I absolutely agree with your suggestions! Fingerprints and other evidence needs reworking, currently either there is no evidence that scanner can pick up or it straight up points to a person responsible.
Just having scanner pick up partial prints and people sharing sections of print string would be a huge change. Everything else adds a lot of layers, especially autopsies if they could suggest what kind of object was used to kill the victim.
I like the DNA suggestion, it may be actually a good moment to push for it since we are currently again dealing with viro/genetics complaints and ideas to merge them into one bio-tech role, giving it another thing to do and interaction with additional department (that is with det/security) would be an additional validation for that change
Years ago when we had some issues with security and treatment of criminals I’ve made a suggestion for how we should rework things and I still stand by it, especially when it comes to lawyer, detectives and trials and their roles in them.
So on top of what was suggested by you and few others in this thread I’d like to add three things:
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Detective shouldn’t spawn if there isn’t at least one sec officer and lawyer, optimally if there isn’t HoS or Warden. Detective is not a cooler looking security officer, it’s a more RP focused role dedicated to investigating and gathering evidence so it has to have other people around it for proper interactions.
Not sure how much we can complicate role selection at round start, it already seems like complicated process so if it’s technically impossible we could make it so there are no round start detectives and could only late join if presence of other roles is met, that’s a bit jerry rigged but would still work -
Requirement of X hours as member of security and ADDITIONAL X hours as lawyer so detective players would be familiar with space law, court system and more RP oriented playstyle.
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As we know pinboard is a classic investigative tool, until recently it didn’t seem possible or practical to implement it but two things happened:
First, a game Shadows of Doubt came out which proved this type of organising evidence to get a grip on your case not only works for players but is actually useful and fun
Second, we introduced circuits. And circuits are the technological missing link we needed since they allow to add items (all those input and output devices) to shell that will make them show up in circuit management window where they can be freely moved around and linked
It doesn’t seem like a far fetched idea to combine both of these things into one. Let’s have a device into which detective could put all the evidence they’ve gathered-photos, scanning reports, bagged items, notes written by detective himself, make them show in a window where they can then be moved around and linked as player wishes.
Bonus points if we could integrate it with generating few standard forms which could be made by selecting or dragging things from pinboard so detectives have an easy and standardised way to summarise their findings. Once they are done machine/device could print it out and spit out items that were loaded into it in boxes that could go straight to either evidence locker or lawyers that will handle the case
But yeah, that’s getting kinda off topic of what original thread was talking about so I guess post of mine and @Ravencorp would best fit in separate discussion. When it comes to original post and responses to it I don’t have strong opinion for or against additional gear or how it is meant to be received (either via kit beacon or some sort of shop) but I strongly oppose any idea of using metaknowledge of the ghosts to solve cases.
Solving previous rounds cases sounds interesting, I believe Bacon or someone once confirmed they are technically able to ‘save’ changes to map made by players and use them in next round but I’m not sure how exactly are we expecting it to work since obviously damage to station hull, air and such needs to be restored and even if we would limit it to the ‘mess’ starting a shift on regular basis with blood and bullet holes in walls would be odd as well, not to mention it would be a race with janitor before he sweeps everything up. Even if we were to limit it to one case, its not exactly easy to determine what damage and items are related to it and issue with people cleaning it up would be the same.
I guess it would be all a bit too complicated. Easier way would be to just generate a case with evidence scattered around, we already have rooms spawning dead bodies in maints and such. That would mean detective would have always something to do but as was already mentioned in this discussion it seems like a lot of work for one role which results won’t even affect players of current round since it is all based on previous round/random generation