There are boxes of flashbangs and disablers in the armoury.
A bit of an issue with the wording of this rule I guess. Its more what is meant behind the words rather than the words themselves.
By “just in case” its referring to not grabbing a shotgun before there is a confirmed threat.
Don’t: “I grabbed a shotgun round start, even on green shift, just in case there is a changeling”.
Do: "I grabbed a shotgun after changelings were confirmed, one near stabbed me to death and if there is one there is likely more. There is a decent chance I might run into another changeling this shift, so best to grab the shotgun in case I do.
At least this is my understanding of the rule and what most other staff members I have talked to have said.
I see alert levels as more of a suggestion. If nukies shoot the cap, its red alert. I don’t care nobody swiped to change it yet, the armoury is open.
I’m not going to waste time getting people together to set the alert level to red when the nukies are running away with the disk.
After we (hopefully) get the disk back, we should probably set it to red alert provided there is no immediate threat.
the cold slow is actually insane. it also fires about twice as fast as a disabler, since there’s no limit to the fire rate, only as fast as you can click
Yeah, I agree with this judgement. Its basically a rapid fire energy bola cannon, like the type in the security vendor.
I didnt think there would be an issue in taking it due to its non lethal nature.
Its just a better piece of equipment, I think anyone would be kind of stupid for not taking it.
If a realistic security officer had the option to take a piece of equipment that had only upsides, I dont see why they wouldn’t.
I don’t see how my actions or mindset were all that bad.
I played security in a way to protect the crew to the best of my abilities without going too far out of line.
Some examples brought up:
You cremated lings too fast
I don’t see any reason not to immediately cremate hostile changelings that have attempted to kill you.
They have many powers that could be used to escape and go back to being an active threat to the station.
You would rather hunt valids than respond to the captains orders.
The captain was asking for help dealing with an assistant he said was trapped in the HoP line. I thought this request was ridiculous. Me and the detective were on an investigation for most of the round to catch a changeling that had murdered someone. Surely the captain can deal with one crewmember who was not reported to be armed. I thought the changeling case was more important.
I was wrong, aparently someone else shot the cap. For this he wanted to demote me, I reasoned with him to just make me an officer and someone else HoS, to which they agreed. I complied and gave them my ID.
I see this as an IC failure resulting in IC consequences.
You dont roleplay
I think I did a decent job of roleplaying this round. A changeling-husked body was brought into medbay from maintenance. I called the detective over and we got to work. Using the forensic scanner we went all around the station, tracking down leads and trying to find out who murdered this person. We arrested and interrogated suspects. I don’t see how this isn’t roleplaying. I’m playing my role as the crime stopper on the station on a murder case.
On other rounds I had the chance to investigate witnesses or people in the general area. If you look over my chat logs for these rounds I did a lot of talking to other people. I think this is decent roleplay.
I agree you shouldn’t take a shogun, even loaded with rubbershot on green, but are things like the dropnet and barrier grenades not fine to take?
They’re completely harmless and just tend to serve as an alternate tool.
I often see these things distributed and nobody bats an eye. From my understanding these items were fine to use despite them being in the armoury at the start of the round.
This is scary. How do you want to limit powergaming not even realizing you are doing it yourself?
You don’t play this game to win. You are focused on winning, being prepared for every danger, countering everything - this is powergame.
You could’ve interrogated him, ask him who he had killed, where can you find the bodies or even names of other lings. Even if he would escape, you would just hunt him down again, who cares.
He ordered you to. You basically went in, looked at the mime (I think it was mime) and then wordlessly left. You did not try to communicate that you have some urgent thing going on and you went straight into maints to hunt them valids.
You basically only talked to detective.
Don’t forget you opened armory and took lethals because you found ONE ling.
I don’t understand how people don’t see hos, with his gun, normal gun, temperature gun, shotgun with lethals, 6 flashbangs, full set of tools, insulated gloves partolling maints basically roundstart as severe powergame. Oh and it was on green. You were looking for lings on green alert when there is no threat confirmed. That was the point of disabling stuff going into blue. To allow traitors to act sneaky, to not just go murderbone, to roleplay getting their objectives.
