Goonhub
11-27-2012, 09:31 AM
Feeding people what is pretty damn literally poison is being bad sec, hands down. From my experience DD doesn't just give you food poisoning but it also has mutagen in it which almost always gives you Tourette's or seizures or something. Don't do that.
What I've found to be surprisingly effective to the security process is to utilize the Detective for the legwork bits. It's a bizarrely fulfilling feeling to be a good detective and actually get results.
See, when people who are causing/having trouble see a sec officer, they might get the jitters and scram, but people don't usually just run right away at the sight of the detective. I've used that to settle a few petty disputes by trying to get both parties to explain their side of the conflict. Since they have to stop beating each other's faces in to explain to me why the other person is shit, that at least gives a little bit of a reprieve in the fight. You're not sec, really, so people don't expect you to make an arrest, so they won't be demanding it or fleeing if they think they're the ones on the chopping block. You need to stress to them that you're not sec for this to be effective, though, some detectives can get just as overzealous as real officers. If you can establish that, sometimes you can convey to the squabbling party just how fucking stupid their argument is, and if you're annoying enough they might just get sick of it and leave it alone. It might be temporary, though, because I've done this and later learned that the one person attacked and killed the other guy. If you think there's going to be a lingering grudge, alert Sec to the parties involved and ask they keep a lookout for any trouble from them. 8 out of 10 times you see petty fistfights like this, neither of these people will be antagonists. It's a sad fact but you have to realize that while this shit is awful, neither does it warrant a full-on SWAT team raid just to brig a couple of jackasses and start off some cockamamie Benny Hill chase when one or both of them inevitably flees.
Let the Detective collect evidence, take witness statements, gather info. Unless you saw the crime yourself (and if you did, report it right away over the radio with all the necessary information [location, suspect appearance and name if you caught it]) alert the detective to the nature of the crime and its general vicinity and let him go do his sleuthing thing. It saves the average officer a lot of work and a headache to boot to have the flatfoot doing all the public interface bits. Most of the crew don't like or don't trust Sec, but the Detective is generally just another crew member with fancy goggles, a sec headset, and a gun that he isn't supposed to use and which isn't very good anyway.
And FINGERPRINTS! THESE ARE IMPORTANT! More important than some people like to think. The detective's scanner isn't as useful as it would be if you could actually identify blood, but it's still pretty useful!
Statistically, most people on the station don't have gloves. The people who do can usually be categorized as the following: Insulated fibers indicate someone with yellow gloves had the item you're scanning. [Engineering/Electrical has insulated gloves, but often times Miners can get their hands on some, as can other people if Electrical is being sloppy. QM can order some, and they generally don't hide the fact that they've ordered engineering crates.] Black fibers indicate the prints belong to someone who was wearing black gloves. [QM, hydroponics, the detective, and mining all wear black gloves. The only way that these gloves are obtained are if they're taken off one of these groups or if they're left just laying around, or if the box of them is stolen from the Detective's locker.] White latex fibers indicate the person was wearing medical gloves. [Roboticists are the only ones who start with these gloves, but a box of them can be found in Medbay for use by anyone who can get to it.] These facts won't always lead you directly to a suspect, but it gives you a place to start.
Remember, multiple prints on an item are listed in chronological order. It's almost always a good bet that the first set of prints on a traitor item belong to the one who created it, unless they belong to whoever snatched it up and led sec to it (or if it's an officer's prints). If you can collect evidence on a suspect, you can point him out to Sec; give them his name, his job, and do them the favor of setting Beepsky on his trail for added backup. If all you have are fibers, go to the areas where people wear those sorts of gloves and question them about any sneaky shenanigans they may have seen.
For extra arpee bonus fun, find a piece of paper and a pen and take elaborate, detailed notes written in a gruff and hardboiled fashion about your interrogations and findings, so when people find your corpse they can find out what lead you were chasing when someone killed you in the middle of writing something.
Now about Security
First off, despite the fact that you are told it's okay to do whatever you want to a confirmed traitor (though that's not expressly true either), you have to realize that not everyone else will always be privy to the same evidence as you. If Pubs McTraitorface murdered someone with a cyalume saber, and you disarm him and chase him across the station with it to murder his traitorface in front of a crowd of people, guess who looks like the crazed lunatic? It's not the poor greyshirt getting killed with a c-saber. See, people are paranoid of Sec because they don't always know that they're not traitors in disguise, or zealous assholes out to nazify the station. And sometimes, if one or two sec officers legitimately are being shit, the rest will suffer from it when the crew starts harassing security back. THE WRONG THING TO DO IN THIS SITUATION IS TO START HARASSING THEM BACK AND CHASING ASSHOLES AROUND THE STATION FOR FARTING ON YOU. It is an INSANE waste of resources, time, and energy. Additionally, while it's definitely a bad thing to let an assistant swoop into sec and steal gear, do NOT go and mobilize the whole fucking force against him. Again, 7/10 times this happens it's just some jackass assistant trying to fuck with security. The more force you exert against such a force, the more it is going to beat you in the face. Remember his face, bide your time, maybe set beepsky on him, but don't go on a bloody rage rampage over it. It is NOT worth it. Trust me.
