Maint Access Changes

[BurgerBB]

This is unironically dumb as hell and makes emergency situations worse, and certain antags stupidly powerful. I know it's an HRP server but sec not getting maint access practically means that teleporting antags are more powerful than they already are and it will be difficult to escape emergency situations.

 

Legitimately if I had one wish from god it would be to revert this PR. Nothing about this PR is constructive towards gameplay.

[SeniorScore]

as a ninja main 10/10 change I can finally gank literally everyone with no recourse

[Kintsugi]

9 minutes ago, SeniorScore said:

as a ninja main 10/10 change I can finally gank literally everyone with no recourse

As a sec main I give this change a 0/10 for this exact reason!

[Hepatica]

1 hour ago, BurgerBB said:

This is unironically dumb as hell and makes emergency situations worse, and certain antags stupidly powerful. I know it's an HRP server but sec not getting maint access practically means that teleporting antags are more powerful than they already are and it will be difficult to escape emergency situations.

 

Legitimately if I had one wish from god it would be to revert this PR. Nothing about this PR is constructive towards gameplay.

Probably the only thing I'll ever agree with Burger on

[Outboarduniform]

Every single round I have played, as a security main, with this implemented, has given me a daily dose of mesothelioma. It's just terrible. 

Antags just walk into maintenance and the entire security department just goes, "well shucks jimmy, looks like we can't do nuthin' 'bout that now !"

Literally a single unarmed traitor can outperform the entire security team just because of maintenance access. I can't even imagine the absolute hell it's going to be for everyone involved when we have a group of cultists running amok in maintenance or mercs/heisters that we'll be essentially powerless to stop until the heads of staff approve emergency maintenance access. 

Which won't be possible on certain lowpop rounds.

I also can't even fathom the amount of torture we're going to have to go to to catch wizards and ninjas. It's going to suck. 

[AmoryBlaine]

I outplayed Sec as traitor Carmichael. I literally just slammed the door in their face, and that was that. My plan was getting the spare- things went south, nearly killed the Captain. Now. Had I done that, I would have aquired the spare and the Captain's ID. I'm a murderer, armed with an esword, in maintenance. What sane person is going to play doorman to Sec while I'm running around in the dark. Sec wouldn't be able to emergency lift the locks because they'd have no means. Even when they did get the doors unlocked, it was too late and I'd been given two chances to kill people and only did not because I knew they got stuck because of this change- I let one out, and just ran from the other. This adds nothing but ailment to Sec, removes a recently added feature for assistants, and deprives cargo of one of their few tasks to do.

[Scheveningen]

no one could have predicted this would be a bad change. absolutely no one.

[Snake2512]

Let me just be a certified rude boy and summarise the impending responses of men unironically defending this. 

 

'Ah but you see there are a number of things you can do to step around such predicaments that if were actually real options would simply mean we made the change for no reason.' 

[Scheveningen]

Over-reacting, Mog.

Anyway, https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/7520 counter-proposal is up. I'll patiently wait for the 30 day revert period.

[Doxxmedearly]

10 hours ago, AmoryBlaine said:

@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?

 

While I would word this in a much less accusatory tone, it's a good point. While the idea of helping antags is good, we've hindered some others.

Overall I loved the idea of this change but in practice it's really just a nuisance. Playing it out for a little longer is worth it, but overall I feel this should probably undergo a revert.

I think opening all of maint to everyone is just silly, though. 

[MattAtlas]

My personal thoughts are that this is a good idea in concept. I'm sure the idea came up in good faith.

However, this hinders some antags, and the ones that it doesn't hinder, it makes nearly invincible. Ninjas and mercenaries, for example, can just retreat into maints for a big portion of the round until security regroups and gets maint access or the access restriction is lifted - both take quite a lot of time.

I think security needs their maint access back at the bare minimum. The rest can go.

[MoondancerPony]

I agree with Matt, but I also think that if any part of this change is reverted, the whole of it should be reverted. If security gets their maintenance access back, so should assistants, janitors, etc.

[Arrow768]

On 27/11/2019 at 16:41, MattAtlas said:

However, this hinders some antags, and the ones that it doesn't hinder, it makes nearly invincible. Ninjas and mercenaries, for example, can just retreat into maints for a big portion of the round until security regroups and gets maint access or the access restriction is lifted - both take quite a lot of time.

Yes, it is slightly more difficult to get around maint for some antags, but ultimately all of them have means to deal with that and it is more likely that they will be undisturbed in maint, even if they just go to the areas they have access to anyway.

