Timelock for Vice Officer and/or Detective?

[Studenterhue]

Security Officer now has a minimum playtime requirement, more specifically 13 full rounds from ready up to round end, 13 rounds on the non-RP server where you joined before the 40 minute mark while there was not shuttle, 13 rounds on the RP servers where you joined before the 80 minute mark while there was no shuttle, or some combination of those. Should Vice Officer and Detective get a time requirement too? If so, how long should it be?

Personally, I'd rather think they should, for the same reasons I thought Sec Officer should have a timelock. They're not really good jobs for newbies: the learning environment for both jobs can be quite stressful, the consequences are huge if you mess up, and both jobs demand you know a fair bit of knowledge, not just controls, but also things like types of antags, kinds of crime, even a bit of combat. It also curtails the Sec grief; there's a barrier for people who join Sec just to hit and run grief, and more importantly, by the time you hit the time requirement, you should at least have some familiarity with the rules.

As for how long, well...On a theoretical level, it would be lower, because Vice Officer requires just looking for drugs and food-related crimes (so not as much knowledge on antags needed) and Detective doesn't expect you to actually arrest or detain people (so not as much knowledge of sec procedure needed). In practice though, they sort of are played like Security Officer anyways, and lot of other things are similar, so I ultimately think they should have 13 rounds required anyway.

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Also, this isn't official or anything. This is really more just me sharing an idea that I've been meaning to make a thread about for a while. I'm not speaking as an admin or coder leaving the decision to implement an idea to the player base. It's more I'm speaking as regular user making a suggestion and trying to start some discussion, wherever it may go.

[Caro]

Yea, the timelock definetly should also include detectives and vice officers, given they're also expected to represent security
I wanted to suggest that aswell

Also, I think now when we have playtime tracker, we should make use of that and implement an actual job timelock instead of 13 rounds requirement. I think it's more fair towards new players and it makes it easier to avoid a situation when someone is still not familiar with the game enough to play as security.

And I'd say 20-30 hours played would be a good compromise, 13 rounds seems to be definetly not enough

[Frank_Stein]

I'd lower the bar for Vice and Detective simply because I think they make for good foot in the door roles for aspiring and I consider them a kinda shady version of Sec that makes not doing it right less of an issue

[Tiggersaurus]

Given detective has access to lethals off the bat I'd probably put that the same as sec timelock.

[Chayot]

I would think Vice Officer to be fine open to the public as they are now.
They're in learning. Vice-officer. Isn't that the point?
Even at that, I'd think it to be fine if a timelock was added.

I would add, should Vice-officers also receive less gear?
Last I played one (months ago) They receive a token. As a normal SECOFF. Most of the access. A SECOFF in everything but name.
I would think it to be appropriate so they may serve better as support, as studenthue brought out.

The time gate of the Vice-officers could be on par with that of a normal officer,
however I see opportunity to increase the standard and further refine the ranks of SEC.
I'll leave it at that and we'll see what others may say on it.

As for Detective.
They have gear which may be pivotal against enemies of the station.
As well as access to lethals which at times are immediately loaded into a gun and shot at anyone who blinks funny.

That said, they don't have the standards and expectations of a SECOFF.
People don't call "Detective! Help!" because mostly they're not reliable.
Therefore I may recommend that they be either on par with or simply less than that of a standard SECOFF.

For RP server players, they may want a higher standard/timelock. And understandably so.

Ultimately I'm not in favor of timelocks. I myself started playing/learning SS13 in SEC department.
All said I can understand the necessity of it.

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edited grammar and formatting.

[vampirate]

Might it be better to timelock the detectives' revolver? Like Detective is a good stepping stone into security, cause ideally it should be all about looking for clues and confirming crimers. Maybe make his revolver kit a reward item? Give him a taser pistol instead that self recharges until they unlock that reward... just a thought. I think detective could use a rework to be honest to more emphasize his/her actual job in security.

[Sundance]

Timelock the Detective at 13. I know they're "loose cannon" vibes, and I'd never ever want to change that honestly great unreliable synergy they have with security, but it's just as much reason to timelock them also.

Halve the timelock (rounding up to 7, or maybe 8 rounds) on the Vice Officer, but remove their Token. Instead, let them start with that neat retractable stun-baton in their pocket that the NTSO gets and that's literally all they get. That way, this solidifies the Vice-Officer at being a stepping stone officer with less "gotta get antag" and more "quit poisoning the drinks bartender/making weed bonfires botanist" vibe.

