Brandon's HoS Application

[Ac3556]

Usual character name: Brandon Roth
BYOND username: Ac3556
Discord username (if you are on our discord):  Ac35561
Goon servers you play: Sylvester


Reason for application: I've been playing Goonstation for 8 months, and I have always enjoyed playing security, and to a slightly lesser extend command positions and after mainly playing security I feel applying for Head of Security would be a good step for me. I also enjoy being able to assist and teach players either new to security, or are still learning the ropes.

Security experience (300 word minimum): When I first started playing on Goonstation I was slightly intimidated by the security department, as I felt that it would be the most difficult department to learn however after my first round as a security assistant I was enthralled with the department. I only became more interested in security after unlocking security officer, which quickly became my favorite role because even with the added responsibilities and expectations I still enjoyed being able to assist in keeping the station running. As I kept playing as a security officer security ended up standing out as my favorite department, as I enjoyed being able to assist in maintaining peace, and some stability against a never ending wave of chaos. Later into my time playing as a security officer as I got more confident I learned that I also enjoyed teaching and assisting newer members to the security department in grasping the ropes of the department.

One of my first real issues in security was that I was a bit anxious in enforcement as I wasn't sure that I was correct and second guessed myself often. As I kept playing as security, and ensured my knowledge on space law was up to date I began to stop second guessing myself, and was more confident in my abilities. Similarly, as I kept interacting with other crew mates, and enforcing space law my anxieties about enforcing space law and any potential mistakes I make has worn down, as I've learned that everyone will eventually make a mistake, and that it's about being able to admit to your mistake, learn from it, and fix or assist in fixing the results.

Around the middle point of me playing security I began learning the forensics system and playing as a detective. The more rounds I played as a detective and focused on learning and using the forensics I slowly became confident in my abilities to accurately determine a suspect after a proper investigation. Now I am entirely confident in my abilities with the forensics system and ability to accurately and efficiently determine a suspect in a investigation.



Answer two or more of the following:
What advice would you give to other sec players?: Learn when to remove yourself from a situation and take a breather, you won't be an effective officer if you are overcome by your emotions, and know when to sit back and have fun because it's important to not get burnt out and to enjoy the game.

What game improvements or changes do you think would benefit security players?: The first change I could think of would be giving the detective more access by default as they're meant to be investigating crimes and such however they often struggle to reach the crime scenes. Another change I would like to see would be updating the secmate computers to have a GUI like the one you see in the detectives office as I feel that might make it easier to use.

Answer one or more of the following fun questions (because it's important for the HoS to be fun):
What's a security gimmick that you've ran or wanted to run?:
Write a poem to convey your thoughts on security/NanoTrasen/space/bees/anything related to SS13.:
A clown named stirring
Ran through the halls alarms blaring
Stirring took a fall, hit the wall
Now two officers haul him off to security.

Previous bans (while this will not affect your application lying about it will): I was banned once during my first or second month of playing for breaking rule two (gendered swears), however I have not been banned since that first one.

[Lefinch]

Hey AC   , I've managed to catch a few rounds of you playing. I'm going to mostly focus on giving feedback on one round, the most recent so this doesn't get too long, but I'll also mention some general things relevant to all the ones I caught. Bear in kind I'm not a huge security player so take feedback with a grain of salt!

So, in general terms you seem to have a good positive attitude. Some general things I want to point out:

• you were generally very good at paying attention to the radio communications, both from general radio and security. That's an important officer skill as well as a HoS one.
  
• The things you had a handle on you handle consistently well.
  
• You were very good at deferring/working with officers. I do like that you didn't bull-rush every situation and handled things in front of you where you could. I think in general it's a good sign when officers and the HoS are willing to let the team respond to things. There's some caveats below that I'd personally suggest keeping in mind on this though.
  
• It feels in general that you're someone who is doing well retaining and using the knowledge they have, but there's still some gaps I think you might need a bit more experience addressing. There's some examples below. I don't think you need to be universally aware of every little detail in this game to be a HoS, but I think there's some things it'll be very useful to be a bit more confident on as a HoS.
  

So the most recent round was Oshan! You said yourself you don't have a huge preference for this particular map. It seemed to show a bit throughout as you struggled a bit with directions. I get it, we all have favourites and non-favourites, but I'd say remember it's okay to ask your fellow officers if you're getting a bit lost. It impacted this round in particular because a lot of alerts were for a maint area you seemed to have trouble finding. 

One thing I will say: this was a tougher round due to some false positives from people. I think you all handled them very well, but there were specific cases I'll highlight below that you might keep in mind. Again, bear in mind I'm not security, so you or other sec players might disagree. This is just my personal feedback. 

I'll try and keep it to bullet points from here:

• you were, in general really good at reporting in to the officers and responding to crew radio ins. This is great and helps security coordinate. You even indicated when you were busy which is a plus I think and lets the team know they might need to respond if you weren't. I think that's an important HoS quality: communication.
  
• However, you also responded to an alert from a crew member about a relatively critical hint about a situation: some corpses in an area. You said you'd investigate and seemed to get distracted at this point. I do get that, but I think a strong HoS quality is to make sure if you are distracted you're passing on or trying to prioritise your tasks: Dead corpses in a maint tunnel to me are probably more crucial than what you were handling. However, you demonstrated this a lot better responding to an alert at the toxins area, so I think you get this.
  
• You made an effort to engage people reasonably and with words before immediately responding. This is great and I think a really hard skill to teach: having restraint to assess a situation before responding. I think that's a good officer quality and a great one for an HoS who will often have to direct their team. You seemed to take a bit to process things, that's okay, but I think with some more experience you'll find this easier. You might feel you're already doing fine here and that's okay: It's a very subjective area. 
  
• At one point most of the team were interrogating what was unfortunately a red herring, I don't think there were any issues here, you had reason to think this might be a suspect. However once the detective turned up I might have tried to focus on other tasks given this was also the time you were hearing about corpses being found in an area. I will point out you were the first to also go do this though, which is a big plus.
  
• There were times where it appeared to me you weren't quite confident in your knowledge. I've mentioned the map, but there was a bit with the loafer, some confusion about contraband (what is and isn't) and so on. This might be a gimmick, I don't know for sure what your knowledge is like, but I also think that you showed good competency and confidence with things you did seem to know well, so if it's not a gimmick then I think with time you'll round out that knowledge. Again, HoS don't need to be masters of everything, but there's some things it's good to have a strong handle on so you work out what to prioritise when it's very busy. 
  
• You helped out a newbee (always good!)
  

In general, my impression is that you'll make a great HoS, but you're not quite there yet entirely down to experience. There's an awful business metaphor I won't use here but I'll paraphrase it: Doing a job is a mix of experience and knowledge, and the attitude and mindset driving it. It's MUCH harder to improve the attitude and mindset than it is learning more. I think your attitude/mindset are really good, which puts you in a prime position to just learn the rest and do the job superbly, whether you make HoS this time or not I think you have the right approach to learn and get there.

So overall I can't +1 it, but I think all the right elements are there and I didn't want to keep missing giving you feedback.