Detective BloodTrak Tracking Device!

[Crystalwarrior]

Introducing BloodTrak! - A special device for aspiring detectives to track down criminals and bodies alike just from two samples of blood!
Found a puddle of suspicious blood and the supposed owner is not responding? Suspicious blood puddle presumed to be the killer's? Track 'em down! Just grab a syringe, sample two puddles, inject it all into BloodTrak and you will be given a direction towards the person in question for 4 seconds!

Warning: long 30-second cooldown between use due to fragile nature of the scanner. Blood injected will be evaporated by the scanner. Unauthorized use will be punished by law.

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Commercials aside, this would definitely encourage CRIMINAL SCUM to be even more careful when committing murders, preferring bloodless murder and almost mandatory clean-up.

[Roomba]

What I'm worried about with all these new proposals for more stuff for the detective to track is that a lot of them would be redundant or go unused, while at the same time being a potential source of major lag (what with having to be updated in every single interaction).

Remember that the detective/sec can spend all round tracking down a suspect, whereas the traitor has to balance out covering their tracks and carrying out whatever shenanigans they have planned. There's only so much you can add on before you get to the point where it becomes functionally impossible to cover up after yourself, at which point traitors will just go 'fuck this', drop the whole stealth thing, and blow up the detective's office at the start of every round.

[Sundance]

Roomba has a point.
Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad idea, it's a good one.
But its too good.
It needs to be more flawed.
Instead of a direction, perhaps a more hot/cold functionality? So it would state if the player/corpse is hot (within viewing distance), warm (outside viewing distance), tepid (a few rooms away), cold (over the other side of the station), or freezing (not on the station z-level)
This would give enough info for the detective to act on, without throwing him the entire bone.

[Crystalwarrior]

Yeah that's a great alternative! I personally thought the direction bit was a bit too OP as well.
The lag argument, though... I don't see that as an issue because there's nothing in the mechanics of this thing that would even cause that much lag. Having a getDistance proc is even less resource-intensive than "in view()" unless BYOND is fucking terrible and I don't know anything.

[ferriswheel1]

As the guy who originally suggested this in the discord, GREAT IDEA! Also fuck you for stealing my idea.

I'd point out, again, this is much more flawed that it first sounds. You'd have to find blood, fresh blood, which means have to get to a crime scene fairly quickly. Also, unless the victim was particularly robust, the only blood you're likely to find is probably coming from the murdered victim rather than the murderer.

Blood tracking, I would imagine, would be useful mainly for finding stashed corpses from blood found at murder scenes. Getting lucky and managing to find a bit of blood from a suspect at the scene is pretty rare as it is, and in any case it probably confirms their guilt anyway.  

As Crystalwarrior mentioned, blood in the scanner would dry eventually as well, leaving you a short window of time to track down a suspect. It's also a nice incentive for stealthy murderers to clean up their crime scenes, rather than leaving blood scattered everywhere.  

I thought  this up largely as a way of lessening security's dependence upon the AI to track down suspect's locations, especially on lowpop rounds where there is often no AI or much sec presence outside of the lone-gun detective.

[Dr Zoidcrab]

Wouldn't something like this make other forensics methods obsolete?

[Cyfarfod]

Would making it require a mineral, crystal or chemical of some kind help balance it's usefulness?  I'm thinking something roughly meth-level difficult/time-consuming or telecrystal level rareness.

[Frank_Stein]

I have another tracking idea in the odor thread

Security Bloodhound. A sleepy, old, and slow dog with a smell detection range boosted x6. Can track a certain scent given to them, but is easily distracted by certain foods, affection from crewmen, naps, and the need to pee

Great tracking ability balanced by the slow movement of that sweet old dog

[Crystalwarrior]

Would making it require a mineral, crystal or chemical of some kind help balance it's usefulness?  I'm thinking something roughly meth-level difficult/time-consuming or telecrystal level rareness.

Then nobody would even bother using it. Detective is not a chemist.

[Roomba]

Then nobody would even bother using it. Detective is not a chemist.

Yes, it would definitely inconvenience the detective if they had to look for outside help or break into chemistry to use this.

As a side note, let's look into some of the methods for cleaning blood off floors/items:

- Dipping a mop into a bucket, clicking on the ground and waiting several seconds. A time-consuming method that takes a while and only cleans one tile at a time. Requires breaking into the janitor's room for a mop and bucket, plus water or space cleaner.

