Lethals should do stamina damage

[Angel]

I mean, you aren't really supposed to go toe to toe against armored targets like Security, especially when not having the advantage of surprise. 

I think in general, more silenced weaponry or stealthy in general really fit more the intend of RP. 

While not the topic, it feels like most weaponry doesn't really allow for a healthy middle ground between leaving evidence to solve the crime (Laser Weaponry for example) or being rather for obvious open combat (space-12 etc.).

Actually, most antags have the upper hand against security in a 1vs1, c-saber, katana, wrestler belt, spes 12 and predator revolver are all items that can somewhat easily take out a lone sec off, changeling stings also are hard counters to solo security, wrestler and werewolf can also easily deal with security.
I am pretty sure the entire point is the other way around, seurity is not supposed to go toe to toe with antagonists by themselves, that is why most shifts you can have like 5 officers 3 assistants 1 HoS yet only 4 traitors, the numbers only really get skewed at ridiculous high populations.
Also for your second point, RP is not the only game mode in the game, and from my experience stealth in general doesn't exactly works well in RP, but this is personal experience and will vary from player to player.

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and because of how crit works, the officer might be able to pick up the revolver and further stun you with their baton, and call for help over the radio.

I'd like to point out that this goes both ways. Because of how crit works it's just as likely that they slip into crit at the wrong moment, dropping their baton and being completely at the antag's mercy. Both of these options have happened to me plenty of times.

Again this is personal experience and will vary from player to player, but from my experience crit roll seems very merciful, more often than not the officer being up long enough to fully stun antagonists while in crit, I would argue being in crit should be more punishing but this is a conversation for another thread, since this thread is more about lethal weaponry and kinetics.