule.

[Vekter]

be the change you want to see and start making deputies to solve the small boy scuffles

Underrated suggestion; grab people you know you can trust, implant them, tell them to deal with the minor shit while you handle the existential threats.

[Higgin]

Yeah, not sure, boy do I hate having to deal with the latter regularly. If I'm expected to fill in for sec, gimme the gear. Or maybe we need to bwoink the hell outa people who trash all this stuff 5 minutes in rather than it just being a way of life.

(Or, why the complete removal of the emped defib still sucks)

My recommendation would be to reinforce med a bit if you want less traffic, or trying to ignore the people loitering unless they’re being actively disruptive by shoving you and preventing you from doing your job.

People will take reinforcement as a challenge to create one of a million other ways in (or just tailgate/skirtchase their way in after somebody else the moment you let your guard down.)

Ignoring it is by and large your only reliable nonviolent fallback if you don't want to just abandon your department and become (or let it be run by) an assistant.

Ignoring it becomes even more frustrating when people abuse the good faith of not being crit and tossed out into the street to cause you problems - in medical, this is a particular dilemma because escalation (assuming they're a nonantag) will loop them right back into medical for treatment only maybe followed by a punishment so anemic it isn't going to deter shit if security does get involved with it. In fact, a lot of the most pernicious and slick tiders will get more out of the chase at that point if they weren't otherwise doing anything with the round.

One of the reasons I love the generous application of gulag sentences on tiders when I play sec is that it puts them against an effort-check of actually doing something to get out and so filters a decent proportion of people who tide. For some, it'll act as a bait to try to escape and escalate their own trouble afterwards.



Dealing with it every single round isn't practical or fun. The nature of Dynamic, like RedBaronFlyer mentioned, also very much damns even the best intentions of security getting to deal with nonantag crime. I wish I felt that it wasn't basically a cowardly move (and as likely as not to be entirely valid because the culprit's an antag) to cry to admins about pernicious non-antag crime/tiding/griefing, but I do.

It feels entirely too normal on MRP, and it's just as normal to be in the bind of there being no sec available or interested in dealing with IC antisocial/non-antag-but-antagonistic (i think theres a word for this) behavior IC. It's pretty much all an OOC conceit for people to play in a way that would reasonably get them fired on the spot if you treat the station like anything other than a playground tailored for people who basically can't be fired except into space and for some reason have more access via maints than everyone on line staff.

It sucks, but security cannot be counted on to deal with antisocial or harmful OOC behavior, or that not validated by antag status. I'm guessing we think antags also need the topcover of a certain level of nonantag freedom to do shit and not have it immediately out them (even though a lot of them don't take advantage of this and basically run loud on low/no sec rounds.) It's also part of general player freedom to do stuff that might start conflict without it necessarily involving an antag, but it can quickly cross a line into which the people on the receiving end aren't cool with it or weren't the original parties to it with the people that were.

It sucks, but please don't hold sec players accountable for this. It's an administrative and gamerunning issue.


e1: seconding that security too seldom uses the power to officially deputize people and turn them loose

[8bot]

If this presents an issue during the shift the HoS should, as others have said, deputize and mobilize.
Yelling over the radio often gets lost - but an announcement prompting your goons to do something, or even a personal PDA message can go a very long way.
Also, failure to perform one's job adequately still holds the threat of getting that ass fired by your head of staff. Security's no different in that regard. If they're not performing properly, then maybe it's time to pull rank and tell them to shape up or ship out.

[Higgin]

If this presents an issue during the shift the HoS should, as others have said, deputize and mobilize.
Yelling over the radio often gets lost - but an announcement prompting your goons to do something, or even a personal PDA message can go a very long way.
Also, failure to perform one's job adequately still holds the threat of getting that ass fired by your head of staff. Security's no different in that regard. If they're not performing properly, then maybe it's time to pull rank and tell them to shape up or ship out.

Those are great pieces of advice for getting people into gear and direct delegation. A lot of time shit just gets lost. Addressing by name is a good way to catch people if they have their highlight settings on.