But yeah, perhaps it’s actually allowed and I am just stupid?
This is why I ping adminhelp and asked other admins for their opinions. Several admins responded (I will not be naming them, because that would be basically leaking private admin chats) and everyone judged this as powergaming.
The job of security is to protect the station in case of emergency and uphold the law. You are not some elite combat super robust soldier, you are glorified mall cop. I understand hunting someone after getting reports from crew or whatever else, but taking all of the preemptive measures to ensure you will win is powergaming.
Yeah, I don’t think this is unreasonable. After arresting you I began the interrogation. I think being in the HoS’s personal office, a restricted area, shows that your intentions may not be good.
I was willing to talk with you after the arrest, however most of the conversation revolved around how you stole something, lied, then resisted arrest.
I dont even think I cuffed you, as I remember you picking up your backpack.
I’m just being honest, the point of this discussion is to figure out where the rules lie.
I think the people who he would kill would care. If they got out because of my failure to deal with them properly and murdered someone it would be my fault. They had already tried to murder me.
If they had started screaming “WAIT DON’T KILL ME” or “I SURRENDER” instead of trying to armblade me and my detective when caught murdering someone I think cremating them would have been shit roleplay.
They were going to do the exact same thing I would have to them, likely permenant round removal by sucking if they had somehow won.
Changelings have so many ways out of whatever situation you put them in I didnt trust myself to contain them.
I think it makes sense to eliminate the threat posed by an EMP-blasting, reviving, cuff destroying, armbladed murder creature that is not a member of the crew.
I think I briefly walked past the area, saw it was mostly contained, assumed the captain could deal with it and went back to meet with the detective. We were forensic scanning the doors around medbay maintenance as that was where the body reportedly came from, specifically the solars access in the area.
I did once communicate with the captain before we met up in person to discuss the demotion. He said something along the lines of “Get over here damnit” and I responded with “Its just 1 tider, use your energy gun”.
I probably should have explained more about it, saying we were hot on a changeling murder case, but that was my IC failure and I got demoted for it.
I talked to the CMO who was trying to revive the murder victim.
I talked with an engineer in engineering, asking if they knew who took the hardsuit. Only 1 hardsuit was missing and engi hardsuit fibres were on the victim.
I talked with the engineer with the hardsut. We arrested, interrogated them and eventually came to the conclusion that they were the one who brought the body in to medical. We talked at length until I was satisfied with thinking they were likely not a changeling.
I talked at length with the detective about the ongoing investigation.
I also think I talked with a few others very briefly about other things.
Is this not normal? Is it not standard NT knowledge that if one changeling managed to infiltrate the station, more are likely?
We also had the hard evidence of the murder victim being found on the other side of the station from where we found that other changeling.
Considering there is a decent chance of encountering another energy gun disabling murder machine, I think any reasonable security officer would want a shotgun. I think there is plenty of IC justification for this.
If not for deadly threats like changelings, what are shotguns here for?
I did not grab all of these items at the start of the round. I only aquired the shotgun later and the alert level was raised to red. I made a post detailing my reasoning for having all of the items I did.
I think the engineering tools were powergamey but I do not think any of the other items were too unreasonable.
I was not specifically looking for lings. There was nothing going on so I decided to patrol around the station a little. I do not main security, but is it not standard security practice to patrol around and make sure everyone is okay?
All of these opinions were made before my side of the story was given and I am unable to respond to any of those opinions here without breaking leaking policy.
I do think some of what I did was powergamey. I shouldn’t have full engineering gear as HoS. I’m just used to playing engineer.
However I do not think that the other measures I took were unreasonable. I only took a shotgun after a changeling tried to murder me.
I was trying my best to play as a competent head of security who does their best to keep the station safe without going too far. I dont think security should always play as incompetent mall cops.
I’ve had some time to refine my thoughts on the matter so I think it would be good for me to explain my thoughts on how security should be so you can better understand my position.
I believe security exists partly to force antagonists to be smart and discreet.
This does not mean security should arm up with shotguns loaded with buckshot at the start of the round.
