Maint Access Changes

[Nantei]

2 hours 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)

Very unlikely. I almost never see additional access passed out in an emergencies, and if I do it's usually because the Captain is already right there with his laptop ready. Also relying on whitelisted roles that are often not present during the wee hours of the night is bad. I also don't see this happening much more frequently with these changes for the exact same reason it doesn't now. Changing access levels for an entire department is extremely time consuming. Maybe, maybe if it could be done remotely via the access terminal this would work. But not now, not with how our ID system works.

2 hours ago, Arrow768 said:

Get someone with access to issue them a guest pass

Guest passes are really clunky, and seldom used for this reason. Also having to corral up everyone to hand out guest passes is extremely time consuming, which means most people won't do it. Many people do not even know what guest passes are, how they work, etc. It's also not really what a guest pass is for. Guest passes are usually supposed to be short term, maint access is almost certainly going to be a full-round thing.

2 hours ago, Arrow768 said:

Get command to enable emergency maint access

Same problem as before. I feel like you are only planning around highpop with these changes. Many command players will not play if there isn't another one already, which often leads to no command at all in the midnight hours. This wouldn't be a big issue on highpop, on lowpop it would. Swiping for Red, ERT, etc, is often extremely obnoxious to do as a solo command player. To the point that I almost never do it. On top of this, granting access to literally everyone is a pretty counter-intuitive way to get around the fact that Security should have this access to start with. 

2 hours ago, Arrow768 said:

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.

This being part of the PR right now is the only way I would ever accept this as a decent idea, and it would need to be on literally every alert level that isn't green. And even then I still think the changes are not necessary, it would just take some sting out knowing at least there was a compromise.

2 hours ago, Pratepresidenten said:

IAre 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.

First question: What?

Second question: What? But also why are you immediately strawmanning us? Who is this even directed at? Why is it that my motive for wanting to have access I should already have is because I want to rush after an antag, and that I am similarly apparently not interested in roleplay? This is a horrible, bad faith argument, and I am honestly a bit shocked you would come here and chide us like we're children like this.

23 minutes ago, Cnaym said:

Depending on the relations crewmember may refuse to help, or be scared to go into the bloodfilled sublevel and so on.

This is sort of the problem in a nutshell. The 'fix' to get around this access Security should already have is A. Not particularly interesting to the crew member they are being forced to interact with. It's basically, "AI DOOR!" but with an engineer. B. Really goofy to expect someone who isn't a member of security to risk their neck escorting you into potentially extremely dangerous areas. C. Often going to end with a, "No thanks." in which case, guess what? The workaround does not work. I see this being a net negative way more often than a positive. Could positive interactions be generated here? Yes. Is it likely? No. Being a doorknob is rarely fun.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Nantei

[Crozarius]

In reading the replies here I've seen a number of people bring up that having to get other crew to be "doorman" is a bad thing. However, I remember that in the Departmental Security thread the argument was that giving officers access to departments would result in officers RPing less with department crew because they wouldn't need to ask to be let in - in other words using them as a 'doorman'. Isn't this a double standard? Which one is it?

 

Security are already restricted from access to regular departments - it's not much of a leap of logic that they wouldn't have access to maintenance; it's just another place that during standard operations they shouldn't be. In fact it makes even less sense for security to have access to maintenance when the crew at large don't have access there either, and security are primarily dealing with the crew.

[Seeli]

Cargo need the access for delivering crates through the tunnels, especially if something is wrong with the main halls/disposals, or they do not use either so that orders are kept private and guaranteed delivery. This could be things such as weapon crates for security or urgent medical supplies for medical. They also need the access for searching for bounties, such as action figures and soap, or taking excess tanks/goodies for selling.

This PR seems specifically targeted at security. If someone abuses their access, give them a slap on the wrist. Please do not punish everyone for the misdeeds of a few. In other words, please do not hit cargo in the crossfire for security's maintenance sweeping.