Additionally, resisting arrest is annoying and dumb in many cases, and if the person you were trying to arrest was a high-profile suspect, by all means try to track him down. But don't go running around with your stun baton and taser in hand like a big "PUSH ME OVER" target is taped to your back. Again, securitrons can come in handy, and barring that, the detective and his ass-seeking goggles can help you locate the guy. Worst case scenario, back off and let the detective talk to him, try to see what his deal is. If he says he's innocent, ask him to prove it by agreeing to a search. Even if they refuse they may still be innocent, but as long as you have them talking you can still try to straighten the situation out. Do it over the radio, ask for witnesses. Anything beats dragging someone kicking and screaming to security using only your flash to keep him immobilized so any assistant with a head for injustice can come and kick your ass and let him go to start the process over again. Remember, if you look like the bad guy, people will think that's what you are.
So consider NOT ramming a traitor's c-saber through his traitorface. Maybe consider stealing all his cool traitor jams and chucking him back out into the wild to try again, if the game's only just started and you only caught him because of thermals. If his second attempt is equally pathetic, steal his shit again and kick him back out. If he comes at you with a fire extinguisher the third time, then he's out. But maybe instead of dragging him to an airlock to throw him to space, maybe borg him? Or maybe brig him for five minutes, which as previously stated would probably translate to 10 minutes, being generous. Don't worry, he'll either break out of there using his shoes or talk some other naive dope into breaking him out long before that point anyway. Remember, a round without traitors is kind of boring, and when it happens all you have are a bunch of bored assistants looking for havoc to wreak. Nobody wants that.
Try to come up with non-lethal, non-psychopathic responses to problems. That's how you avoid being crucified by the crew for being bad sec. And lock the fucking equipment lockers and close the goddamn doors, you fucking morons.
What I've found to be surprisingly effective to the security process is to utilize the Detective for the legwork bits. It's a bizarrely fulfilling feeling to be a good detective and actually get results.
See, when people who are causing/having trouble see a sec officer, they might get the jitters and scram, but people don't usually just run right away at the sight of the detective. I've used that to settle a few petty disputes by trying to get both parties to explain their side of the conflict. Since they have to stop beating each other's faces in to explain to me why the other person is shit, that at least gives a little bit of a reprieve in the fight. You're not sec, really, so people don't expect you to make an arrest, so they won't be demanding it or fleeing if they think they're the ones on the chopping block. You need to stress to them that you're not sec for this to be effective, though, some detectives can get just as overzealous as real officers. If you can establish that, sometimes you can convey to the squabbling party just how fucking stupid their argument is, and if you're annoying enough they might just get sick of it and leave it alone. It might be temporary, though, because I've done this and later learned that the one person attacked and killed the other guy. If you think there's going to be a lingering grudge, alert Sec to the parties involved and ask they keep a lookout for any trouble from them. 8 out of 10 times you see petty fistfights like this, neither of these people will be antagonists. It's a sad fact but you have to realize that while this shit is awful, neither does it warrant a full-on SWAT team raid just to brig a couple of jackasses and start off some cockamamie Benny Hill chase when one or both of them inevitably flees.
Let the Detective collect evidence, take witness statements, gather info. Unless you saw the crime yourself (and if you did, report it right away over the radio with all the necessary information [location, suspect appearance and name if you caught it]) alert the detective to the nature of the crime and its general vicinity and let him go do his sleuthing thing. It saves the average officer a lot of work and a headache to boot to have the flatfoot doing all the public interface bits. Most of the crew don't like or don't trust Sec, but the Detective is generally just another crew member with fancy goggles, a sec headset, and a gun that he isn't supposed to use and which isn't very good anyway.
And FINGERPRINTS! THESE ARE IMPORTANT! More important than some people like to think. The detective's scanner isn't as useful as it would be if you could actually identify blood, but it's still pretty useful!
