Maint Access Changes

[furrycactus]

I think it's a fantastic idea. Maint is too trafficked, and a reduction in the access gives antags a good bit more leeway. And as Croz said, heads of staff are able to swipe to grant emergency maintenance access. This gives them an incentive to actually use it.

[Dark1Star]

I used to antag A LOT, (everyone remembers my John Normandy days) and let me tell you, there's so much fun in having to run away from sec, and having that FEELING of just... pure happiness that you managed to escape, escaping with your convoluted plan, sheer luck, or just absolute memery that you can laugh at after round end. But removing secs maint access, and then using it and escaping through maint and having sec not being able to chase after you just... sounds... boring. Maint is fun, and trying to lose sec in maint is FUN. 

[AmoryBlaine]

49 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

Seems like a great idea. Officers will get more interaction by collaborating with other departments with maint access to get in while antagonists will have breathing room, allowing a maintaining of low intensity cat and mouse games. I know as an antag it was both a blessing and a curse to have officers swarm maint because i couldnt get a reprieve to talk to them or do anything other than obliterate them or keep up a fighting retreat.

There are four officers, and three decks of maintenance, no camera cover, no proper lighting and little incentive to remain in maintenance past a preliminary sweep near the start of the round or cutting corners on patrols. The implication that it's not already easy to hide within maintenance and more so that it's a likelihood that security is the constant in this locale is false. Janitors, engineers and technicians are the most likely to rat out antagonists as they make use of the area much more frequently than security. Security responds to the location, rather than Security having a constant presence there.

 

10 minutes ago, Crozarius said:

This seems like a good change to me. I've seen enough rounds of security mains sweeping through maint at round start with a bodybag and a locker stealing everything. What's the point of contraband being in maintenance if Security immediately takes it all?

These should be removed, this is not an argument to remove Security's access to maintenance when these items do nothing to further antagonist play or RP. They serve the function of enabling non-antag, non-security characters/players to acquire basic combat gear, and nothing more. Some might say it enables 'small crime RP', I'd call that justifying mild powergaming. Wearing a stab vest, tactical mask and having a tactical knife aren't generating any interesting RP.

 

[furrycactus]

1 minute ago, Dark1Star said:

I used to antag A LOT, (everyone remembers my John Normandy days) and let me tell you, there's so much fun in having to run away from sec, and having that FEELING of just... pure happiness that you managed to escape, escaping with your convoluted plan, sheer luck, or just absolute memery that you can laugh at after round end. But removing secs maint access, and then using it and escaping through maint and having sec not being able to chase after you just... sounds... boring. Maint is fun, and trying to lose sec in maint is FUN. 

Fun is completely subjective. When I used to antag, I for one, hated running through maintenance to try and escape security. It was just anxiety inducing, knowing that there was hardly anywhere I had to hide from them, and that my round is over as soon as I'm caught.

[Doxxmedearly]

19 minutes ago, Snake2512 said:

Probably the worst offence that is yet to be spoken of is this will force the Head of Security to be way more of a frontline trooper.

Its hard enough to resist the temptations of personally overseeing all major incidents as it is but in the event there is a pursuit, the HoS will always now have to be on the scene in case they rush maintenance. This is a gameplay change that has absolutely no positive as antags will now more often than not have to deal with the HoS on their tail instead of bumbling officer #302

This is a good point that I overlooked. We need to consider this as a definite consequences, and I don't like the idea of it any more than snake does.

[Nantei]

30 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

Is that a bad thing?

Not inherently. I am someone who agrees that Security shouldn't have all the tools to react to every situation ever, this is why I argue for the ion rifle replacement. It's just generally pretty frustrating to try and chase people who are abusing all-access, which is already going to be problematic without using maintenance. Hell, even just abusing your departmental access can give you a ton of room to run from security in. Chasing someone into Research is essentially impossible unless there's an AI or someone to open the door for you right then and there. I really cannot stress enough how easy it is to lose security if you're clever about it. If anything I would say this is more of an argument for an expansion of maintenance similar to what servers like Eris have.

