On the subject of RP Security Officer access

[Shmiggy]

I feel like security access can be toned down. Being unable to enter a department is hardly a hinderance. More often than not, the AI is responsive enough to open doors the instant that the officer calls for them. If not, then so what? Maybe the antagonist can get away this time rather than getting dogpiled. If the antagonist has been evading capture all shift, then its fine to distribute some increased access.

Overall, the common goal is to create good RP scenarios. Maybe an officer that forced their way into a department to pursue an antagonist is sued by said antagonist for not having a warrant! Maybe a bunch of officers will 3 Stooges themselves into a doorframe chasing after someone! I feel like the outcome of this change could be funnier RP scenarios, as well as increased interaction between security and the other departments, like players before me have said.

[Cleaverwolf]

Security should keep lobby accesses but I feel like anything more than that, they do not need. You can ask department heads, fellow members of the department, the HOS (Unless of course you would want their access neutered too),  cyborgs, the AI, the HOP, the Captain or any engineer who knows how to snip access. If the antagonist is in a room security cannot access, three things will probably happen. They can stay there until Security manages to make their way in, they can leave possibly through a side-door, giving security a chance to catch them, or they can try to escape through the main door and take a bigger risk.

There is a lot more opportunity for interactions that aren't just security walking in and tasing the crimer. Security can try to negotiate, or warn if they don't give themselves up they will find a way in and there will be consequences.

[alexandregtg]

I agree with some of the points made here, but I feel like people are forgetting that goon 4 exists. Changing the access would make it frustrating at best to play security there.

This is one of those thing that can work well when the station is fully staffed, but it falls short pretty quickly when the station is understaffed. For a server like goon 3 that almost always have a 30+ population, this could be a good change. But for goon 4, it could lead to some very unfun situation.

[Silent Majority]

thats the primary issue I am concerned with is goon 4. Also low pop 3 does happen. Goon 4 often has no command. It doesn't always have an ai. departments aren't always staffed. It doesn't feel like the right solution to me.

I am very aware that people get by on classic fine. I'm very aware it works. But since one of the most frustrating things security is enable to encounter is antags standing behinds doors we can't open while we're trained to not force doors open, it feels like it'd lead to frustration more then positive situations, because, again, the community on rp is diferrent.

[Zombie]

I'm all for neutering sec access, far too often do officers burst in asking questions what am I doing when butchering a monkey or making something light sensitive in chemistry, letting in light, or they just plain enter under the guise of "patrolling" without any other reason than that. Or even worse, come and self-serve if I haven't responded to them within 15 seconds while working the kitchen or bar, which is far too infuriating. Yes, I have worked the kitchen before, yes I know how to handle a monkey, no, you don't need to charge in with your batons while I toolbox it to death and even if I were in trouble, well. I would still prefer you stay out. Call the AI if you think I am dying.
As for antags, it would give inexperienced antags a greater chance while obviously, those who have played for several years will become nigh unstoppable but that is a price I am willing to pay because RP needs to lose more and I think, not sure, at least some admins are in line with that thinking.

[AgrippaHera]

Could testmerge it

I think this is a good idea, we can see if its healthy or unhealthy for RP security pretty easily that way.

[DisturbHerb]

A pull request relating to this topic has been opened. It can be found here.

[discordic]

At this stage, trialing to see how it is with "classic" access could be fun - or at least elucidating.
If things end with massive crime-sprees and players have less fun, well, we've learned.
If it ends with sec RPing with other departments more (or even just the HoP to get their old access back), well that's great!

In the longer term, some of the other ideas here sound promising, but I know those would be long-term efforts and require a lot of programming work.
The idea of secoffs particularly having to PICK which departments they get extra access to sounds particularly interesting.

Imagine if sec had a computer that they could put their ID into and then use to pick from a few departments. It would encourage officers to all pick different ones, of course.
Each officer would get their own "beat", which would encourage them to RP with the other staff in those areas and form IC rapport.
And if SHTF, well, hopefully whoever is from sec for that department can let the rest of the team in, if the AI / command / crew are busy (Or dead!)