This means antagonists should consider the current state of security and plan around it.
Security should punish antagonists who decide to go loud without a good plan or setup.
One example:
Antagonists should know that they cannot just start armblading the CMO in medical maint at shift start without a solid plan. It should be known that concerned doctors might want to check up on their co workers or report murder noises to security. Hearing this, 2 officers respond, they get into a fight with the changling, maybe one of them is injured, but they use their disablers well. Considering the changeling tried to murder them and the CMO, they drag the changelings body to the cremator and dispose of it.
I do not think this is security powergaming. I think this is security playing security well and doing their job of protecting the crew.
Another example:
A changeling is known to be prowling around maintenance. 2 husked bodies have been found. The heads of staff should declare red alert due to the immediate threat. Shotguns loaded with buckshot should be distributed to officers and security should plan out a sweep of maintenance. Officer A finds the changeling in the process of murdering a third victim. The changeling immediately uses their EMP, disabling the officers energy weapons. The changeling then tries to armblade the officer. The officer fills the changeling with buckshot, killing it and then cuffs it. They then turn their headset back on and call for backup. The rest of the team shows up and they together drag the changeling to the cremator and dispose of it.
I again do not think this is security powergaming. I think this is security playing security well and using appropriate force for the threat.
Well then, what should the antagonists have done?
I think they should have played smarter to minimize their exposure.
Firstly, they shouldn’t stab people in areas where witnesses will easily be generated or leave corpses with crucial evidence behind.
Secondly, they should come up with a good plan. Maybe they welded all of the medical maint doors shut except the airlock where they have a space suit waiting. Maybe they hack into telecomms and leave a remote signaller in the APC’s short wire so they can remotely disable comms while they do their dirty work. This is a game with a ton of depth and antagonists should be expected to have to engage with some of these mechanics to be sucessful.
That being said:
Security still needs to roleplay and deal with criminals. Hunting antagonists or “valid hunting” is part of the role but it is not everything.
If there is no changeling murdering people in maintenance, go talk to people, deal with those cases of petty crimes and enforce space law.
Where did I go wrong?
Security shouldn’t carry around engineering gear without good reason. Ex: Station is meteor’d and power is out in most of it. Security should mostly stay in their lane and not prepare for those “what if an antagonist bolts a door” situations. Call the engineers, if they absolutely refuse to come get your own tools then. Its not fair to force antagonists to plan for “what if the HoS decided to grab tools at the start of the shift”.
I also probably should have listened to the captain instead of tunnel visioning on one murder case. I think this is more IC incompetence and I was given a deserved IC punishment.
That being said I do not think the other items I had were very powergamey.
The shotgun had plenty of reason.
The temperature gun is just a better disabler, its not lethal and any reasonable person would want one.
The first aid kit was just found in the brig. I don’t think its unreasonable to carry one considering I’m expecting there to be a decent chance of getting into a fight. Being able to provide first aid to wounded crewmembers or security makes sense. I shouldn’t have synthflesh, a surgery kit and a defibrilator but I think basic first aid is reasonable.
The other items are standard security equipment from the locker I spawn next to or spawn with me. I think most would agree its okay to take the things from your personal locker.
I already think this will be another topic of debate and I have more thoughts on it.
There is a reason not to take a shotgun or a lethal laser gun. You do not want to use those on minor criminals and thinking about it realistically, people wouldn’t feel comfortable if they were surrounded by people with lethal weapons on display all the time at work.
Some exceptions can be made for the HoS and Captain both having an energy gun with a lethal mode and their own personal weapon (sabre, cap/hos gun). They are supposed to be the 2 most trusted crewmembers in charge of ensuring the crews safety. Nanotrasen has enemies, it can be reassuring to know a few good people do have the equipment to deal with those who wish to do you harm.
Thinking about it, there is some RP justification in not taking the temperature gun due to the minor burns it causes. I think the temperature gun should be considered in the area of a little harmfull less than lethals like rubbershot and beanbag slugs.
If unruly assistants are giving you trouble, I think its use is justified, but you probably shouldn’t take it round start.