Cuff ""Nerf""

[RSOD]

alright  just hear me out     please.
PROBLEM: cuffs are in a kind of eh ground where you'll either be cuffed for 10 seconds or 2 hours. that's no fun!
unless you actively plan ahead for being cuffed (cyborg arms, freedom implants) or be equipped by default with an anti-cuff (being a ling, being a vampire) you're essentially screwed and it's game over when you get cuffed.

okay rant over, here's the proposal.

WHAT: simply put, make cuffs wear down when you try to escape out of them. inspecting someone cuffed will show a rough estimate of the cuff's condition, and you'll get messages about the status of the cuffs when breaking out of them.
 essentially, shortens the escape time until it's either almost instant or they just break.
this means you'll still be able to hold someone for a few minutes (think like two to four), but beyond that you're risking if the victim wasn't planning to cooperate
WHY: make cuffs less punishing. it's annoying getting cuffed by a traitor with stuns / sec and being cuffed until the end of time, because they'll occasionally push or pull you to cancel your 50 second long fucking action bar that you spent 3 minutes trying to fill.

okay that's the suggestion you can go now (maybe leave a comment too)
(this was discussed on the discord, i'm just making a post on behalf of the bunch of people including me that were talking about it)

[Frank_Stein]

I've thought before that one way to make cuffs less punishing would be to still allow actions and item use while cuffed, just with a time delayed action bar that's interruptible.

You'd not be completely helpless, but would still be fairly useless at fighting back against someone and still be controllable.
And being able to still use items opens the door to creative solutions like sawing your own arm off to remove cuffs.

[Lord_earthfire]

Cuffs are in a alright place. For processing or hostage situations you need to be not able to escape easily. Cuffs are already quite weak for hostage scenarios if your victim doesnt play along (thats the only place where i would want straightjackets back)

Cuffs are the loss-situation. if you are cuffed and have not prepared a counter, you have lost, accept it.

There exists the situations where you are cuffed for far too long without a reason, but these fall under a-helpable situations.

[NOOT]

all cuffs outside of security apc zones are zip tie duration to escape. when within a security apc zone, normal cuffs up timer to current duration.

[Mouse]

What if resisting while cuffed and grabbed/pulled caused people who couldn't instabreak the cuffs to attempt to break free of the grab/pull first instead of uncuffing themselves, with a low success rate and moderate cooldown to make it possible to move people relatively short distances?

[Cal]

Nah. If you get cuffed you lost, that's your lose condition that isn't "get murdered by security"

[Kotlol]

Another day where there is a NERF SECURITY PLZ topic.

The thing is.. security has to handle a lot of stuff then just antagonists. Especially on roleplay.
Security is there to help resolve things. The guys you turn to, to end possible conflicts. Even mr. mcangry mcdrunken face the tourist.

By nerfing cuffs, not only are you weakening security.. but anything using cuffs, including antagonists who have access to cuffs.
It just makes the game overall less fun...
It will prompt a result of: "Can we have an item that can be used over cuffs that stops people from escaping my traps?"
Thus we get restraining jackets AGAIN or an equivalant like rope.. and then people will hate you for the rest of your life. Cause permacuffed till someone busts you out is even LESS FUN!

But I am fine with more ways to get out of cuffs. Like you can prep for it or funny yet.. a trait that makes you pop your arm out of your socket to escape. But in doing so you lost use of your left arm till a doctor gets it back on.

[glowbold]

shackles should take longer to construct and put on and cuffs should be nerfed

[RubberRats]

Personal take on the matter: making cuff breakouts inevitable after enough attempts just puts a lot of time pressure on security and forces them to crack down even harder just to do something as simple as putting a criminal in the brig. Assuming they don't want to cooperate, anyone they bring in will be disinclined to talk with their arrester because that's time they could spend mashing the resist key so they can be out sooner. As a consequence, officers are incentivized to process prisoners as quickly and efficiently as possible, or do things like permanently stun them, to avoid an endless cycle of Staffie McGraytide trying to beat them up.
Similarly, simply letting people fight back while cuffed, no matter how limited, encourages people to do so until they literally can't, because the alternative to doing something is letting security search and brig you. This scenario, again, forces security to adopt more oppressive methods just to perform basic arrests.
Maybe the power of cuffs can be dialed back, but the average assistant can't be trusted with the ability to negate them with zero effort.