Even when it's not lost, imo, most of the time t's not reasonable or practical to expect sec to show up to do basic peacekeeping and conflict resolution while also being the knights of a great Manichean battle with antag Evil,

It's also not practical however theoretically possible to reliably do top-down accountability. Heads have shit to do (like being dead or evil) and it might be that as a head you'd rather have a dude who can beat changelings than one who answers every call about parking tickets or tiding.

Not unlike in real-life policing, sec are worse at doing stuff like peacekeeping and providing service when they're expected, equipped, and acculturated to act like "little soldiers" all the time (the recent big historical example is the ANP in Afghanistan, but you can apply this to any militarized police force.) You get people who more often than not want to fight antags, have tools for fighting antags, and are expected to fight antags (by the antags especially.) This is paradoxically worse on MRP, I suspect, because there's the rules' expectation that since sec can fight antags, the crew will not, and that puts a lot more on the sec player's head.


Just don't think a rule against security is the right way of solving this. People are driving according to the conditions of the road, it'd be wildly out of touch to make it an extra duty on sec without considering that.


e1: just to tie it back, I think TNF is dead-on in the description of how sec operates - anti-antag military is a good way to put it, but that's something we select and design for

[DaydreamIQ]

To be fair this shouldn’t be happening much on Manuel where rules are stricter, so not sure why you’re encountering that.

Stricter rules don't mean admins are necessarily cracking down on the behaviour even when it's reported. A few days ago I was observing a round where three lizards from different departments were basically griefing sec, RCDing the brig doors open, stealing from the armoury and running up on the dead Warden and emoting "spits on dead retard". Their reasoning for all this? One of their lizard buddies got arrested for tiding.

And the admin handling it labeled all this as an ic issue because sec had been 'aggressive' which inevitably lead to a heretic ascending and ending the round.

Forcing sec to deal with shitters isn't the solution, banning shitters is.

[datorangebottle]

As someone who likes to handle scuffles between crew when rarely playing security:
Nah. Forcing people to deal with it is kinda cringe. Let people play how they want.
I'll argue that security should be dealing with these issues, but I won't force people to play the way I do.

[RedBaronFlyer]

To be fair this shouldn’t be happening much on Manuel where rules are stricter, so not sure why you’re encountering that.

Stricter rules don't mean admins are necessarily cracking down on the behaviour even when it's reported. A few days ago I was observing a round where three lizards from different departments were basically griefing sec, RCDing the brig doors open, stealing from the armoury and running up on the dead Warden and emoting "spits on dead retard". Their reasoning for all this? One of their lizard buddies got arrested for tiding.

And the admin handling it labeled all this as an ic issue because sec had been 'aggressive' which inevitably lead to a heretic ascending and ending the round.

Forcing sec to deal with shitters isn't the solution, banning shitters is.

And this is the issue people have been repeating on Manuel. The MRP rules just aren’t seemingly enforced unless you’re breaking a main rule as well.

[Cheshify]

This is being addressed with the updated Rule 5 rework we're taking a crack at. Sec should generally be following rule 1, not allowing tiders/antags to get away with whatever unless there's some kind of roleplay, and doing their job to some extent. If you don't want to handle crimes, don't play security. Reasons for a secoff to not do their job if it benefits the round quality can be handled under rule 0 (letting an antag go 'by mistake' to keep the round interesting, accepting a bribe to be elsewhere when someone is hacking into tech storage, etc.)

Admins should not be banning secoffs for "not doing enough" if they're at least trying or have a roleplay reason for not handling something. This could be more of an issue in the case of "Hey admins I called for a nearby officer to help me and they watched a tider beat me to death."

Cheshify - Wrote it
TBM - Sounds Good
Fikou - Approved

[TheBibleMelts]

unlocking this thread for more discussion, i think some folks got some things to bring up or questions to clarify.

[warbluke]

Should Sec be expected to try and handle a fight they have no chance of winning? Like if there's one secoff with standard kit and noted traitor Totly Deswordins walks past with the hand tele, what's the course of action? To intervene is certain death, even with armory gear. (Assume that Totly is one of those people who grind up 50 TC stealthily and then juice up with stun-immunity chems and xenobio loot for good measure.)

[Cheshify]

Should Sec be expected to try and handle a fight they have no chance of winning? Like if there's one secoff with standard kit and noted traitor Totly Deswordins walks past with the hand tele, what's the course of action? To intervene is certain death, even with armory gear. (Assume that Totly is one of those people who grind up 50 TC stealthily and then juice up with stun-immunity chems and xenobio loot for good measure.)

