Remove the Gulag

[Timrod]

I know this topic will be controversial, but I have several dozen reasons why this should be done. First, let me start with the fact that Security was removed from the antag list because they were supposed to be held to a higher standard. That hasn't happened, and in my opinion, Shitcurity is worse now than it's ever been - and the Gulag serves as a centerpiece of shitcurity.

Let's first look at what the Gulag does for Sec:

- Gives them a very easy way to permanently remove people from the round (no one ever bothers to hijack the gulag shuttle)
- Has virtually unlimited space for prisoners, as opposed to the three cells in Perma. The only downside to this is that there isn't a lockdown button, but..
- Has no cameras (at least, none that are connected to the AI), unlike Perma, and is exposed to space via a very easy-to-use airlock. This allows Security a SECOND place to murder people where the AI can't see it
- Is a virtually guaranteed death sentence unless no one is digging, since eventually someone will penetrate into space and cause a complete loss of atmos. There is no escaping from this because of the way the gulag is designed.
- Is literally impossible to break out of.
- Players inside have no way to fight back against sec (pickaxes and shovels are nodamage, only other weapons availible are shards, rods, and one oxygen tank).

This combination of factors is essentially a breeding ground for Shitcurity. I've only ever seen the shittiest sec players use it, and usually they'll do it in the midst of doing other stupid shit (ie; the multitude of wardens and HoSes who want to be Nazis or Stalinists).

As for why it should be removed, there are several reasons. First is that the Gulag is not fun. It's boring, it's shitty, it's badly-designed because the atmos can be breached in under a minute. Sec is perfectly safe when moving prisoners, and only really has to worry about maybe being pushed down and kicked a few times by the people they put there (which, from experience, does nothing as Sec's armor is strong enough to survive well over 40-50 blows from fists). Sure, you'll occasionally get the really shit sec officers who walk around with their guns drawn and backpacks in their hands, but those are usually rare because everyone knows the Sec meta of never carry your weapon. Unlike the old Prison Station, Gulag has no chance of revolting or doing anything interesting. Most people ghost the second they're put on the shuttle.

Second is that it's really, really unbalanced. Perma gives Sec a way to remove people from the game without AI complaint via the lockdown button, at the cost of people being able to break in from space. The Gulag really doesn't have that kind of balance because there is no downside to using it. The Gulag is also virtually unregulated by admin policy, so it's perfectly okay for Sec to throw people in there for very minor crimes.

Third is that it's very easy for Sec to convieniently forget about people they've stuck on the gulag, even if they don't intend to use it as a second permabrig. Standard sec meta is to remove headsets and PDAs, and with no cameras there's no way to contact the AI.

In short, this is why I think the gulag should be removed. Sec doesn't need two permabrigs or two execution chambers, and it's not even thematic or flavorful enough to consider saving on its own.

[Psyentific]

Better idea. Remove the Permabrig, replace it with the gulag. Merge perma with gulag. Give the gulag some internals, if it doesn't have a sleeper it should. Not a first aid kit, that can be used to escape. Give it cameras and a cameranet, plus an AI pad and pen/paper why not. Library console, ghetto botany, B-ball and hoop...

Un-Fuck Mining so that the gulag is actually useful, and so that it's possible to actually arbeit macht frei.

[paprika]

You're no longer able to set unlimited points in the gulag so no it's still temporary I think. Even insanely high points are not that hard to reach, and it beats perma.

[Braindude]

"I GOT GULAG'D, REMOVE IT !"

as said before, it's not permanent and it beats perma since you have something to do other than tend to plants that will die within 10 minutes or read shitty ERP books

[Steelpoint]

The AI can view the Security Cameras on the Gulag, it just has to change to the Gulag Camera network.

Also I don't think the Gulag should be removed, it serves as a nice alternative to the Perma Brig that lets prisoners actually do something instead of rotting away in perma/tending the perma garden. It also means someone can earn their freedom and have a actual goal to work to.

Shitcurity still exists, you could literally remove all of Security except for a single 1x1 room and Shitcurity would still occur.

[Timrod]

You're no longer able to set unlimited points in the gulag so no it's still temporary I think. Even insanely high points are not that hard to reach, and it beats perma.

See, what you're assuming is that sec ever actually issues the IDs for it. They never do,because that goes against the sec meta of stripping jumpsuits because the prisoners could potentially use them to hide a shard of glass.

[Steelpoint]

What Sec meta? When could you hide a piece of glass in your jump suit? Since when was a weapon that dealt 4-14 brute damage a threat to a Sec Officer?

Half of this "Sec Meta" nonsense your talking about is just common sense for Security, I mean Jesus Christ why is it abnormal for a Officer to holster their weapon while near prisioners? Or to remove their radio/PDA when being placed in Perma/Gulag. Why don't we just leave a full tool belt and a space suit in perma for each prisoner?