[niennab]

I am a bit on the fence about this only because in a recent changeling round and vampire round, both antags were able to successfully dive into maintenance and escape. Moreover in both cases, 2-4 Officers were on their tail. It's very hard to chase someone in maintenance. But...I'm also a synth main.

I believe it was mentioned earlier, but what about Security only having access to maintenance on blue and red? This should eliminate maintenance sweeps, since if Security is in the tunnels during a code red, they're likely not focusing on the masks and knives scattered about.

Additionally, it's often that on rounds I play, there's 1 or 2 Engineers but 6 Security characters. I wager it will be hell for engineering to juggle their job, repairs and being screamed at by Security to open doors.

Edited November 25, 2019 by niennab
Grammar

[AmoryBlaine]

1 hour ago, Crozarius said:

In reading the replies here I've seen a number of people bring up that having to get other crew to be "doorman" is a bad thing. However, I remember that in the Departmental Security thread the argument was that giving officers access to departments would result in officers RPing less with department crew because they wouldn't need to ask to be let in - in other words using them as a 'doorman'. Isn't this a double standard? Which one is it?

The difference is one is asking someone to open their door to where they work. The other is asking someone to follow you around the station opening doors, standing in front of you as you both move. Pressing a button and nodding is different than being expected to dedicate 10 minutes to opening doors for me.

 

[Scheveningen]

7 hours ago, Pratepresidenten said:

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 are you even talking about? Literally no one here is threatening to protest this by attempting to do publicity stunts that would get them banned or whitelist stripped. The one person who I expected to be melodramatic about this in this thread in defense of the station roles didn't even bring the melodrama in with them today.

7 hours ago, Pratepresidenten said:

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.

Nobody is arguing against this. But assuming someone wants badly to "rush after antag and kill he with big grug club", they will do so regardless of what is mechanically changed. Reduce security officer slots or make them departmental if you want to reduce the over-saturation of security officers running through maintenance with a fine-toothed comb and catching antagonists without much effort. That's the way you fix this. Don't turbonerf the access that people lobbied for assistants to get, that CTs have had, and various other dept. jobs have enjoyed adjacent access to their department maintenance for.

This is a game balance problem that's being addressed, moreso than it is a behavior problem. 

Legitimately embarrassing and disrespectful, prate, considering what your first edited post looked like, I think I would've preferred if you didn't edit it.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Scheveningen

[Zundy]

Remove "maintenance access" in it's entirety and have "maintenance panels" which you screw and crowbar off to access maint. Opens up the door for maint RP and is far less problematic imo. Maybe have the panel auto-unlock for some key people idk.

[Zundy]

You know I'd go so far as to say that everyone should have maint access making it so that antags being in maint ain't no thing so long as they can fabricate a good reason for being there.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Zundy

[Scheveningen]

Yeah, suggested that, I definitely want nearly open borders as far as the station is concerned. Everyone should have basic maint access if not full ability to (almost) explore the whole station. It'd give antags plausible deniability and also would create patterns of regular characters walking into places, being accosted and carefully explaining their good intentions. Gives antags the ability to take this same approach and lie about their true intentions to get off scot free, and then not be technically punishable.

[canon35]

Engineering, Paramedics, Janitors, and the Heads having maintenance access is grand. 

What isn't is cutting Security's access. A good chunk of the station is maintenance, ISD is expected to be able to find regulation breakers and search the station for them. I don't see how forcing ISD to rely on having to get others to drop what they're doing and aid them like this is a decent solution. As stated earlier this change could result in Sec having to grab the rare engineer or paramedic on some rounds to aid them instead of focusing on their duties, or having a head of staff lead them into a possibly dangerous zone. This also removes the opportunity for a antag to use a officer's ID to be able to navigate maintenance or a officer using his access to help crew evacuate or get around a breach.  On a canonical/lore note, why would CentCom lock out it's own ISD from accessing maintenance zones? Their facilities and the Aurora itself has been attacked canonically by outside forces, while NT also has numerous competitors and a paramilitary group dedicated to destroying them. Doesn't make much sense to lock your own boys out of your station's vulnerable areas in that case. 