• All antags can access the directly adjacent maint tunnels to their departments, while being relatively sure that they wont be disturbed in there
• Traitors can buy the agent id card for 3 tcs (that makes them untrackable by the AI, if they so desire and comes with maint access)
• Vampires can use their abilities to get maint access
• Lings can ling a engineer
• Cult/Revs can convert someone that has access or can grant them that access

I am currently looking into a few options to make it easier to enable maint access if its needed:

• Move emergency maint access from the swipers to the command console, so a single head of staff can enable it
• Give heads of staff limited ability to modify ID cards (Hand out the access they have to id cards)
• Tie security maint access to the current alert level

Edited November 29, 2019 by Arrow768
Spelling

[Crozarius]

I like the change so far. I'm sure that eventually Security will change up their playstyle and tactics to compensate. Hopefully something other than run at antag and end round for valid! Must WIN!

[Bath Salts Addict]

I agree with Matt in that it's a good idea conceptually, but with the way players are and the way Aurora's map is, it's just not handled well. I'm also pretty sure the idea didn't come up in good faith but salting from a few specific players on a near-constant basis that snowballed into a full-blown implementation, as most impulse PRs are.

Let's be honest. Aurora only has one level. Construction and surface are barely looked at by anyone unless it's to go to the shuttle. On that one level, maintenance might seem very big, but more often than not it's a claustrophobic maze with maybe only one or two paths that just lead to the same spots anyways. And even then, you can split it into four section. The map was just not designed with this PR in mind.

Section one is cargo's pitifully small piece of maint that's only used to hack into the warehouse.
Section two is Research and Engineering's shared maint that provides antags with plenty of space to hide and even get up to their gimmicks, plus access to telecomms and engineering sublevel. Probably the best section of maint by far.
Section three is civilian maint, shared by medical and civilian and encompassing the eastern side of maintenance. While the largest maint from a bird's eye view, in reality it just a winding labrynthian path that's only notable for its crusher access and surface ladders.
Section four is security maintenance, encompassing an area that is even worse than section three in terms of the fact that there is nothing of value aside from a back entrance into the teleporter room and a maint door next to the armory if you're a bad enough dude.

Traitors, revs, cultists, lings and vamps are now pretty much confined to their departments and the surrounding maint area they do have access to. Keep in mind that every portion of maint is isolated from the other, so escaping into one means you need to exit out into the public view at some point, and all security really has to do in such a scenario is camp the exits. While a sound tactic in and of itself, camping maintenance is boring and no one can be bothered or competent enough to cover all the exits. Without an incentive to give chase directly into the dragon's lair, though, that is basically what security is forced to do. This gives the AI better control to lock down areas where the antagonist might be able to escape from, assuming they don't have tools.

The argument that cultists, lings and vamps can just use their various abilities to get access comes at the expense of the crew and, depending on their gimmick, may not fly 100% of the time. You can't try to discourage antagonists from needless killing/poorly played out antagonism and then basically shoehorn them into finding half-baked reasons to stun-paper-onto-rune/sting-and-succ/mind control someone just so they can reliably have maint access. And a traitor shouldn't have to spend TCs that might otherwise go towards something crucial to their gimmick if they don't want to. How a traitor wants to play is 100% up to them, and shouldn't be relegated to "take this so you can be the very best" a la the mini-crossbow + e-sword combo.

This change doesn't promote anything resembling "HRP" at all. It encourages half-baked murders and conversions that boil down to "we need your access", and that's not fun for the person on the receiving end. We shouldn't be encouraging antagonists or anyone for that matter to play to win.

And as for security, the sole reason behind locking them out from this change is based on a few people complaining about their loot goblin-ing getting interrupted by security. It's such a dumb thing. The loot you find in maintenance is hardly important to anyone's round, be they crew, antagonist or otherwise, and a lot of the stuff that isn't contraband is useful for Security as well as anyone else. It's not like some servers where you can find teleporters and guns in piles of trash. At most you'll find a knife, or maybe some drugs, or a toolbelt and tools. Stuff you could acquire elsewhere without having to rely on RNG.

To add the cherry on the cake, detective and CSI are included in this as well, shafting them even harder than they already are. The CSI and detective regularly have to poke through maint when something happens to look for evidence relating to their case. Most notably when evidence such as a murder weapon has likely been flushed down disposals, or stowed in an out-of-the-way spot. They need that access to do that job efficiently, and relying on the HoS or AI to open every single door or a HoP to give them access isn't going to cut it because there's too many situations where all three of those things just don't exist.

Otherwise you'll start seeing detectives and CSIs with enough electrical engineering skills to hack open doors, and no one wants that despite how necessary it'll be. And that's not counting all the other ways regular crew are disadvantaged by being barred from maint, either.