While I would be amused in merging perma into the gulag, I don't want to see either be removed.

[AseaHeru]

I like the gulag...
And when I am an officer, I give them a ID with the points.

[Psyentific]

You're no longer able to set unlimited points in the gulag so no it's still temporary I think. Even insanely high points are not that hard to reach, and it beats perma.

See, what you're assuming is that sec ever actually issues the IDs for it. They never do,because that goes against the sec meta of stripping jumpsuits because the prisoners could potentially use them to hide a shard of glass.

You do not change the code because players are bad at the game

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Basically you want security to have insecure, dangerous prison that is designed in such a way that allows people to break out. That's the opposite of what prison is for.

[Aranclanos]

The gulag just needs to be more user-friendly for security to have the prisioners get sent there faster, usually people have to take around 6 minutes figuring out how the IDs work, and if they don't (which happens a lot), they'll leave the poor prisioner out there with no ID.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

From what I can tell, the idea behind gulag was a replacement for timed punishments, so you can actually both be productive and get out of there faster than you otherwise would if you mine fast enough. In reality it takes so long to get a prisoner there and the timed punishments are so laughably short, it's not worth it at all.

[AseaHeru]

Well, fixing the time is easy then. Just use BayLaw.
Or rather, dont untill rounds last more than 15min.
(shuttle called 1min in (or threemin in during red levels), ten of shuttle wait, two loading, two moving, 1 at end...)

[Psyentific]

Isn't the gulag capital punishment, though?

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Shuttle has a 20 (or 15 or something) minute cooldown at the start of the round.

Also anything that has word Bay in it is an almost automatic nope.

Isn't the gulag capital punishment, though?

I haven't used it in a while, but when it first was implemented, there was even a conversion from minutes into mining points in the instruction paper.

[Psyentific]

Also anything that has word Bay in it is an almost automatic nope.

When Bay is one of the most in-depth and feature-heavy codebases floating around?
When my top three forks of SS13 are Goon, /vg/ and Paradise, two of which are Bay-based feature agglomerates?

Get the fuck outta here. We can all agree that Baycode isn't for Sibyl's playstyle, but saying they don't have nice things is just plain ignorant.

[Neerti]

I believe on the wiki (space law?) it says sec can use the gulag as an alternative to brig, with the ratio being 100 points = 1 minute, but it suggests you only do it on 'serious criminals'.

I personally love the gulag since it shits on greytiders so hard. They usually ghost after putting them in, so now you don't need to deal with them for the rest of the round.

[Aranclanos]

I personally love the gulag since it shits on greytiders so hard. They usually ghost after putting them in, so now you don't need to deal with them for the rest of the round.

That sounds awful, the intention of the gulag is to keep players in the round, not remove them out of frustration.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

We can all agree that Baycode isn't for Sibyl's playstyle

Took you long enough

saying they don't have nice things is just plain ignorant.

Jeeze, it was just a figure of speech. Besides, if you can slap "bay-" on it, it's probably a system that has their specific gameplay in mind.

[Neerti]

I personally love the gulag since it shits on greytiders so hard. They usually ghost after putting them in, so now you don't need to deal with them for the rest of the round.

That sounds awful, the intention of the gulag is to keep players in the round, not remove them out of frustration.

Greytiding assholes generally ghost since they can't be assed to mine a few hundred points. Just putting them in the brig doesn't teach them, as all they do is wait a few minutes, which they can afk and not even care, then come back and repeat until permabrigged/robusted.

Then the ahelps come.

[Lovecraft]

I personally love the gulag since it shits on greytiders so hard. They usually ghost after putting them in, so now you don't need to deal with them for the rest of the round.

That sounds awful, the intention of the gulag is to keep players in the round, not remove them out of frustration.

As someone who uses the Gulag chiefly because it's disliked, I find it's a good way to test the metal of some players.
Will they actually put forth the effort to come back into the game after deserving to be taken out?
It's not that hard at all to leave the Gulag if you actually mine the set points.
I'd like it kept around, maybe even merge with perma. Turn perma into Sec. Dorms or something and move the cells there as well.
It'd be neat to have an officer stationed there.

[Malkevin]

I had an idea, part of which was making the gulag into perma.


Anyway, if you don't like getting taken out of the round don't do things to make security arrest you.
If you don't like getting caught and removed as an antag.... well fuck you, its part of the territory - most of you wont give a second thought about parapen-c4ing someone or tossing the corpse into space, so don't moan when you get taken out of the round. No one is forced to be an antag (except MALF AIs), it is a choice you opt into yourself. Remember the default is antag options off.

[bandit]

Wait, people don't try to hijack the gulag shuttle? Do you play security, like, ever? They ALWAYS try to, and if you have more than one guy in the gulag they will almost always try to zerg rush the officer who walks in.

