Unify Classic and RP Sec accesses

[WhatMG]

I want to add that, when playing medical, there'll frequently be a door between and the person you're trying to reach to save. You can ask the AI, or someone else with access, or just break in. It's easy to deal with, and it pushes for interactions with other players. This is true to a lesser extent for engineering, though realistically they'll force their way in if something is in dire need of repair. Security will still be able to function just fine with the tools presently available to them even if they have less access.

On a point above, specifically regarding the removal of access to the main ID computer. Requiring the involvement of the HoP or Captain should be a good thing. The HoS should still have their personal access computer if they urgently need to remove access regardless. I think it'd be good practice to remember that sec shouldn't be going full-throttle at antagonists whenever they're present since that makes for less interesting gameplay for any non-antagonist or non-security player. The two or three minutes it takes to get the captain to fully demote an officer won't ruin rounds.

[Emimiyu]

One final issue I take with this PR is the removal of access from the HoS - the offices I can understand to a degree, but everywhere else I do not - I do not consider "no crime here" on any part of the station to be accurate, nor does it align with my experience as HoS. What I find particularly egregious is the removal of ID computer access, which I feel will only serve to make demotions an incredibly lengthy process, requiring the involvement of the HoP or Captain, who may be not present, may be busy, or may be involved in the crime. As it is currently, if a demotion is required, the HoS can use the spare ID console, and it can be done in under a minute; this is how I feel Security business should be conducted - efficiently, in a way that prioritises antag-sec interactions over jumping through bureaucratic hoops that wastes time for both Security and the perpetrator.

In the defense of ID computer access removal, every head of staff has their own ID computer related to their dept and they all can demote anyone from any dept with "Staff Assistant" button. HoS (and so are every other heads) do not need the HoP ID computer to demote someone, except if someone destroy their deparmental ID computer. The ID computer removal doesn't mean that HoS can't demote anyone by any means necessary, it is not true at all to the current game mechanic.

While I do think HoS should keep it because they are second in command next to the HoP who can roll antagonist, especially on situation where Captain goes rogue, the ID access removal do not affect the HoS ability to demote someone to staff assistant.

[Lord_earthfire]

Security on RP is often slower paced than Classic, with emphasis on engaging with antagonists, holding interrogations, interviewing witnesses, and collecting evidence - to facilitate this, Security requires expanded access to reach crime scenes and talk to witnesses. With the proposed changes, accessing these areas would become more difficult and reliant on involving an AI, who isn't always present. Issues with further relegating the AI to a glorified door opener have already been raised. An alternative to involving the AI is involving the HoS - a role which in my experience is almost always juggling three things at once, and there is absolutely no need to add a fourth for almost no reason. If neither are present, this may create a culture where RP Officers carrying hacking tools becomes normalised, which I feel to be very out of place on the RP servers, as it does not make sense for the security force of a space station to be required to hack their way into areas.

Looking at your comment and the whole discussion as a whole, while people mentioned getting the HOS or the AI to open doors, it leaves out the most important person to talk to in such situations: the other members of that department

But it also shows how rarely security interacts with crewmembers to apprehend someone. And it is in line with how dismissive security can be towards help of crewmembers. People even told me they are discouraged to accept goods from crew. The only cases i see security take the help of crewmembers is with engineers to deal with wirehopping arcfiends.

This is still an RP enviroment we're talking about. Secoffs on RP will be more capable than classic officers to walk into another department, simply because it's the crews job in the corresponding departments to assist security in these cases. Of course this will take time until the security culture and the attitude of crewmembers towards criming people has shifted to accept more interdepartmental cooperation and more crew-responsibility, but that will be a shift for the better.

This means if classic secoffs go along fine with these reduced access, RP secoffs will face even less problems.

