Departmental Security

[ben10083]

21 hours ago, ParadoxSpace said:

On 20/03/2019 at 08:57, ben10083 said:

 

1. Security channel is basically non-existent now, and communication is severely hampered, I have heard people defend it by saying "Just use the chat relay on laptop", but if an officer needs to be on a chatroom to be effective, just give them the darn sec channel access

1

 

Maybe an intercom can be added. Not having a channel and a headset is pretty important to keep the officers from just doing their old 'patrol randomly and show up with the entire department to one stabbing.'

 

Intercom still will have officers responding to situations, plus, of course they will respond to a situation, if they are confined in departments they are likely bored out of their minds already. I still do not see a good reason to remove the sec channel, just seems to be a further kicking down a already weak sec.

 

21 hours ago, ParadoxSpace said:

On 20/03/2019 at 08:57, ben10083 said:

 

1. This follows on the above thing, but now HoS controls 4 people. max . And this is including detective and CSI. The HoS will become the weakest Head by FAR, and we already see with IAA that heads are sometimes unwilling to defer to someone who knows what they are doing. I will not change this stance until someone convinces me why the RD should be the boss of a officer than HoS, despite the fact that the RD never done security work, ever.

 

What skills, exactly, are needed to say
'Ah. Officer? There is a man here with a crowbar inside research. He isn't a scientist. Sic 'em, boy.'
Considering Officers can literally be a minimum age of 18, I'm pretty sure the RD/CMO/CE/HoP know what they're doing. Also, strange how nobody is concerned about the HoP being the weakest head right now.

Edit: Also, the HoS still has a monopoly on violence. They have the entire armory, and control over who gets arrested.

 

It's true, anyone can call for sec, and that's the thing. Why do heads needs control over sec, if all they will do is report crimes in progress to sec? HoS should still have control over them, and the  department sec would still listen to the RD/CE/whatever when it comes to regulation violation reports.

 

21 hours ago, ParadoxSpace said:

On 20/03/2019 at 08:57, ben10083 said:

 

1. Security is now isolated and fatally disorganized, and due to this, any competent antag or sizable force of antag will find it laughably easy to overun the mall cops in each department since will have alot of trouble organzing themselves without a common channel to communication (COMMON CHANNEL DOESN'T COUNT)

5

 

Security isn't about winning, it's about roleplaying. That being said, just coordinate with the rest of the crew? Get guns from Science/Cargo? Fortify the departments you work in? It's not hard.

 

 

Most roleplay with sec regards in some way of protecting crew and assets, so I feel that the idea that sec solely exists to "stop da antags" is irrelevant, as someone has to be an obstacle for the antags, after all, there has to be some sort of resistance from the station against them. Also, it is a slippery slope allowing other departments to go milita mode, and fortification of departments and mass arming up can easily be seen as powergaming. Interesting to note however, is that the entire crew fighting against the antag is 100X worse than current sec doing so, and this would provide a excuse for crew to "interact" with antags by rushing them with weapons as if they are frontline infantry and engineering building a mega fortress every round

 

Is this really what we want to do to sec? Yes, there are people in sec that power and meta game, but it is up to people playing the server and staff to curb such behavior, yet it would be foolish to say any system would be foolproof. I feel this will greatly lower playability for people wanting to play security, as now they are resigned to having a staring contest with the cargo tech or standing in the empty abyss that is engineering for 2 hours. I would never play as sec if that is what I have to "look forward" to, as it seems this suggestion will make the only enjoyment for sec is forced rp with others or chair rp watching cams and yelling in common about sec threats

Edited March 21, 2019 by ben10083

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

With my particular antag playstyle, this would make those with similar tactics able to skip two major steps.  

1) divide command

2) divide and pick off sec

As i told the other heads, this may be good for low intensity issues like hooliganism but in the face of well prepped or group antags security will collapse.

It may be really easy to make command and these officers bicker over authority over what officers.

Cult, changeling, vampire, raiders, command antags, etc.