Edited November 24, 2019 by Nantei

[Scheveningen]

14 minutes ago, Snake2512 said:

Probably the worst offence that is yet to be spoken of is this will force the Head of Security to be way more of a frontline trooper.

I don't want to see this, yet it's exactly what will happen because officers will essentially be useless having to stand at a maintenance airlock for someone (often their direct head of staff) to help them in and then back out. 

Out of curiosity, was it not enough that assistants, CTs, etc got maintenance access and thus full reason to loot a good portion of maintenance loot before security does? This is the equivalent of trying to close the gates again after there was community outcry to keep them open.

Why don't we just make the majority of the station Open Borders Station 13 instead of continually adding more access creep into the game and allowing for more situations where people can be accidentally trapped? This is legitimately a better solution for antagonists and the crew.

[Nantei]

29 minutes ago, Crozarius said:

But really, I think that people are overreacting. If Security doesn't have access to maintenance, then maybe the heads of staff will remember that there's a revoke maintenance access restrictions button and actually press it during emergencies. I can think of a lot of deaths where the heads could have prevented using that button but didn't, and people died from not being able to access the aft escape ladder.

As someone who used to play a pretty good amount of head before, this isn't a realistic expectation. Unless you are on highpop, it can be difficult to get people to swipe even for red alert. God help you if you're the only head of staff. And even then, giving everyone maintenance access is usually for more natural emergencies like vented hallways and such. You don't want everyone in maintenance. 

Also seriously, the maint loot thing... there's not much worth caring about in there my guys. Like the best thing I am happy to find in there is Ambrosia Deus. The fight over maint loot is very silly, and assistants and CT's can beat you to it much faster. If your reasoning for removing an entire departments access is maint loot of all things, I don't know what to even say.

Edited November 24, 2019 by Nantei

[Scheveningen]

8 minutes ago, furrycactus said:

Fun is completely subjective.

I feel like everytime we have this discussion it always devolves into a "your concept of fun is inferior to mine" and that is never fun.

Fun is not completely subjective, only partially. The pursuit of 'fun' is better overall when your objectives involve boosting your own fun/engagement level in the round in tandem with other players and their characters. And trying to contribute 'fun' for as many as possible is not a subjective goal, it's definitely a goal in mind that tries to offer up an objectively interesting and engaging experience. SS13 is a game of deception, and while it may appear to have competitive elements thanks to its combat elements and overabundant violence, it is largely a cooperative game. Antagonists get beaten a lot because most antagonist players don't play antag on a heavy round-by-round basis, largely due to how chance weighting works, and the other times it's due to infrequent play overall. Combine also with the fact that "teamwork is OP" (or alternatively, bad teamwork breaks a team), and most solo antagonists get their ass handed to them.

It's hard to scratch out what constitutes as a 'victory' in a roleplay sense as an antagonist, since the largest priority entails survival above all. Antagonist is genuinely the most difficult role on the server. You're probably going to be in a disadvantageous position a lot, or you may die a lot to the station's crew simply because they played their cards better as a crew than you did alone. 

But honestly, it's high time antagonists just got the blunt adult talk and get outright told to stop asking for better training wheels than the ones they already have. There are many things that need reworked with specific antagonists, absolutely, malf/rev/etc can definitely stand to be more powerful on their own. Indirect buff/nerf changes like this doesn't actually help antagonists at all to grow and execute interesting stories, it just gives license to powergamer-style antagonists to powergame as they usually do, but much easier than is the norm.

[Arrow768]

I am going to address a few things:

Quote

There are four officers, and three decks of maintenance, no camera cover, no proper lighting and [...]

There are 4 officers, 2 cadets, a detective, a CSI, a HoS and a warden who can all potentially join a search in maint.
And 10 people (or 9 if we ignore the warden) are easily able to search maint in an efficient manner.

Quote

Why do paramedics get maint access, but officers not?

Paramedics regularly have to respond to miners or other injured people out on the asteroid and use the airlocks in maint to get there as fast as possible.

