Fixing Forensics

[Kaed]

So, I will be the first to admit I haven't really done much forensics. I find the role concept utterly boring. But I know many people like it.

But I also know, from having heard the results it gives, that it is utterly broken mechanically. Just grabbing and interacting with someone to pull them into maintenance somehow puts so many fibers from all over your body onto someone that FT's can practically tell your entire outfit from a 2 minute violent interaction. You would think all of our clothing is made from faux fur that sheds constantly.

I once was in a round where a cargo tech bashed and pried open the door to the HoP office, and somehow, that simple interaction that probably took 30 seconds provided the door with fibers from his outfit, gloves, backpack, and hat. As if he had smashed himself into the door repeatedly and rubbed himself against it. Not only that, but they could figure out the exact clothing type of each of those, giving them the exact identity of the person even without fingerprints.

What this SHOULD be doing is giving colored fibers. For instance, the captain's uniform should give gold or blue fibers. A miner cape would give purple fibers. Things like this actually make sense, and require some actual deduction. Maybe these results could be passed to the detective, who can go around looking for people wearing fibers of the colors found (because the detective could do some actual deducing). You shouldn't be able to tell that this tiny blue fiber came from a HoP dress uniform or some incredibly specific shit. You shouldn't be getting fibers from people's hats and entire outfit just because they hit a door with a crowbar 10 times.

Edited October 22, 2018 by Guest

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Wow this is fantastic! Now instead of the ultra specific "Pair of white gloves and a head of personnel jumpsuit" its "a set of white fibers and blue fibers" so that the detective can go "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm u know when I questioned the people I noticed that so and so was wearing................"

[VoltageHero]

I played F.T. for a couple of months (or, at the very least a few days away from two months). I feel as if, while I think without a doubt thing F.T. should become more complicated, this is kinda going about it in the wrong way. That said, due to my experience a lot of this is going to be anecdotal.

First off, let's start with the biggest problem I have with it personally. It makes the F.T. even more of a pure supporting role to the Detective. As it stands now, the F.T. is designed to be a support role and help figure out cases without getting (personally) involved by chasing down criminals and so forth. Along with that, many officers seem to disregard evidence from the F.T., but will listen if it comes from the Detective. Not to mention that more often than note, Detectives won't really share information they get with the F.T. but except information from the F.T. themselves. Now, in my experience there ARE exceptions to this rule, and there are some really good Detectives who will do all in their power to keep the F.T. in the loop, but I found that in maybe one Detective regular. By doing this, you're simply giving the Detective even less reason to keep the F.T. in the loop, because the Detective is going to know what they saw and interviewed and so forth. To phrase it better, the F.T. will just be handing off really simple information that they personally can't link to anything, and giving it to someone who can link it to something. While that may sound like a good dynamic on paper, this dynamic already exists at our current level but ensures the F.T. can actually contribute more to the case.

Being a glorified assistant to the Detective has always been all fine and good though, because as it is now, the F.T. can solve a case on their own, and that's part of what made F.T. really enjoyable. Being privy to information nobody else has, and being able to link blood samples with fibers and so forth to be able to solve a case was incredibly rewarding. By removing their ability to distinguish the specific articles of clothing, you lose out on that ability. Now, the F.T. is incredibly reliant on a Detective being present and willing to work with their results (which could be a mixed bag). Sure, the F.T. could go around questioning people themselves, but at the same time if that was the case what's the point of having the two be separate jobs. Not to mention the fact that I could already see this being a headache to try and figure out for a F.T. since you already have issues with things at the scene being contaminated. The issue of contamination has been a discussion a few times in the past, and is relevant here again. For example, let's say there was a break-in on the bridge. You have fibers from the Chaplain's jumpsuit, an Engineer's jumpsuit, the Captain's jumpsuit, black gloves, a labcoat, and a tophat. This gives the Detective and F.T. a starting point to go off of. It allows them to know who to question, and try to help deduce the likelihood of possible suspects. Maybe these people just bumped into the door, maybe they broke in. You don't know until you question them, but at least you have a starting point. With just giving colored fibers, there's basically no starting point for the Detective or F.T. to go off of. Blue fibers could be a random blue jumpsuit from the locker, or it could be the Captain's. Or maybe it's a blazer, or maybe it's a suit. Now all of a sudden your suspect pool is still the entire station with something blue because you can't narrow it down. The F.T. should have specific readouts, because it ensures that there's a benefit of actually having them on the shift, and gives both the investigative members someone to talk to which in turn ensures the Detective has something to do, and the person they're questioning is being given roleplay. With fibers, the Detective may just decide it's too much work and forget about it OR the last issue could crop up and nullify the results.

