Disabling suit sensors under green alert

[Gromnax]

Following the removal of security camera access in code green, I suggest we do the same with suit sensors reporting the position and medical status of crewmembers.

This could allow for more intrigue to take place without someone sleeping at medical yelling "THERE IS SOMEONE DEAD SOMEWHERE" on comms. It happened yesterday during my plot, and even though it wasn't an issue since it was a bit peculiar, for a different plot it could have ruined the whole thing.

If needed, oranges from the brig could be still reported during green alert. However, I feel that the green tracking should be either entirely removed, or given to someone else than medical (namely security) considering its nature.

This would also incite medical staff (myself included) to roleplay with people instead of staring at this screen for half the shift "just in case".

 

What are your thoughts on the matter?

[KingOfThePing]

I agree 100%. It would also "force" people to be more careful, knowing medical won't scramble the millisecond you take a point of damage and also kind of free up medical to not having to sit in the Medbay lobby staring at sensors, because that's kind of expected of them.

[Faye <3]

u get suit sensors on your PDA and you can drag it over to an unused part of ur screen. i do this all the time on my FR b/c it lets me RP and eye sensors. anyone who's sitting in the lobby is either doing it by choice or is unaware of it being on your PDA. 

[Marlon P.]

This would make it safer for antags and victims to interact given the antags have more control over the sitch (situation) so this could see more 'catch-&-release' sitches (situations) for vamps.

[Faye <3]

i think this would make FR'ing a lot less fun b/c trying to do it without sensors really sucks. IMO maybe the functionality could be added to the radio jammer?

jammer turns on, and then anyone who's in the radius is either dropped from sensors, or their sensors freezes to what they were before entering the radius

[Gromnax]

15 minutes ago, Faye &lt;3 said:

i think this would make FR'ing a lot less fun b/c trying to do it without sensors really sucks. IMO maybe the functionality could be added to the radio jammer?

jammer turns on, and then anyone who's in the radius is either dropped from sensors, or their sensors freezes to what they were before entering the radius

If people are dying on green, it is either because they are inexperienced in their job and making a mistake that generally gives them time to call for aid, or they are being taken care of by an antag trying to act.

First situation, they can and should scream for help, giving their position. Second situation is the whole point why cameras were toggled off in green afaik and the reason of my suggestion.

 

The jammer idea would not be perfect either, because the person using it can be affected as well. Plus, if the bp for instance doesn't move at all, it's going to be extremely suspicious and metaing can arise.

[Carver]

I would thoroughly despise this. People already can choose not to use them on Green, and those who do - you can disable them as the antag. If you choose to do something that causes harm before disabling sensors, that's a failure on you as an antagonist - because in and of themselves, full tracking sensors don't really say anything to tip people off until damage is taken compared to cameras which could be very pre-emptive.

Anything that makes silent murder even easier for inexperienced antagonists, I will be firmly against.

[Captain Gecko]

Putting aside the antag reasons, I don't like this, I think this doesn't make much sense.

I can see why they wouldn't be mandatory on lower/lack of alerts, but why would they be disabled? It's basically a possible lifeline. You don't need to be on alert to have a workplace accident. You can very easily freeze yourself in the science server room, irradiate yourself in front of the supermatter, etc. And your best chance of survival might be someone picking up your vitals because you thought about setting them up prior to the incident.

And yeah, these wouldn't be too common of an instance, but would the SCC take chances, lore-wise? Putting aside gameplay/antag reasons, which can be debated (I agree with Carver), setting-wise disabling sensors on any alert level makes no sense to me.

[ChevyChevron]

3 hours ago, Gromnax said:

If people are dying on green, it is either because they are inexperienced in their job and making a mistake that generally gives them time to call for aid, or they are being taken care of by an antag trying to act.

There's plenty of reasons why someone might be dying on green other than a rookie mistake or antag activity. Maybe they got vented for 0.2 seconds and RNG caused their lungs to pop. Maybe a blob spawned on top of them. Maybe they just got appendicitis.

As it stands, I'm against this idea for the same reason I'm against the removal of camera access on green; why do we have sensors if we're not allowed to use them in our day to day jobs? Being on a ship is already a high risk activity, there's any number of reasons other than hostile agents why someone could suddenly have a medical emergency, it makes no sense from an IC perspective to remove medical's ability to monitor health and respond to routine emergencies.

[Doc]

I do not think lore should ever be a consideration in gameplay/balancing decisions, short of loredevs balancing canon factions against one another or something along those lines.

I think suit sensors are a net negative in server gameplay, but I agree that it's incredibly strange to limit them specifically on code green, and I don't currently have any other suggestions for dealing with them. It worked with cameras because those are almost 100% purely for catching antagonists, and there is really no valid reason for security to be sitting on them 24/7 besides validhunting/powergaming. Medical's job though, ostensibly, is to keep crew healthy and alive, which is a very valid goal for the department and is only tangentially related to the fact that antags will naturally be hurting crew.

Medical sitting and staring at sensors all round is obviously not validhunting, and not necessarily powergaming either. I do think it has two primary issues though. One, it's effectively the same as sec-lobby camera sitters in that it gives people a blank check to simply not RP, which shouldn't be something we encourage when we so obviously see it occuring. No sensors on green technically fixes this, but it's such overkill I really don't find it to be an appropriate solution. The other issue is that FRs will occasionally use it as an excuse to either frontline rush the antag bc "GOTTA SAVE THE CREW", or scream at security to do the same. This is the only valid reasoning for the suggestion imo, and honestly? I don't see it happen enough to warrant this.