This falls under a roleplay reason not to fight something.

[BeeSting12]

Every time I try enforcing space law as sec I get bitched at (by players not admins) for interfering with people who "aren't bothering anyone". And I also usually end up having a campaign waged against me by the people who I interfere with for the remainder of the round. That's why I usually don't bother dealing with people who break into EVA/tech storage in front of me or smash random windows. Even if I try getting between two assistants fighting, half the time they BOTH turn on me. May as well let them take care of each other.

I pretty much agree with Sinfulbliss's thoughts on it though. Even if we only make this apply to the most violent of crimes such as scuffles between two players, it comes down to believing one side over the other, and there's usually bigger/more clear cut fish to fry such as the changeling running around stabbing people.

If the rule is written such that sec is expected to do their job unless there's a valid reason not to, then the rule may as well not exist because I'm sure anyone can find a valid excuse not to enforce the law.

[sinfulbliss]

If the rule is written such that sec is expected to do their job unless there's a valid reason not to, then the rule may as well not exist because I'm sure anyone can find a valid excuse not to enforce the law.

Except new players! People relatively new to security might be hesitant to interfere or just be learning the ropes and observing things happen. They are also the least likely to be able to come up with a convincing excuse in an ahelp.

Bwoinking this sort of player is a terrible thing to do because even if he doesn’t get in trouble, it will cement in his mind that security gets bwoinked for not doing their job, so better not play security to avoid breaking the rules.

The policy, if actually enforced, will just discourage people from playing sec and instead validhunt as a job where they don’t have these “minimum expectations” (this is already a huge problem on LRP that’s now being made worse). If unenforced then there’s no point to it anyway. Worst case scenario we get admins who micromanage security players and bwoink them for ignoring things, and best case scenario admins just ignore the policy altogether. I think it’s a very bad policy for security and I’d encourage headmins to ask some experienced security players, on LRP and MRP alike, to see whether they think this is a good idea or not.

[TheBibleMelts]

i don't think that this is proposing any more or less enforcement than we're already doing.

[sinfulbliss]

i don't think that this is proposing any more or less enforcement than we're already doing.

If it wasn’t then what would the point of the policy be? Of course a policy forcing sec to handle crimes involves more enforcement than previously where sec was allowed to ignore their job in all but the most extreme cases.

And this policy is not at all relegated to the extreme cases (watching the RD get merked and his ID stolen, watching a heretic sac someone):

Sec should generally be following rule 1, not allowing tiders/antags to get away with whatever unless there's some kind of roleplay, and doing their job to some extent. If you don't want to handle crimes, don't play security.

It specifically mentions tiders, so it’s clear the goal here is to force sec to handle nonantag crime. It goes so far as to say if you don’t like that, don’t play sec. That is exactly what’s going to happen — and it’s what already does happen. Simply play another role where you can avoid all of these extra requirements of sec, and do sec’s job in that role. Maybe this would work on MRP where there are stay-in-your-lane and anti-validhunting rules, but on LRP where there isn’t, this policy just makes sec more unappealing.

[TheRex9001]

I'll be honest, this policy just seems like a nothingburger to me, a lot of this is already enforced in the rules. I guess this is just codifying it more but overall I agree with Beesting, this just feels a bit like bloat to me.

[kieth4]

You mention that tiders/antags shouldn't be allowed to get away with stuff but where is the line? For example, I could not give a flying fuck if a belt is stolen. Or if sechuds are taken. I'd probably draw the line personally on like a gas can, or maybe a dispenser something along those lines. The undrawn line creates a super uneven floor for enforcement because everyone's line is different.

I also don't understand your example:

This could be more of an issue in the case of "Hey admins I called for a nearby officer to help me and they watched a tider beat me to death."

In this case, why am I obliged to help the person calling sec? What if I think they're dealing with the consequences of their own actions/are evil/something else. If the answer is then you're fine I think it shouldn't exist.