For Cargo, see Seeli's post. The nice thing about the Cargo Techs having all maintenance access is being able to move crates around in the tunnels in case the main halls aren't passable and to search maintenance for bounty objects. Other than that, I've found the all-access as good a tool for antag actions as the warehouse.  

Assistants losing their access would be nice. I don't really get why they have it still, being just greytide or bar RPers at most. I'd also argue that Liasons/Consulars should have full maintenance access as well, considering they're meant to be a vital role on the station as well. 

There already are numerous alcoves for antagonists to set up shop, especially the more based oriented ones like cult. If you want to make maintenance more of a maze/antag hide out, I'd argue the best way is mapping more onto maintenance. More small side rooms, ladders, side tunnels. 

[Nantei]

5 hours ago, Crozarius said:

Which one is it?

I've never made that argument, you're not quoting anyone who specifically said this. This is like asking me to argue with ghosts. 

5 hours ago, Crozarius said:

Security are already restricted from access to regular departments - it's not much of a leap of logic that they wouldn't have access to maintenance; it's just another place that during standard operations they shouldn't be. In fact it makes even less sense for security to have access to maintenance when the crew at large don't have access there either, and security are primarily dealing with the crew.

Assistants literally have maintenance access, as does Cargo, almost every single department has access behind their respective departments. Tons of people have maintenance access. 

43 minutes ago, Zundy said:

You know I'd go so far as to say that everyone should have maint access making it so that antags being in maint ain't no thing so long as they can fabricate a good reason for being there.

To be honest I almost never look at someone sideways for being in maintenance. I don't see many others do it either. Maintenance is hardly a highly sensitive area, tons of people have access, assistants have access. Yeah, seeing an MD in maintenance is odd, but there's medical supplies in there sometimes, and hell, maybe they were just simply curious. There's tons of plausible reasons to be there. Best case you can arrest someone for... trespassing? Really validy behavior.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Nantei

[Dark1Star]

I'm gonna bring up a few points, one, the loot in maint is hardly anything to make a fuss about, the best thing you will find in maint is, extended emergency oxygen tanks, tactical/boot knives, a vest which is honestly just bad, and on the very rare occasion, kitty ears. The tactical knives you can hack an autolathe for and shove in a boot, most security ignore the fact that the autolathe is hacked because a lot of the time, it's needed for research/bounties anyway. The EEOT (emergency tanks) are useful just because they're a god send upon a station depreasurising, and as security, that's vital. The vest is just bad overall, I am not sure on the stats, but I think it's worse than the normal officer vest.

Now on to my next point, losing security in maint is fun, and it's easy, and trying to find antags in maint is hard. All it takes is for you to lose sight of them for one second, and bam, they've either dipped down another tunnel, or have hidden them selves in a locker, which usually most people don't look for.

Quote

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.

On to what you said Prate, I am not entirely sure what you mean by the top part, but waiting for someone or the AI to help you out is kinda pointless, because there are a lot more doors in maint than just the ones that lead to a hallway/department, there are also no cameras in maint, so the AI cannot track you down, so you need to pin-point your location in maint for them to do so, but also, departments that do have access to maint, only have access to a certain part of maint usually, besides Engineers, and let me tell you, if security was hunting down some massive pink death bug in maint, and I called an Engineer over to help me get to it, if they fear RPd correctly I would expect a "Hell no" and a middle finger.

On to your next point, I like to consider my self a decent security officer, I RP with antags and station crew as much as possible, I never used to, but with antags, I don't needlessly gank them, and I've been shouted at people in OOC, and ICly for giving antags too much leeway, I talk before I shoot, if I find an antag in maint, and he stops and turns to look at me, I won't instantly shoot him, now I can also say the same for a lot of people in security, or at least, a lot of the ones that are in the security discord, we love to RP and needlessly ganking an antag as you put it, isn't what we do. I can't say the same for EVERYONE in security, but most of the time the bad officers are usually the first to go via admins or just don't like the server and complain about their death.

