Uncuff while moving

[Chomusuke]

As the title says I think you should be able to uncuff yourself while moving.
This post also comes from a classic only player. If the mentality around handling cuffed players  is different on RP id like to hear from that.

Currently there is basically two scenarios in which you end up cuffed

1. Getting cuffed by a securitron / guard buddy
   
2. Getting cuffed by sec
   

When getting cuffed by a guard buddy that is usually because you held contraband rather then actually being set to arrest.
What follows is having to uncuff yourself for 15 seconds. If anyone so much as touches you it cancels the actionbar. Therefore unless you sit in a corner you will get interrupted by people passing by.
Another thing that can move and therefore interrupt you is atmos. The issue of suffocating in cuffs aside if there is a breach or someone filling the room with air you will get moved having to redo 10 seconds again hoping nothing happens.
You used to be able to lay down and continue to uncuff which would mostly prevent you from getting moved but that was removed a while ago and now you are at the mercy of people passing by not even able to open doors you have access to by bumping into them.


Security has a win condition for any fight namely stuns. Once you are stunned cuffs turn even more oppressive. With a primary and baton sec can stun someone for around two minutes without an issue.
Cuffs extend this indefinitely. Once you are cuffed cuffed security is able to just ctrl click you and keep pushing you back and forth interrupting any attempt at escaping. On classic this is often done preemptively already.
Besides being virtually impossible to uncuff as long as you are pulled, not even grabbed, you cannot move away its essentially impossible to escape when cuffed.
On top of that you frequently get stun locked all the way to sec anyway so cuffs are just an insurance for sec.

The shortest time someone could act after getting stunned and cuffed is 70 seconds later (30 seconds stun and 40 seconds uncuffing). Time that should in most cases be more then enough to get to sec or pin someone, search them and wait for backup. Lets not forget sec generally has more charge in their baton then to down someone just once.

There is two non antag exclusive counters to cuffs matter eater which is RNG based or cyborg arms which security will remove from you if you use them to break your cuffs.
Lings and Werwolfs are commonly known to instantly escape cuffs so they are usually dealt with in the time frame the stuns allow, be that beaten to death brought into sec or borged in robotics.

What would the removal of the move interruption change?

For the securitron and guard buddy arrest it would make it less frustrating to be constantly pushed around and essentially trapped for something that in 95% of cases is not followed up by anyone to begin with.
For all I can see that is just a straight up QoL improvement.


For security it would allow to escape an inattentive sec officer that ignored you for 40+ seconds. All they have to do is disarm / hit / wall slam / pin or keep stunning someone once within 30 seconds if they see someone tries to escape. They could also use the port-a-brig which takes 2.5 minutes to escape if they dont have anything to unlock it. If sec somehow loose grip of someone, 45 seconds of running and/or hiding from sec is already hard enough. Not being able to open doors or fight back until those 45 seconds are over is punishing enough. In my opinion if someone manages that they should be rewarded by actually having a chance to resist the arrest.


A suggestion by Cal on discord was to split the flag for the movement interruption into two flags. One for moving on your own and one for being moved.
Id personally much rather see the slim possibility to pull of escapes and fight back also its way more effort to split those flags and I dont know movement code.

[LeahTheTech]

You used to be able to lay down and continue to uncuff which would mostly prevent you from getting moved but that was removed a while ago

You can uncuff while lying down, but the action of lying down interrupts the actionbar which seems intentional since lying down generally interrupts most actions? You can still lie down to uncuff yourself without being shoved.

[klushy225]

I feel that instead of focusing on the cuffs, we should focus on the stuns themselves. I pretty much only play security these days, and having to constantly recuff someone when they're sitting still is annoying as it is. If you're cuffed, you've lost the fight. Perhaps going as far as making the current stuns only 75% of their current strength, or hell, even halfed would be a better idea in my opinion.

[Breezeshadow]

Very much agree with OP. Having to just sit back and watch your character get dragged around with nothing you can do about it is stupid. Secoffs walking in circles every 2 seconds while they search you is also stupid. If they can't get you to a brig cell in the time it takes to uncuff, you deserve to escape, assuming you're a civvie. If you're antag, you already have options to escape cuffs anyway (ling and ww instabreak, vampire can just fly away in batform, traitors have freedom implants, arcs can wire zap out of the brig but I guess they're screwed if sec just decides to beat them to death). There's little reason to have an item that completely disables nearly every nonantag and only a couple antags permanently with almost 0 chance of escape.

