New Brig

[K0NFL1QT]

Scopes posted this to get some input on floor coloring (which should be blue, btw), but I couldn't ignore the poor design choices. Scopes isn't in charge of the design, so instead of discussing it with him (much to his annoyance) I'm hoping to talk to the people who are responsible, and the rest of the players, because... this feels like it was put together by someone who doesn't actually play Security and understand our troubles. Granted I can't see the rest of the station outside of this picture, but there's still some glaring problems.

The Armory

Once again, one of the most 'secure' areas on the Station is on the exterior where it can be easily accessed from outside without triggering any alarms prior to its breaching. Also happens to be right next to the Permabrig, for those breakouts.

The Lockers.

Why the same central stack configuration? What happens is that officers end up help-shuffling around trying to open and get stuff out of whichever locker they choose is theirs. However, if you put those lockers on the outer wall, you use up some of that empty space and officers aren't crammed into a one-tile corridor. Also needs a shower, or at the very least a sink.

The Wardens Office.

Arguably the most important area in Security, around which the other important areas should be arranged; Brig, Permabrig and Armory. The Wardens office also needs to be one of the first places seen as you enter, so that they can check any incoming prisoners, and should ideally by surrounded with glass to permit as much observation as possible. Why is it separated from the brig by a wall? Why is the Armory on the other side of Security? Why do you have to go through the Locker Room and Meeting Room to get to where I presume the Permabrig is?

I don't like to criticize without offering an alternative, so here's a possible redesign mockup I threw together in Paint, because I'm pro. Please at least consider some of these adjustments, mapping staff. This presumes we're not allowed an off-station perma-brig (which would be amazing and we should definately have a prison on the asteroid).

 

*Sizes not to scale.

 

Benefits;

• Internal Affairs right next to Interrogation, Processing and regular cells to see/hear any prisoner abuse. Also next to the Detective and the CIA to emphasize the investigative core. Think of the IAA as the Quartermaster, the Investigative Overseer, of Security?
• Detective and CSI share a storage space for case related stuff. Possibly the IA too? Depends on the feedback of IA players, whether they'd be comfortable with that; it'd give them access to the evidence/information for cases that the Detective and CSI are working on though they might be expected to also share their own information which they might deem too sensitive, but it's not like the IA won't have even a filing cabinet for private storage.
  
• CSI has a personal Morgue, which can also be accessed through the Execution chamber on the other side.
  
• Wardens Office has full visual of the regular cells, as well as visual of storage. Ideally it'd have a blast door button to protect against breakout/riots.
  
  
• Armory placed at the back of general storage, without being on an exterior wall. Ideally it'd also have blast doors that can come down over the entrance, controlled by the Warden/HoS. As frustrating as it is that Antags with guns and bombs must also have extremely easy access to the stations only defense, it's supposed to be that way.
  
• Brig Medical area has proximity to Perma-brig, regular cells, solitary and insanity cells, without crossing through processing/interrogation as they do now. Ideally this would be staffed by a dedicated Brig Medic job role, stocked with a scanner and some medkits.

 

EDIT;

Forgot to mention, there should be a Cyborg Recharger in Security somewhere.

This is all just feedback though, and I welcome any thoughts, ideas and critique of your own, on my design or the Jamini/Witt design, in support of or against.

[nanotoxin]

Why not have the armoury kind of like the vault, with a tile of space between it nand the closest structure, except for the entrance of course.

[mrimatool]

As much as I understand the reason for moving the armory inside, I think the point is balance.

[Jamini]

I had no hand in designing security. I merely piped it and shrunk down some 3x hallways into 2x hallways.

I designed the civilian areas, not command or security.

[Guest]

I think part of being an antag is recognizing that moving to rob either a vault or a secure armory is that it should be a challenge that said antag should be planning ahead for and recognizing when unpredictable variables may come into play for the equation.

As it stands, robbing the armory as even a mere traitor is rather easy if you know where to look.

Honestly, security on the inside is riddled with too much door and airlock. There's a ridiculous amount of movement impediment that restricts security itself. There's also a huge amount of wall that restricts line of sight between rooms and holding cells.

Personally, I think the security mapping suffers from a lot of design flaws as it stands. It suffers from more problems than it intends to address.

[Jamini]

Internal Affairs right next to Interrogation, Processing and regular cells to see/hear any prisoner abuse. Also next to the Detective and the CIA to emphasize the investigative core. Think of the IAA as the Quartermaster, the Investigative Overseer, of Security?

 

Ick, ick ick. no. The IAA needs to be divorced more from security. While I like having IAA near interro for OTHER reasons, we do /not/ want them expected to be the QM of security. That is a horrid idea.

 

Detective and CSI share a storage space for case related stuff. Possibly the IA too? Depends on the feedback of IA players, whether they'd be comfortable with that; it'd give them access to the evidence/information for cases that the Detective and CSI are working on though they might be expected to also share their own information which they might deem too sensitive, but it's not like the IA won't have even a filing cabinet for private storage.

 

Like this.

 

CSI has a personal Morgue, which can also be accessed through the Execution chamber on the other side.