To my finishing statement, maintenence is a dangerous place for crew and officers, and the safest for antags, all it takes is an antag with an E-Sword or a shield, hell just a sword or boot knife, and that officer is fucked, I feel like a lot of the +1s to this PR is coming from people who don't play security, or don't play it as much as we do, and think a lot of us are just looking for valids, when in fact, behind a lot of the ex-military baldies you see, sometimes you'll find great characters to RP with, but there's always the meme that sec just wants valids, and everyone is supposed to hate security because they are fun removers.

[sonicgotnuked]

I'm going to agree with this PR. There are options, like any other department, for security to get inside. If worse comes to worse, command can always enable maint access or the three officers can stun baton a door open.

 

I also bring this up in the perspective of response time. It only takes one second for a single person to yell out bad stuff into comms. It will improve the safety for the antags to do some sneaky crap without one misstep sideways suddenly blowing their entire cover then five officers all showing up.

 

It doesn't really matter how robust you are. One person can not be expected to fight the entirety of security at once. I don't find an issue in reducing their response time to maintenance. Hell, I say test merge it, see how well it goes for a week or two, then decide if there needs to be some adjustments.

 

Security generally is a department that is always staffed. Even during deadhour, there are always 4+ people.

 

Generally, I don't think it's too hard for an officer to track down antags in maint. I'd even be ok with code red giving officers maint access.

[N8-Toe]

11 hours ago, Zundy said:

Remove "maintenance access" in it's entirety and have "maintenance panels" which you screw and crowbar off to access maint. Opens up the door for maint RP and is far less problematic imo. Maybe have the panel auto-unlock for some key people idk.

I got to say I really like this. leave keycard access to engineering only, but anyone with the right tools can just yoink em open. 

[Brutishcrab51]

29 minutes ago, sonicgotnuked said:

I'm going to agree with this PR. There are options, like any other department, for security to get inside. If worse comes to worse, command can always enable maint access or the three officers can stun baton a door open.

 

I also bring this up in the perspective of response time. It only takes one second for a single person to yell out bad stuff into comms. It will improve the safety for the antags to do some sneaky crap without one misstep sideways suddenly blowing their entire cover then five officers all showing up.

 

It doesn't really matter how robust you are. One person can not be expected to fight the entirety of security at once. I don't find an issue in reducing their response time to maintenance. Hell, I say test merge it, see how well it goes for a week or two, then decide if there needs to be some adjustments.

 

Security generally is a department that is always staffed. Even during deadhour, there are always 4+ people.

 

Generally, I don't think it's too hard for an officer to track down antags in maint. I'd even be ok with code red giving officers maint access.

Just last night, during a 19-player round, at round-start, I was the single only Security Officer that spawned. No CSI. No HoS. No Warden. No Detective. That's a helluva' assumption to make, that it's always staffed. I've seen manifests with 0 Security, too.

[sonicgotnuked]

3 hours ago, Brutishcrab51 said:

Just last night, during a 19-player round, at round-start, I was the single only Security Officer that spawned. No CSI. No HoS. No Warden. No Detective. That's a helluva' assumption to make, that it's always staffed. I've seen manifests with 0 Security, too.

This is why I said 'Generally'. I never claimed it was 100 percent of the time. It's like having no engineers, no power. It's like having no armory access. Like having no AI. Sometimes stuff will be lacking and that's just the nature of the server.

 

Out of everything, zero security or little security is pretty rare.

[Nantei]

3 hours ago, sonicgotnuked said:

I'm going to agree with this PR. There are options, like any other department, for security to get inside. If worse comes to worse, command can always enable maint access or the three officers can stun baton a door open.

I feel like I need to get this on a button.

Enabling. Maint. Access. Is. Not. Common. This is not a reasonable workaround, and unless that button is changed, it never will be.