[kyle2143]

Yes

[getbrecked]

I agree that VO should be shifted to a "mall cop/trainee" type vibe, a cop who's too inexperienced to be given any actual assignments. I actually thought it was "Vice" Officer, as in the drugs and alcohol they're regulating, but both definitions make sense.

[KikiMofo]

If they have sec gear then yes they should also be timed out. Didn't know Vice Officer got sec gear. Also yeah I always thought Vice Officer was for busting drugs and shit.

[nefarious6th]

Yes; I second Chayot's and Sundance's idea with the retractable baton/different gear. When I'm Vice Officer, I don't want to handle things like chasing a changeling and I don't want other officers to expect that of me; I think pretty clearly not having Sec gear is a good way to get that across, both to the person playing and to the people they're playing with. Nothing I shrink from more than Sec officers telling me to get geared up to help them antag hunt as a Vice Officer.

I guess I have to also agree with Gogorow too; the Security timelock needs a bump or translation into hours. I was asking a little about it in the RP channel the other day after a disastorous round, and almost went ahead and made a thread to see people's thoughts on bumping the Sec timelock up because I just keep hearing it from the Main servers and RP1 in Discord. I figured at 40 minutes a normal round on Main, a bump to 20 rounds playtime would be around 3.5 hours increase in playtime before being able to play Security. I don't think that's unreasonable. I didn't end up posting the thread because it didn't seem like anything that the people complaining the other night in the RP channel sincerely wanted to open up to discussion. I also wasn't sure because it just felt so soon after the addition of the timelock, but because we're talking timelocks here again, I figured I'd float this by too.

Thanks!

[Rodney Dick]

I agree that detective and vice officer should be timelocked.

I've never really thought of vice officers as being part of security proper, but I can see that most people tend to.
My preference for them is that they be unable to wear the red jumpsuit, and equipped with (at most) some kind of two-shot taser, a flash, zipties and a penlight.

I envisage them as untrustworthy-type security assistants who will probably just shake down botany for creds, with no serious duties, but who could still provide support in a pinch. Maybe a different name for clarity.

[Tiggersaurus]

Like a security intern. I always thought vice meaning was like vice president meaning, like a deputy sec.

[Drago156]

Like a security intern. I always thought vice meaning was like vice president meaning, like a deputy sec.

Vice in this sense is meaning like sin, evil, or otherwise bad deeds kind of deal. Vice officer IRL are often behind more undercover related deals like drug busts, prostitution busts, or otherwise immoral street crimes that day patrol cops probably wouldn't get called in for, at least from what I know of what vice officers do. In terms of ss13 that kind of just mostly translates to drug busting Hydro and probably taking their weed to smoke themselves.

I agree firstly that the 13 round limit is clearly way too low, I'm personally more in favor of 20-25 rounds. As for vice officer I suppose if they got lesser gear that a lower round limit is fair, but not too too low. Finally for detective, that should be as long as sec if not longer in my opinion because of their access and reliance on lethals and their slightly looser tie to security and vulnerability of being antag.

[Studenterhue]

There's sort of room for both interpretations of vice officer? Like, you're just a trainee still learning, so your superiors task you with handling minor crimes like drugs and poisoned food where the criminals are generally nonviolent. In that way, you get police experience, but in a pretty low-stakes area where if you mess up, it's unlikely anyone (including you) will lose your life.

But you know, it's not really reflected in the mechanics. You don't get, like, a reagent scanner for analyzing foods and drinks for toxins or some sort of container for holding massive amounts of drugs. And you do get a lot of the same security officer stuff, like sec pouch and token, so you're sort of pushed into being sec-officier-alt--alt uniform, alt access somewhat, though Vice Officer and Security Officer share a few access levels. Plus, with the name, "Vice Officer", most people think "Vice" as in "Vice President" rather than "Vices and Virtues", as this thread shows.

Like I said originally, I think Vice Officer should be same timelock as Security Officer, because as I explained above, it feels more like a reskin of Security Officer. But I would be okay with it being lower if they lost their token and got less weapons in general and/or got rebranded into a "newbie Sec" role (whatever that may involve).