Time. Time goes by really fast compared to real life on SS13. A medical procedure that would normally be rather relaxed is now suddenly hectic because you're having all these patients coming in and you're having to triage every single one of them at a fraction of the time you would have in real life. In the case of security, once a situation occurs where the F.T. is needed, the situation is going to expand rapidly. As a F.T., you're having to try and piece together information from blood samples, fibers, and fingerprints by going through the records to try and find a connection to a crime and a suspect. For example, when I played F.T. I would leaves notes for the Detective/HoS regarding how each piece of evidence connected to each other, and would put them in a stack before handing it off to the Detective. That sounds like it'd be short, but it take up a considerable amount of time (especially when you're factoring in the F.T. having to handle autopsies on top of all that), since you're having to cross-apply all the evidence you're getting and present credible linkage. By the time you do it in the normal style, while you can usually get this done with enough time to help aid the case, you still might find out that the case has ended, or that the Detective has caught their suspect (even though the case started not even five minutes ago), or simply that more important matters have come up. By giving the F.T. generic fibers instead of specific ones, you exacerbate the issue here. Suddenly, the Detective and F.T. both have less time to work with and are much more rushed to get things done which can lead to the evidence being dismissed or just outright ignored because of the lack of time. In a real life setting, this may work but with most single cases taking up (usually) less than an hour, it's simply not feasible for the F.T. or Detective to run around trying to interview every single person with a set of fibers while at the same time trying to link other pieces of evidence and interview statements.

In the end, no. The F.T.'s results aren't "utterly broken" because without them being as specific as they are, it takes away from the role which in turn makes the role even more boring which then causes less people to want to play.

[Kaed]

I played F.T. for a couple of months (or, at the very least a few days away from two months). I feel as if, while I think without a doubt thing F.T. should become more complicated, this is kinda going about it in the wrong way. That said, due to my experience a lot of this is going to be anecdotal.

First off, let's start with the biggest problem I have with it personally. It makes the F.T. even more of a pure supporting role to the Detective. As it stands now, the F.T. is designed to be a support role and help figure out cases without getting (personally) involved by chasing down criminals and so forth. Along with that, many officers seem to disregard evidence from the F.T., but will listen if it comes from the Detective. Not to mention that more often than note, Detectives won't really share information they get with the F.T. but except information from the F.T. themselves. Now, in my experience there ARE exceptions to this rule, and there are some really good Detectives who will do all in their power to keep the F.T. in the loop, but I found that in maybe one Detective regular. By doing this, you're simply giving the Detective even less reason to keep the F.T. in the loop, because the Detective is going to know what they saw and interviewed and so forth. To phrase it better, the F.T. will just be handing off really simple information that they personally can't link to anything, and giving it to someone who can link it to something. While that may sound like a good dynamic on paper, this dynamic already exists at our current level but ensures the F.T. can actually contribute more to the case.