Honestly, the fact that this was implemented without letting this thread sit for long enough to garner feedback or opinions from the community before actually forcing the PR in and the fact that any problems arising from this PR clue me in to the fact that this was an impulse thing more than anything. It's implementation was poorly thought out and poorly designed. Discounting the fact that this PR shouldn't exist at all, you shouldn't release a PR like this in "stages" where we have to suffer through the brunt of this PR while you code away at "workarounds" that should have been there in the first place.

Again, this change was made in good faith but brazenly done without long-term consideration of how it'll effect rounds. It was an impulsive "security are snatching up all the contraband that is just lying around anyways" decision that a few people decided they didn't like.

And while all the proposed workarounds are nice on paper, if reason fails and this PR remains, at least allow detectives and the CSI to retain their original maint access. Unlike the rest of security, it really is essential to them doing their jobs.

Edited November 29, 2019 by Bath Salts Addict

[AmoryBlaine]

1 hour ago, Crozarius said:

I like the change so far. I'm sure that eventually Security will change up their playstyle and tactics to compensate. Hopefully something other than run at antag and end round for valid! Must WIN!

What do you like about it? What changes to 'their' playstyle do you suggest? Why did you feel a need to berate Security players with the sentence, "Hopefully something other than run at antag and end round for valid! Must WIN!"

[Nantei]

3 hours ago, Arrow768 said:

 

• Vampires can use their abilities to get maint access
• Lings can ling a engineer
• Cult/Revs can convert someone that has access or can grant them that access

These are fairly high hoops to jump through to get access.

A changling has to murder someone, a vampire has to spend a lot of blood points on a power they don't get until about midway through their tree, and of which will be difficult to use in maintenance without meson scanners—which are conveniently found in maintenance a lot—and is prone to getting them trapped due to not having actual access; and cultists have to basically tunnel an engineer. Revs meanwhile are basically just screwed, converting for them is not reliable in the slightest.

I'd also note the antags that are getting beefed up from this are the stronger ones we have, where poor Ling did not need to be kicked while they are down.

More realistically what will happen is people who roll antag will start hacking now as part of their extended skillset as it becomes necessary to move around sneakily. On top of this, seeing them go in and out of maintenance is a huge dog whistle for BAD GUY. Expect the bad sec players to get even worse.

3 hours ago, Arrow768 said:

I am currently looking into a few options to make it easier to enable maint access if its needed:

• Move emergency maint access from the swipers to the command console, so a single head of staff can enable it
• Give heads of staff limited ability to modify ID cards (Hand out the access they have to id cards)
• Tie security maint access to the current alert level

The first should have been added alongside with this PR, as was suggested several times. This helps, but I still pity our poor low pop brothers who will continue to suffer.

The second should be remotely available as a new program. Only two heads have access to the command console without buying a laptop, and many do not do this. Alongside this, changing ID's is quite painful, and making it so ID's can be remotely modified is useful for both antagonists and the crew. Alternatively a button to just grant your department maint access would help, I doubt it needs to be selectively given out very often. Being able to grant maintenance access to your department for Security just makes Security's very slow response time even slower. The armory does a good job of slowing them down already.

The third is prone to abuse, but probably the least offensive of the compromises, on top of probably being the easiest to code for a reliable workaround.

I still would prefer we simply revert this. If the intent is to prevent validhunting, it easily makes it worse since anyone who shouldn't have access to maint, inside maint, will get called out dramatically worse where it was prior not a very big deal. If we want to give antags a get out of jail free card for some odd reason, we could have added items to traitors that let them bolt down a door on the cheap so they can run away, limited use emergency teleporters, etc. I don't see this as an overall positive change, and think it is more frustrating than fun.

TL;DR: There's more fun ways to do this that aren't nearly as frustrating.

1 hour ago, Crozarius said:

Hopefully something other than run at antag and end round for valid! Must WIN!

Please stop strawmanning, this is the opposite of helpful and fosters a hostile environment.

Edited November 29, 2019 by Nantei

[Bath Salts Addict]

On 24/11/2019 at 17:44, 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.

The Warden should be staying in the Brig at all times.
The CSI should never be involved with actively pursuing criminals, ever.
The HoS, as stated before, should try to avoid frontlining and delegate it to the officers.
The two cadets should be trying to stay out of danger or stick with an officer, ideally shouldn't be given weapons, and lack the equipment to assist with an arrest the way an officer can.
The detective should try and avoid standing shoulder-to-shoulder with sec officers unless there's a clear and present danger or an emergency. And even then it's hard to do so without people screeching "VALIDHUNTER" at you.

