Remove stunbatons from officer loadouts

[Scheveningen]

Feel free to remove them from the officer lockers if you want, but they're getting nerfed quite substantially in this PR here.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6679

[Rushodan]

10 minutes ago, Scheveningen said:

Feel free to remove them from the officer lockers if you want, but they're getting nerfed quite substantially in this PR here.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6679

Oh wow. Okay - yeah I definitely think we should be trialing this PR before jumping to outright removal. It addresses the main reasons as to why they are a bit strong right now, however I don't agree with them having the same capacity as an improvised prod.

Edited July 7, 2019 by SHODAN
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[Nantei]

I still am of the opinion that we should just replace them with a melee rubber bullets equivalent. People don't abuse rubber bullets even though they are fairly good at taking down antags in voidsuits, because rubber bullets have a weight to them roleplay wise. Rubber bullets can maim and kill people. It's not very likely they will kill, but they can certainly break bones, and that makes people more hesitant to jump to them. Replace it with a telescopic baton that does 5 or 10 brute (This is pretty low, maglights do more damage), and 60 or 70 agony. Taking down armored antagonists should be incredibly difficult without hurting them, and the stun baton voids this entirely by being 100% non lethal despite being a literal cattle prod. Adding burn damage to it would not fix this as it would be relatively minor and incapable of long-lasting wounds, unlike rubbers.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Nantei

[Coalf]

I offer the following:
Immunize armor, reduce the buildup of the baton on limbs.

1) Baton is no longer viable against armored individuals, even if they're wearing something as simple as a vest.
2) Officers are now encouraged through gameplay to switch their gear around when engaging different targets. Sure an officer CAN baton rush someone in armor, but he's actively putting himself in more harm then he is doing damage. This encourages him through gameplay to alter his playstyle.
3) The baton remains just as strong against baldies, crewmembers, revs, and others as it is intended for such use.

It fixes absolutely all issues, without pointlessly gimping security by taking away one of the 3 crux items, having to engage people in CQC IS the weakness. If baton rush is the problem you need to increase the risk, this weakness provides, not remove the item. All that would cause is to encourage officers to resort to lethals/rubbers/flashbangs faster. None of us want that.

Ethics argument is dumb when you want to talk game balance, disregarding it.

[Bear]

On 06/07/2019 at 18:09, Resilynn said:

Which is when all of seurity whipped out their stun batons and started torturing (it’s pain crit, you can’t argue it’s not torture) the thing, shoving aside the people talking the assistant-alien-Queen down, forcing bygone to escalate because otherwise he was just repeatedly being prodded to the floor wordlessly- and then they immediately justified his retaliation as a reason to escalate to lethal force. 

Wrong. Yes security unga charged it. I in the hardsuit stayed back as I *only* had lethals. Lethals were used, later, after it sprayed me multiple times with acid.

Not the point though.

I agree something needs to be dine to stop the unga charges however. I dont think complete removal of the baton is a good idea without giving Sec a good equivalent. The taser is useless alone and trying to compare it the irl equivalent is silly. A taser today sends projectile electrodes which pierce skin and deliver high voltage to drop someones ass. One zap. Or multiples if need be. Its essentially a projectile cattle prod. And most models can be used as hand taser as well.

Buff it and nerf the baton imho.

[Resilynn]

You understand that replacing the stun baton (unless it’s with something weaker) defeats the purpose of this suggestion, right?

 

I’m directing this at everyone calling for a replacement, not just one person. 

[Nantei]

That is why my replacement is weaker. Currently the stun baton does 120 agony. Dropping it to 60 or 70 is a good start. Replacing it with a less lethal alternative akin to rubbers is my preference, but reducing it is acceptable to me. I like the idea of a melee weapon that can challenge armor in desperate situations, same as the rubber bullets. I don't like it being good against everyone to an absurd degree.

[Bear]

To be clear. I meant bring the taser and baton into a middle ground instead of just replacing the baton.

[GlitterGuts]

On 07/07/2019 at 22:53, Bear said:

Which is when all of seurity whipped out their stun batons and started torturing (it’s pain crit, you can’t argue it’s not torture) the thing, shoving aside the people talking the assistant-alien-Queen down

yea I got stun locked as queen by two officers with stun batons while my followers did nothing to protect me. In what world a glorfied stun prod can take this down 

Spoiler

is beyond me. I prefer the idea of telescopic batons that maybe have a shorter stun length and can be collapsed into the pocket or vest. If you dont want a baton at all, just beef up flashes/pepper spray

[Scheveningen]

Telescopic batons are not gonna happen, chief. They are brutal weapons and far, far worse to deal with than stun batons. It is the very reason only the HOS (and I think captain) have one.

