/tg/Station 13

Recently had a discussion where someone admitted that they open the armory for secoffs at the start of every shift when they play HoS. Is this okay? I compared it to preventing the atmos loop from being sabotaged by the AI without any evidence of malfunction or subversion, or the engine. Giving every secoff an energy/laser gun is making it a lot harder for antags to fight them right out of the gate, along with making field executions a lot easier.

My personal view is that weapons exist in the armory to be used and if the HoS or Warden wishes to hand fun toys out to sec, they may.

Server Rules have the following as part of security policy:
Rule 1 of the main rules apply to security. The only exception is that security is generally considered to be armed with non-lethal methods to control a situation. Therefore, where reasonably possible, security is expected to use non-lethal methods first in a conflict before escalating to lethal methods.

RP Rules have this on top:
When dealing with antagonists deal with them proportionally to their crime(s). Someone who stole the captain's medal shouldn't be immediately lasered to death, but lethal injecting someone who has killed four people is understandable. If an antagonist shows a willingness to engage with you, do your best to reciprocate it, though leniency as to their punishment is still in your court.

Even if sec is armed with lethals, they're expected to handle things non-lethally where at all possible. There are plenty of other ways security get access to weapons and we even have one security role (Detective) start with only a lethal option.

Timberpoes wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 2:36 am(Detective) start with only a lethal option.

they have a reskinned head baton with no extend.

I mean I guess they are empowered, as Timber points out. But at the same time, I think doing it too often can lead to pretty severe shifts in the normalization of allowing lethal force to deal with problems. Security has bad issues with this at times. I'm sure everyone has seen that frustrated seccie start to turn to lasers the moment things get a bit heated.

I sec was meant to be using lethal force at all times they'd have lethal weapons. Just handing out lasers immediately to own potential antags starts leaning in on that super unfun metagaming. And we have rules about that as is.

Timberpoes wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 2:36 am My personal view is that weapons exist in the armory to be used and if the HoS or Warden wishes to hand fun toys out to sec, they may.

Thing is, these aren't just fun toys. Tackle gloves are fun toys. Flashbangs and dragnets? Yeah, those are fun. Energy and laser guns both have lethal ranged attacks, and opening up the armory also hands out the riot/bulletproof/ablative armor and riot shields, further increasing the difficulty antagonists will have in taking down the security force before they can ever even make an attempt. Security should be reactively escalating, not proactively escalating.

Server Rules have the following as part of security policy:
Rule 1 of the main rules apply to security. The only exception is that security is generally considered to be armed with non-lethal methods to control a situation. Therefore, where reasonably possible, security is expected to use non-lethal methods first in a conflict before escalating to lethal methods.

RP Rules have this on top:
When dealing with antagonists deal with them proportionally to their crime(s). Someone who stole the captain's medal shouldn't be immediately lasered to death, but lethal injecting someone who has killed four people is understandable. If an antagonist shows a willingness to engage with you, do your best to reciprocate it, though leniency as to their punishment is still in your court.
Even if sec is armed with lethals, they're expected to handle things non-lethally where at all possible.

I don't play enough MRP to know whether or not that part is being followed, but on LRP, the lethals typically come out ASAP. Resisting arrest? Eat a laser. Too many people in front of the brig? Laser. Mistaken for someone who's doing nefarious things? Eat lasers. The presence of laser weaponry also increases the chance of 'field executions'- of the security officer deeming the target too dangerous to bring to the brig and just shooting them to death right then and there.

There are plenty of other ways security get access to weapons and we even have one security role (Detective) start with only a lethal option.

If security is going out of their way to get access to lethal weapons outside of the HoS's/warden's permission, then we have a different problem.
Also, the detective isn't supposed to be making arrests. The gun is a deterrent meant to be used for self defense. It's also a piece of shit and comparing it to lasers is laughable.

NecromancerAnne wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:25 pm Just handing out lasers immediately to own potential antags starts leaning in on that super unfun metagaming. And we have rules about that as is.

Yea. That was sorta the point I was trying to make. It's similar to anti-sabotaging the engine/atmos at roundstart because the AI could potentially be malfunctioning. Handing out lasers because there could be a potential traitor/changeling/wizard/ops that show up instead of "hey, dean ivanov is murdering people with an esword and ebow, have some lasers and armor."

Personally don’t really like the idea of this being allowed. I would be interested to hear what coders have to say about it though.

wesoda25 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 7:12 pm Personally don’t really like the idea of this being allowed. I would be interested to hear what coders have to say about it though.

Im right here. The game is powercreep sure but why rev the powercreep engine as early as possible as hard as possible?

