detective

[Mopcat]

detective is probably the most problematic role in the game. they're MEANT to be a forensics role, but i could count the amount of players i've seen play detective as an actual detective on one hand. meanwhile, detective is very much geared towards self-antagging/validhunting and is overall played as "Security With Gun".

efforts to remedy that have been met with developer backlash because it'd be "punishing everyone for the actions of a few" meanwhile NTSO, a WHITELISTED role, had a controversial change pushed not too long ago, supposedly BECAUSE people were being shitters with it, and whether out of being tired of receiving ahelps about it or just plain favoritism towards the small amount of hos people being shitters with the role, a heavily protested change was pushed. i know that i wouldn't have gotten away with doing some of the things i've heard some of the longer-time hoses doing as ntso, and neither would plenty of other newer hos players.

meanwhile, changes like timelocking detective or removing their roundstart lethals are met with heavy backlash from the dev team for, imho, pretty hypocritical reasons

so, what the fuck is detective meant to be, and how the fuck do we plan on fixing the role?

[rando212]

If i'm correct detective is supposed to be a freelance crime solver kinda like batman in a way where he helps the police find and catch crimers. The problem is that forensics kinda sucks at most he can check for finger prints (something every sec can do as its in there pda). And maybe track with blood but i haven't ever seen that thing used so what ends up happening most of the time is det goes welp got nothing better to do "hey sec whos the crimer so i can shoot them with my gun". A way i have thought of solving this is making forensics more in depth and don't give sec the power to do it at round start with 0 help from the guy who is supposed to do forensics. Would make sneaky antags like traitor spies and ling more difficult then just put on gloves when murder take gloves off and bam almost no way to tell you did the crime.

[nefarious6th]

ten steps back my friend. i would like to see something done about det too! i think the problem with some of the suggestions is that there's not been a way to gauge whether they'd be balanced/liked/fit in or not since i don't believe anything has actually been pr'd to change anything about det in a restriction manner (other than removing stun speedloaders from hacked fabs) until tonight (your pr!). there's been some qol stuff for guns and scanners and whatnot. but this is i think one of the first prs that makes people have to consider balancing of the role, and so that on its own is a good step.

maybe removing lethals won't be merged, and that's okay. i think the point of making the pr to get people to think about it and discuss it is more than enough. okay, so removing lethals won't work, what about changing it to a civ role? or making it have a timelock? or removing antag roll ability? i think the greater point is we need more information about what people (and devs especially) do/don't want to get closer to targeting in on Good Methods To Balance it by, and that should remain the focus of the lethal-removal PR and hopefully the entire discussion about the role. making a pr is the way to get that feedback, and the reasoning for it. it's also the place to then connect with others and ask what they'd like to see instead, and the place to revise and refine.

for my own opinions, i would like to reward good detective players who find a lot of fun in helping sec; i believe for that kind of a role, there would maybe need to be a timelock and antag status removal (at least for rp, it might be a nice testing ground). but i also believe being shady is fundamental to the trope of the detective, so i fully recognize why antag status is a thing for them currently. perhaps it's not fair (at least on rp?) to give a roundstart lethal to an antag-rolling job, considering we don't have that anymore on any other job! the last thread that would take some work would be to allow detectives to still do investigative work to their fullest without the friction of an untrusting sec team, and allow them to have their lethal weapon without the friction of a seeming imbalance/betrayal of the sec access/departmental allocation by making it purely a civilian role with access similar to something like vice off or sec assistant, just...without the "sec".

[warcrimes]

so, what the fuck is detective meant to be, and how the fuck do we plan on fixing the role?

detective is meant to inspector gadget. 

go go gadngest get go kill lethals

he crime, he solve crime, 

i don;t have a p,lan

[Maegor]

idea: detectives spawn in hell and have to gamble their way out, then they crawl out from under the bar's alcohol dispenser.

Honestly I agree that detective are a role with a ton of issues but I can't really think of how to fix that. Only idea I have is making them fully part of sec but no longer able to be an antag, and without the gun.

[Rlocks]

I dont have alot to contribute to the conversation, but in my opinion, I think that the Det is more meant to be a forensics role, not one that is meant to be making arrests or shooting antags, removing the gun probably would help, but improving the forensics system and lowering the amount of ammo the det has access to as a nonantag probably would help aswell, by making them need to think more before shooting, and instead making them need to focus more on forensics and providing evidence for sec to make arrests.

[aft2001]

As a possible way to help, how about making it *easier* to do Detective work. Or, specifically, organizing it. A sort of tablet or maybe just a PDA program designed to organize and store forensic data you find. I'm not sure how this would work, but often times an organization tool can make life SO MUCH EASIER.