If we're being realistic the only thing this is going to hit is new players who can't make up an excuse on the fly then they're never going to play sec ever again

[EmpressMaia]

As an avid sec player. Nah. Admins already breathe down my neck for sending a tider to the gulag for 500 points. If an admin PMs me about not arresting someone I should have arrested I'm just gonna close my game out

[Not-Dorsidarf]

As much as id like to see the roundstart EVA-looting horde who smash down all the windows and take all the emergency tools and jetpacks get sent to the brig every round until they learn to share, i suspect that “i do not want to be griefed / harassed / metagrudged by shitter assistants for ruining their solo quest” will prove to be an ironclad defense to not give a shit.

[CPTANT]

As an avid sec player. Nah. Admins already breathe down my neck for sending a tider to the gulag for 500 points. If an admin PMs me about not arresting someone I should have arrested I'm just gonna close my game out

This is blatantly against security policy though which states sentences up to 10 minutes are IC.

[Vekter]

As an avid sec player. Nah. Admins already breathe down my neck for sending a tider to the gulag for 500 points. If an admin PMs me about not arresting someone I should have arrested I'm just gonna close my game out

To be fair, the only instance where I ask about this is if the person who's been gulagged doesn't know how many points they were put in for. I only even ask so I know you guys aren't throwing someone in there for 1k points for something like breaking windows.

[Pandarsenic]

Please show the tickets of admins breathing down the neck over a 500 point gulag sentence

[Redrover1760]

Making sec do their "job" will only make less people play security.

For all of the reasons above. Yay.

I like enforcing the law, but there is such a strong tider mentality on lrp right now its kind of torturous. I've arrested a guy with a stolen sec id in brig fucking with the sec records and a syringe gun after they completely ignore my request for reasoning of what the fuck they're doing, and then start whining like a baby when I arrest and go to gulag because apparently they can do whatever they want because there's a decent amount of chaos and that includes ignoring security officers in brig when you have looted sec gear and instead I should apparently instead be chasing some murderer that the creature was unable to communicate.

Entitled tiders, I swear.

Edit:
Also, Literally none of the points made in the policy thread have been addressed at all by the ruling, its kind of disappointing that it has unaddressed the concerns of players, I disagree with the policy even if I like the heart of it.

[Redrover1760]

As an avid sec player. Nah. Admins already breathe down my neck for sending a tider to the gulag for 500 points. If an admin PMs me about not arresting someone I should have arrested I'm just gonna close my game out

This is blatantly against security policy though which states sentences up to 10 minutes are IC.

Gulag and perma sentences can be ahelped, sadly. I dont know why brig sentences get special treatment when gulag doesn't, but yeah.

[Vekter]

As an avid sec player. Nah. Admins already breathe down my neck for sending a tider to the gulag for 500 points. If an admin PMs me about not arresting someone I should have arrested I'm just gonna close my game out

This is blatantly against security policy though which states sentences up to 10 minutes are IC.

Gulag and perma sentences can be ahelped, sadly. I dont know why brig sentences get special treatment when gulag doesn't, but yeah.

For what it's worth, I can and have asked people to reduce sentences if they're absurdly long, but only in situations where someone's done something like shove the HoS once or twice and get brigged for 10 minutes for it.

It's generally an IC issue, but if you're giving excessively long brig sentences for crimes that don't warrant it, I'm probably going to ask you to cut it out.

[BeeSting12]

If the rule is written such that sec is expected to do their job unless there's a valid reason not to, then the rule may as well not exist because I'm sure anyone can find a valid excuse not to enforce the law.

Except new players! People relatively new to security might be hesitant to interfere or just be learning the ropes and observing things happen. They are also the least likely to be able to come up with a convincing excuse in an ahelp.

Didn't think of the new players but you're right. If a new player gets bwoinked for "not doing their job" I'd imagine it would put them off of playing security.

[8bot]

security is already the worst and most hated job in the game, don't make it even worse for the poor redshirts.