Edited July 12, 2019 by Scheveningen

[Bear]

4 hours ago, GlitterGuts said:

yea I got stun locked as queen by two officers with stun batons while my followers did nothing to protect me. In what world a glorfied stun prod can take this down 

  Hide contents

is beyond me. I prefer the idea of telescopic batons that maybe have a shorter stun length and can be collapsed into the pocket or vest. If you dont want a baton at all, just beef up flashes/pepper spray

This is a fault of our outdated aliens imho not the baton. Batons shouldnt even work on aliens lmfao

Edited July 12, 2019 by Bear

[Itanimulli]

>Remove effective nonlethal countermeasure

Alrighty. Let's see how this goes. I can already feel the IRs about an officer needing to beat the sh-t out of someone because they wouldn't go down, or resort to "less than lethal" rubber bullets.

[Nantei]

If you are pulling out rubber bullets for someone who can file an IR you are probably making a huge mistake. Just saying.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

We should not have to rely on IR's to be considered effective game balance.

[Guest Menown]

Let me preface this by saying I do not play security. I did for a number of years, with a trackpad that refused to work when I was moving, so I was forced into non-confrontation tactics with security that lead me to obtain a more passive playstyle of security utilizing talking subjects down, treating them as people, and utilizing group force or Beepsky when things went sour. I always had a plan of retreat when possible, and a fallback point to await for back-up.

Never, should the threat of Incident Reports influence balance. NanoTrasen hires their people with the expectation they're reasonable beings, and the best trained, given NanoTrasen typically trains them. Necropolis as well provides some of the best private security the known galaxy has to offer - YOU ARE NOT BEAT COPS, YOU ARE NOT MALL COPS, YOU ARE NOT PMCs, YOU ARE NOT POLICE. You are staffed personnel providing a service to your organization in the form of security and loss prevention. Your duties are to prevent harm to the company and to minimize loss of productivity and assets. When you're hired for security, it should be your understanding that you do not want to harm people, you do not want to cause more trouble than it's worth regarding the daily operations. You should strive to NEVER have to deploy any weaponry or defensive tactics in a shift. A quiet shift is a good shift.

Now, the rest of this is centered on the pros and cons of removing the stun baton or replacing it - the latter being the preferred option with my own suggestion being a nightstick for disarm tactics and controlling the battle in close melee, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Pros of Removing Stun Batons from Standard Issue

- Restraint increases in the security officers that can be trusted to roleplay accordingly. Lacking a more central means of detainment, some officers will find themselves ending most conflicts through talking the subject down, versus outright detainment.

- Increase of back-up; lacking a stun baton, officers may find themselves calling for back-up more often, because now you'll find yourself unable to one-tap people into submission.

- Increase in accountability; more officers on the scene means better accountability. Being forced to resort to other methods of de-escalation means you can't get away with one-taps, which means if you have to resort to something physically damaging, you'll be forced to explain why you've got no injuries but your subject has broken bones from rubber bullets.

- Increasing use of Beepsky; Beepsky can still stun. He's still a force and an extra hand. He might be pulled into use more often, or he might not, we'll see.

Cons of Removing Stun Batons From Standard Issue

- Defensive options limited; a dwindling defensive armament is meaning that lone officers are going to have less options when jumped by the predatory antag. This is somewhat mitigated by what will possibly be an increase in manpower on patrols. A good option to subvert this would be nightsticks that fit on the security belt, instead of telebatons which can be coded to have better disarm capabilities, instead of outright stunning as a means to control the fight. Utilizing open-handed tactics in conjunction with the nightstick may improve this dramatically, assuming you're able to wrestle a weapon from a would-be assailant.

- Lethal defense may increase; without an effective means of instantly subduing a subject, the more fresh minded officers may find themselves resorting to their pistols or outfight fisticuffs in conflict, which would be bad of course. A possible prevention to this may be giving officers the basic force gloves, which can still be resisted out of or outright ran from by a careful minded antag. This'll encourage grabs and disarms versus beating Joe Schmoe to his maker.

- Balance shifts toward the antags; this is a hesitant con, as security typically has numbers and weaponry advantages on most antags, so the lack of better gear typically isn't much of an issue. As always, there's the worry of more steamrolling by raiders/heisters, and the well staffed rev group, but keeping a supply of riot gear (including batons) in the armory is an acceptable response to this.

To conclude, there are different advantages and disadvantages to everything we do, and when it comes down to it, we don't really know what'll happen, until we test it out.We've never been above trials for things, but the clearly disingenuous responses to change I've been reading here and the fear that people are expressing over being IR'd lead me to believe that people don't actually want to roleplay, they just want to click vertical man until horizontal. Maybe don't do that.

[Carver]

I don't have to say much other than that the more Security's stun tools have been nerfed over the years, the more I've found it efficient to just punch criminals in the nuts over using anything else in my repertoire.

Don't nerf things to accommodate the worst antag players.

[Fortelian]

On 06/07/2019 at 12:24, SHODAN said:

Unlike real life there is no way to tackle someone who is full running away from you, unlike real life people who are tazed are still able to effectively fight back, spam disarm or resist and ultimately be a pain in the ass to deal with.

I agree with what Shodan says here. In real life an officer would be able to outrun someone and tackle them because an officer would be more physically fit to do so. That is why security would need something enabling them to take down someone. I am ok with removing stun batons as long as they have a way to down criminals. 

Don't forget that NT knows people are skeptical of NT and may be acting on this.