[Glamurio]

Security on RP is often slower paced than Classic, with emphasis on engaging with antagonists, holding interrogations, interviewing witnesses, and collecting evidence - to facilitate this, Security requires expanded access to reach crime scenes and talk to witnesses. With the proposed changes, accessing these areas would become more difficult and reliant on involving an AI, who isn't always present. Issues with further relegating the AI to a glorified door opener have already been raised. An alternative to involving the AI is involving the HoS - a role which in my experience is almost always juggling three things at once, and there is absolutely no need to add a fourth for almost no reason. If neither are present, this may create a culture where RP Officers carrying hacking tools becomes normalised, which I feel to be very out of place on the RP servers, as it does not make sense for the security force of a space station to be required to hack their way into areas.

Looking at your comment and the whole discussion as a whole, while people mentioned getting the HOS or the AI to open doors, it leaves out the most important person to talk to in such situations: the other members of that department

But it also shows how rarely security interacts with crewmembers to apprehend someone. And it is in line with how dismissive security can be towards help of crewmembers. People even told me they are discouraged to accept goods from crew. The only cases i see security take the help of crewmembers is with engineers to deal with wirehopping arcfiends.

This is still an RP enviroment we're talking about. Secoffs on RP will be more capable than classic officers to walk into another department, simply because it's the crews job in the corresponding departments to assist security in these cases. Of course this will take time until the security culture and the attitude of crewmembers towards criming people has shifted to accept more interdepartmental cooperation and more crew-responsibility, but that will be a shift for the better.

This means if classic secoffs go along fine with these reduced access, RP secoffs will face even less problems.

I wouldn't make such broad accusatory statements based off of a forum post exchange and coming to the conclusion that because people raise potential issues with a change they disagree with, that immediately means that anything they don't mention is dismissed or outright rarely occurs. During any shift I've ever been a part of, HoS or not, Security or not, I've seen countless officers ask crewmembers for any information on the subject, such as if they've seen them, if they behaved weirdly, etc.

And this communication, frankly, is just made easier when you have access to the department. If you need to talk to an Engineer, Miner or Scientist it can be downright impossible to contact them because they are absorbed in their task / too deep in the department to see you. The same can be true for essentially any job, a lot of people aren't as attentive as a veteran might be, and chatter that doesn't happen within an 8 tile radius around them simply isn't being taken in. This is especially true with the big influx of new players lately. Having a SecOff tap you on the shoulder and asking "Hey, did you see John Staffman around?" is a lot easier than having someone bang on the door yelling to be let in. The reason people mention the AI is because it is the one player that can reasonably be expected to see your request at any given time, not that it's the only way to gain access. The same holds true for the HoS.

What I foresee happening is that this change will actually result in less crewmembers engaging because the role will become more tedious, especially during stressful rounds. SecOffs already have to call in that they are responding to an emergency, they already have to respond to other SecOffs asking for status reports, and they have to do all of that while potentially chasing someone down. Something's gotta give for them, either you'll be less communicative on radio, less attentive, or you'll just ask less questions or do less chasing.

[Lord_earthfire]

I wouldn't make such broad accusatory statements based off of a forum post exchange and coming to the conclusion that because people raise potential issues with a change they disagree with, that immediately means that anything they don't mention is dismissed or outright rarely occurs. During any shift I've ever been a part of, HoS or not, Security or not, I've seen countless officers ask crewmembers for any information on the subject, such as if they've seen them, if they behaved weirdly, etc.

This statement isn't based solely on this conversation alone, but also on my experience with sec culture on RP in general.

And while yes, the flow of information does work between crew and security, im specifically talking about help on a mechanical level. Being active to help security is highly discouraged and i've encountered dismissive behaviour plenty enough. It even goes so far that you can supply botany produce that is on the same level as robust donuts and it gets declined, telling me its disapproved to accept things from crew.

The cases that are working are the ones where security got specifically no access, like problems with the AI law rack. Or where they are forced to get help, like an engineer checking the power network against wirehopping arcfiends or getting their hands onto salt against wraiths.