[Lady Birb]

I have made it clear many times that I think detective should be a never-antagonist role like security but every time I bring it up someone just say "loose cannon" over and over until everyone forgets I even mentioned it.

[Rlocks]

I have made it clear many times that I think detective should be a never-antagonist role like security but every time I bring it up someone just say "loose cannon" over and over until everyone forgets I even mentioned it.

That probably would help the role i feel, by helping let people to know to ahelp trigger happy dets instead of trying to guess if they are antag or not, by removing the det being potentially an antag variable.

[KikiMofo]

NTSO got changed because the people who are whitelisted to use it agreed to the change.
Also detective isnt suppose to be trusted. Never trust the detective.

[Stephmo]

I originally posted this in 2019 in a similar thread that has since been locked or deleted. Not much seems to have changed with the detective since then so I will post my thoughts again: 

-----

I love playing Detective on RP so this is an important topic to me! Currently the Detective is suffering from an identity crisis split between Law Enforcement Detective and Private Investigator. On one hand this allows the Detective to played in multiple ways with all kinds of characterizations, and that's great! On the other hand this leads to confusion regarding the Detective's status as a "legitimate Security Officer". 

First, let's take a moment to define a few things:

Detective: "A person, especially a police officer, whose occupation is to investigate and solve crimes."

Okay, fairly straight forward. A Detective is (usually) a law enforcement officer whose time is spent investigating crimes. A Detective, as a warranted officer, is permitted to respond to criminals with reasonable force and make arrests. A Detective is beholden to the law enforcement agency they are part of and they must follow the law as it pertains to other law enforcement agents.

Private Investigator: "A freelance detective who carries out investigations on behalf of private clients."

Also pretty clear. A Private Investigator, or PI, is not a member of law enforcement. PI's are beholden to the private firm they work for or, if independent, no one at all. As a private citizen a PI must follow the same laws as other civilians. Unless given special permission from the a governing body, a PI typically cannot use force against their fellow citizens or make arrests. PI's are typically licensed by a government and tend to have gun permits.

The Detective, as they are currently portrayed in SS13, is treated as simultaneously a Detective and a Private Investigator, both mechanically and in flavor/lore. 


Great! Now that we have pictures of both sides of our coin, let's see where the Detective in SS13 stands when compared to these two occupations.

Law Enforcement Detective 

• Can use non lethal force and arrest due to access to handcuffs, flashes, helmets, and flashbangs (Security access as well as SecVends in the Detective's Office on CogMap1, Destiny, and Oshan provide these tools)
  
• Access to all of Security, including brig cells. (Except lockers).
  
• Access to SecMate, issuing tickets/fines, issuing arrest warrants.
  
• Uniformed.
  

Private Investigator

• No access to Security Officer specific equipment (Stun batons, barriers, sec HUD, tasers, armor)
  
• Detective has their own office separate from Security. 
  
• Mostly civilian access on station. (Exceptions are forensics related Morgue, Medbay, etc.)
  
• Possible Antagonist (The Detective is not beholden to NT)
  
• Not uniformed.
  
• Monologue mentions retiring from Security. 
  

Overlap

• Firearms Carry Permit
  
• Bulk of available tools in Detective's Office are forensics and surveillance related, indicating mainly investigative role. 
  

Cool! So what does this all say about our beloved Detective?
First and foremost it means our Detective is a master of information gathering. The unique toolset for Detectives makes them powerhouses of surveillance, as their job title would indicate. However more problematically, this overlap with Security means our Detective exists in criminal handling limbo, having the authority to act as an officer, but not having access to the tools necessary to keep an officer safe while doing so. What we have is a character that is either a Law Enforcement Detective with limited access to Security equipment and parts of the station, or a Private Investigator hired by NT and given special permissions to use force and arrest civilians.

Yuck, neither of those sound very good to me. Okay, so what can be done? Luckily for us this won't take much to fix and we even have a few options!

The Detective becomes a Law Enforcement Detective

1. The Detective becomes as loyal as a Security Officer (Non-antagonist)
   
2. Station access privileges in line with Security Officers.
   
3. Gain their own Security Gear locker in their office, complete with body armor.
   
4. Detective's Office is moved to (or much closer to) Security.
   
5. The Detective receives a uniform (or at least a badge) indicating they are law enforcement.
   

The Detective becomes a Private Investigator

1. Access to the Security sector and SecVend machines is revoked.
   
2. Ability to use SecMate to issue tickets, fines, and arrest warrants is removed.
   

Okay, this doesn't sound too bad, but what would either of these solve, exactly?

