Detective BloodTrak Tracking Device!

[Roomba]

Same can be said about any fucking job ever, Superlagg. Security, Engineer, Medical Doctor, Captain, what-have-you - with that cynical mindset and a "let's not bother fixing it" attitude helps nobody in the long run.

Also, literally any fucking one can set up a chair seance or an ouja board listening - doesn't mean that happens often, doesn't mean people actually care, know, or use those methods, and if they do, there's a lot of parallel noise from other ghosts.

Detective as he is right now has nothing unique about his job - the only thing unique is a fancy stun revolver. Reason why he's in "a quantum state between antagonist, mindslave, or valid-seeking jackass" is precisely because his job and purpose is, personally, horribly mismanaged and can definitely be fixed with discussion and cooperation rather than instant dismissal.

You, yourself, admit that the job is not being taken seriously - so why not do something about it?

I'd disagree with that. The detective does occupy a unique role - the problem is that no one knows exactly what the boundaries and parameters of that unique role are.

Is the detective sec, or is it not? If an assistant is breaking into genetics for the third time, is it within his job scope to strip-search and bring him, or should he abstain from getting involved? If you find the guy who mugged the HOP for all-access earlier, are you required to phone in sec for the actual arrest or can you just gun him down right then and there? It's not something I think there's a right answer to, and it's certainly something that could be worked out between sec and the detective on a round to round basis, but often one or the other sides of that equation is missing or not on speaking terms, so the detective just plays it by ear. This leads to getting yelled at when taking any action for doing too little or too much, which in turn leads to the detective just ignoring any criticism and doing their own thing. Which in turn generates antipathy towards the general concept of the detective, and so on and so forth.

I don't really think most of the recent 'fix det' proposals (which have generally been along the lines of 'more stuff to track/more fancy toys to track with') actually address this core issue. The issue isn't really that tracking suspects is currently an unengaging affair, it's what happens once you've found them. You could go 'well, now it's clear to all that the detective's role is just sec support and forensics', but the detective might counter with 'But I'm way more efficient than sec, and I can get the target in my sights before they do, and I have this fancy gun with lethal bullets right here...' Remember that the more efficient tracking tools you give the detective, the less time he has to spend actually tracking people down.

(To say nothing of the 'give det better gun/more guns' proposal, because oh boy is that a gargantuan can of worms right there)

Also, no offense, but ending the argument with 'well, I'm now coding this as it stands, your input is no longer needed or wanted because I'm coding this and you're not' is, while true, not really something that endears you to people. I'd rather have stuff hashed out properly here than rushing ahead, cause that just leads to dueling patches and github drama like that which has crippled so many other SS13 servers. I'm not even against it's current implementation in its current form, just making an observation.