Truth be told, i feel like sec on RP do make their situation worse than it is on high pop specifically by not accepting or calling for help more often. In turn, crew should feel less apathic towards antags. When i sometimes hop onto classic i find that this is something that works better over there, simply because the other crewmembers have more responsibility in dealing with antags. And this change can be a nudge to tell everyone "sec can't solve everything for you".

[Chatauscours]

This statement isn't based solely on this conversation alone, but also on my experience with sec culture on RP in general.

And while yes, the flow of information does work between crew and security, im specifically talking about help on a mechanical level. Being active to help security is highly discouraged and i've encountered dismissive behaviour plenty enough. It even goes so far that you can supply botany produce that is on the same level as robust donuts and it gets declined, telling me its disapproved to accept things from crew.

The cases that are working are the ones where security got specifically no access, like problems with the AI law rack. Or where they are forced to get help, like an engineer checking the power network against wirehopping arcfiends or getting their hands onto salt against wraiths.

Truth be told, i feel like sec on RP do make their situation worse than it is on high pop specifically by not accepting or calling for help more often. In turn, crew should feel less apathic towards antags. When i sometimes hop onto classic i find that this is something that works better over there, simply because the other crewmembers have more responsibility in dealing with antags. And this change can be a nudge to tell everyone "sec can't solve everything for you".

I am sorry, but what you're asking for here, simply goes against the "stay in your lane" clause.

Yes, security shouldn't accept big gifts from crew: 
You as an antag wouldn't want to see all secoffs armed with mechboots from mining at minute 15.
You as a doctor wouldn't want to see secoffs using omni pills, it steals your job.
You as absolutely anyone, you wouldn't want to see secoffs walking around with guns gifted by QM (without good reason that is).

That said, small gifts that don't impact the round a lot, like an artcell, pizza, wool padding, booze, apple produce, etc are always welcome

And when you say thay you want "other crewmembers hav[ing] more responsibility in dealing with antags", isn't it part of the RP rules that it's solely security's job to deal with antags (unless self defense, or major disaster, yada yada), with other departments having other responsabilities?

[Lord_earthfire]

And when you say thay you want "other crewmembers hav[ing] more responsibility in dealing with antags", isn't it part of the RP rules that it's solely security's job to deal with antags (unless self defense, or major disaster, yada yada), with other departments having other responsabilities?

In my opinion, it isn't solely their job. It is securities job to focus on antags, yes. But that does not mean that crew shouldn't engage against crimers or self-antags in their department at all. Which is why i disagree that it goes against the "stay in your lane" policy.

Firstly, it is in the jobs responsibility to ensure they can work safe. In ss13 context, that also means destroying dangerous and non-secured plants in e.g. botany or stopping people that try to sabotage the engine. Of course you don't chase them outside of your department or engage in a fight when they are fully armed, because that is securities job.

Secondly, the crew of a department has the house rule over it. They can throw people out, if they want to. And they don't necessarily have to wait for security to arrive to do so.

In my opinion, these things can be expected of someone in a non-security job. But due to prevalent crew-apathy, they don't and offload unnecessary work onto security, which i fully agree is stressfull.

[Decarcassor]

In particular RP officer has many accesses that the classic HoS doesn't, below is a spreadsheet showing the differences between the roles/servers and my proposed changes (some accesses left out like armory because there was no need to include them).

Suuuuper minor nitpick here but why keep the ranch off limit specificaly ? Its not a sensible room within hydroponics like toxins or gas storage. The ranch is its own department joined to hydro for pratical purpose. Just seem like a weird exception when the main goal of this is to normalize sec access across the board.

Not much else to add to the discussion aside like the idea of the special security override for emergencies. Feels appropriate.