I don't have an easy time seeing this become a fun meta experience. Just people having to game harder. That might just make the baseline reaction to things that much more extreme. People jumping to harmful force without much growth of conflict in general already makes my face contort, I'm not trying to get an involuntary contorted swirlie face trying to comprehend that being normalized. That's like a kid on the playground that resorts to stabbing someone with a pencil when called a bad name being labeled as the healthy approach to conflict.

Conflict has tiers, why shortcut those tiers? Why take giant strides to skip over some of those stairs?

It's one thing for someone to ask for something out of the armory, it's another for it to just be open season. If sec was meant to have everything at the start wouldn't they by default?

do we get to laugh at the hos if they open the armory at roundstart and then get killed with one of their own guns because a traitor turned a less robust officer into a pinata

Honestly, kinda torn on it.

There are a lot of legitimate uses for lasers, and in a proper fight with a serious threat (Wizard, Fluke Ops, etc.) you generally want an E-gun instead because it's more flexible with no downside. A laser, on the other hand, is only good for killing, removing spiders and carp, etc.

Unfortunately, sec on LRP pretty much just goes straight to murder at the slightest sign of VALIDS, and if you hand sec officers a laser gun to deal with some carp, you're probably never going to see it again because they're going to laser assistants while yelling that they feel threatened.

Because of that, you're proooobably better off saving them to hand out to more responsible crewmembers who have a specific need and are likely to bring the lasers back if you ask them to, like Station Engineers or Medical Doctors, instead of letting Sec have more toys.

Screemonster wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 8:21 pm do we get to laugh at the hos if they open the armory at roundstart and then get killed with one of their own guns because a traitor turned a less robust officer into a pinata

Always

Screemonster wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 8:21 pm do we get to laugh at the hos if they open the armory at roundstart and then get killed with one of their own guns because a traitor turned a less robust officer into a pinata

yeah like honestly feels like a mistake to actually open armory asap, i think we should allow it as a bad idea

If the admin team isn't already enforcing the "sec are expected to use nonlethals over lethals" policy, are they going to enforce a policy that effectively boils down to "sec should not be equipped with lethals without good reason"?

Also, under this proposed policy is ordering guns from cargo also off limits without good reason?

Previous Ruling

snipped policy question wrote: What can HoS / Warden do at round start to secure brig? What is too much and what is "powergaming" and what is "metagaming"?

Can I give out eguns to officers?
Can I give out armor to officers?

snipped headmin reply wrote: Yes
Yes

Thats interesting but admittedly incredibly dated

LRP - don’t care until you put in a powergaming rule

MRP - not until there’s a reason.

If we wanted sec kitted with lethals without provocation we’d put the items in their kit directly without oversight of another role.

If we wanted paramedics kitted with hand teles without provocation we’d put the items in their kit directly without oversight of another role.

If it has a non lethal option then I might can see that but there’f still need to be a reason.

Eguns can be lethal but can be unharmful(I assume he handed out eguns as a nonharmful better option) handing out eguns at roundstart is a pretty good idea but if they are handing out laser guns there is a problem.

Cobby wrote: ↑Fri Nov 05, 2021 6:20 am LRP - don’t care until you put in a powergaming rule

MRP - not until there’s a reason.

If we wanted sec kitted with lethals without provocation we’d put the items in their kit directly without oversight of another role.

If we wanted paramedics kitted with hand teles without provocation we’d put the items in their kit directly without oversight of another role.

If it has a non lethal option then I might can see that but there’f still need to be a reason.

i have yet to feel like there's a clear advantage and not more like a severely bad idea going on here, in which case i want to say letting heads create unique rounds is worth keeping it in.

my only doubts come from terry supersec tbh, which isn't even mrp and will cause much more unfun shitty gooboogaabaa in a round

Like I think this can extend to both LRP and MRP. It's just kinda lame to be handing lethals out. People will argue after a certain point that since it is nornalized, why not just give security eguns roundstart from their code kit.

That doesn't mean it'll happen but people probably will argue for it. And once it starts becoming normal practice, it'll have a pretty lasting effect on server behaviour.

Iunno about cargo buying up guns but I also think that's an issue. Seeing cargo kitted out with mosins before any confirmed threats is about the same problem to me, but they're also not security with metaprotections, so that's just regular old powergame without any of the weird metanonsense security has tangling up the role. It'll be sorted appropriately if abused as anyone overescalating would, and whether they should or shouldn't be able to buy mosins is more of a code issue and less of a policy issue (for non-rp rules anyway)

eguns aren't that fucking lethal it's a good option other than a disabler(DIsabler is kinda sped) I don't think people use eguns on lethal 24/7 and if they do they should get banned from sec most likely.

The second that "There is a threat to the station" message goes out, you should be free to equip lethals as you please. Whether or not you use them correctly is a matter of context.