- Using a spray bottle to spray water or space cleaner over the stains. Requires breaking into the janitor's room or medbay for a spray bottle, plus either obtaining space cleaner there as well or manufacturing it at a chem dispenser.

- Spam space cleaner/water smoke or foam. Requires either breaking into the janitor's room for cleaner grenades, or chem dispenser access. Also requires a gas mask or an antitox kit to deal with the toxin damage from space cleaner smoke if you go down that route.

[Cyfarfod]

Would making it require a mineral, crystal or chemical of some kind help balance it's usefulness?  I'm thinking something roughly meth-level difficult/time-consuming or telecrystal level rareness.

Then nobody would even bother using it. Detective is not a chemist.

Yeah... by that logic, noone wants lifeweed joints when I grow them, because they're not botanists.

Inter-departmental cooperation is a GOOD thing...

[Crystalwarrior]

In practice it happens few and far between. I'd rather cut the detective some slack and give him a better method to track down killers so he's a much more valuabe asset to security than he is right now e.g. just Some Nerd with a Gun.

[Studenterhue]

Would making it require a mineral, crystal or chemical of some kind help balance it's usefulness?  I'm thinking something roughly meth-level difficult/time-consuming or telecrystal level rareness.

Then nobody would even bother using it. Detective is not a chemist.

Yeah... by that logic, noone wants lifeweed joints when I grow them,  because they're not botanists.

Inter-departmental cooperation is a GOOD thing...

That's a different sort of cooperation. Medbay and the crew in general don't need lifeweed to heal themselves. If there's no botanists around to make lifeweed, everyone else can still do their jobs effectively and efficiently. The medical doctors will still have medicine, the roboticist can still make borgs and augment people, etc. They miss out on something useful but lifeweed is not something that's a part of their jobs.

Meanwhile, with a required material for the blood tracker, if there's no miners/scientisits/barman/chef to give the chem/mineral, the detective is hampered. They can still use other forensics tools, but they can't use something that's a part of his job. It may not be a vital or important aspect, but they are still less efficient and effective at their job.

Of course, the issue could be easily solved if the det started with a bit of the required material in the first place, to reduce his dependency. But then, one asks, should the dependency be there in the first place? You could argue for and against it. It's not a simple question with a simple answer.

[warcrimes]

Would making it require a mineral, crystal or chemical of some kind help balance it's usefulness?  I'm thinking something roughly meth-level difficult/time-consuming or telecrystal level rareness.

Then nobody would even bother using it. Detective is not a chemist.

Yeah... by that logic, noone wants lifeweed joints when I grow them,  because they're not botanists.

Inter-departmental cooperation is a GOOD thing...

That's a different sort of cooperation. Medbay and the crew in general don't need lifeweed to heal themselves. If there's no botanists around to make lifeweed, everyone else can still do their jobs effectively and efficiently. The medical doctors will still have medicine, the roboticist can still make borgs and augment people, etc. They miss out on something useful but lifeweed is not something that's a part of their jobs.

Meanwhile, with a required material for the blood tracker, if there's no miners/scientisits/barman/chef to give the chem/mineral, the detective is hampered. They can still use other forensics tools, but they can't use something that's a part of his job. It may not be a vital or important aspect, but they are still less efficient and effective at their job.

Of course, the issue could be easily solved if the det started with a bit of the required material in the first place, to reduce his dependency. But then, one asks, should the dependency be there in the first place? You could argue for and against it. It's not a simple question with a simple answer.

Counterpoint to scarcity : When is there neither a scientist nor barman nor chef, nor any head with access to any of those areas? Realistically the det should have no difficulty being let into any of those departments for security work either. 

Counterpoint to necessity: It doesnt exist now, so if detty can't get his magic blood juice, he's no worse off than he was yesterday. 

I think every prize needs a hoop to jump through.

[Superlagg]

You're all assuming the detective will actually do their job and not be, as I've seen 8000% of the time, a quantum state between antagonist, mindslave, or valid-seeking jackass.

And there's already a way for the observant to find a long lost corpse: chair seances. Set up some chairs and play 20 questions untill you find out where they are. No chem bullshit, and you can get other information through divination.

So adding on extra, non-job-related guff to make a useful device help other players isn't really necessary and serves to make a nifty tool somewhat annoying to use.