The Chill Sec Charter (tm)

General
1

Ever wanted to do something funny or interesting as an antagonist but you can’t because sec will just kill you? Ever frustrated about antagonists being boring and just going for silent greentext? Well, how about an unofficial “gentleman’s agreement” between sec and antag players to encourage more interesting play and generally more fun rounds for everyone? Once again this is not an official beestation initiative.

The agreement:
1: When playing as Captain or HoS, run the security department according to the principles, as explained below.
2: When playing as Captain or HoS, remove HoS or sec players when perform actions that a reasonable person would describe as “Shitsec”.
3: When playing as security or non-sec command, encourage the HoS and Captain to follow points 1 and 2.
4: When playing as an antagonist, at least try to be interesting. Run gimmicks if you can get away with it, and try not to just wipe out sec every round if they’re playing nice.
5: Encourage, but not force, other security players to sign up to this agreement.

The Principles:
1: Prioritise creating fun experiences. Try to win, but not to the point that it makes the round unfun for everyone else.
2: Keep brig timers short. Nobody likes being brigged, especially over asinine or minor things. Consider using fines instead of brig time for minor/non-repeat offenders.
3: Random searches, random implant checks, breaking into bolted dorm rooms for no reason etc. are all unfun for the antagonists and heavily discourages them from trying to be interesting.
4: Keep perma/execution to a minimum. Both of these are horribly unfun for the player involved, so unless they’re a massive issue just brig then. At the very least borg them so they can still play.
5: Trials are fun for everyone, and allow you to execute/forceborg without the Captain’s permission if you have to. Try to hold one if you can.
6: Try not to kill the antags for just existing. Consider giving them a lethal implant, taking their PDA or demoting them, especially if they have done nothing harmful. It creates more fun situations by forcing antagonists to improvise.
7: Antags that are creative are great. Provided their gimmick is nonlethal, go along with it, if you can. At the very least don’t hardcore validhunt antags who are doing something interesting, or reward them with a trial.

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I just wanted to supplement with “Just because you can accuse them of enemy of corp doesn’t mean you should”. Yeah you found syndi items on someone and you as a player know they are almost definitely a traitor. Sure you can out blood brothers and incursion by doing random implant checks… but should you?

Doing a random bag check and you find an energy sword? Charge and Brig them for possession of a restricted weapon rather than rushing them off to execution. Don’t meta the fun out of the game just because you can probably get away with justifying it.

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I mean the only reason this agreement doesnt happen is because next thing that happens is the bombing of sec by said antag to retrieve his “redtricted weapon”

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Then you kill him. Simple.

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It’s hard to kill them if you’re dead.

I swear…and this is coming from someone who doesn’t like pvp…I’ve regretted 90% of the times that I’ve tried to solve things peacefully. People just take the chance and kill you.

My latest experience was having a nice conversation with a nightmare before they just bumrushed me mid-sentence. I had guns and shit on me and the first thought I had was that I should’ve just killed the guy.

TLDR without it being an official policy it’s not worth relying on unless you like ghosting.

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I interrogate my antags even if I know they are antags already.
It adds spice to the round when they’re putting in RP effort back and you see me walk out of the room with their pda uplink unlocked and them crying

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@Caecilius

That’s a nice idea but I don’t think it will work out

Could you take a look at this thread?
While there are some silly and nonsense posts there are also quite few interesting opinions and ideas of how the process of arresting could be changed like for example simply tweaking access so regular officer can only place arrested in holding cell for multiple people and its warden that actually processes them, strips them and puts in individual cells. Another idea was to get lawyers more involved, like assigning one to represent criminals and another lawyer to represent sec, so they would only bother officers and heads to get statements and approvals while battling things between themselves which could actually ensure arrested people get some way of explaining and defending themselves without getting to the trouble of court trial, which almost never happens anyway.

I think it would be best if some admins could get involved in the matter, contact players who often play as sec and together rewrite both space law and code of conduct for officers that would actually be more binding and would improve quality of life of all players since getting just thrown into cell without a word is not uncommon even at MRP.

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Want to add on, sec is pretty rush-ey. Last time I was almost arrested for bs reason was since there was a maint spawn corpse in the room I was in, and without question I got a baton pulled on me. Did not notice the body since I got used to seeing those in maints. So dear sec officers, when the guy you are arresting is saying he wants to talk it out, it really makes a difference for him and you, preventing unfun enviroments, like when I got arrested because detective thought I took their baton.

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Removing the traitors’ right to kill security for no reason and enforcing more roleplay to security is an option for MRP.

If you rush to execute a traitor for stealing items, you belong on Golden. If you want to kill all of security without a word or reason, you belong on Golden.

Yet again, we are expecting too much roleplay from children.

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Instead of encouraging security to disregard space law in favour of some OOC forum post like this and releasing Capital Crime offenders with a slap on the wrist, I suggest you rewrite space law to reflect these ideas as it’s in your power to do so.

They are not. There’s no procedures in place for trials to my knowledge, it’s always made up on the spot and completely arbitrary. Last trial I’ve seen the judge (chemist I think?) took a double bladed energy sword that was used as evidence and attacked a clown with it. Other trials I’ve seen were uniformly bombed or resulted in chaos as players cannot fathom sitting still for a few minutes without trying to be the center of attention.