Maybe if the number of departments an officer can pick scaled inversely with the number of sec at roundstart EG a saturated team all get like 1-2 departments each, an empty team gets enough picks to almost have everything ( I have no idea how programming that would work, mind) - or maybe secoffs can just come back and re-pick which departments they want on a cooldown?



The alternative idea that Sec would have 'classic' access and then get it 'upgraded' to their current nigh-AA status if someone hits red alert also sounds pretty workable.

[Carton]

I like the idea of a system tied to alerts, but unless there is some alternative way that allows lowpop sec to enter departments this would just be crippling all sec on lowpop 4. It can already be incredibly frustrating to play against a skilled antag on 4 who will get AA within the first ten minutes and then do crimes you can barely track and sometimes aren't even aware of due to lack of personnel to inform you. With this nerf you now can do literally nothing against an antag with AA without outside assistance or resorting to hacking your own stations doors. Frankly with the improvement I've seen over time in security behavior this doesn't seem super needed to start with, tbh.

If we do implement this though, I would honestly recommend tying it to armoury auths (Or a similar authorization system) (Which should have the threshold lowered according to secpop IMO) That way RP sec A) Has an incentive to actually auth the armoury, something that seems to almost never happen even when shit has fully hit the fan and B) Can get access to every department when it is needed.

All in all I think it's an unnecessary modification that could potentially significantly damage the average round experience for a significant amount of players if implemented incorrectly, and I have my doubts that it will actually have any benefit when it comes to creating new RP, though theres is some potential to implement it in a more functional way.

---

Oh an additional idea that I've just gotten from working security IRL: give sec access to more general departments with their IDs, (like the main part of medbay, but not robotics or surgery, science but not any of the actual work rooms, etc etc.) And then provide them with something like a physical master key or override (or just an ID with upgraded access I guess) that allows them to enter departments in an emergency, but theres just the one for the department. That way a lowpop secoff who really needs to still get into departments in an emergency can do so, but not every secoff can walk into any room they want at any time.

(This is inspired by the fact that security personnel at the hospital don't have card access to the pharmacy or drug storage, but the larger sets of keys issued to the Team Lead and Assistant Team Lead [Or Acting Team Lead, if neither of the former is present, which is the important thing here] still have a physical master key which can open the door im the event of an emergency.)

[RubberRats]

I have had a lot of rounds on 4 where I was the only member of security. Most of the time, I was a detective, and thus did not have the expanded access that security officers have. In my experience, access never really got in the way of me pursuing a criminal. If somebody has access to a department that security does not, it is usually a few connected rooms. Not especially useful for making a getaway.
Besides, if security really needs to get in somewhere, they have tools in their equipment room. Overall I don't think losing their expanded access would hurt officers that much.

[Silent Majority]

I still predict this is going to lead to security interacting less. Like with the crematorium thing. It'll lead to "rarely" becoming "never" and go in the direction of lower pop salvs having zero.conflict rounds

[DasBrain]

The idea of secoffs particularly having to PICK which departments they get extra access to sounds particularly interesting.

Imagine if sec had a computer that they could put their ID into and then use to pick from a few departments. It would encourage officers to all pick different ones, of course.

I'd use a machine, like the one to modify IDs in that one adventure zone (I don't know how to do spites, so reuse...)

Each officer would get their own "beat", which would encourage them to RP with the other staff in those areas and form IC rapport.
And if SHTF, well, hopefully whoever is from sec for that department can let the rest of the team in, if the AI / command / crew are busy (Or dead!)

Yes, building rapport was one of the ideas here. So it is not that one random officer who happens to come to medical when a crime happens, but the same security officer you know from a few previous interactions.

Maybe if the number of departments an officer can pick scaled inversely with the number of sec at roundstart EG a saturated team all get like 1-2 departments each, an empty team gets enough picks to almost have everything ( I have no idea how programming that would work, mind) - or maybe secoffs can just come back and re-pick which departments they want on a cooldown?

Once the machine is in play, we could add "experimental" access modes based on some conditions as well. It is not that hard to check for some condition and if it is met, show them as additional "department".
Repick is a nice idea - but the problem is: Where do we store that information?
First, I'd like to make the machine only be accessible for IDs with Security Equipment.
And while it is easy to just add access to an ID when swiped, I only really want to work it once per ID. Or remove the old access when the department is changed.
A cooldown is in my opinion not needed - yes, a security officer could go "let's check science", get science access, then return, get medical access, do their stuff there, then return for engineering access... but that requires the officer to return to the machine and change their access. I don't really like that, but I'd be fine with that. It might even be good enough for low-pop.

