I don't like off-station crimes and I can't describe why

[Silent Majority]

I'm not a fan of the jailbird trait overall, and have nothing to say about it that hasn't already been mentioned, but I do believe that if an officer would arrest someone for commiting a major crime in the Space Diner, they should also be going after jailbirds.

This means also ignoring antags to be fair. I don't think thats necessarily fair to themm

[Lord_earthfire]

To be fair, part of the intention of jailbird is giving secoffs something to do when antags are preparing and not that much is happening on station. I feel if secoffs are ignoring jailbirds, they kinda miss half their reason.

I don't feel if we change it, we need to do it in a way security feels more obliged to actually pay attention and bully people using the trait.

[DisturbHerb]

i made a funny pr, it doesn't address any of these things, but it is funny
https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/22522

[Emrsnn]

i think jailbird would benefit from being worse. to weave out the posers from the real brig dwellers. im dead serious. start the round already in the brig after being arrested for your crimes last shift and smooth talk your way outta there. good luck, crimer.

[Drakios]

I have seen and done both sides, more recently I engage more with jailbirds if I get the feeling they want it too, I had some fun interaction with people who play scared or try to hide and stuff like that. I also have a character that has this trait and I try to play around it but often a secoff comes to me cleans the record and thats it even if I tried to play along with it, I had some fun moments with it, but I agree that it shouldnt have major crimes on it and that maybe making it cost just a bit more could help. I think often newer players see that they have a free trait point and choose this one but are not so used to RP in SS13 wich makes it hard for them to play along with it.
Some people and this is what bothers me most use this trait as a "I can annoy sec" free card wich isnt fun for sec and maybe gives the jailbird a few laughs but its mosty annoying at least for me

[Kotlol]

I got a better idea.. Remove the trait all together and make it a "JOB"
A jailbird is a prosessed convict arriving on the station to work for free labor to pay off their debt to society.
They are tagged as parole and only 1 per shift can appear.

THEY ARE NOT ANTAGONISTS, but nor are they TRUE CREW.
I also think it would be funny cause they can't make any money (0 credits start and such), that they have to rely on free meals and drinks or swipe whatever to make something. Wich is why they should get a trait for the job only and that is able to steal from vending machines, wich if caught by a beepsky will arrest them and security will put them in the brig for normal offenses.

Then again typing this out and re-reading it feels... very dystopian and possible bad taste vibes, but I am putting it out there since it's brainstorming.

I think if the "Jailbird trait" is changed to "One of those fancy special roles" , it would be more tolerated. At this point Jailbird can be used to be a CLOWN while there is one clown.. and I do dislike when staffies go: "I am a clown cause backstory" but then assume to act like the clown... with the actual clown there.

So yes.. maybe we should make it a "job" or something. My idea ain't perfect but that's why we discuss it no?

[Emrsnn]

A jailbird is a prosessed convict arriving on the station to work for free labor to pay off their debt to society.

I'm gonna say on behalf of my fellow americans, this wouldn't fly for the same reasons calling secoffs cops doesn't fly. I like the idea of it being a processed criminal role though. Something like sleepwalker mechanically but limited exclusively to the brig. It would give sec someone to babysit early round too

[Lefinch]

I've been thinking about it.

You could "gameify" this a bit, possibly. Hear me out.
- Jailbird instead acts more like a "warrant bounty" system. There's no changes to your current arrest status or sechud (maybe, you might feel like keeping this as I talk through the idea) so you appear to be a normal person.
- Either all the time, or some of the time with the jailbird trait you have a bounty for your processing/detainment. This can be handled on site for the more minor charges, or arrests for full ones.
- However, as it's an "off station bounty" not issued by NT or the station itself, security isn't behooved to actually act on it if their attention must be drawn elsewhere for antags.
- There's a reward of "some kind" probably a trinket or something for processing a bounty and serving them notice/fine/etc. The general premise behind this being an incentive for security players who are less busy to consider looking at the bounties.
- There's some kind of reward, something tiny like a little spacebux bonus on top of wage (not sure about this bit) for jailbirds avoiding being processed.
-The rewards in both cases need to be minor enough that they aren't really worth taking for the bonus but are at least a nice little "hey well done" for either side.
-The optional nature of bounties is an RP justification and also no skin off a classic officer's back if they completely ignore it for real antagonists.

[Kotlol]

I'm gonna say on behalf of my fellow americans, this wouldn't fly for the same reasons calling secoffs cops doesn't fly. I like the idea of it being a processed criminal role though. Something like sleepwalker mechanically but limited exclusively to the brig. It would give sec someone to babysit early round too

Yea I think the "paying off their debts" will have a very bad taste in the mouth but I figured keeping my mouth shut didn't fix the problems. But now we got better ideas.

I do like the bounty system idea. Eitherway.. I want jailbird to mean something.
Not an annoyance trait.

[breadyfortheday]

I've been thinking about it.

You could "gameify" this a bit, possibly. Hear me out.
- Jailbird instead acts more like a "warrant bounty" system. There's no changes to your current arrest status or sechud (maybe, you might feel like keeping this as I talk through the idea) so you appear to be a normal person.
- Either all the time, or some of the time with the jailbird trait you have a bounty for your processing/detainment. This can be handled on site for the more minor charges, or arrests for full ones.
- However, as it's an "off station bounty" not issued by NT or the station itself, security isn't behooved to actually act on it if their attention must be drawn elsewhere for antags.
- There's a reward of "some kind" probably a trinket or something for processing a bounty and serving them notice/fine/etc. The general premise behind this being an incentive for security players who are less busy to consider looking at the bounties.
- There's some kind of reward, something tiny like a little spacebux bonus on top of wage (not sure about this bit) for jailbirds avoiding being processed.
-The rewards in both cases need to be minor enough that they aren't really worth taking for the bonus but are at least a nice little "hey well done" for either side.
-The optional nature of bounties is an RP justification and also no skin off a classic officer's back if they completely ignore it for real antagonists.