[Meggal Bozale]

I don't think I can read everything in here and make good points of it, I flat-out support parity between the access both get and a reduction of security access period. Having security be able to chase you through other people's departments so freely is just silly, they absolutely should be forced to slow down in normal situations and have to get the help of the HoP/Captain/HoS/AI to go with them. I don't see janitors getting AA because the captain's room gets dirty sometimes.

[Wrench-1]

Overall I'm indifferent to the change, but I'm glad this is planned to be Test Merged. I think we'll all have a better idea how these changes affect the round flow and Sec Gameplay when we're actually hands on and playing.

From my understanding, the increased Security access on RP was entirely to facilitate the time when RP had a lower population, as a lot of the time departments did not actually have anyone in them to let Security in, or there was no AI present. Now that RP is our most populated server, this old reasoning is redundant. However, for a case against this, I can definitely see to it leading to a fair amount of frustration, or even have the HoS be relegated to door opener if the AI isn't quick enough to let Sec into places. Or maybe even force Sec to carry tools so they themselves can actually get into departments by breaking in, which isn't something I personally want to see from Security.

We'll see how it plays in the test merge, but yeah. I'm indifferent.

[WhatMG]

It is not solely security's job to deal with antagonists. It's part of their job, but everyone wants to play the game and dealing with the antics of antagonists is a large part of that. Valid hunting, naturally, isn't excusable, but there's many other things that can occur when relating to antagonist interactions outside of security besides that.

[Silent Majority]

I believe under rp rules it is exclusively secs job to deal with antags by the wording, to prevent antag hunting and such

[Carton]

This doesn't seem to add anything, to be honest. It technically adds more interaction, but "AI, open door." Or "HOS, open door" or "Hey you, open this door." In an emergency isn't really valuable interaction IMO, it's frustrating and difficult to deal with.

From what I've seen the main poins contributing to support of this are:

"They don't need it." Which is vague, and doesn't really justify their removal, since it is actually very useful for security, and is used almost every round on RP where antags do any significant crime.

"Secoffs can abuse their access." This is very much against the RP rules, and should be ahelped when it happens. I admit that this has been a problem in the past, but currently it is rather rare, and I don't believe it justifies taking the hammer to sec access to fix it. This is killing a house spider with a shotgun.

"I dislike the servers having different access levels." This also doesn't seem to justify this change. Both servers are VERY different experiences with extremely different rules, and sec lacking access is much more viable on classic due to any crewmember being allowed to kill or attack with antags at any time for any reason, which cannot be done on RP. It doesn't make sense to make changes simply because the status quo feels wrong to certain people.

Really, I agree the most with Wander, it doesn't add anything and simply adds more frustration, wastes times, and doesn't actually fix the problems it's supposed to aim itself at, and I think this suggestion arises from a fundamental misunderstanding of the differences between security on classic and RP.

I agree that there are certain problems with the access levels, for example the access to borg interfaces, but that'd be better fixed by making changes elsewhere rather than simply nuking security access.

[Lord_earthfire]

You forgot "security can chase antags too effectively" and "The reason that caused security to gain their additional access on RP don't apply anymore".

[Carton]

In reverse order,:

The original reason a change was made is irrelevant, the access is on the servers now, it's part of the culture and what's expected, it works, it's fun, and removing it will cause more problems than it fixes.

As for the first one:
"I agree that there are certain problems with the access levels, for example the access to borg interfaces, but that'd be better fixed by making changes elsewhere rather than simply nuking security access."

As was said before, it would be better to give antags more ways to escape rather than making a large scale change like this. Additionally, I don't really believe this is as large a scale problem as it's made out to be. In my experience it's not all that difficult to lose security in a chase so long as you vary your route. What makes security truly difficult to evade is when either the AI is assisting them, or the entirety of security swarms you at once. Not security having access to to many doors. And once again, both of those issues are better solved through other avenues. In fact, this change would likely encourage more Sec AIs, because they'll be asked to help anyway, and sec AIs can absolutely shut down antags, especially on RP where less is happening at once.