The alternative idea that Sec would have 'classic' access and then get it 'upgraded' to their current nigh-AA status if someone hits red alert also sounds pretty workable.

I'd use armory authorization, I feel that button is more often used by monkeys mailing themself to the bridge than by the heads of staff.

I like the idea of a system tied to alerts, but unless there is some alternative way that allows lowpop sec to enter departments this would just be crippling all sec on lowpop 4. It can already be incredibly frustrating to play against a skilled antag on 4 who will get AA within the first ten minutes and then do crimes you can barely track and sometimes aren't even aware of due to lack of personnel to inform you. With this nerf you now can do literally nothing against an antag with AA without outside assistance or resorting to hacking your own stations doors. Frankly with the improvement I've seen over time in security behavior this doesn't seem super needed to start with, tbh.

For low population, we could make a "department" giving the old access, which is only enabled if there are 2 or less security officers.

Oh an additional idea that I've just gotten from working security IRL: give sec access to more general departments with their IDs, (like the main part of medbay, but not robotics or surgery, science but not any of the actual work rooms, etc etc.) And then provide them with something like a physical master key or override (or just an ID with upgraded access I guess) that allows them to enter departments in an emergency, but theres just the one for the department. That way a lowpop secoff who really needs to still get into departments in an emergency can do so, but not every secoff can walk into any room they want at any time.

(This is inspired by the fact that security personnel at the hospital don't have card access to the pharmacy or drug storage, but the larger sets of keys issued to the Team Lead and Assistant Team Lead [Or Acting Team Lead, if neither of the former is present, which is the important thing here] still have a physical master key which can open the door im the event of an emergency.)

My problem with that is: It is probably one of those things that get stolen first.
But I have no real problem with putting one or two spare IDs into the Armory.

[Zamujasa]

some thoughts from admin chat from me:

other server notes:
* departmental sec is a thing with the little security lobbies around, so e.g. a secoff would be additinoally designated for medbay or w/e and have that access (along with a simple cosmetic item for their suit)
* other servers have "access override" modes for doors that the ai (and borgs?) can set, which basically makes doors require no access. this is a frequent thing done when one department has an Emergency:tm: and a lot of people need to be in/out, or when there aren't enough people
* tg code also has the alert system from green/blue/?/red which "guides" sec behavior. on classic i imagine it won't go anywhere but on rp i could see it working
* similarly other servers have a "lowpop threshold" where below X roundstart population everyone's ID card gets additional access added to it to facilitate actually playing the game when there aren't enough people to staff departments

there are a lot of potential solutions to this problem; given the wide variance in population things may be ok

[Cherman0]

At a certain point I think we need to admit that its not possible to design the game around an arbitrarily small number of players. Like, if there's 4 people on the server, yeah things are going to break down. Same deal as 100+ pop where theres like 30 staff assistants. Designing around such an extreme edge case at the expense of the much more common 20 - 60 pop doesn't really make sense to me and I feel like a lot of cool ideas for interdepartmental cooperation get held up on the point of "but how will it work if nobody is online". Which is unfortunate.

[Waffleloffle]

At a certain point I think we need to admit that its not possible to design the game around an arbitrarily small number of players. Like, if there's 4 people on the server, yeah things are going to break down. Same deal as 100+ pop where theres like 30 staff assistants. Designing around such an extreme edge case at the expense of the much more common 20 - 60 pop doesn't really make sense to me and I feel like a lot of cool ideas for interdepartmental cooperation get held up on the point of "but how will it work if nobody is online". Which is unfortunate.

the difference between designing with lowpop in mind and designing with absurd highpop in mind is that one of these only happens in stretches once every couple of months at most, and the other happens almost every day on a specific server. to simply say "yeah lowpop players are just gonna have to cope" regarding one of the most wide-ranging, broadly affective changes on the rp servers is essentially giving a huge middle finger to 4 specifically