The only regular threat security canonically encounters in maint is cavern dwellers.
There is no need to respond urgently to cavern dwellers, as they arnt exactly fast when it comes to breaking down windows and even if they do, its just a broken window and a area vented.
With the small number of people that have access to maint, the danger of that is minimal, so security officers can just get an engineer and have them acompany them through maint.
(And maybe even fix the damage the dwellers did at the same time)

Quote

That change just means the HoS will have to frontline more!

Sure, if they are bad at their job.
A HoS can coordinate with the other heads of staff and/or the AI to get maint access for his officers if there is a severe threat.
They can also hand out guest passes to the officers that allows them to access maint.

Quote

How are the officers going to get access if they need it?

There are quite a few options:

• Get a head of staff to assign it to them (either through the hop, by using the spare id, or other means)
• Get someone with access to issue them a guest pass
• Get command to enable emergency maint access

In addition, I am also considering to grant them the access automatically on certain alert levels (in the OP), however I first want to see how this PR is going to work out without the additional access on elevated alert levels.

[Shenaanigans]

7 hours ago, Arrow768 said:

Potential follow-up PRs:

• Depending on how this changes the dynamic once its merged, a potential follow up might include automatic maint access for security on elevated alert levels.

I feel like this mechanic would fix most of the issues people are having with this proposal. There isn't really a reason for non-engineers (with the exception of janitor having a path to the crusher) to have access to maintenance off of code green, since ICly on your average day you're not looking out for suspicious people skulking in the tunnels (why would you when only engineers have access?), and I do agree that it's a major buzzkill for there to just be a rush to sweep all the contraband out of the tunnels at round start. Yeah maybe Joe Schmo will get their hands on a combat knife, but if they start self-antagging with it they'll get bwoinked and it's no longer a problem. Taking away all access to less than legal tools just because you think some dickwad will troll with them really isn't the right attitude for a role playing game where antags are meant to spice up a round, not get immediately shut down by ISD. Removing contraband entirely would also take away the freedom for antags to be resourceful with what they find in the tunnels and get a teensy bit more of an edge.

But anyway, things get messy and there suddenly is real reasoning to think there's someone lurking in the tunnels? Boom, you're free to roam now. Access when you need it, none when you don't. 

EDIT: One thing I do disagree with though is letting Paramedics have code green maint access. They should go along with sec in that they typically don't, but it gets switched on at higher alert for similar reasons. No reason for people to bleeding out in the tunnels when they didn't have access in the first place.

Edited November 24, 2019 by Shenaanigans

[Scheveningen]

14 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

There are 4 officers, 2 cadets, a detective, a CSI, a HoS and a warden who can all potentially join a search in maint.
And 10 people (or 9 if we ignore the warden) are easily able to search maint in an efficient manner.

Then speed-merge Departmental Sec to deal with the bloat of the security department, if this is what you're arguing here. This is a non-fix to the actual problem.

This 4D chess stuff never works. You need to actually hit the problems directly on the head to solve them.

Remember force gloves? They're not game-breaking OP anymore where most melee weapons would break your legs or lower body nearly instantly. https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/7003
Remember stun batons and pain cheese? Almost all stun batons got nerfed and many clothing and armor items protect far better against electroshock now. https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6679
Remember the traitor revolver when it was also the de facto best uplink weapon and it was also a ruthless ganking tool? It has AP now, but doesn't have ridiculously short time-to-kill now. https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5983

Not to toot my own horn but those are decent examples of previously cancer game mechanics that aren't a problem anymore because they got directly fixed. I could write novels of the deeds of Geeves, Moondancer, Wildkins, Matt, several others who are not to be intentionally discounted but aren't off the top of my head right now in terms of names. They see an issue, they address it with a direct and decisive solution. 

Directly fix security's gameplay oppressiveness virtually any other way beyond what the PR suggests here. You'll find better results in a week post-merge than you'll find in a month with the PR here as it stands if it gets merged.

Edited November 24, 2019 by Scheveningen

[Arrow768]

13 minutes ago, Scheveningen said:

Then speed-merge Departmental Sec to deal with the bloat of the security department, if this is what you're arguing here. This is a non-fix to the actual problem.

The argument was made that its difficult to search maint with 4 officers by multiple people, however they failed to account for all the other security staffers.
My response just corrects them.
Departmental security is unrelated to this topic.