[Lt487]

I think this would be fine and sec has plenty of ways to keep people unable to escape. Maybe would encourage people to use shackles? Never see people use those. But yeah sec has porta brig and can just take off peoples sunglasses and keep using the flash to keep them down. I would be very up for testing this and if it does not work out there are plenty of ways to tweak handcuff interactions to get that nice middle ground. The only concern is a singular sec officer having to deal with multiple antags which is somewhat common on classic. Still this is worth testing

[JORJ949]

An interesting idea however the main point here is "sec will just shove you around to stop you removing them while they search you" and I don't think this is a problem to be fixed as the time it takes to search someone is incredibly long and the cuff timer reflects that. Perhaps while you are cuffed the speed of removing your items should be increased significantly or people could directly open your storage items to see (but not take) without needing to remove them from you.

If you have contraband/traits you should be ready for a securitron, though I agree people shoving you while you are uncuffing yourself is incredibly annoying.

I would like to see this testmerged, potentially with those that have security training being able to see your cuff breaking progress bar, so normal crew dont just mess with you when beepsky gets you but sec can still see when they need to shut you down. Experienced sec will still know roughly how long it takes to break out and flash you before then, I fear this would only hurt newer sec if this was implemented with nothing else.

[Kotlol]

So while I think uncuffing yourself while moving is neat. In the end.. NO ONE LIKES THE UNCUFFING AND NO MOVING MECHANIC!
Not even security.

For crooks it means 40 seconds of not doing a SINGLE THING and getting interrupted by a simple shove or push.
For security it means giving someone a nudge each 40 seconds while interogating.

Neither side is pleased with this.
Cause for both you are stopping to interrupt the flow of RP (or whatever classic wants to do with searches). Just so your perp doesn't uncuff and tries to book it.

I had so much times as security where I put someone in their cell, uncuffed, them and they try to bolt for it, hoping to shove a guard or run past a guard to freedom.
ONe tried 4 times and at that point I was like: "Cuffs stay on, you now are detained 5 mins for multiplue breakouts." And even asked the HoS: "Hey can we banish this guy?"
Cause if you try to do the whole shoving past me 4 times and I have to stun your butt to take cuffs off and you still want to get up (vampire fyi). You aren't being funny.

So I rather NOT have crooks being able to uncuff themselves while moving, cause now the meta shifts to being constantly baton'd till someone grabs you and being baton'd constantly or being held by a security officer during interrogation.
THATS JUST BOTHER SOME BOTH TIMES 2.

We don't want two security guards for each antag at minimal to just "Search them"

I insted recommend we "Change" that mechanic all together on an interaction level.

Like for example.. a chair you can put a perp on and they cannot remove their cuffs at all. This ALONE would make interrogation and searches a moment where the antag has lost. (of course changelings can get out of it)
But yea a special chair in each interrogation room to signify: "This guy with the cuffs is now stuck having to deal with security, security has WON at this point"
Of course there will be ways to get out of this chair as certain antagonists too.
Changeling would slip free, Vampire could turn into mist, Traitors could use their "Break free" chip to get out of the chair. But others not so much.

But if you want to add the whole "moving and breaking the cuffs thing" then security will need to have a counteract against it wich is not "STUN THEIR ASS 24/7" since that is even LESS FUN.
The point of cuffs is that when they get on and security is there.. you lost. What I don't want is security having to baton someone 24/7 and treat em like a Vampire or Changeling just to keep em down/cuffed.

I also suggest ONE MORE THING.
You can uncuff and move, but not be "Running or Sprinting"
As that would exert yourself too much. This would stop simple shoving to end your action if you are in "walk mode"
But it wouldn't end in security having to Yakety Sax chases everytime a perp is cuffed and starts sprinting off.
Already just walking would allow a perp to move tactically but in a disadvantage, but now random staffy number 10 cannot grab them drag em or shove em out of the escape.

[Glamurio]

I come from an RP perspective, and often play with characters that are commonly set to arrest / flagged for a variety of reasons, so I get cuffed fairly frequently as a player, too.

First off, as a SecOff, I very rarely resort to cuffs. 9/10 times you can get an antagonist to follow you to interrogation, uncuffed. This is really important to note because it means that they will play more relaxed because they have agency, and you as a SecOff can rest assured that even if it comes to a gunfight, the culprit will at worst kill an officer, but won't be able to escape custody.