The Detective becoming a Law Enforcement Detective would give the crew a clear idea of the Detective's authority on the station. The Detective would enjoy the same tools and protections as their fellow officers, but still have their tools to allow a focus on investigating. A foreseeable issue with this is the Detective could just default to a Security Officer role, but that happens anyway, right? In this case it would at least be within the realm of justifiability.

The Detective becomes a Private Investigator (But could still totally be called Detective) would create a clear separation between the authority of a Security Officer and a Detective. The Detective would not be on the station to enforce the law, but to focus on investigation. The Detective, as a private citizen working for Nanotrasen would be beholden (but not necessarily loyal) to Nanotrason and the station's Security, Captain, and Heads. This also creates a situation where Security could arrest a gun crazy Detective. 


I'm out of stuff to say for now. What do you guys think? Also thank you for reading if you made it this far!

----

Reading back over my original post and seeing additional suggestions in this thread, my preferred solution to the "detective problem" would be to reframe the detective as a Private Investigator with the following changes:

The Detective becomes a Private Investigator

1. Access to the Security sector and SecVend machines is revoked.
   
2. Ability to use SecMate to issue tickets, fines, and arrest warrants is removed.
   
3. Starts with non-lethal rounds only.
   
4. Improve forensics capabilities solely for Detective, or slightly reduce forensics ability of Security. (Honestly no idea what this would look like)
   

 

Posted by warcrimes - 1 hour ago


detective is meant to inspector gadget. 

go go gadngest get go kill lethals

he crime, he solve crime, 

i don;t have a p,lan

Make the changes and rename him to Inspector!! Then he can gadengts all the unsppections andd crim as an antag and not a self antag

[Maegor]

Also detective isnt suppose to be trusted. Never trust the detective.

That is the problem, what is the point of a detective if he can't be trusted to provide forensic but trusted enough to have a lethal gun?

[kyle2143]

You gotta make a judgment call any time you trust anyone in this game. They could be a changer or an imposter or a mindslave even if they are sec who are unable to roll antag on round start. Letting detective players be traitors just makes them as trustworthy as all of the non security crew, like the Captain and RDir. Due to the detectives current place in the command heirarchy it allows for him to do a bit more traitoring than a botanist, but not really any more than any command officer.

Having the detective always start antag free just removes a bit of the nuance of the character. And that's part of why he doesn't have complete security access. You listen to the Captain despite knowing they could be a traitor because of where they are in the command structure. Security should trust the detective similarly. Like almost half the game is based around not knowing who is good and who is bad.

If the detective couldn't be an antag, functionally they would be no different from the HoS or Sec. Only having one or two more tools that aren't *extremely* helpful. Maybe if forensics was more usable of a source of information, but even then I'm not sure. Because if we locked all the forensics that are damning behind detective, then regular security would want it too and eventually get it and then we're right back here.

Edit: Huh stephmo, it could be fun splitting the detective into a "detective" who is on the force/has a lot of specialty forensics tools and can't start antag and an "inspector" or "PI" (or something along those lines) who occupies the current "loose cannon" role. Maybe he has worse equipment than the role that's on the sec team but makes up for it with illegal lethal ammunition and guile.

 Or visa versa (idk which name would fit which roke better), personally I like traitor detective a lot and traitor PI doesn't sound as good. But it could lead to an interesting dynamic between the roles since PI's and detectives habe a sort of rivalry irl, at least that's what I gathered from watching Brooklyn 99.

[nefarious6th]

I think one part of the problem/ nuance here is that a lot of people who've shared on this are RP-server frequenters; I know people keep bringing up cap as a counterpoint, but RP has no more antag caps, so detective is the only role that starts with lethals anymore.

Steph's thoughts are very good. In addition to scaling forensics stuff for officers back a little (maybe remove the scanner from the vendor and clear out any scanners in HQ on maps?), I think more depth to the system could be fun. Actually, since the vendor changes I think a majority of people I play with take the scanner as part of a kit; it gives Det players less to do. Rebalancing might open up more interactions to bring the Det or AI in, so I feel like that might be a quick-fix kind of thing to minimally improve the quality and number of interactions det's can get in a round, versus no one talking to them at all.

There was a discussion some time ago related kind of to this greater idea, but specifically about forensics and how to broaden it. I'll keep trying to find it though, I remember some good and workable points to look at improving.

[Frank_Stein]

Detective I consider open ended to interpretation of how they should act, since there's a lot of different kinds of detective tropes out there. Personally, I think a lone Detective offers more to a rounds atmosphere than a

I don't think splitting the role into "Detective" and "Investigator" a bad idea, though I think this could be a good opportunity to use job rewards or tokens and let the detective trade in their gun or lethal ammo for more investigative equipment instead and let them spec themselves as they see fit for the round