I want to start a discussion on how Head of Security is becoming a special snowflake gimmick job, other than an actual Security officer.
When I play as Head of Security, I try to uphold the law while still giving people fairness. I arrest criminals (people who break in, ID theft, and other awful things) and book them. I am called a bad Head of Security for this after the round ends by other HoS players. When I play as Head of Security, I kill rampaging traitors as they are a threat to myself as well as my crew if I cannot cuff them, or if I do not have cuffs on me. I simply fine and confiscate all items of those not going on a killing spree as I like to keep things interesting. I am called a bad Head of Security for this after the round ends by other HoS players for impeding antagonists. When I play as Head of Security, I am only called a good HoS when I do a gimmick, and when I do not even act as a security officer but an assistant with (nearly) all access. This is an extremely disturbing and awful trend of most HoS players. They do nothing but watch. They take up what is supposed to be a commanding officer, supposed to protect the crew, and instead run gimmicks. If you don't do this, you're considered a bad head of security.
This shit needs to stop. You are not an assistant, you are a security officer held to a higher regard. You are supposed to stop crime and protect your crew, not watch as they are murdered right in front of you and do nothing. Now we see all these HoS apps that say "AS HOS I WILL NOT PUNISH ANYONE, ESPECIALLY NOT TRAITORS". Why? Your job is to be the enemy of traitors. I can see taking a bribe to stay off them, but when they blatantly murder everyone and you just watch, with no interaction with them, you should not be a HoS.
This shit drives me up the fucking wall and it needs to end. If you're gonna be HoS, play as a HoS.
I think all of that is good and like you as HoS besides that one time your killed a traitor unconscious on the floor, in the armory no less, so stripping and throwing him in the solitary was five steps away and easy.
That is the only time I've disagreed with your actions as HoS. I also see other HoS's doing these things such as Geoff, Franklin and Austin. I think you are all exemplary.
I know it's generally said that security is a thankless job but it's still shitty. If I see two people trying to murder each other but have no idea who started it I have to stun you both, especially if the person I didn't stun first keeps attacking the guy I did stun first.
But being called a bad HoS? That's just stupid, unless you go around abusing power by doing something like tazing suspected traitors just to check them for contraband, or forcing minute long punishments for petty crimes, or doing literally nothing and going brain dead out in the open.
The point of the HoS is to get serious about security. Hunt the ling down, arm up and stop the rampaging traitor, search for the vampire, assemble the Ghostbusters, militarize sec and stop the syndies. That's your job as sec. It's terrible that anybody would think that this ISN'T the point of the HoS, or security in general.
And of course there are always judgement call moments. The traitor is stunned, but are they drugged up? You're bleeding, will you pass out? How close is security? How accessible is security? The bad guy can't always be taken alive, though it's best to at least try to be non-lethal, especially against the less violent offenders.
the point of security is to serve as a sort of on-deck trusted mentor figure, especially for the other officers. you have no obligation to become a hyper robust turbo sec, nor is that a particularly good example to set for other officers.
the HoS' job is solely to keep security from being shit and show them the ropes if they need help. in my opinion, the worst mistake you can make as a security officer is to take your job too seriously, and so I provide that model when I play head of security.
I play it lax with traitors because this game's about having fun, not killing dudes in order to "win"
I take bribes to arrest people and fine people for breaking windows
sometimes I'll try to encourage security to sit around eating donuts and chat for a bit instead of patrolling
and other times I'll organize them into pairs and try to encourage them to work together as brothers in arms.
I do these things because the purpose of a hos is to be the kind of sec officer he thinks all security should be, so as to provide an example for other players.
so you think security should be a super serious anti-traitor no-gimmick squad? then that's the example you choose to set. but frankly, I think that's kinda silly, and I'm pretty sure most people would agree
Really, as is evidenced by the heavily contrasted opinions on what security "should be like", I think that's our problem. Is security supposed to be the serious sams of the station and dedicating their existence to absolutely wrecking any antagonists on sight, or should they be every bit part of the wacky shenanigans as the rest of the crew? Should they permanently remove any antagonists they find or should they let them loose to potentially wreak more havoc even when they get to the brig? The balance between security being lax enough to remain fun but focused enough to actually be useful is really damn hard to make, and a lot of people have a lot of different thoughts on where that balance should be struck.
If you want my purely subjective thoughts on it, I'll provide this: Space Station 13 is a game. It is a game and its chief intent is to be fun. Of course, a lot of people have different ideas on what exactly is fun, but fun for the majority is the key intent here. To this end, security needs to be able to do their job in a way that encourages fun while still being useful. Cracking down and permabrigging/executing all antagonists on sight fifteen minutes into the round is not fun due to completely ruining the antagonist's ability to be an antagonist and see their plans to fruition. But on the other hand, doing all of jack shit about the guy chainsawing everyone they see pass through the bar is also not fun because that person is permanently removing a lot of people from the game, leading to frustration and bad times for all unless someone stops it.
I believe that the level of hardass-itude security should give to an antagonist should be inversely proportionate to the level of wackiness the traitor is exhibiting in their traitoring. If someone is just c-sabering and pipe bombing everything, then yeah, feel free to be a hardass and lay down the goddamn law before medbay gets completely depopulated. Letting out rampagey traitors will usually just lead to more rampaging about five minutes afterwards, so semi-permanently dealing with them tends to be a much better idea.
But if the traitor is...I dunno, running around and filling everyone with cat drugs, or subverting the AI into believing that it is a duck, or something else that isn't directly harmful and more meant to be inane, confusing, and/or disorienting, then security should give that person a bit more lenience than the aforementioned saberguy. Brig the cat-drugger and demand information on the infamous drug lord named Meow Mix, take the geneticist making everyone into epileptic swedes and turn them into an obese, constantly farting epileptic swede, try and fail to converse with your duck/AI through a series of quacks, whatever. When security responds to traitorous hilarity with even more hilarity, it escalates a funny round into an absolutely hilarious one, and is something a lot of people love seeing.
