remove spy until it is better

[icarus]

add a feature to spy leader PDAs where they can anonymously message teammates when they unlock it

[Sundance]

Multi use implanters are bad, also just have the ringleader have the names of his crew so he can contact them.

That's very simple, and could actually work very well. It'd make hackers (i.e: PDA tappers) highly useful, where before it's not so much.
The only problem I could see with this is
A) The ringleader would just take down the names from list, and not bother contact them via pda.
B) Once contacted, the spies will destroy thier pda's to prevent any back-tracking.

add a feature to spy leader PDAs where they can anonymously message teammates when they unlock it

No no, the whole point is that capturing pda's are a pitfall to spy leaders.

There needs to be a solid way of combating A and B, and then that could actually be a solid fix
Suggestion:
A) Have the contact list on the pda messager come up as
-->Contact 1
-->Contact 2
etc
This way they'll be forced to contact them, to find their name.
B)There needs to be something connected in the round to the PDA that stops them from throwing it away. Hit two birds with one stone and have information stealing as part of the objective. Put info (i.e: Code: 5hj90jga0n) onto the pda, which other spy leaders need to capture to complete an objective.

[Shoddy]

Needs major work, I think it needs to be taken out.

[atomic1fire]

Perhaps put some files on a computer that only a head can access, then require the spy have a head ID to steal it.

Something like a CONFIDENTIAL file on the mainframe, and maybe something on the computer that calls the shuttle.

[atomic1fire]

On that note, you could make spy even cooler if completing all the objectives means the escape shuttle veers off course into an ambush. Everybody dies due to a swarm of drones or something and the round ends.

[Bobbeh]

maybe make spies about actual spying, add more confidential stuff to steal, maybe spawning with a disk full of malware to upload + fuck up ss13's space internet. Maybe there could be a ring of spies/counter spies, with their objectives clashing like heck, but no -direct- order to kill eachother. Also boxing gloves in vending machines

[Crumplehat]

Needs to be an incentive for murder to not be the go-to option, yknow? There's other modes for that. Making it about hacking computers for information sounds interesting; you'd have to cause suitable distractions to direct attention away from the consoles.

Sow paranoia, but keep it directed away from you and your team. Pin it on your competitors, but don't act directly because it will give away your hand.

[Clarks]

Murdering people is fun, people will turn into traitor any more complex round concept. If you try to complicate spy even further, who do you thing is going to play along?

[Sundance]

Spy should be be a covert task-force of haphazard dudes who's objective is to make serious dollah, or to steal some serious info.
Murder shouldn't be frowned upon, but it shouldn't be an objective.
This would make more sense if there was a way that information is stored on ThinkDos, but currently that is underdeveloped, hacking is underdeveloped.

So spy isn't what it's supposed to be because a number of factors, and require some serious work. I believe:

Needs major work, I think it needs to be taken out.

Should be an option right now.
That or replace it with sandbox. hehe

[Dabir]

Spy could be an information-gathering exercise. Find out some of the semi-randomised things about the station that would be useful for a hypothetical infiltration, like what wires do in doors. Give them a hidden program on their PDA that presents them with a report to fill out and send to the Syndicate, perhaps. You could make it their job to steal printouts of completed mutations, get their hands on telesci algebra, have them swipe the most awesome thing Botany's made or take a sample of hellburn gas, basically just have them piggyback off the legitimate accomplishments of departments. Maybe give them sabotage objectives, like make sure the engine never gets above 10 KW of power, and add the extra objective that they and all their mindslaves must end the round alive and with no criminal record. Give them a special Syndicate law module that they have to upload to the AI. Give them specific people to mindslave, or just job roles perhaps. There's all sorts of things spies could do.

[Wydamn]

Spy could be an information-gathering exercise. Find out some of the semi-randomised things about the station that would be useful for a hypothetical infiltration, like what wires do in doors.

Having a form of some sort for operatives to fill out actually is kind of interesting. Especially since this is the sort of thing that any mechanic worth his salt should try to do anyway. It also provides a good motivation for new-ish players to try door hacking if they're unfamiliar with it.

[Noah Buttes]

I like arikie's original idea to have each spy team build a department specific superweapon. That way, there would be less incentive to make the round more boring by killing the other spies.

[atomic1fire]

Don't get me wrong, Medbay, Robotics, and genetics building frankenstein in old pathology using stolen assistant parts, a traitor bottle of frankenstein juice, and a volunteer brain might be kinda cool, but super weapons usually turn into an excuse to kill everyone, or someone gets caught and the entire station rampages that department early.

[oblong]

Mindslave implants can be resisted but it doesn't tell you when it happens. You have absolutely no way of knowing whether that guy you just implanted is about to kill you or do your bidding, it's a crazy mess. Unless I'm wrong and I should have adminhelped the guy I implanted killing me and my spymaster.

[Paineframe]

The main problem with spy isn't in how the teams are picked, it's that it can result to up to twenty people being either traitor or mindslave and therefore allowed to murder, with each one of those twenty people essentially tasked with killing up to sixteen other people, and none of them know who they have to kill-or-be-killed-by. If regular traitors without multi-use implanters were given a "murder all the other traitors, and we're not going to tell you who the other traitors are" objective and a reason to seriously follow the objective, it'd still end up in indiscriminate massacres, because there isn't really much incentive to creep around observing every one of the fifty people on the station to find a suspicious person without being murdered by those same suspicious people for snooping around. The teams and implanters just increase the number of potential murderers from "a couple of people" to "half the damn crew".