Edit: I dont appreciate editing your post after it has been responded to @Sheveningan, and I´ll just ignore the added content as thats now way to have a discussion.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Arrow768
Addressing the edited post by shev.

[AmoryBlaine]

14 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

There are 4 officers, 2 cadets, a detective, a CSI, a HoS and a warden who can all potentially join a search in maint.
And 10 people (or 9 if we ignore the warden) are easily able to search maint in an efficient manner.

Are the CSI, Detective, HoS, Warden, and 2 cadets combing Maintenance? Why are any of them doing that- maybe the cadets, if they've got nothing else to do, or are with Officers. Maybe the detective if they're not doing their job.

Departmental Security is not unrelated, as this all falls into the same category of change, as far as I'm concerned. It's being pressed by the same people, with the same flimsy pretense of increasing interdepartmental interaction.

 

 

@Arrow768 I'm still wondering why contraband is spawning in maintenance, or why Security taking it is being brought up as a great reason for this change when no one but traitors, mercs, raiders, and ninjas will have ease of access to these areas- all of whom have weapons and gear already.

[Scheveningen]

The funny thing with maintenance contraband is the only useful things I ever find in there as an antagonist is soap to plausibly powergame slips with. Once in a blue moon an EMP grenades box shows up but I'm fairly certain it's because Brutish knows exactly where to find EMP grenades, the Treasure Island nerd that he is.

[AmoryBlaine]

15 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

With the small number of people that have access to maint, the danger of that is minimal, so security officers can just get an engineer and have them acompany them through maint.
(And maybe even fix the damage the dwellers did at the same time)

Yes, so make doormen of them? Make a doorman of one of the engineers as you walk around in maintenance during an emergency, likely up against Mercenaries, a Traitor, Raiders or a Ninja. You yourself said there's little canon regular reasons to be in there, so these are the instances we'll be dragging whatever engineer is available into.

16 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

Get a head of staff to assign it to them (either through the hop, by using the spare id, or other means)

This is not guaranteed to be a possibility. This is not a viable option in most scenarios wherein you are entering maintenance as they are typically time-sensitive emergencies.

16 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

Get someone with access to issue them a guest pass

This is not guaranteed to be a possibility. This is not a viable option in most scenarios wherein you are entering maintenance as they are typically time-sensitive emergencies.

17 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

Get command to enable emergency maint access

This is not guaranteed to be a possibility. This is not a viable option in most scenarios wherein you are entering maintenance as they are typically time-sensitive emergencies.

 

Who does this even benefit other than antag roles that are already well off? Why do they need more leeway, and what was the initial circumstance that had you spawn this idea?

[AmoryBlaine]

This addition is designed to give specific antags a large head start and a massive safe area to operate from for most of the round unless they blow their own cover. Currently we already suffer from enough silent raider and merc rounds- this only makes it more prevalent as they strike even less chances of running into the odd janitor or cargo tech.

 

[Scheveningen]

22 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

The argument was made that its difficult to search maint with 4 officers by multiple people, however they failed to account for all the other security staffers.
My response just corrects them.
Departmental security is unrelated to this topic.

To correct you, then, if correcting people is deemed very important right now -

Let's establish first-hand that even 4 people in security searching maintenance at a given time is an incredibly unrealistic scenario. Unless a sec officer has a partner with them and they're both armed to the teeth, they are absolutely not going into a maintenance shaft with an antagonist alone unless ordered to. 

The HOS has no place searching maintenance while he has officers available.
The detective is intended to be a people person and resident interrogator. No real reason to endanger themselves in maintenance, alone with a dangerous antagonist on the run when they only have a particularly weak revolver.
The warden certainly has no place to be in maintenance, ever. For reasons that should be self-evident.
The CSI would only enter maintenance to get to a crime scene or a body dump. They have no legitimate reason to be searching maintenance even with a partner unless they had a direct lead to another crime scene.
Officers are generally unreliable, at best you will have 2-3 officer presence and only between 1-2 of them is trying to work at their best.
Cadets are far more unreliable than officers, with an average of 0-1 cadet presence with an exact 0 rating of them being 'competent' in a sense. They cannot be blamed as much as non-present or daydreaming security officers, though. They are just innocent cinnamon bun rookies.

