Let's talk about the Detective

[mralexs]

Fair on the reload animation, I didn't like speedloading anyway. Felt unnatural.

Just giving them a reload bar of 1 second is more then enough!

The only odd thing that the Det has is that he has multiple speed loaders instead of some ammo and the one. Perhaps a better nerf is just giving the Det 2 ammo boxes and 1 speedloader they have to manually load it. Either that or the ammo comes in speed strips that require the Det to click on their gun to load the rounds two at a time. Or a combination of the two.

Heres an example of a speed strip



The hardest thing is striking a balance between fun for most players and realism

[Silent Majority]

Id like it if detectives could do stuff like examining a liver to see if someone had chems that weren't currently in their body or be able to tell what puddles or smears chems have. I also think detectives should be able to identify gunshot wounds being from what gub and udentify shells to what gun fired them

[Kotlol]

Okay so the things we want right now is:
- Reloads on the det gun ( a slight nerf to the gun)
- Being able to examine people by looking at them (think of the highlight effect in Psych! Just glancing and noticing things right away)

As for me, I still want a nerf to the VR-goggles by changing the cabinet inside it to a Secmate terminal that doesnt need a log in.
Having it be a non log in cabinet gives the detective (or anyone who steals the goggles) , very fast remote access to security records and it being the cabinet also makes them faster in deleting and changing records then someone using secmate.

To me it still doesn't make sense the detective has both the "Security records cabinet" and the det-net goggles.
LET ALONE... any security records changes and deletes on the det-nets do not get notified while Sec-mate does.

[Glamurio]

the best idea i got to try and mitigate the overpowered gun issue is to lock dets gun behind armory access, but not in armory. like if det has a ONLY OPEN IF SHIT IS FUCKED drawer or something in their office and its unlocked via armory being unlocked + a key that only the det spawns with. in turn det should probably start with some other less insane tool to take down antags in a pinch. nothing as strong as a taser or baton but nothing thats hard countered by someone wearing funny sunglasses.

tho that does kinda retract from the standard detective-type look in fiction where they always have that gun, so maybe lock just the lethals behind that and nerf the stuns? iunno.

This is honestly a really cool idea. It would already help a lot to have the detective resort to violence less often to just have a simple barrier like this. Makes it more obvious that apprehending criminals isn't their primary job.

[Nerkson]

Some rough ideas and bullet points...

• On the topic of the Detective feeling too powerful : Perhaps that could be a compromise on the detectives gun? The standard stubby reloads much slower but fires extremely fast, while the job-reward model can be reloaded like now but still has its single click firing?
  

• Frankly removing all the actually damaging ammo except for the armory is a nerf enough. Unlike Tasers, once a detectives out of ammo, he's out. And there's usually plenty of stun bullets everywhere.
  

• On making the detective more distinct as a role: I've loved ideas for things like corkboards for a while, a place to put up notes, forensic scans, and pictures, however rounds are typically pretty fast and criminals rarely want to be caught and are caught fairly quickly.
  
• The detectives effectiveness is tied proportionally to how much an antag wants to prepare for crime and ultimately wants to be caught- if the antag creates a crime locker, keeps a pair of gloves they only use for crime there, and destroyed gloves/clothes often (or heaven forbids takes time to use cleaning chemicals to remove prints from stuff) then they could realistically not get caught for a very long time. Having a fancy hat and a cool forensic scanner mean nothing so long there's more than one antag in the round and you're not as loud as the chef who keeps taking blood donations through the walls.
  
• I think thats still worth keeping in mind that having access to security is still a very high perk, especially if detectives are capable of opening contraband or grabbing other officers stuff while mindhacked.Yeah the antag wouldn't have a gun in hypothetical "what if the dets gun is in a secure place" but having the ability to erase any records, force beepsky to arrest anyone, and have the best recon tool in the game is still premium. In short, you'd end up with a thread a few months after such a change demanding the Det VR goggles be nerfed/locked behind more restrictions, and then ones about security access or anything else the detective can do.
  
  

[JORJ949]

• Unlike Tasers, once a detectives out of ammo, he's out. 
  

You can order an infinite amount of security vending machine restock cartridges from cargo.

[444explorer]

Why not just make them unable to be restocked like the Armoury Buckshot if ammo is a concern?
Also, yeah, foresincs should be more indepth like what Cal said, but alas, needs someone to go and do that

[Mouse]

• Unlike Tasers, once a detectives out of ammo, he's out. 
  

You can order an infinite amount of security vending machine restock cartridges from cargo.

make them a trader item like monkeys if people are abusing it

[KikiMofo]

Limiting the amount of .38 lethals on round isn't going to affect traitor detectives because they can just buy ammo as their traitor item.