When you are enabling maint access you are probably going to be swiping red, or ERT. It requires two command members, of whom are frequently not around on lowpop, and that they both stop whatever they are doing to go and give officers access. When antags are announced in the tunnels the common reaction is not to swarm, it's to get armed up. Because swarming people with guns while you have no guns is really silly. The armory design is already pretty much perfect for ensuring Security is very slow to react to serious threats. There's more reasons this is a bad workaround that I have outlined earlier in the thread.

 

Also as a side note that makes this feel a bit tone deaf: Stun batons don't do enough damage to break open airlocks. I normally wouldn't point it out because it's a bit petty, but I think it showcases that the expectations aren't grounded. (Also breaking doors with maglights takes a really long time. This will never be a valid way to chase people, ever.)

Edited November 25, 2019 by Nantei

[sonicgotnuked]

7 minutes ago, Nantei said:

I feel like I need to get this on a button.

Enabling. Maint. Access. Is. Not. Common. This is not a reasonable workaround, and unless that button is changed, it never will be.

When you are enabling maint access you are probably going to be swiping red, or ERT. It requires two command members, of whom are frequently not around on lowpop, and that they both stop whatever they are doing to go and give officers access. When antags are announced in the tunnels the common reaction is not to swarm, it's to get armed up. Because swarming people with guns while you have no guns is really silly. The armory design is already pretty much perfect for ensuring Security is very slow to react to serious threats. There's more reasons this is a bad workaround that I have outlined earlier in the thread.

 

Also as a side note that makes this feel a bit tone deaf: Stun batons don't do enough damage to break open airlocks. I normally wouldn't point it out because it's a bit petty, but I think it showcases that the expectations aren't grounded. (Also breaking doors with maglights takes a really long time. This will never be a valid way to chase people, ever.)

This is why I said something like red alert or even code blue. It'll be on a button.

[Nantei]

1 minute ago, sonicgotnuked said:

This is why I said something like red alert or even code blue. It'll be on a button.

The issue is that's not part of the current PR and Arrow has stated it won't be. So unless they change their mind, that's not on the table. Introducing a PR that has a massive issue that isn't addressed in said PR is no pickle pee. No pump-a-rum.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Nantei

[sonicgotnuked]

Just now, Nantei said:

The issue is that's not part of the current PR and Arrow has stated it won't be. So unless they change their mind, that's not on the table.

I assume that's why this feedback thread still exists. Being in a PR doesn't mean said PR can't change. I guess if they change their mind. I'm curious how this would work out.

[Nantei]

1 minute ago, sonicgotnuked said:

I assume that's why this feedback thread still exists. Being in a PR doesn't mean said PR can't change. I guess if they change their mind. I'm curious how this would work out.

It is, but we shouldn't be acting on the assumption that it will be included when it's been stated to not.

[Xelnagahunter]

It has been stated as a possible follow-up PR and has been hinted that it's more than likely. As a non-sec and rare antag player I'm largely unaffected by this, so I don't have much of a strong opinion either way.

[GreenBoi]

18 hours ago, canon35 said:

Assistants losing their access would be nice. I don't really get why they have it still, being just greytide or bar RPers at most. I'd also argue that Liasons/Consulars should have full maintenance access as well, considering they're meant to be a vital role on the station as well. 

Assistants just had their access re-enabled actually. It's so they can actually help out better and get to public places better since they aren't Visitors and are meant to help.

[EclipseMF]

I really don't think maintenance access should be taken away from security and cargo.  While I can get people wanting it a bit easier on antagonists wanting to take advantage of maintenance, I just don't think it makes much sense to have that as the only reason to take that access away - and even if it's decided security shouldn't have that access, I really think cargo should still have it.  What is there that needs to be taken from cargo being able to go into maintenance?  Finding obscure items for bounties?  I think it'd really just make cargo somewhat more underwhelming as a job without even giving any other job or role any sort of benefit.

[AmoryBlaine]

@Arrow768 How come you designed a change that would specifically buff Traitors, Raiders, Mercenaries and Ninjas- by far the most well equipped antagonists- to the detriment of Changlings, Revolutionaries, Vampires and Cultists? Why did you feel they needed the buff, while the others needed the nerf?