To expand on the rewards bit, I was thinking keep it random for both sides, but related to said jobs. For example, if security brigs a jailbird they get a spare doughnut (robust or regular), an extra power cell, or some extra credits. While on the jailbird side, if they're a doctor for example, they can get a spare auto-mender or a stethoscope. Or even a general item such as drinks (vending machine or bar made), food (vending machine or chef made), cigarettes, etc.
For the jailbird they're reward could be given at like 10 or so minutes into the round if they avoid the brig, and they'd get an automatic PDA message from off-station with something like: "Hey me and the old gang found this, thought you might like it up there on the station."
Where as security would get theirs after the brig timer ends with a PDA message like: "NT thanks you for clearing bounties and keeping the station safe."
This would also help keep brig timers short (around 5 or 10 seconds) and a little back and forth between players.

[Lefinch]

I would bear in mind that anything that's actually pretty good (and a spare robust donut is always pretty good) risks the system being too much of a temptation. Suddenly the detective is beelining processing people (and not actually engaging them, just recordtraking them/issuing a warrant notice and marking the bounty as done or something without a word exchanged) for that benefit and jailbirds are hiding themselves in a locker off station for ten minutes every single round just in case/every time their bounty comes up.

The idea in my head is ultimately something that's meagre enough that it's token-like, like a random mail item from a list that can't be relied on to be good, or something that's rewarded post round so it doesn't affect the round. The reasoning for that is as above, but also that the trait as stated in this thread is mostly just a fun potential reason to engage in the RP, and the system shouldn't overshadow that or antags. for me, the idea was more "This is a way to give a bare-bones recognition of the system being engaged with so it isn't just automatically ignored, but also in a way that completely excuses not engaging with it."

But it'd need work anyway. I'm not really sure about giving the jailbird anything: they picked the trait, so they're opting in already. Their reward is theoretically being engaged with for using the trait.

[xenomni]

But it'd need work anyway. I'm not really sure about giving the jailbird anything: they picked the trait, so they're opting in already. Their reward is theoretically being engaged with for using the trait.

I don't really have anything to add to the discussion other than to say, as a jailbird trait user, I agree with this 100%. The jailbird should not be rewarded with anything. The reward is 100000% being engaged with by security.

[SomeOlFellow]

I don't have many positive experiences with Jailbird. One encounter in my memory was one guy resisting arrest to the extent we thought he was an antagonist. Didn't even give up once we had arrested them and hurt them a little, and overall just frustrated the security team as he wouldn't sit still to talk, and instead kept running. While this was a relatively niche case, as this usually doesn't happen, the thing I see most is Securiton being broken by jailbirds, then complaining when they are detained by security for destroying officer beepsky (it's hard to tell if this is IC or OOC sometimes). I have seen some good come out of it, some antagonists using it as a step in their escalation, but generally in the vast majority of cases, they are simply unmarked for arrest after a short talk with security and maybe a ticket.

As the crimes don't count as in-round actions, officers are likely very hesitant to act upon them in any significant way, likely due to escalation rules, I read and agree to the notion that we should remove major crimes from it, or let people choose to select their crimes that fit their character using a little menu to allow for backstory expansions. Could also simply mark them for parole as well to prevent the securitron issue and allow security to escalate a little more comfortably while keeping it all in character.

[Vulwin_Gilran]

In my purely anecdotal experience with jailbirders in security, ive begun only ticketing or fining people due to the negative/lack of responses for RP that ive gotten when arresting most jail birds. I definitely agree that having ACTUAL major crimes isnt great, as was said before id rather if it was more minor goofs, as minor goofs can also be then brought up by the officer which encourages RP. To expand with the idea of trying to encourage something to actually be done about this, what if the arrest status would re-set itself on jail-birds who havent been "processed" (entered the brig). The only problem i see with creating a reward, even if its a little token, is if said jailbird demands to just HAVE the reward for their processing. I also feel like giving any incentive at all to get a jail bird to avoid processing even if its minor could easily be seen as a "hey i need to stop myself from being processed, so im going to resist arrest as hard as humanly possible for muh 20 extra space bux". Also jailbirds can be security, so if there was an implemented reward for security you couldnt have officers taking jailbird just to process themselves and get an effectively free reward at round start.

Ultimately at the end of my long rambling is i think if any change should be made itd be making the crimes either selectable from a short list of funny ones or just be a few random funny crimes, rather than stuff like stealing the captains spare. I think any other problems are just, people not putting in the effort to RP or in other cases people just not following the rules which is resolved in a different manner.

[Violetsaber]

The negative experiences with jailbirds far outweight the positive ones, at least from what i've seen. Half the time it is used solely to soft self-antag and mess with security, the other times it ends with an officer chasing somebody for littering to the space diner minute 5, who then runs into a completely unrelated actual antag being discovered mid prep. Or it's a three sentence exchange that ends with "unflag Staffie Mcgreyshirt" over the radio. It also does not really add that much RP opportunity to the round as it's literally something that did not happen in the round and you can only come up with so many hooks for "super farted on the captain" before it gets old. Same with stowaways, people tend to treat it more like a second clown or semi-antag. The amount of times i've looked at the crew credits in disbelief, realizing that a person wasn't an antag all along is staggering, and a lot of times they were a jailbird/stowaway. IMO between it being either a headache, ruining other peoples rounds or just a total nothingburger, little would be lost if the trait was removed.