I again suggest the same thing here, codify the trials into text so there’s some structure at least.

It makes no sense from IC perspective of on-station security to let a known enemy agent run around.

Roleplay doesn’t mean pretending to be stupid.

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Tracking implants exist. People do not have to be either killed or imprisoned without parole forever simply for being a hostile agent. Taking all their dangerous gear, implanting them and reassigning them to a low-danger job increases station productivity, which is all NT cares about in the end.

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I think clarifying that certain greytider actions and minor crimes like going into somewhere without access, or stealing non essential items are in character issues was great. So sec can never really be sure if the guy they just arrested is just a bit obnoxious or a real antagonist, which hopefully creates more suspense in the game and make security less likely to go super harsh on somebody for minor stuff and maybe arbitrate and solve minor conflicts instead of gearing up with guns and validhunting everyone

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Interesting idea but probably wouldn’t get much adherence from either side unless testmerged.

There’s a number of motivations for the current state of things which are not addressed by this charter.

Firstly the current state of non-antag behaviour. If there was less assistants with improvised shotguns, cargo with auto rifles, random crew with flashes etc then Sec would feel less need to search so often. As it stands now crew commonly carry weapons so it’s Sec’s duty to prevent crew from being murdered.

The low time-to-kill for most antag attacks means Sec is always on high alert. Even just poor positioning can result in being shoved over and murdered. An interesting way this was addressed on another server is by giving Security better armour roundstart but also making it so their roundstart weapon is an egun that can’t be set to lethal mode if it’s on green alert.

Thirdly the constant Security nerfs eg batons, flashbangs, current PRs for shotguns and energy guns, and I’ve even heard discussions about flashes and other sec gear. If Sec is weak then they’re going be more paranoid in general, and when they have an antag captured show less mercy.

Fourth there’s a common “fuck sec” attitude in both action and words. I can think of many a time random crew would steal prisoners, or not heal or help Sec, or riot etc. This inevitably creates at least a subconscious “us vs them” mentality which results in harsher sec behaviour. I don’t know of a solution to this except more Sec critics to actually take on the job and be a role model.

Finally the fact that the Space Law page can’t be updated is an issue. I’d like to see a periodic system where secmains as well as general crew are able to suggest changes to update it.

Yeah I prefer making sentences shorter than they’d be required under Space Law if they’re a first time offender or if it didn’t inconvenience anyone much. But if someone is deliberately trying to be annoying, is tiding or violating others they’ll get a full timer.

Implant checks I’d prefer only if the person is getting perma’d and breaking into bolted dorms is cringe, though I’ve only really seen the later from assistant validhunters mainly on Golden.

My searches are rarely random tbh, mainly if the person is a suspect. And there are enough hiding spots including plant pots, smugglers bags under floors, lockers in dorms, secret rooms etc that if you’re carrying contraband then you’re expecting to get into a fight in my opinion.

I’m fine with just leaving them to perma but not fine with releasing. Most antags have an objective or an inclination to murder at least one crew member per shift so it’s not fair to the person who gets ghosted that you let their killer free when you could have stopped it. I’d be fine with making perma more escapable in a reasonable, challenging way (especially since fastmos made it virtually impossible) but not just releasing them immediately.

Restricted weaponry refers to weapons that crew could reasonably obtain e.g. making grenades, buying eguns, etc. Not Syndicate weaponry, which outs them as an Enemy of the Corp.

That’s a good point, it’s currently in the rules that Sec are fair game to kill whenever. Not sure it’s the right move overall but it would likely ease paranoia.

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It would require joint cooperation on both sides. Sec no longer being free-game means sec needs to not be so extreme in their pursuits. If both halves of this can come together I think it would make a better experience for everyone.

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The times when I start cuffing and searching random people:
Cults, both of them
Stealth Nukies (@Ruko killing me when he was wearing caps hard suit)
One or more heretic has ascended and we need to mitigate casualties asap

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probably wasn’t me unless it was a long while back. I hate hardsuits - I go for gas mask if I want to conceal identity.

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I’m pretty sure it was you, you were a nukie who killed 3 people and took caps hard suit to hide yourself among us

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On top of what I’ve said about searching people randomly, I also make sure we’re on BLUE and if it’s not it’s legit against the rules so

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Whenever I play sec or command I play to lose. I “accidentally” leave secure doors open and wait for them to auto close, flush my unused nonlethal gear down disposals, and only actively hunt down nonhumanoid threats like benos and spiders.

This is especially true if I’m brig phys or CMO. I’ll heal nightmares even.

Mind you i you’re being a colossal cunt I’ll find a way within the rules to make you miserable. Don’t throw slurs and insults and be a dick, man, we’re all just here to have fun.

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It was me :1st_place_medal:
Cap rushed me solo at AI sat.
Free hardsuit moment.

As for the above change. My opinion is it’s a nice idea but will not work.
Why do you think people hate police irl… if it could be fixed I think the billions of cash put into police forces would have helped there. A thoughts and prayers attempt here will not be affective. People do not enjoy being told ‘no’ when it’s their turn to wreak havoc and attempts to hamper them will never be met kindly, no matter how you sugar coat it.

Sorry for not offering a solution but I can’t see one.