That said, fixing the gulag is simple:

- Fix new mining. 75% of the problems with the gulag currently are side effects of mining.
- Have some way to teleport prisoners to the gulag to cut down on mega zerg rush / time consuming process. Maybe an actual prisoner transfer area / one-way teleporter?

[Ikarrus]

>Equip prisoner with his things
>Leave him stunned on the shuttle, upper section
>Send the shuttle to the gulag
>Avoid going to the labor camp altogether

[Psyentific]

>Equip prisoner with his things
>Leave him stunned on the shuttle, upper section
>Send the shuttle to the gulag
>Avoid going to the labor camp altogether

^^Git gud

[TheTerbs]

wait are you saying

pickaxes are no longer robust

[danno]

They're "Safety Pickaxes" which are picks with no melee usability
which is shit. Officers don't need to be babied. If you get rekt by a gulag prisoner, they deserve to escape.

[Steelpoint]

Pickaxe's deal 15 brute damage on hit normally, however the pickaxe's in the Gulag are "Safety Pickaxe's" that deal no damage whatsoever.

[TheTerbs]

They're "Safety Pickaxes" which are picks with no melee usability
which is shit. Officers don't need to be babied. If you get rekt by a gulag prisoner, they deserve to escape.

AHAHAHAHAHA

fucking retarded, the point of a gulag is throw everyone down the hole, and don't ever go down there because you will be murdered

give them dangerous ass mining equipment and just have sec monitor the perimeter, the gulag should become the prisoners turf, plus how the fuck can a pick axe be safe i mean come on

is it made from heavy composite nerf

like the gulag should be the type of place where sec goes "Yeah dude fuck that im not going near there, its a pit full of lunatics with heavy gear mining shit and making giant bunkers"

eventually it would become a prisoners dorf fort where deep down in the pit, he and the other blind molerat people trade uranium for dank

[Aranclanos]

the mining tools of that place do no damage, please stop.

[paprika]

He knows that, he's suggesting they do damage so that the gulag can become the prisoners' 'turf' like a max security prison where meta-gangs are formed

[Psyentific]

He knows that, he's suggesting they do damage so that the gulag can become the prisoners' 'turf' like a max security prison where meta-gangs are formed

So you can give shitcurity a gimmick that isn't beatings? Cool beans.

[AseaHeru]

I wouldent mind the normal brig being more like perma, with being able to do things, or the gulag becoming perma.

But then you have rev-round balancing.

[Malkevin]

>Rev-round balancing

How so?

[Steelpoint]

Last time I checked Rev's have a 64% win rate on Sybil, and a further 83% win rate on Artyom. I think any buffs or alterations made to the brig won't throw out balance badly.

[AseaHeru]

Rev heads (and heads) going off-level count as dead.
Gulag is on a separate level.

[Steelpoint]

Which gives a non-violent option of removing rev heads/heads of staff from the station.

You know, I would not entirley be against removing perma from the station, and combining it with the Gulag. Something akin to shoving the gulag deep into a asteroid that is run down and cut off from the smaller Security section. Like Terbs suggested.

[paprika]

I usually throw rev heads in the gulag, either their corpses or when they're alive, speciically for the purpose of using it as a non lethal option towards rev heads. Surprised it isn't used more, especially by revs. Cuffing a head and putting them in an orange jumpsuit before throwing them in the gulag is a perfect taste-of-medicine situation that needs to happen more. LOL NO SPEED RUN RAID TEH ARMORY!!!!!1!1

Rev is pretty awful and the only people who like it are grey tiders who enjoy VKing lonely heads who don't see it coming most of the time.

[Solarn]

I usually throw rev heads in the gulag, either their corpses or when they're alive, speciically for the purpose of using it as a non lethal option towards rev heads. Surprised it isn't used more, especially by revs. Cuffing a head and putting them in an orange jumpsuit before throwing them in the gulag is a perfect taste-of-medicine situation that needs to happen more. LOL NO SPEED RUN RAID TEH ARMORY!!!!!1!1

Rev is pretty awful and the only people who like it are grey tiders who enjoy VKing lonely heads who don't see it coming most of the time.

That's a bit unfair, you know.

[TheTerbs]

He knows that, he's suggesting they do damage so that the gulag can become the prisoners' 'turf' like a max security prison where meta-gangs are formed

So you can give shitcurity a gimmick that isn't beatings? Cool beans.

since you can really escape from it, it should become the prisoners world, dark, dank, full of murderers

and also a way to smuggle materials out and goods back in

make it like

San Juan de Lurigancho

Spoiler:

The toughest prison in South America, it was built to housed 2,500 inmates but now has 7,000 prisoners within its dilapidated walls. Lurigancho has a very lax environment where inmates can sell anything – from gadgets, DVDs, and everything marketable including drugs. Cockfighting is a common sight as well as visiting prostitutes known as ‘nurses.’ Prisoners are not segregated and are left to their own devices, wandering around the facility, committing murder and other acts of violence.

