An analysis of the biggest problem with goonstation: apathy

[Roomba]

tl;dr: easing up on vigilantes isn't going to make the station at large less apathetic, it's going to give jerks free reign to be murderous jerks

True, now that I think about it, what I suggested wouldn't really do anything for this problem.

But, while getting Sec to exist more often would give antagonists more resistance, I don't see how it would lessen the ambient apathy in the rest of the crew. Unless that's not really the point of doing that, in which case never mind!

The crew being apathetic about antags is only really an issue because the crew is often the first line of defense against antags due to sec being nonexistent, which really shouldn't be the case. If sec was properly staffed and doing their jobs (and ideally competent, but let's not get ahead of ourselves), they would be the first line of defense against antags, and the crew would know that shit was really going down once sec is down.

The basic premise of this game is that in spite of everything crazy going on, life on the station goes on and everyone tries to do their jobs best as they can despite everything. The crew banding together and getting their weapons out should be a measure of last resort (and on modes like nuke/blob where that is in fact the case, the crew generally does so to the best of their ability, despite what the naysayers would have you think). If a clown is smacking you with an extinguisher, it's one thing to yell for help and expect the next person walking by to intervene, but it's another thing to expect everyone from the chef to the janitor to drop everything and rush to the other side of the station fully loaded for battle.