Overall, -1

[Desven]

As controversial as it were, I can see the argument for security cameras disabled on green. It was just too common for sec players to sit on the cameras and wait for something to happen just to start shooting. It makes little sense as to why they would be disabled, given there's people whose jobs in real life are to monitor cameras where nothing happens 24/7, but for gameplay reasons I can get behind that.

However, I don't think it's the same with medical. As many others have said, it's a lifeline and there are plenty of reasons a person dies on a normal round. Moreover, not everybody can yell "Medical!" once things go down, or be able to share their precise location. It happens a lot with miners, for example, many who die with nobody batting an eye because they never used their suit sensors.

If you want to be sneaky, especially with a high-end target, you can already change the sensors of a person. But killing somebody, especially early, is already a high-risk. There are a lot of ways in gameplay were you can already cover up a murder almost perfectly just by using a bar of soap and having a good window of opportunity. Overall, I don't see the value of just making sure a possible antagonist has a better window.

What I could suggest instead is some sort of device which can jam sensors for a bit for nearby targets (or even the whole crew, but that's probably too much), purchasable from the Uplink. Just ten to thirty seconds of sensors (not comms, just sensors) being down and with limited uses. That way you could attack and make sure nobody noticed the pulse change in monitors.

[Desven]

7 hours ago, Faye &lt;3 said:

i think this would make FR'ing a lot less fun b/c trying to do it without sensors really sucks. IMO maybe the functionality could be added to the radio jammer?

jammer turns on, and then anyone who's in the radius is either dropped from sensors, or their sensors freezes to what they were before entering the radius

Basically what Faye said regarding the jammer. It's somewhat a niche item right now as many seasoned players won't yell "sec maint!" in the first sign of danger. Adding this functionality could increase its uses.

[Sheeplets]

@Faye <3@Desven

Radio jammers already do this, they take your suit sensors completely offline so long as you're standing near them while they're active. They come back up once you move away.

[Gem]

suit sensors are already voluntary.
there are also already items that antagonists can make use of to disable suit sensors, beside just disabling the suit sensors.

[Gromnax]

Disabling sensors manually is not really a good option as it takes time, allowing the person to react simply by moving away, and gives a very big message. (See attached)

It would thus require to stop the person from both moving and yelling to security. So, a stun or a paralytic, which sometimes is overly complicated to obtain or use. Plus, you need to actually use those without putting any alert on the sensors themselves. It's a loop.

Now, considering the "accidents might happen even on green", if I am not mistaken, all examples given should give time for the person to alert security either by screaming over the radio or sending a PDA message. You don't die immediately from a popped lung, neither do you turn to ashes in a second when you become irradiated. 

The sole exception to this are the miners, and perhaps the xenoscientists.. However, I do not see this as an issue. EVA is by definition dangerous, and they should be more careful. Not going alone in case something goes wrong should be common sense for them. Same thing for xenobotanists and xenobiologists: They should absolutely keep their team updated on their situation so they can react if something goes wrong.

I have never, ever seen a blob spawning directly on someone, either.

The "we have them, might as well use them" could also be said about heavy weapons for security, or experimental equipment for science. However, I think we all agree they should not be used when there is no known issue aboard the ship.

Overall, all issues arised regarding this change could be resolved with people aboard being careful and communicating more with both their team and medical. Which, overalls, sounds like a step in a good direction for me.

15 hours ago, Carver said:

Anything that makes silent murder even easier for inexperienced antagonists, I will be firmly against.

We simply have completely opposed positions on this matter and I doubt we'd be able to convince one another, so I will not reply to this.

[GreenBoi]

I'd say suit sensors are what actually add most of the intrigue. People knowing someone got hurt is what usually escalates a round, and it's less risky than purposefully leaving a corpse in a public-ish area. The victim's health being broadcasted doesn't actually out any info about the antag, so it only adds to the atmosphere.

Suit sensors also spawn randomized; most people forget to set them to tracking if they're not Sec or reminded by medical.

On 31/07/2022 at 10:05, Gromnax said:

So, a stun or a paralytic, which sometimes is overly complicated to obtain or use. Plus, you need to actually use those without putting any alert on the sensors themselves. It's a loop.

Most antags (including Traitor) have easy access to stuns, and any notable side-effect comes gradually. Paralysis Pen is just 1tc, Stun Talismans as Cult are just made from paper, and Vampire stuns are literally free. Add that Sec can't use cams on Green, and it's not really hard to get away with stuff without being seen.

[witchbells]

Holy shit, no. Everything I want to say about this has already been said far more eloquently than I could ever say it, so I'm just going to try and add a coherent argument.

Anything that can go wrong on a space station or space ship most assuredly will. There are about two hundred different ways to die in game, and as time goes on, that number will increase. The tagline for the game is "try to stay alive," and no matter how many years Aurora spends building an identity, that theme will persist. This is a game where you will die, in a universe where the accepted truth is that the Horizon can be very, very dangerous. There is no mechanical nor a in-character purpose for suit sensors to be unavailable on code, or any code. Nobody on the ship is ever truly safe. It is not believable.

Like Gem said, suit sensors are already voluntary. They're also easy to forget. Worst case scenario, just buy a radio jammer. That's what they're for.

[Fluffy]

PR that implements this suggestion: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/17607

[Gem]

implemented as above.

locking and archiving.