Armhulen wrote: ↑Fri Nov 05, 2021 7:25 am

Cobby wrote: ↑Fri Nov 05, 2021 6:20 am LRP - don’t care until you put in a powergaming rule

MRP - not until there’s a reason.

If we wanted sec kitted with lethals without provocation we’d put the items in their kit directly without oversight of another role.

If we wanted paramedics kitted with hand teles without provocation we’d put the items in their kit directly without oversight of another role.

If it has a non lethal option then I might can see that but there’f still need to be a reason.

i have yet to feel like there's a clear advantage and not more like a severely bad idea going on here, in which case i want to say letting heads create unique rounds is worth keeping it in.

my only doubts come from terry supersec tbh, which isn't even mrp and will cause much more unfun shitty gooboogaabaa in a round

If there's not a clear advantage people wouldnt do it to the frequency that theyre doing it (because it wouldnt matter)

if it's as often as you say then yea. i haven't been looking for it so i thought it was a lot rarer

Alright but the implication here is that it's opened PURELY for lethals and nothing else, I've seen less lethals and more for riot armour to stack tackle buffs or even dragnets for a few officers who like them. I see no issues with handing out lasers either, what's the difference between lethally shooting someone or lethally beating someone down with a stunbaton. In my eyes the difference is minimal.

kieth4 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 1:29 pm Alright but the implication here is that it's opened PURELY for lethals and nothing else, I've seen less lethals and more for riot armour to stack tackle buffs or even dragnets for a few officers who like them. I see no issues with handing out lasers either, what's the difference between lethally shooting someone or lethally beating someone down with a stunbaton. In my eyes the difference is minimal.

True, disabler into harm baton is better 90% of the time anyways. Only real advantage of armory is you can toss your disabler into your bag and put an egun into your armor slot for more longevity before you need a recharge.

Also, I am personally a Dragnet enjoyer, I always ask if I can get one, it's an energy bola launcher except I can't fuck it up, because I will definitely fuck up the energy bolas.

I think its incredibly cringe and I might even go as far as to like, knot a hos/wardens shoes and subtle message calling them stinky if they do this often but I don't think starting to put any kind of hard restrictions on when and where you can hand out lethals on lrp is a good idea
HOWEVER
perhaps we could hold Hos/Wardens accountable if they hand out lethals fnr and then their shitter team starts lethaling people for flimsy reasons? if you're going to be making the call of handing out lethal weapons at the start of the shift, you should also be responsible enough to make sure your team isn't gunning down people in the halls for calling them names (obviously this wouldn't apply if you handed them out in response to an actual threat or something)
idk, just a thought, and not a very well developed one, but I think if you're gonna be handing out the funny red beams so eagerly you should have to deal with consequences when that enables shittery, same as if you were handing out lemon grenades as a botanist or maxcaps as a scientist and suddenly OH NO SOMEONE SEEMS TO HAVE USED MY EPIC BOMBS TO GRIEF THE STATION, WHO COULDVE SEEN THIS HAPPENING OH NOOOOOOOOO

That seems fair honestly. But I also think sec can sometimes be given a pass when they would otherwise get into hot shit for killing as any other role, so I'm not expecting that to be reliably enforced or not be really confusing as to when that applies and when it's justified force.

Handing out lethals for no reason is a dumb thing to do but I don't think it should be against the rules. I will have no sympathy if the rest of command revolts against the HoS for doing so.

HommandoSA wrote: ↑Mon Nov 08, 2021 7:53 pm Handing out lethals for no reason is a dumb thing to do but I don't think it should be against the rules. I will have no sympathy if the rest of command revolts against the HoS for doing so.

Escalating on security has always historically gone well and definitely not a trap for the unwitting looking to play on the server longterm.

I'll usually open the armory shiftstart as HoS for seccies to get whatever gear they want, simply because I don't want them to die. Dead officers are a serious liability - if they're looted the antag is now a significantly greater threat. Disablers and stunbatons are just as dangerous as laserguns and riot, so it doesn't change much if they die with armory gear.

As far as lethals go, there are simply too many threats that can't be handled with stamina damage. "At which point then you open the armory," you might say. But at that point it may very well be too late for the seccie shooting his disabler frantically at the esword ebow hulk. And gathering up everyone to distribute lethals well into the round is much more difficult than at shiftstart.

As far as this making it harder for antags... That's sorta the point of sec. Besides, even with all of the armory the uplink has much better gear. They should still have quite an edge.

On MRP, as HoS or warden you shouldn't be supplying your department with lethals unless there is cause to.

On LRP, the HoS or warden is allowed to do this at their discretion.

Headmin Votes:
Dragomagol: Yes
NamelessFairy: Yes
RaveRadbury: Yes