[dendydoom]

i've thought long and hard about this and i'm just totally lukewarm on it. i think it would be nice to have some backing to be able to approach a player who is clearly struggling with sec and be able to address it in a way that will help them that isn't just banning them and telling them off, but i also agree with the sentiment that it will scare people off sec even more and make their standards into more of an ever-growing minefield. there is also the sensible lrp point brought up that it will just push people into validhunting with other roles that are not held to such strict standards.

i am also ever terrified of the spectre that haunts ss13: accidentally enforcing optimal playstyles. i think it's reasonable to put sec standards with command, because they are (supposedly) powerful authority figures (lol) who get access to metaprotections, special items, etc. we should take into account the general scope of someone's playstyle. but idk about "what happened with this specific incident involving john mcshithead's science break in that wasn't investigated?" because it just rubs me the wrong way, it feels quite micromanagey.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

[snip]
Not unlike in real-life policing, sec are worse at doing stuff like peacekeeping and providing service when they're expected, equipped, and acculturated to act like "little soldiers" all the time (the recent big historical example is the ANP in Afghanistan, but you can apply this to any militarized police force.) You get people who more often than not want to fight antags, have tools for fighting antags, and are expected to fight antags (by the antags especially.) This is paradoxically worse on MRP, I suspect, because there's the rules' expectation that since sec can fight antags, the crew will not, and that puts a lot more on the sec player's head.
[snip]

Skyrat had it right when they had the Civil Protections Officer, who was basically a pseudo-seccie who I don't think even had a baton or a disabler, just a pepper-spray gun, and it was their job to handle minor non-antag crime like "please help the Clown is throwing all the chairs around in the bar and has destroyed my beautiful counter display".

I think that would do a fantastic job for helping with this problem, especially with Dynamic shitting out so many antags, but even if it'd be approved that's a Code Thing and thus not relevant to policy discussion.

To speak in a way that's relevant to policy discussion, I'm inclined to agree. I don't think adding it as a precedent would help. If you've JUST dealt with tracking down and killing the Heretic that has sacrificed 5 people and went loud for 20 minutes before you got him, I'd really like to not be bwoinked for going to the bar for five minutes instead of dealing with John Tider deciding that he wants insulated gloves.

[Misdoubtful]

I will agree that regular criminal behavior tends to get ignored. On some other servers this isn't an issue. I'll have to think about my experience on them and why that specifically is the case. For some I know that job bans happen, and others have SOP that people actually use, etc. But there has to be something higher level than that that could be approached.

Maybe part of it has to do with the extreme differences between regular crime and actual antag crime. Antags don't give themselves away by doing minor crime.

What I mean by that is that there isn't much incentive to deal with minor crime. Sec isn't rewarded for doing it. To add onto that it happens so much that stopping one minor criminal to have a clearer radar for antags criming would not have much of an impact when so many others are doing it.

A really half assed idea would be something like optional objectives like 'loiter in toxins for three minutes'. Or something like 'hack open ten doors in medical'.

Maybe this is a space for creative adminning to insert ic consequences for not dealing with petty crime. Or set a more clear bar for when being a criminal is getting to be too excessive.

Idk mostly spitballing here and will probably say more later.

But I'd rather be adding an incentive/connectedness (and ic consequences for not doing so) to dealing with minor crime somehow rather than be requiring it if possible. Or at least find a way to do both. Everyone would have a much better time with implementation like that, and maybe even have FUN with it.

Otherwise I only see this being a punishment to sec players and being something to discourage them from actually playing sec. Where is the benefit to sec players here? Does it exist?

Maybe I'm totally in the wrong though... Which is why I'd like to see the sec player stats displayed as a before and after on this one, and in a perfect world see the number of ahelps about it, but tickets aren't very analysis friendly in their current state. That'd be awesome. I want to see the impact, if there is one.

If it provides no impact or a negative impact then maybe this is just rules bloat without anything tangible behind it, like space law, a protection being built in for following space law, ic rewards for doing good sec things, whatever else. Gameplay loops don't suddenly get better or more interesting when we add more steps or requirements to them. Making them two pronged and more engaging though? That works.

[Misdoubtful]

I edited my post above like ten times since posting it.

[Higgin]

[snip]

[snip]

[snibbedy snab :DDD]

CDOs/Civil Dispute Officers were slightly before my time on SR, but my impression of dealing with a lot of nonantag crime and from playing a Lot of HRP sec has been that running, high-octane antagonism kind of damns you if you show up wanting to issue parking tickets.