[Braindude]

TheTerbs' idea is hella good.

[bandit]

Back to the gulag.

When did gulag members get external airlock access? (or rather, when did the external airlocks on the left side become all access)? Because this means they can rush the officer when they return to their shuttle.

[danno]

why do people think that gulag prisoners having chances to escape/fight their way out is bad
safety picks are terrible
if you get pick'd by a prisoner they deserve the chance at freedom.
anyways don't remove gulag but give a list or SOMETHING for recommended point goals, i've been given 3000 point cards way too many times.

[Atticat]

It saddens me to see people suggest removing rev while wizard is in high rotation. What a shit round type.



As far as gulag goes, I've been thrown in there by sec and forgotten too many times. It's WAY too cut off from the station. I gotta say I like Terb's idea. And I like the gulag in general; but the difficulty of transporting prisoners there makes it a prime candidate for replacement perma. Safety pickaxes are a joke, too.

Here's a terrible idea:Make it so security can get their hands on slave collars for gulag prisoners only that will explode if they exit the confines of the outer gulag aesteroid. Create a way for goods to be smuggled in and you will be able to have an interesting gulag without making it too easy for prisoners to just walk out with the smuggler. Make it so slave collars can be removed if a secondary party fiddles with it but will always retain a chance to explode, killing the prisoner. My only problem is that I'm not sure what incentives exactly somebody would have for smuggling stuff into the gulag.

[bandit]

why do people think that gulag prisoners having chances to escape/fight their way out is bad
safety picks are terrible
if you get pick'd by a prisoner they deserve the chance at freedom.
anyways don't remove gulag but give a list or SOMETHING for recommended point goals, i've been given 3000 point cards way too many times.

No one is talking about being pick'd by a prisoner, they're talking about prisoners rushing you, yakety saxing in close quarters (the gulag shuttle, in this case), and then disarming your weapon when you try to stop them.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

why do people think that gulag prisoners having chances to escape/fight their way out is bad

Because prisons are meant to be reliable. If bucklecuffing someone is more reliable than putting them into gulag, people will just bucklecuff and rightfully so.

[Steelpoint]

The point of throwing someone in prison is because your expecting the facilities, by default, to be able to contain them. If the prisoner can escape with only the items they have in the prison (As in their bare hands and pickaxe's), then I may as well just toss them out of the brig.

If the prison's could not hold prisoners, I would either just toss them out the airlock if their a captured traitor, or throw a straitjacket on them and buckle cuff them in the insanity ward or front cells, and I don't know about you but bucklecuffing is not fun for anyone.

[TheTerbs]

why would a gulag have windows

darkness and mines bro, cave full of Rwalls, also fix the ability to mine into space, thats fucking stupid, who cares if you have to surround it in Rwalls, no fucking windows, its a gulag
when i was in jail we didnt have fucking windows, we had a window but it was completely opaque you couldnt even see outside

escaping should be an arduous task, the mines should be filled with old corpses

the only hope for escape is to find the fabled wish granter, those who have gone to search for it rarely return, whether they found it or not is unknown

DESHI

DESHI

BASARA

BASARA

Spoiler:

the wish granter would give you a select list of wishes
1. take you to the derelict
2. give you the tools to turn the gulag into your personal kingdom, you would be its ruler (gulag czar crown, upgraded mining tools, tool belt, autolathe, oxygen tanks, botany supplies, imagine a geck but in spacemans)
3.live the remainder of your life on the fabled clown planet
4. antag only, doesn't show up for normal players: a weapon to turn your enemies into creatures, a staff of change

sometimes the wish granter spawns, sometimes it doesn't, the only way to find out to to search

DESHI

DESHI

BASARA

BASARA

[MisterPerson]

Stop discussing the revolution roundtype in this thread about the gulag. All such posts have been deleted. Talking about how removing the gulag would or would not affect rev rounds is fine; your general feelings about rev are off topic.

Personally, I'm inclined to agree that if the prison has security flaws (particularly the permabrig), security will bucklecuff or locker+weld people instead of letting the prisoners walk around. I think we can all agree that's even less fun than now. That's the idea behind the safety pickaxes by the way. If they were real, I suspect security would pretty much never gulag anyone.

Merging the permabrig and gulag is an interesting idea with appeal. It gives permabrigged people something to do, which is always a huge plus.

[Malkevin]

I'd like to see prisoners get real pickaxes but the gulag would be easier to deposit prisoners.
I'm thinking a 2x2 area between airlocks, that contains: a flasher or two, remote openable doors.... and (heres the genius part) conveyors on the floor that go beyond the interior airlock