The fact that somebody thought "This person is competent enough to lead security" is usually enough for me to support whatever the HOS is doing.
I've seen HOS deal with bad officers, give them timeouts, etc. And then I've also been a captain saved by a HOS during a nuke round.
HOS is one of the most competent jobs ever, because the players earned their stripes and while not all HOS's think the same, I tend to think that they're all on the side of the crew even if the crew is a group of idiots sometimes.
HoS is like any other job on the station just with more guns. You are allowed to play how ever you wish. This is SS13 Goonstation. You are allowed to play your job how you want and don't have to take it seriously or anything. Don't try to tell people how they are suppose to play cause that isn't why people play here.
Why are you taking up a security position if you're going to play assistant with guns? This is a one slot thing and abusing it just encourages vigilanties and powergamers. You have to go through an application process for the job for a reason. It's not something to fuck off with.
So you believe that we should play only in one way in a game about playing how you want to play? I don't know if you understand how SS13 works. It makes me sad that you think we should be forced to play as a serious sec officer in a game about farting 2D spacemen. I always refer to what Cogs has said about security officers, Just be a mall cop in a red suit while playing sec. I agree. Just be a fun person. Don't be a power gaming HoS that searches out bad guys. Just do your own thing, being a serious security officer isn't really fun for anyone.
Wonkmin Wrote:I do honestly believe HoS needs to be played seriously, though. It can't be played like other things as you're responsible for keeping security in line, so you need to be smarter about it than most other roles. You can't just fuck about as it could ruin things by unleashing awful security on people.
You can definitely go too far though and end up as a supercop and no-one wants that.
Pretty much. I agree when you put on the red suit, and or beret you have a responsibility to not be a shit head via supercoping or being a shit sec. I just don't agree with people telling others how they are required to play a role in a nonRP server(and I know you ain't doing that wonk I mean others).
Wonkmin Wrote:I do honestly believe HoS needs to be played seriously, though. It can't be played like other things as you're responsible for keeping security in line, so you need to be smarter about it than most other roles. You can't just fuck about as it could ruin things by unleashing awful security on people.
You can definitely go too far though and end up as a supercop and no-one wants that.
Pretty much. I agree when you put on the red suit, and or beret you have a responsibility to not be a shit head via supercoping or being a shit sec. I just don't agree with people telling others how they are required to play a role in a nonRP server(and I know you ain't doing that wonk I mean others).
A whitelisted role
that requires people to know you
that requires a reputation to get, of being good
that's meant to help keep security to spice a round up
It's not an assistant with a red suit
It's not a flavor of the day random job with a cool beret
It is a god damn head of security that you must be approved for OOC. If you want to fuck off and do whatever, play another job. There are over a dozen where you can screw around, captain being one of them. The HoS actually has a job to do and it's important to the flow of the game. I'm not saying play supercop, I'm saying try to do your job, you know, the one you applied for.
Ali0en Wrote:The HoS actually has a job to do and it's important to the flow of the game. I'm not saying play supercop, I'm saying try to do your job, you know, the one you applied for.
Quote: I am called a bad Head of Security for this after the round ends by other HoS players.
If you are Adam Jensen then I want you to understand only one HOS player was saying you were bad and it turned out he was the person you arrested. All I said was the sentence was too long. But as you said there are no guidelines when it comes to how long a sentence is and as long as they are not in jail for more then five minutes then you did nothing wrong and you did not do anything wrong. This goes without saying but when you play HOS of a while 50% of people are going to say you are the worst of the worst while the other half will say you are doing a great job. It's to be expected. If people think you are truly shit don't argue with them tell them to adminhelp it.
This is an extremely disturbing and awful trend of most HoS players. They do nothing but watch. They take up what is supposed to be a commanding officer, supposed to protect the crew, and instead run gimmicks. If you don't do this, you're considered a bad head of security.
This shit needs to stop. You are not an assistant, you are a security officer held to a higher regard. You are supposed to stop crime and protect your crew
I agree 100% I kinda got sick of listening to people say this to me and is one of the reason I took a long break from HOS. People will always find a way to bitch about security and I think people are taking it way too far now and I agree it needs to stop. I've had people so mad at me for doing my job that they would use my IC name and hunt me down and kill me or do other stupid shit just to spite me.
Now do I think Head of Security and Security should be super serious all the time? Yes and No. Yes cause there are times when you have to deal with people being shit or the occasionally shit security officers that do not listen to anyone and takes things to far and of course when it comes to protecting the crew For example any antag that is killing anyone in their path. No because if you are serious 100% of the time you just became a hard ass who give harsh punishments for the tiniest infractions (Something I was guilty of).
When it comes to antags you should only kill them if they are going on rampages. I personally don't like killing antags who get caught earlier on in the round cause that sucks we've all got caught in the first ten minutes and experience being beat to death be a security officer. Sometimes if I do catch one late in the round I gather all my officer's and we hold a vote on their fate since I thought it be fun for the other officers to weigh in their ideas on how to handle him which have ended up working great.
There is not much we can change for security to make it better. Personally I don't think people without a month playtime should play sec because in my experience most shit officers are fresh off the arrivals shuttle. But at the same time I feel as if this is a pretty dumb mindset. Like Wonkmin said it's not Security that needs to change it's our culture towards Security and I don't see how people's mindset towards security will ever change cause people have been dealing with shit security from day one.
Goonhub