Being a glorified assistant to the Detective has always been all fine and good though, because as it is now, the F.T. can solve a case on their own, and that's part of what made F.T. really enjoyable. Being privy to information nobody else has, and being able to link blood samples with fibers and so forth to be able to solve a case was incredibly rewarding. By removing their ability to distinguish the specific articles of clothing, you lose out on that ability. Now, the F.T. is incredibly reliant on a Detective being present and willing to work with their results (which could be a mixed bag). Sure, the F.T. could go around questioning people themselves, but at the same time if that was the case what's the point of having the two be separate jobs. Not to mention the fact that I could already see this being a headache to try and figure out for a F.T. since you already have issues with things at the scene being contaminated. The issue of contamination has been a discussion a few times in the past, and is relevant here again. For example, let's say there was a break-in on the bridge. You have fibers from the Chaplain's jumpsuit, an Engineer's jumpsuit, the Captain's jumpsuit, black gloves, a labcoat, and a tophat. This gives the Detective and F.T. a starting point to go off of. It allows them to know who to question, and try to help deduce the likelihood of possible suspects. Maybe these people just bumped into the door, maybe they broke in. You don't know until you question them, but at least you have a starting point. With just giving colored fibers, there's basically no starting point for the Detective or F.T. to go off of. Blue fibers could be a random blue jumpsuit from the locker, or it could be the Captain's. Or maybe it's a blazer, or maybe it's a suit. Now all of a sudden your suspect pool is still the entire station with something blue because you can't narrow it down. The F.T. should have specific readouts, because it ensures that there's a benefit of actually having them on the shift, and gives both the investigative members someone to talk to which in turn ensures the Detective has something to do, and the person they're questioning is being given roleplay. With fibers, the Detective may just decide it's too much work and forget about it OR the last issue could crop up and nullify the results.

Time. Time goes by really fast compared to real life on SS13. A medical procedure that would normally be rather relaxed is now suddenly hectic because you're having all these patients coming in and you're having to triage every single one of them at a fraction of the time you would have in real life. In the case of security, once a situation occurs where the F.T. is needed, the situation is going to expand rapidly. As a F.T., you're having to try and piece together information from blood samples, fibers, and fingerprints by going through the records to try and find a connection to a crime and a suspect. For example, when I played F.T. I would leaves notes for the Detective/HoS regarding how each piece of evidence connected to each other, and would put them in a stack before handing it off to the Detective. That sounds like it'd be short, but it take up a considerable amount of time (especially when you're factoring in the F.T. having to handle autopsies on top of all that), since you're having to cross-apply all the evidence you're getting and present credible linkage. By the time you do it in the normal style, while you can usually get this done with enough time to help aid the case, you still might find out that the case has ended, or that the Detective has caught their suspect (even though the case started not even five minutes ago), or simply that more important matters have come up. By giving the F.T. generic fibers instead of specific ones, you exacerbate the issue here. Suddenly, the Detective and F.T. both have less time to work with and are much more rushed to get things done which can lead to the evidence being dismissed or just outright ignored because of the lack of time. In a real life setting, this may work but with most single cases taking up (usually) less than an hour, it's simply not feasible for the F.T. or Detective to run around trying to interview every single person with a set of fibers while at the same time trying to link other pieces of evidence and interview statements.

In the end, no. The F.T.'s results aren't "utterly broken" because without them being as specific as they are, it takes away from the role which in turn makes the role even more boring which then causes less people to want to play.

 

I recognize some issues you posit here, but I disagree that expediency and simplicity should be the foremost considerations on this matter. The problem with forensics is that there is, do my knowledge, no applicable way in the game to avoid being discovered by it. You have 0 control over your clothing leaving fibers all over everything you touch, and when the FT can laser pinpoint exactly what clothing you have on, it shafts anyone with a unique uniform. Your concerns about it making everything take longer and relegating FT to a support position is largely irrelevant to this issue, which is about how unavoidably powerful Forensics is for identifying criminals.

The only possible counter actually becomes cross-contamination, which isn't as common or big a deal as you seem to think. If a door into command maintenance has the captain's uniform, HoP's cape, and a chef's hat on it, you're going to take that immediately as evidence that the chef broke it, because there was 0 reason for the chef to be there, touching that door. It's even possible that the chef was unaware that forensics even existed on the server, because it's so rare that the role is in game. They're not going to 'question' the chef about why they were there, they're just going to get a warrant and arrest them. Game over for the chef, despite the fact that he was very careful not to let anyone see him.