IRL, the flipside of the problem is that you need basic security in place to allow democratic policing and state-building to occur. CDOs are sort of like the police in principle: they should be few in numbers, highly-visible, and lightly armed. They should be able to settle disputes peacefully, provide general assistance, and not have to operate at a level where they're prepared at any moment for a mass shooting or counterinsurgency.

edit here for completeness: police do have a role in effective counterinsurgency, but it's in building state legitimacy and helping reproduce a social order that defeats the conditions of insurgency/rebellion - they don't effectively address it through doorkicking raids and roundups, even less than militaries do, because the nature of security is that it must be co-produced by everyone to whom it applies. police can reproduce order, but they can't solely or sufficiently provide security - there's a difference. There's an entirely separate question here of to what extent you even want the station to be orderly and secure as a sandbox - but I think we tend to err towards "not" which is why people who coproduce security without wearing red are labeled validhunters.
If this stuff interests you, here are a few links (not all of them have pdfs - sci-hub is your friend.)
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-libra ... -community
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-libra ... management.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10 ... 1005001002



CDOs or more 'dealing with molehills instead of mountains' sec would be great if they had something to fall back on, but in a lot of rounds and a lot of the time, they don't. I'd be wary of adding more metaprotected roles for highpop balance. Five more guaranteed nonantags you can snap your fingers and turn into security officers might be oppressive.

I'd also like to see sec numbers in general and how they've changed with various changes to antags and dynamic. Right now I suspect you might get people signing up as CDO to be literally the only person in security then showing up to "clown won't leave med" to get capped with their little highvis and boyshorts because the tider clown was a tot.
edit: and that might then be their last time as CDO.

[snibbedy]
What I mean by that is that there isn't much incentive to deal with minor crime. Sec isn't rewarded for doing it. To add onto that it happens so much that stopping one minor criminal to have a clearer radar for antags criming would not have much of an impact when so many others are doing it.
[snab]

It's worse than that there isn't much incentive, you're actively incentivized against it. Your tools for dealing with minor crimes are only really enough to annoy people and goad them into resisting or retaliating, even if nonlethally, before you enter the dangerous territory of a lot of people saying "shitsec" and look at you as an asshole picking on the underdog. If you arrest somebody for repeatedly graffiting med, open their bag looking for paint, and happen to find a Syndicate revolver/open uplink too - treating that person as a tot, taking that uplink, even just taking the revolver might open you up to that person just shooting you dead next time and calling you shitsec for ruining their run when they could've just RR'd you - assuming they didn't for some reason other than having got caught lacking (which is stupid, but it happens.)

► Show Spoiler

When dealing with honest to God shitters, there are things you can do - take their ID as an informal demotion or get a head to wipe them with Plexagon Access, use gulag sentences liberally, confiscate not just obvious antag gear but everything used in the commission of the crime - you can apply more pressure than you think in one round, even if it does nothing for their behavior in the next.

Alternatively just ahelp - but with enough of that it starts to become questionable: can we even have nonantag conflict to begin with? Skyrat's proviso on this was "stop doing it immediately when a threat is confirmed," but nonantag crime also provides an amount of cover for antag activity at first, at least. I do not count on people having the ability or consideration to read the room especially when we actively fuck up the crew's situational awareness as a regular part of the game, and no small number of people make a pernicious habit of doing stuff that they could be treated as nonantag criminals for. Some folks' whole identity is "tider."

Good faith is a losing proposition, so a lot of stuff is left to go by as "broken windows" with the hope that only a few of them have guns sticking out.

[sinfulbliss]

Antags don't give themselves away by doing minor crime.

Antags give themselves away by doing minor crime quite often actually. Sec arrests someone for minor crime, then finds antag gear on them, and wham.

The incentive for dealing with minor crime is 1. the chance they’re antag, and 2. people appreciate it when you gulag the turbo shitter irritating them. But it’s not very fun and pretty lame to be the mallcop that puts someone in GBJ for 5 minutes because they shoved someone and hacked a door.

I would go so far as to say that the sec players who play sec primarily for this reason, are usually bad sec players, because the only people who have fun putting players in timeout over inconsequential crimes are those doing it to powertrip or derive satisfaction at someone else’s frustration/irritation. Even if they deserve it, it still attracts the wrong type of player to the job.