This will not come to pass if security as a meta continue to regard the HoS as the authority. This phenomenon exosts currently with the HoS being the most powerful head, with sec often siding with the HoS over even a captain. 

 

It will be interesting to see this tedted live. 

I may be wrong, if the security meta goes opposite of what i expect.

[CampinKiller]

I was originally in support of this, but not anymore.

 

If we are completely removing the ability of Sec to coordinate, they will be rolled on a constant basis. As an HoS-main, I will have approximately 0 power over my officers outside of code red, because “the officers are under their department heads, who are encouraged to listen to advice of HoS.” Any antags that work together would smoke the station. The goal of a round isn’t to win, yes, but if we want a chaotic, antag station every round, why don’t we rebrand as that and switch to LRP? There are better ways to rework sec that don’t involved cutting the HoS’s balls off and making it impossible for them to coordinate

[Evandorf]

3 hours ago, Senpai Jackboot said:

I may be wrong, if the security meta goes opposite of what i expect.

I think a likely outcome will be isolated departmental guards clamping down harder and faster than nornal due to their vulnerability. 

[Itanimulli]

11 hours ago, Senpai Jackboot said:

With my particular antag playstyle, this would make those with similar tactics able to skip two major steps.  

1) divide command

2) divide and pick off sec

As i told the other heads, this may be good for low intensity issues like hooliganism but in the face of well prepped or group antags security will collapse.

It may be really easy to make command and these officers bicker over authority over what officers.

Cult, changeling, vampire, raiders, command antags, etc.

This will not come to pass if security as a meta continue to regard the HoS as the authority. This phenomenon exosts currently with the HoS being the most powerful head, with sec often siding with the HoS over even a captain. 

 

It will be interesting to see this tedted live. 

I may be wrong, if the security meta goes opposite of what i expect.

Siding with what? I rarely see situations where this happens at all. Like. What setup must one make to cause this to happen? What junction of actions bring people to this apex? That's a reach if I've ever seen one.

Also, the fact that group antags can steamroll sec doesn't really leave the rest of the crew in a position that's any better. Think about this. I don't know what this mentality you're going on about is product of. What, you think research will research faster than the antags can get ready? No. f anything, research will just become the merc's gun factory. Coordinated antags can already steamroll sec if they bother to do it correctly.

[VTCobaltblood]

I am fully in support of testing this. Most arguments seen against it so far are "oh no but we'll lose now" and "THERE WILL BE NO MORE ARPEE". I definitely can't wait to actually feel secure in my department and having a handy dude at hand to involve in my shit. "Just call sec over lmao" is way more inconvenient in practice than on paper.

[ben10083]

5 hours ago, VTCobaltblood said:

I am fully in support of testing this. Most arguments seen against it so far are "oh no but we'll lose now" and "THERE WILL BE NO MORE ARPEE". I definitely can't wait to actually feel secure in my department and having a handy dude at hand to involve in my shit. "Just call sec over lmao" is way more inconvenient in practice than on paper.

As long as some things relating to policy are addressed, I am fine with doing a test merge to see how this pans out, otherwise we will get nowhere anyways.

[Azande]

I think there is literally no point in having a Head of Security and a Warden if this change becomes reality, especially if the Head of Security would not be in charge of department officers (which makes no sense?).

In basically every private security setting, security guards answer to a coordinator even if assigned to certain sections. I see no reason to not have the HOS have authority over officers still.

If their authority is removed, they are effectively the Warden with a different oufit and bridge access. Both can make warrants. Both have no authority over security, both have armoury access and can dole out weapons.

[zyymurgy]

My thoughts on this are, I like the concept but I think the execution thereof could use some fine-tuning.

The way I would prefer to see an idea like this is: security HQ and the brig remain untouched. Security stays its own department. HOS has full authority over all officers. They still have a radio channel to communicate on.