The only time I cuff individuals is when they're rampaging, refusing to cooperate, or when there's multiple culprits in a fight at the same time, in which case it's difficult to keep them from running off and not losing track of one or the other without shutting them down and taking them in. Oftentimes that's quickly followed by being port-a-brigged, and many times afterwards being exiled or killed. In this case, being cuffed is equivalent to "You've lost, you've had your fun and you got caught."

What I'm saying is, SecOff cuffs need to be strong, because they very often spell the end of someone. In the majority of cases where people resort to cuffing you, it's to spare killing you outright. Cuffs are used to shut down antagonists. That's why Werewolves are typically "Kill on sight" because you cannot shut them down easily. And if you make antags be able to wiggle out of cuffs in Security, I'd argue either they'll try to kill you, or you'll have to kill them.

---

On the flipside, when I get cuffed, it's primarily via Beepsky. While they are easy enough to avoid, you will occasionally get downed and cuffed. I do think there's an argument to made at least to allow people to break out of ziptie cuffs while walking, because typically you are cuffed in a hallway, with no means to open any doors, and will frequently get shoved. Yes, you can lay on the ground to shuffle out, but when people see you lie on the ground they may think you're dying and will try to carry you to medbay, which will also interrupt you.

There's also a case to be made to add a little cuffed icon above people's head, or some other indicator that shows "this person is currently cuffed". That might help already in a variety of ways.

---

To summarize:

No, uncuffing should get interrupted via walking.
Yes, ziptie cuffs (via Beepsky) should be an exception to this.
Maybe we can display a "cuffed" indicator on the sprite more clearly, or via overlay.

[cyberTripping]

Like for example.. a chair you can put a perp on and they cannot remove their cuffs at all. This ALONE would make interrogation and searches a moment where the antag has lost. (of course changelings can get out of it)
But yea a special chair in each interrogation room to signify: "This guy with the cuffs is now stuck having to deal with security, security has WON at this point"
Of course there will be ways to get out of this chair as certain antagonists too.
Changeling would slip free, Vampire could turn into mist, Traitors could use their "Break free" chip to get out of the chair. But others not so much.

I believe this was the general behavior of chairs in a distant past. You were unable to attempt to break out of cuffs while buckled into a chair. Bucklecuffing was removed many years ago for being extremely unfun, so there's a very strong historical precedent for avoiding anything resembling it making a return.

re: Glamurio's point on beepsky
I think ziptie cuffs should definitely be more forgiving than normal cuffs for escape. 99.5% of the times beepsky arrests someone, it's a random civilian who did something incidental and unserious that security won't bother following up on. In the .5% of times where a proper arrest is warranted, being cuffed at all is a huge detriment to escaping security, even if you could break them while walking. I don't see a reason why they'd need to be nearly as restrictive as proper sec handcuffs.

[Kotlol]

I am 100% fine with nerfing zipties since it's only beepskies that do it.
I never seen an officer use Zipties since they are inferior and break after someone breaks out of em.

If anything I would like to see them more in the future, maybe something like a ziptie gun? Shoot it and if it hits a ziptie is used on their hands (but is easily broken out of)
Put it in the armory though then XD

[Glamurio]

I am 100% fine with nerfing zipties since it's only beepskies that do it.
I never seen an officer use Zipties since they are inferior and break after someone breaks out of em.

If anything I would like to see them more in the future, maybe something like a ziptie gun? Shoot it and if it hits a ziptie is used on their hands (but is easily broken out of)
Put it in the armory though then XD

Ziptie gun is funny as hell I'd love to see that, especially if you can uncuff while moving.

[Kotlol]

I am 100% fine with nerfing zipties since it's only beepskies that do it.
I never seen an officer use Zipties since they are inferior and break after someone breaks out of em.

If anything I would like to see them more in the future, maybe something like a ziptie gun? Shoot it and if it hits a ziptie is used on their hands (but is easily broken out of)
Put it in the armory though then XD

Ziptie gun is funny as hell I'd love to see that, especially if you can uncuff while moving.

"IF" we design it this is what I had in mind for it:
- 1 single shot
- Long reload animation

Cause even with uncuffing while moving it's an amazing device to have an antagonist drop anything their holding and prevent em from using doors. Though friendly fire is now punished EVEN HEAVIER!

[Glamurio]

I've gone ahead and made a PR for ziptie cuffs (and tape, too).
https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/21151

[JORJ949]

 In the .5% of times where a proper arrest is warranted, being cuffed at all is a huge detriment to escaping security

The biggest thing from beepsky arrests is that they send a pda message outright telling you where the person is , they often break free of cuffs when you get there.