What’s worse than a seccie that ignores everyone except valids? The seccie that ignores the valids and instead focuses on everyone else. This type of seccie is even more common than the validvision seccie, at least on Sybil. They’re primarily newish sec players (who make up most sec players), because they would rather go after nonantags who can’t fight back rather than risk their round fighting a robust antag with dangerous weapons.

But I'd rather be adding an incentive/connectedness (and ic consequences for not doing so) to dealing with minor crime somehow rather than be requiring it if possible. Or at least find a way to do both. Everyone would have a much better time with implementation like that, and maybe even have FUN with it.

This is a good idea.

[Higgin]

I would go so far as to say that the sec players who play sec primarily for this reason, are usually bad sec players, because the only people who have fun putting players in timeout over inconsequential crimes are those doing it to powertrip or derive satisfaction at someone else’s frustration/irritation. Even if they deserve it, it still attracts the wrong type of player to the job.

This is a damn good point and one my answer didn't give enough credit to.

Even consequential crime can be totally fine if both sides are leaning into it. You absolutely can get people who will short-circuit organic conflict or go looking for problems to get off on forcing the issue and feeling like a martyr when they don't get asspats for it.

Not all crime is shittery, and a lot of shittery isn't crime.

The Skyrat joke was SSUASEGW - Sec Showed Up And Somehow Everything Got Worse.

edit: What this reinforces or should reinforce is that there are a lot of problems asking players to self-regulate antisocial or deviant behavior. It's ultimately back to admins to be the arbiters of fair play and safer when sec are pretty much just there to fight antags rather than coopted as miniature staff.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

[snip]

[snip]

[snibbedy snab :DDD]

[we snip]
CDOs or more 'dealing with molehills instead of mountains' sec would be great if they had something to fall back on, but in a lot of rounds and a lot of the time, they don't. I'd be wary of adding more metaprotected roles for highpop balance. Five more guaranteed nonantags you can snap your fingers and turn into security officers might be oppressive.

I'd also like to see sec numbers in general and how they've changed with various changes to antags and dynamic. Right now I suspect you might get people signing up as CDO to be literally the only person in security then showing up to "clown won't leave med" to get capped with their little highvis and boyshorts because the tider clown was a tot.
edit: and that might then be their last time as CDO.
[we snop]

This is definitely a good point that I hadn't thought about.

I really liked CDO because it offered the ability to choose to be more laidback. I didn't have to worry about running into active gunfights, and the lower-stakes of having the CDO (or your basic beatcop) show up instead of The Redman (SWAT) made people much more willing to be more laid back, and talk things out. Because unless they got violent with you, the worst that was going to happen was they might get Fined. Plus, not having to answer every single call of "GUY WITH GUN" gave you a lot of time to Hearts and Minds, and often had people feeding you intel because they liked you, and you weren't the evil Red Man, even if the information went back to him in the end, they knew they were safe as an anonymous source.

But I can definitely see why that might cause some problems here. God knows how many rounds I've signed up as Detective, wanting to just focus on investigations rather than Antag Chasing, and been told "oops! You're solo-sec, or MAYBE you have one officer with you! Gotta DetSec now!" or been forcibly promoted to Acting HoS against my will because I was the only person on the Sec Team trying to coordinate anyone.

[AlamoTurtle]

As with most opinions here, I'm also heavily against the notion of security being forced to play a certain way. At that point, you're giving a security-spinoff version of Asimov to all officers and forcing them to be the duty-bound slaves of the station to deal with crime, even when it would lead to a funny prank or event that would otherwise make the round more fun just because someone called security and the rulings say that officers must act. Holding players accountable for inaction is always unfun, and a few servers have even done away with it for the AI of all things.

People don't join sec to play cop simulator, and if they do, things would get plenty boring, fast (also why?). As said, it limits options and roleplay potential to force security officers to take arrests and resolve crimes they witness. There's not a role for all the gimmicks someone wants to run, so if someone wants to be a mall cop, they won't get to be if they see Gary Tyde in tech storage where he doesn't belong. At this point, security has to, as per the hypothetical rules imposed by this discussion, intervene, get robusted, and surprise fullstripped and flushed into a dumpster without an ID for being nosey, and now both players are probably upset that the shift went that way. This is all with the potential that other players would get involved for security handling an issue that petty and mobbing officers over nothing