To say that even 9 people could be searching maintenance for a single or group of antagonists at once is a gross exaggeration of what really happens during gameplay. Security is not always fully stacked, only during very high-pop rounds. So, in reality, 2-3 sec staff could be searching maintenance, and on average they probably catch the antagonist alive in maintenance regardless. Which may or may not say something about both the suboptimal security grunts getting work done, in addition to the antagonist that somehow got caught when not outnumbered that badly.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Scheveningen

[Pratepresidenten]

I like this change as people should generally not be skulking maintenance, and I honestly dont see why this is such a massive issue. Are some of you really willing to face whitelist strips, jobbans and even server bans to protest this? You would throw away time and effort because you cannot wait for a moment while the AI/someone helps you out?

What is the point of even playing here if rushing after an antag is more important than RP?
What kind of toxic mindset is this.

Honestly. Play to RP, not to win.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Pratepresidenten

[AmoryBlaine]

There's also a large contrast between this being a chance for more interdepartmental interaction by making doormen of engineers, and also telling us to just get our IDs granted access, or ask the HoS for guest cards, cutting the supposed addition of interaction out of the equation.

[Cnaym]

I like this. Might be an error on my end, because I know what antags are played by who and where, but my officer focuses a lot on protecting people, protecting themself and working with the department (FT mainly, playing the detective as an "interrested crewmember" and so on) and that's what I enjoy most about security so far. It's not the running and gunning part, but offering people a hand or an ear when they are stressed out about monster reports. Heck I even do 11s when command can't be bothered to by going from door to door telling people what's up and why we are on blue / red.

I think the PR is carefully selected and the suggested concept of giving access on code raises is a great Idea I'd love to see. It would shift the map depending on how loud things are, something that tripple A studios love to advertise ^^

[AmoryBlaine]

1 minute ago, Cnaym said:

It's not the running and gunning part, but offering people a hand or an ear when they are stressed out about monster reports. Heck I even do 11s when command can't be bothered to by going from door to door telling people what's up and why we are on blue / red.

I think the PR is carefully selected and the suggested concept of giving access on code raises is a great Idea I'd love to see. It would shift the map depending on how loud things are, something that tripple A studios love to advertise ^^

I fail to see how any of that relates to any changes brought about by this suggestion, or why you support it. What you seem to be implying is that the rest of us against this are the contrast to you, and are in this for the "running and gunning part".

[Cnaym]

13 minutes ago, AmoryBlaine said:

I fail to see how any of that relates to any changes brought about by this suggestion, or why you support it. What you seem to be implying is that the rest of us against this are the contrast to you, and are in this for the "running and gunning part".

Just nope.

I implied that as a staff member with the antag knowledge I have to take extra caution to not meta anyone, so I focus on the investigative and PR part of playing an officer.

This change would force officers to seek out interaction with other crewmember or command. I think this is a good change, giving other departments more involvement. I did not wish to point out or critique anyone elses playstyle.

I know it is a small thing to point out. I wanted to point that thing out. I hope this helps in undrstanding the thing I wanted to point out.

Tldr: Interaction with other department good for RP. I like.

[AmoryBlaine]

1 minute ago, Cnaym said:

This change would force officers to seek out interaction with other crewmember or command. I think this is a good change, giving other departments more involvement. 

The involvement of a literal doorman, in an area which currently they are free to insert themselves into because we all have access. Again, this is just surface level 'interaction' on a mechanical level which adds nothing but a minor barrier for everyone else. This is made clear in the "Well just ask for access." and  "We'll lift the restrictions when you need to go in." responses so far.

[Cnaym]

28 minutes ago, AmoryBlaine said:

The involvement of a literal doorman, in an area which currently they are free to insert themselves into because we all have access.

Well that depends on the RP involved in that from securities side, the antags and the crewmember in question. You could aim at the scientist with your gun for example instead of the officer.. would create some more interesting scenarios in my eyes. Depending on the relations crewmember may refuse to help, or be scared to go into the bloodfilled sublevel and so on.