BUT: Officers are dispatched at roundstart to different departments, by HOS or by job-slot. They start out in the HQ as usual, get geared up, and then deploy to their departments. They will have radios that have both sec and their departmental channel enabled. They'll have a little cubicle to work from but be highly encouraged to patrol the department on foot. There will be two all-purpose officers who patrol the rest of the station and maintenance. HOS retains full authority but department heads have secondary authority, for example if the CMO orders something the officer can run it by the HOS if it sounds questionable, and if the HOS orders something and the CMO tries to belay it, the HOS's order carries priority.

I've worked IRL security before and that's a little closer to how things run from my experience. You clock in at the HQ, you go out to your posting, you stay in touch with the bosses on your radio, if someone important to the posting tells you to do something you ask the boss over the radio what they think, etc.

[Skull132]

I had a horribly long point based topic here, but it's become a bit meh. A lot of the points that I would have echoed there I have already stated in my earlier posts. Specifically ones that address:

• why a change in this vain might be positive and is necessary: to limit the control security has over antagonists, to allow antagonists more ground to do stuff on;
• how security even has this control: the ability for security, likely a team of 3 deployment ready officers on average, with a total of 7 deployment capable slots, is able to box in any antagonist in an already extremely advantageous setting (the station), unless the antagonist shapes their core gameplay around addressing the threat of security;
• and what can be done to lessen it: remove the ability for coordination is one way, extremely nerfing Security's presence and manpower is another, and continuously buffing antags is a third.

So instead, I want to address one key point remaining. Yes, hi, the entire point of these changes is to address and change a relatively core element of station gameplay. Or the round flow, I guess you could say. I saw quite a few notes about this intentionally fucking with balance, with the role of security in a round, and with the game flow. That is the point, because, as it stands, Security's presence and role in a round is a little too overarching, in terms of the control they can assert over game play. So diluting that control is a way to see about bringing change to gameplay, and we will attempt to make it an ultimately positive change for everyone. As long as they are willing to accept new gameplay flow.

Now, allow me to also allude to what the server leadership is thinking in terms of handling this PR. First, let me be clear, as far as current discussion goes, we are very interested in testing this out. How specifically this will work will be discussed over the next week or so, as there are a few things to sort out evident from both this thread and from the technical aspect of how to best keep this PR live for a period longer than a few rounds (which is how regular test-merges like this go). So stay tuned for that.

Further, we absolutely recognize the gravity of this change, and we will be subjecting it to clear feedback and iterations. Specifically, at present we are planning on concrete feedback threads on iterations and most likely polls. Polls can be filtered per job, so we can also categorize feedback into columns of, "Regular Joe, Regular Antag Bob, Regular Security Frank", to ensure that we get a good overview per affected party as well. And even if these changes end up not being implemented, it is my hope that we can learn from this experiment and apply what has been learned in another fashion.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

12 hours ago, Itanimulli said:

Siding with what? I rarely see situations where this happens at all. Like. What setup must one make to cause this to happen? What junction of actions bring people to this apex? That's a reach if I've ever seen one.

Also, the fact that group antags can steamroll sec doesn't really leave the rest of the crew in a position that's any better. Think about this. I don't know what this mentality you're going on about is product of. What, you think research will research faster than the antags can get ready? No. f anything, research will just become the merc's gun factory. Coordinated antags can already steamroll sec if they bother to do it correctly.

I outlined it in the post. Giving a play by play guide is outside the scope of my feedback. How i solo antag, and how others antag, will benefit with this change. 

Which isnt inherently bad. The issue is if the division and bickering is part of the antagonists created rp or just the jobs inherently.

As i said it can go in three directions.

1) sec is balkanized as command asserts dominance over their department officer. (I say 40% chance this happens) leaving it generally ineffective.

2) sec continues to be loyal to the HoS in large, dividing command as Heads get upset about this (i say 40% chance) leaving security and command infighting all the time.

3) this goes smoothly, but the HoS' lack of coordination ability leaves security unable to respond to moderate or major threats effectively. (I say 20% here)

This is based on my years of observing and participating in these dynamics from a player and staff perspective. 