It's not really fair to people that plan stealth operations that they have a 0% avoidable laser precision incriminating evidence mechanic on the server as long as an FT is there, short of murdering the FT, which is actually phenomenally difficult. They have a secluded office that no one except them can even enter (and no ancillary duties that would cause them to need to leave it), on another floor of of security, behind several doors that you'd have to hack if you didn't have basic security access. And when they're in a crime scene, they're usually under guard. I have very rarely seen FT's start in a round, usually what happens is they join late, and are immediately scooped up by security and directed to the crime scene you created, leaving you no opportunities to subvert or stop them or even plan ahead for some attempt to fool forensics.

So, maybe generic colored fibers aren't the best idea, but how would you tackle this problem, assuming 'leave it as is' is not an acceptable answer here? Some form of defense against leaving evidence? Changing the results the FT gets in some other fashion?

[ShameOnTurtles]

So, maybe generic colored fibers aren't the best idea, but how would you tackle this problem, assuming 'leave it as is' is not an acceptable answer here? Some form of defense against leaving evidence? Changing the results the FT gets in some other fashion?

 

I know this wasn't exactly directed at me but I have an idea. What if the fibres were changed to the colour and class of the clothing? For example, someone wearing black gloves and an engineer uniform would leave black glove fibres and/or yellow or orange jumpsuit fibres. Someone wearing a black suit and jacket would leave fibres from a black suit and black coat. This would remove the, quite frankly, ridiculously specific analysis but still narrow down the search pool.

A counter to forensics is simply not wearing stuff that's unnecessary, and keep your clothes generic. I think people should be encouraged, if they want to avoid being identified by forensics, to seek out counters to that kind of thing. We have lots of lockers with random jumpsuits, hats, and otherwise.

I do think time to get the evidence is a valid concern here. Back when I used to play forensics technician/CSI it took a long time to get evidence in your lab, catalogued, analysed, then your conclusions drawn up, and communicated to the relevant people. By the time that is finished most- I'd go as far as to say almost all- criminals have already either outsed themselves or been caught another way. Anything we can do to shorten this to make it more viable is something I think worth pursuing.

[DronzTheWolf]

If you're wearing your basic uniform while doing traitor stuff you're doing it wrong already. An easy counter to forensics is to just swipe something from the upstairs locker room. They're looking for an assistant in a grey uniform with budget insulateds an a top hat while you're wearing a doctor's uniform with a cloak.

[Bauser]

... Except, then you can't even let anyone look at you while you're wearing the alternate uniform, or it's a dead giveaway not just to an FT, but to anyone who sees. And you can be damn sure any AI will be watching if they get a hint of that. And even if you ONLY wear the alternate uniform for exactly when you're DOING the crime, putting it on immediately before and taking it off immediately after, you're making yourself a sitting duck for an extra minute just so you can perform the song and dance of stripping down and dressing up - and that's time you're spending 1) totally vulnerable (because you can't really move and it's harder to use equipment) and 2) near the crime scene.

And after all that... they can just expand the search area by another room or two, and find the nearest door that you DID touch while in standard clothes. "Well, yea, the chef wasn't IN the crime scene... or any of the rooms next to it...... but he WAS at this maintenance tunnel nearby, and a chef has no reason to be there, so let's HuT him").

[ShameOnTurtles]

[mention]Bauser[/mention]

Of course there are risks involved in faking your appearance. It should be very difficult to fool a clever forensics technician.

Anyways, what fix do you support/propose for forensics?

[Bauser]

That's not a "clever" forensics technician. That's any FT who knows how to brush with his brush and put the bits in the machine.

The information you get from forensics analysis shouldn't be the person's entire wardrobe, and it shouldn't be able to describe the worn items specifically. A person who interacts with items or objects should leave their clothes fibers on it, but knowing that the black fibers came from a top hat instead of a black jumpsuit or gloves is too much.