So yeah, not 9-10 people fam. Try four, maybe five.

And on an unrelated note, for the people saying paramedics should have their maint access removed just because security has, shame on you. There's no need to play that card. It's childish. There's plenty of compelling arguments to revert this awful PR already, we don't need to downgrade to the same arguments we made about our siblings as children.

Edited November 29, 2019 by Bath Salts Addict

[AmoryBlaine]

4 hours ago, Bath Salts Addict said:

It's not like some servers where you can find teleporters and guns in piles of trash. At most you'll find a knife, or maybe some drugs, or a toolbelt and tools. Stuff you could acquire elsewhere without having to rely on RNG.

You can find wormhole jaunters that can, and likely do, fatally teleport those who enter into space. Though, in regards to the shit that spawns in maintenance- why does it spawn there in the first place. It's clearly NOT for the antags without uplinks or agent IDs, who are now purposely kept from ease of access as per the latest response by the PR creator in this thread. Of the antags who do have ease of access, they also get access to higher quality items or the same items as those that spawn.

 

 

[NewOriginalSchwann]

Alright hello yes, I am here to give feedback.

 

I played a revolution round earlier with @Wigglesworth Jones and at one point we (an assistant and detective) needed to get into maintenance for The Gimmick (blowing up the ATLAS-loving representative's consulate with a fuel tank bomb). The result:
 

1). One ashed hand
2). Five instances of shocking ourselves
3). Zero instances of us doing the gimmick successfully
4). One maintenance hatch destroyed by a maglite and lunchbox

While I absolutely despise seeing a security officer perform a maintenance sweep "for security" at the start of every round, there has to be a better solution to this.

[Scheveningen]

15 hours ago, Arrow768 said:

Move emergency maint access from the swipers to the command console, so a single head of staff can enable it

yes. if you enable global maint access to a button, it gives sec and all antags in the round ability to wander maintenance to essentially try to entrap and ambush each other.

15 hours ago, Arrow768 said:

Give heads of staff limited ability to modify ID cards (Hand out the access they have to id cards)

in general a good idea, not just for maint access, not sure why people hated the idea when i suggested it before

15 hours ago, Arrow768 said:

Tie security maint access to the current alert level

becomes unnecessary if you employ 1 and 2. and imo it isn't needed.

[Roostercat]

This is a bad change, I have seen not only security get screwed (of whom is obviously the target of the change) but antagonists as well. Cultists have been caught purely because they had no way to get into maint fast. You can say "Oh just hack the doors" but that is pretty fucking difficult when you are getting chased. Big -1

[Sorokin7]

his thread is probably going to attract a lot of ss13 philosophers as well as people who are going to use every logical fallacy in the book to nerf sec.

 

In all honesty security had maint acces for a good reason since any sort of terrorist attack can (and usually do) happen from maint taking away the acces basically takes away secs ability chase criminals into maint as well as responding to suspicious things since most of the time thats where criminals take victims commit crimes etc.

 

[common] Tom from Marketing "Please help some guy took me into a maintenance tunnel and he says his going to kill me!"

[common] Officer Tim "please wait 10-15 minutes for us to go will someone to follow us through most of the stations dark tunnels, it might take even longer since our entire team has to follow him but if youre lucky someone might wake up and unlock the tunnels as they lack access but dont worry im sure youll be fine,sorry kid"

Really? is this the point weve reached that taking away secs ability to deal with the most basic threat is considered a good idea? If you want to nerf secs abilities lessen the sec slots and enforce strict rules against off duty officers being able to get weapons but doing this just takes away so much out of the role (inb4 sec with maint acces takes away a lot out of MY favorite role). This is probably the single worst change ive ever seen in all my time playing ss13. Somehow were to believe on a server where gameplay and behavior are tirelessly scrutinized to adhere to believable standards of even have realistic maint acces restrictions?

doing all sorts of mental gymnastics about why its a small thing and somehow better is not going to help anyone so im not going to read your copypasta reply where you qoute a sentence out of context and write a whole paragraph about why you feel you are right,

 

just re ad the access.

[Brutishcrab51]

Overlooked result of this change.

The Commissary on the surface level cannot be accessed by civilians/assistants, who previously manned it. Only Engineers and Heads of Staff can enter it.

[Arrow768]

This has been polled on the server for the last week and that are the results:

Querstion:
Count - Answer
13 - I do not care.
29 - I prefer the current maint access (Restricted).
51 - I prefer restricted maint access with less restrictions on elevated alert.
87 - I prefer the previous maint access (Semi-Restricted).