 

Of course all three can happen simultaneously as each round is different, but one will probably become the new normal.

Edited March 22, 2019 by Marlon Phoenix

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

One issue i have not seen addressed is how the medical officer handles antagonists receiving medical care.

[VTCobaltblood]

12 minutes ago, Senpai Jackboot said:

One issue i have not seen addressed is how the medical officer handles antagonists receiving medical care.

I'd leave that to the CMO's discretion. 

[Scheveningen]

34 minutes ago, Senpai Jackboot said:

One issue i have not seen addressed is how the medical officer handles antagonists receiving medical care.

Definitely a discretionary thing. Similar situations will pop up but with a specific department-centered lens. I.e., xenobio outbreak -> sci officer is the first to be yelled at to do something helpful about it.

1 major thing that makes me not really persuaded to like this change as much is the complete fracturing of communication between the various department officers and the 'actual' security department. It's extremely awkward to have to walk/use a PDA/risk using the common channel to report a mistake/failure that occurred or something similarly too sensitive to broadcast over the common channel, particularly if the expectation is that you're all supposedly on the same team. Instead, it seems more clear that the divisions driven between members of the security team are there intentionally, and likely to keep them that way in the short and long term.

There is also an issue I see happening where the departmental officers will find themselves either intentionally or unintentionally left out of the loop of what the 'actual' security department is up to. Given the lack of a streamlined method of communication dedicated to the team unit, this is something I guarantee will happen.

Edited March 22, 2019 by Scheveningen

[Susan]

As a security player of a (long)? time period, I am alright with testing this change.

 

My concern isn't with gameplay, or flow, or anything like that; I simply do not like the idea of not having a department channel anymore, and I do not like the idea of security not answering to the HoS. The HoS should not have their authority gimped; I work a job that has security officers present. The HR person in the building, or the freight team lead - they don't issue orders to the TPS guys. They have their own lead and chain of command who responds, and if we need security, we call them. As it is, basically.

 

They also have their own radio channel. Being able to effectively communicate to call the 'general' officer for assistance or relay information is important. Security is already divided and mandated to stay in their respective departments; removing radio chat is utterly antithetical to A) common sense and B) security play in general. Why do all the other departments get their own radio channels at that point...?

 

Otherwise, I like the idea of spending time in a department and becoming that 'regular' sec officer and such, but the CoC changes and the removal of a massively important communication tool is more difficult to swallow.

 

Edit: Forgot to say, as per discussions on Discord/with Fowl, if SoP dictates the HoS the defacto authority in elevated alert levels and department heads in green, I am fine with that also. I just don't like the removal of the radio.

Edited March 22, 2019 by Susan

[Conspiir]

Perhaps instead of the headset having a security channel, every department officer has a special stationbound radio that tunes only to the sec channel? That way, if they want to speak on the sec channel, it has to be a decisive call (holding it in their hand), but they are still in the loop of anything that goes on elsewhere.

[Scheveningen]

4 hours ago, Conspiir said:

Perhaps instead of the headset having a security channel, every department officer has a special stationbound radio that tunes only to the sec channel? That way, if they want to speak on the sec channel, it has to be a decisive call (holding it in their hand), but they are still in the loop of anything that goes on elsewhere.

Both of those accomplish the same thing. One of them is just less convenient. Don't really see the point in doing anything other than the most convenient option.

[VTCobaltblood]

7 hours ago, Conspiir said:

Perhaps instead of the headset having a security channel, every department officer has a special stationbound radio that tunes only to the sec channel? That way, if they want to speak on the sec channel, it has to be a decisive call (holding it in their hand), but they are still in the loop of anything that goes on elsewhere.

Won't work. The main disadvantage of SBRs is that they don't work across z-levels. Although if they get a modified SBR that does transmit across zs, I'm all for it.

[ComradeCorbyn]

Ah, jeez. 