P.S. if security is keeping you for an excessively long time, you should ahelp it

[Kotlol]

P.S. if security is keeping you for an excessively long time, you should ahelp it

This is true unless you want to be held long for "Some sort of gimmick"
Like you want a trial or something.

Do note, if you want to be released SOONER, you have to cooperate with security. The more you struggle and break free, the more time security has to keep you for just you struggling and then they add that fuzzing to your brigging.

Example being: 30 seconds brig for starting a bar fight. +15 for each escape attempt, +30 seconds for attacking a security officer, +30 for attempt to take security's stuff, +30 for-- 
You get it. You could have had 30 seconds of brig time at that point. But you kept shoving security, kept trying to run out of the brig and thus security has NO point but to perma stun you into the brig and lock you up for 5 minutes cause your offenses aren't execute worthy but you just HAD to keep security busy.

Security officers on RP tend to give the benefit of the doubt and let you ease in and show they are trustworhty, but every exploit you use against them. They will penalize you harder. 
Seriously most RP officers do not frisk you at 1st catch unless you are suspected of murder. Even having contraband will mostly result into security asking: "What's the contraband?" And if you answer: "weed" , most of them will give you a pass.

[Emimiyu]

If I want a cuff nerf, I would probably just replace one of security roundstart cuff with a ziptie cuff tbh. So they think of it as part of an option.

As much as people say "Oh but ziptie cuff sucks cause it can be removed fast, unlike my super better in meta cuff steel cuff!" it's a bit of a lie. Most of us probably never touched the secvend for extra cuffs or check for other cuffs option. Because you spawn with steel cuffs, you use steel cuffs. Even if I want to make antag's life easier with ziptie cuffs, I will not always remember it exist.

[Nerkson]

Ziptie cuffs are pretty nice in a lot of regards. You can let people break out of them in the cells and not worry about them having steel cuffs. They can be removed faster which is nice in certain situations.

Honestly, swapping the steels for zipties in round start kits. might help a lot.

[ju45he]

What if I could buy a packet of zipties using a utility token? It'd be really close to duct tape but can maybe hold fewer and be replenishable using zip ties from the sec vend.

[RSOD]

honestly, it's not so much against sec as it is against traitors that abuse cuffs and anything that stuns against unsuspecting people to get a free win.
maybe sec training comes with disarming a person in cuffs resetting the timer, while people without only subtract. i dunno, i just don't want the possibility of traitors leaving you helpless as they kill everyone and occasionally push you to stop you.

[Kotlol]

honestly, it's not so much against sec as it is against traitors that abuse cuffs and anything that stuns against unsuspecting people to get a free win.
maybe sec training comes with disarming a person in cuffs resetting the timer, while people without only subtract. i dunno, i just don't want the possibility of traitors leaving you helpless as they kill everyone and occasionally push you to stop you.

If a traitor gets his hands on cuffs, then security is to blame. No traitor has cuffs.
Should we punish the traitor from taking security's stuff even more?
We gotta get SOME LEE-WAY.

In my opinion it's better then do a side-grade as I said before.
Like a trait that allows you to dislocate your arm to get out of cuffs ONCE, but then that arm is out of function till a doctor heals it or yourself.. heck you also take a lot of brute damage.

But as people said before on this. The only thing you are doing here is telling antags, ooh you stun and cuff me.. NOW PERMANENTLY STUN ME. Wich is by far.. WORST. Less fun for the antag, less for fun for the victim who keeps getting restunned just so they can't break out cuffs.

So if anything this might sound like a good idea, but in execution, you are only asking the cuffer to keep spamming stuns on the cuffed.