Statistically, most people on the station don't have gloves. The people who do can usually be categorized as the following: Insulated fibers indicate someone with yellow gloves had the item you're scanning. [Engineering/Electrical has insulated gloves, but often times Miners can get their hands on some, as can other people if Electrical is being sloppy. QM can order some, and they generally don't hide the fact that they've ordered engineering crates.] Black fibers indicate the prints belong to someone who was wearing black gloves. [QM, hydroponics, the detective, and mining all wear black gloves. The only way that these gloves are obtained are if they're taken off one of these groups or if they're left just laying around, or if the box of them is stolen from the Detective's locker.] White latex fibers indicate the person was wearing medical gloves. [Roboticists are the only ones who start with these gloves, but a box of them can be found in Medbay for use by anyone who can get to it.] These facts won't always lead you directly to a suspect, but it gives you a place to start.
Remember, multiple prints on an item are listed in chronological order. It's almost always a good bet that the first set of prints on a traitor item belong to the one who created it, unless they belong to whoever snatched it up and led sec to it (or if it's an officer's prints). If you can collect evidence on a suspect, you can point him out to Sec; give them his name, his job, and do them the favor of setting Beepsky on his trail for added backup. If all you have are fibers, go to the areas where people wear those sorts of gloves and question them about any sneaky shenanigans they may have seen.
For extra arpee bonus fun, find a piece of paper and a pen and take elaborate, detailed notes written in a gruff and hardboiled fashion about your interrogations and findings, so when people find your corpse they can find out what lead you were chasing when someone killed you in the middle of writing something.
Now about Security
First off, despite the fact that you are told it's okay to do whatever you want to a confirmed traitor (though that's not expressly true either), you have to realize that not everyone else will always be privy to the same evidence as you. If Pubs McTraitorface murdered someone with a cyalume saber, and you disarm him and chase him across the station with it to murder his traitorface in front of a crowd of people, guess who looks like the crazed lunatic? It's not the poor greyshirt getting killed with a c-saber. See, people are paranoid of Sec because they don't always know that they're not traitors in disguise, or zealous assholes out to nazify the station. And sometimes, if one or two sec officers legitimately are being shit, the rest will suffer from it when the crew starts harassing security back. THE WRONG THING TO DO IN THIS SITUATION IS TO START HARASSING THEM BACK AND CHASING ASSHOLES AROUND THE STATION FOR FARTING ON YOU. It is an INSANE waste of resources, time, and energy. Additionally, while it's definitely a bad thing to let an assistant swoop into sec and steal gear, do NOT go and mobilize the whole fucking force against him. Again, 7/10 times this happens it's just some jackass assistant trying to fuck with security. The more force you exert against such a force, the more it is going to beat you in the face. Remember his face, bide your time, maybe set beepsky on him, but don't go on a bloody rage rampage over it. It is NOT worth it. Trust me.
Additionally, resisting arrest is annoying and dumb in many cases, and if the person you were trying to arrest was a high-profile suspect, by all means try to track him down. But don't go running around with your stun baton and taser in hand like a big "PUSH ME OVER" target is taped to your back. Again, securitrons can come in handy, and barring that, the detective and his ass-seeking goggles can help you locate the guy. Worst case scenario, back off and let the detective talk to him, try to see what his deal is. If he says he's innocent, ask him to prove it by agreeing to a search. Even if they refuse they may still be innocent, but as long as you have them talking you can still try to straighten the situation out. Do it over the radio, ask for witnesses. Anything beats dragging someone kicking and screaming to security using only your flash to keep him immobilized so any assistant with a head for injustice can come and kick your ass and let him go to start the process over again. Remember, if you look like the bad guy, people will think that's what you are.
So consider NOT ramming a traitor's c-saber through his traitorface. Maybe consider stealing all his cool traitor jams and chucking him back out into the wild to try again, if the game's only just started and you only caught him because of thermals. If his second attempt is equally pathetic, steal his shit again and kick him back out. If he comes at you with a fire extinguisher the third time, then he's out. But maybe instead of dragging him to an airlock to throw him to space, maybe borg him? Or maybe brig him for five minutes, which as previously stated would probably translate to 10 minutes, being generous. Don't worry, he'll either break out of there using his shoes or talk some other naive dope into breaking him out long before that point anyway. Remember, a round without traitors is kind of boring, and when it happens all you have are a bunch of bored assistants looking for havoc to wreak. Nobody wants that.
Try to come up with non-lethal, non-psychopathic responses to problems. That's how you avoid being crucified by the crew for being bad sec. And lock the fucking equipment lockers and close the goddamn doors, you fucking morons.