Okay, one of the main issues I read was that it would be particularly easy to destroy divided security as an antag team (merc, raider, cult, et cetera). While I don't have a guaranteed fix for this, I know that Departmental Security is a thing we should embrace - that being said, in order to avoid situations where Departmental Security gets steamrolled - I'd recommend a directive, or otherwise something that Command can enact upon for Code Red (possibly even Code Blue) situations that would result in all officers, regardless of department, to assemble under the direct orders of the Head of Security.

Something that popped up in my head during the shower and I didn't want to forget it, so that's why this is so barebones at the moment. 

[AmoryBlaine]

18 minutes ago, ComradeCorbyn said:

While I don't have a guaranteed fix for this, I know that Departmental Security is a thing we should embrace

Why? What does it bring to the table, that is not already possible?

[ComradeCorbyn]

1 minute ago, AmoryBlaine said:

Why? What does it bring to the table, that is not already possible?

Kind of taken out of context there, did you read anything else? 

[AmoryBlaine]

10 minutes ago, ComradeCorbyn said:

Kind of taken out of context there, did you read anything else? 

I did, which is unrelated as to why it should be embraced.

Quote

Okay, one of the main issues I read was that it would be particularly easy to destroy divided security as an antag team (merc, raider, cult, et cetera).  In order to avoid situations where Departmental Security gets steamrolled - I'd recommend a directive, or otherwise something that Command can enact upon for Code Red (possibly even Code Blue) situations that would result in all officers, regardless of department, to assemble under the direct orders of the Head of Security.

It's just an answer to an issue created by the concept in the first place. Currently, if Security require orders they go to whomever is at the top of their chain of command. If there isn't a HoS, it's Captain, if not them, the HoP- if not them, the CE, RD or CMO. With departmental security, who are they answering to when there is no HoS, no Captain? In a round without Heads of Staff, what are they expected to do?

[Conspiir]

36 minutes ago, AmoryBlaine said:

It's just an answer to an issue created by the concept in the first place. Currently, if Security require orders they go to whomever is at the top of their chain of command. If there isn't a HoS, it's Captain, if not them, the HoP- if not them, the CE, RD or CMO. With departmental security, who are they answering to when there is no HoS, no Captain? In a round without Heads of Staff, what are they expected to do?

The exact same as they've always done when there's no Heads: use discretion and protect the crew.

[AmoryBlaine]

1 hour ago, Conspiir said:

The exact same as they've always done when there's no Heads: use discretion and protect the crew.

But the difference between now, and with departmental security is you'll have an obligation to defend certain areas, over responding to threats. Currently, Officers will either group up, or patrol in pairs until there is a specific call out. With departmental security, you're going to be in an area, and then forced to decide whether it's worth going to respond to an exterior threat, or to stay within your department due to the obligation you have as per your role. If there's a shooting at X Department and I'm at Y Department as I have been assigned- is it in my interest to leave and go to the other department, when something similar may happen in my own? I can see a lot less movement from Officers, given the obligations they will have, and the fact that disorganization will lead to being poorly informed of the situation and under-equipped for most issues. Unless, of course, the intent is just for officers to disregard this department obligation in order to respond anyways, which makes no sense, given their purpose as Departmental Security.

 

 

[AmoryBlaine]

So, I've now seen how the new layout will work. Security offices OUTSIDE the departments they're suppose to be operating with, with the exception of fucking Medical, who has their Security office in the attic. This is so blatantly a means to strip the station of any possible security defense and almost entirely fall to the antagonist's whims-- or seek out some good old fashion LRP militia action. The idea that sticking Officer Doe in some little tiny office in the hall of each department, completely away from where the rest of that department's personnel will be, is going to make X department warm up to them, while the individual officers all compete for the office they want to be stationed at, is absurd. And it's honestly quite fascinating that no one has called this out for the blatant attack that it is in security players to try and isolate them from each other, and the departments they're supposedly going to be warming up to- but then again, it ain't really about that, it really is just about finding an easier way to give antags full control of the situation and justify station militias.