[PR] Make NTSO only available if a HoS has joined the round

[Slazenger]

...having an alternative to HoS when you want to be able to just have a bit calmer of a shift without the oppressive responsibility. NTSO is my "the shift is half over" late-join.

Why not play a sec off then? Or detective?

I guess my biggest question is how does having it as it is now hurt RP scenarios and round balance?

Not really but it'd be nice to have a HoS rather than an NTSO usually. From my ahelp experience NTSOs tend to just empty their lethals into non-antagonists or valid hunt without actual responsibility.

It's worth mentioning that my experience is 100% on RP. Regarding the first part, when latejoining a shift and SecOffs are doing BadThings™, an NTSO can help mentor and guide a newer SecOff towards correcting their behavior and help correct issues; me joining as a Detective isn't going to be able to do that.

Regarding your second point, that needs to be addressed with the individuals. If people you trust with a whitelist can't follow the rules, don't punish the rest of the community/playerbase. Have discussions with the offenders as an admin-player discussion and remove whitelist from repeat offenders.

If NTSO didn't exist, I'd pick secoff, yeah. If NTSO existed and secoff slots were open, I'd join NTSO because there's more sec slots open than if I'd joined as sec. HoS+NTSO+Sec=7 slots, HoS+sec = 6 slots and significantly more pressure on the HoS because on RP its uncommon for HoSes to have an IC reason to treat a HoS-off as a lieutenant.

Though, a lot of the NTSO issues being sounded out here sound more like rules/ahelpable stuff. And most of it isn't even in my experience on RP!

Ley hit it on the head. It's a way to still allow other players to join in with more slots available. And we don't really have issues with whitelisted-HoS players validhunting on RP. Again, arbitrary restrictions on a role because of individuals' actions seems highly unnecessary.

NTSO got nerfed once as a kneejerk reaction because I shot a Captain who was using their egun stun on me while fleeing. The real solution to the problem I experienced (and still maintain was handled appropriately via use of force continuum) was addressed later with virva's creation of the Signifier, not by the initial arbitrary slashing of NTSO permissions. The way I play NTSO is as a backup to a HoS if there's one or as a halfway-through (or later) latejoin Sec role. Joining up to a station on fire and not being able to even get into EVA or AI doesn't fit with lore, common sense, or the trust that we supposedly have as HoS-whitelisted players.

We have developers publicly stating that "Security isn't needed - the game is balanced for there to not be Security". Meanwhile you have a lot of really good people working their asses off and taking on pretty intense ingame stress to help players have a enjoyable time without their experience/RP/learning interrupted by people just causing mayhem/disturbances and will go out of their way to purposefully mislead officers/ignore crime all in order to allow antags to have a good time.

The public anti-Sec sentiment from some folks is pretty discouraging. A bit off topic, but it's a related subject to some of the "balancing" efforts I see.