[Silent Majority]

I really dunno if limiting the lethals.is the best idea. Among other things antags can get that ammo too, even non detective ones

[Nerkson]

I don't think the issue is that antags can get lethals - all antags can buy a shotgun box and rampage harder than the detective ever could. Plus, a traitor detective deserves to buy lethal ammo to take out their fellow officers.

As stated by the OP, the problem seems to be that detectives are highly sought after mindhack targets because they come with a free, highly effective gun and loads of ammo everywhere, in both lethal and non lethal varieties, and that they're the only security member who can be mind hacked. Technically the HoP can be mind hacked too but thats a different story - no one usually questions why the Detective is rummaging around Security.

As an antag, you can buy a shotgun box for 8 credits, or you can buy a deluxe mindhack for 6 credits and you get all the detectives gear plus their security access plus you don't even have to like, use the detective for anything else. You can order them to go off station and hide away somewhere, or throw themselves into the grinder after writing a fake suicide note- one less security member off the bat.

They are also a target for players who want to play a grittier officer who gets to kill people, who then unload six into the clown because he slipped you. It's just asking for more headache. Lesser roles have been restricted in the past - the Halloween crow is another example just because it could peck out peoples eyes.

So I'm going to assume the overall idea here is this: what role should the detective play on station? Should they have the ability to kill people so effectively?

[KikiMofo]

Generally speaking, security isn't suppose to be killing people and if a detective is shooting people with lethals for no reason thats an admin help situation.

[Kotlol]

As stated by the OP, the problem seems to be that detectives are highly sought after mindhack targets because they come with a free, highly effective gun and loads of ammo everywhere, in both lethal and non lethal varieties, and that they're the only security member who can be mind hacked. Technically the HoP can be mind hacked too but thats a different story - no one usually questions why the Detective is rummaging around Security.

So I'm going to assume the overall idea here is this: what role should the detective play on station? Should they have the ability to kill people so effectively?

If you think that's bad with the mindhacking.

TRY ANTAGONIST DETECTIVES.
Double the ammo, double the gun and more.

I do love playing as one on RP as I know how much power I have, so I am just a rough cop or I pretend to be like JUDGE DREDD (even though HoS has the right gun for it).

But... in classic. I can see that as a recipe to go home. Set all the security to arrest in a corner, grab your guns and kill people. If they undo the arrests, hide and set them back to arrest (they are slower). Shoot some more.

It's why I want to nerf so many things of the detective. Not cause the detective alone is INSANE. It's cause Det + antag = Security will not have a good time.
A whole security team would be needed to be constantly undoing the detectives damage.

[JORJ949]

TRY ANTAGONIST DETECTIVES.

This is another reason I believe detective is a more popular option for playing sec, because you can roll antag. Yes if you get antag with secoff favourited you would roll a different role, but the detective is one of TWO (was 3 before with captain antag) roles that you will not fallthrough into antag on (the other being the HoP), so if you roll antag with Secoff/HoS/AI/Cap or any other role that cant be the antag you rolled you will not roll into Det/HoP, effectively meaning if you want to play det antag you HAVE to have it favourited.

[Kotlol]

This is another reason I believe detective is a more popular option for playing sec, because you can roll antag. Yes if you get antag with secoff favourited you would roll a different role, but the detective is one of TWO (was 3 before with captain antag) roles that you will not fallthrough into antag on (the other being the HoP), so if you roll antag with Secoff/HoS/AI/Cap or any other role that cant be the antag you rolled you will not roll into Det/HoP, effectively meaning if you want to play det antag you HAVE to have it favourited.

Agreed.
The detective in my eyes was always ment to be the "Civilian that has security rights and is abit of a loose canon"
It's why originally when Security had more access then the detective. You felt it as a detective big time.
But since security over the years has more restricted access, it puts them on the same level as the detective.
But now the detective's tools are more useful... thus more critical to the team.
Also we now have security assistants and hall monitors, who are basically what the detective originally was but with even LESS TOOLS.

So in my opinion, the detective is "as good if not better then a security officer."
While the security officer might be tougher to take down then a detective. The detective has way better tools to solve crimes or disrupt investigations.

In "my" opinion. While I love being a detective main back in the day. These days I feel like the detective is way too strong in utitility.
Sure it makes more sense for the Detective to have their own office now. But... I am a-okay with nerf's to their kit and some changes.

And as for mindhacks.. I once was a traitor detective. Who got mindhacked twice in a shift. I was laughing though, but I was like: "Dude I am already on your side, here's my plan..." And doing it twice.

Anyway... side tracking aside. I think most people agree nerfing the detective is fine as it is. The detective has to have something below security.