 

No. God no. Get rid of it. The CSI and Detective should need to use the real morgue. Not their own personal playground. I cannot overstate how much I loathe the idea of security having it's own morgue. Medical handle the dead, not sec.

 

Wardens Office has full visual of the regular cells, as well as visual of storage. Ideally it'd have a blast door button to protect against breakout/riots.

 

I like this, though I'm concerned that it will make it to easy to control brigged antagonists. Breakouts should be possible, or even encouraged.

 

Brig Medical area has proximity to Perma-brig, regular cells, solitary and insanity cells, without crossing through processing/interrogation as they do now. Ideally this would be staffed by a dedicated Brig Medic job role, stocked with a scanner and some medkits.

 

Frankly, if I had my way security wouldn't have anything more than a rollerbed, a cryobag, and a basic medical kit in a wall closet. Just like engineering does. Medical should be responsible for injuries, in medical.

Brig Medic should never, ever be a role. We have a whole department for that. Yuk yuk yuk.

[K0NFL1QT]

Ick, ick ick. no. The IAA needs to be divorced more from security. While I like having IAA near interro for OTHER reasons, we do /not/ want them expected to be the QM of security. That is a horrid idea.

Please explain. It wouldn't give them any power over the officers, in the same way the QM has no power over botanists/chaplain, but it would involve the IA more in regular operations by having them interact with the investigative staff and should give them access to all a crewmans little indiscretions that Internal Affairs SHOULD be made aware of.

 

No. God no. Get rid of it. The CSI and Detective should need to use the real morgue. Not their own personal playground. I cannot overstate how much I loathe the idea of security having it's own morgue. Medical handle the dead, not sec.

You took the CSIs autopsy table away, so a connected morgue doesn't make any sense. I want that table back.

 

I like this, though I'm concerned that it will make it to easy to control brigged antagonists. Breakouts should be possible, or even encouraged.

I'm of the opinion that antags get all the 'help' they need from their access to powerful items/powers, without having the map built for them. The map should be built to help the crew in regular day to day operations. With careful planning and execution, anything is possible for an antag. But if you get caught, you should serve your time with MINIMAL chance of escape, beside random door virus events/poor oversight/genuinely robusting your way out. However, in my design, the brig cells can see and talk to each other for company and continued roleplay so the fact that they are more likely to stay in cells is not as massive a hindrance to player enjoyment.

 

Frankly, if I had my way security wouldn't have anything more than a rollerbed, a cryobag, and a basic medical kit in a wall closet. Just like engineering does. Medical should be responsible for injuries, in medical.

Brig Medic should never, ever be a role. We have a whole department for that. Yuk yuk yuk.

A brig medical area was a good idea. It meant that people who got beaten by shit security officers/other prisoners/themselves didn't have to die and could survive long enough to get proper medical care. I can see how this is less needed now that the brig is right next to medical, but someway for medical personal to get in would be great. A medical personnel access door?

[K0NFL1QT]

These people also actually play Security, what do they have to say?

 

2. The Security Locker Room is too large and feels like a waste of space.

 

 

No where to keep mental patients at all, medbay might be a cross the hall but they do not have a room suited for mental patients either.

Sec locker room is bigger, yet all the lockers are still cramped into the bottom of the room. I'd recommend adding more or spacing out the lockers.

We have places to dump corpses in Evidence, but CSI doesn't have a facility to process corpses. Unless they wish to drag them across the hall to medical, which makes the Evidence closet's trays kind of redundant.

 

Also;

 

Captain's Quarters is a Death Trap. You'd think the highest ranking officer would have a secure place, not a target for Nuke Ops.

 

The utterly exposed nature of the bridge is a whole different issue itself, and I hope to god the Bridge gets moved back into the middle because this is completely ridiculous.

Edited May 16, 2015 by Guest

[K0NFL1QT]

Just on the lockers rooms, here two alternative examples depending on how kind you want to be to Sec.

Clearly, not very.

 

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

Why are we using the Paradise map for the station? The Bay map was functional and made much more sense than what we have now!

[Mark9013100]

IMO, morgue trays really shouldn't be in the brig, if detectives want to do an autopsy, they should have to head to medical to do it.

[K0NFL1QT]

Please form an orderly line and be ready to present specific points for consideration.

[Frances]

Right. I feel like I have a ton of things to say about the brig in general, so I'll try to organize my list a little. First are complaints/issues, in decreasing order of importance, then some big suggestions (that would require a rework of at least most of the rooms' placement. Then I'll close with some general remarks about our new brig.

Complaints/Issues

-Processing

Is gone. Whudafuq? We sorta need processing. For things. Such as searching and questioning new prisoners without putting them in interrogation.

-Warden's office

The Warden's office isn't in a bad placement, but it's not well-planned. It should have a 2-tile window on the south wall, in front of the computers, so the warden can idle there, where they can see any prisoners coming in right away. Right now your view is kind of sub-optimal, because you don't see the lobby. (And give them a window onto the lobby desk? It shouldn't look terribly silly, and allow people manning the desk to communicate with the warden directly.

Another thing is that the warden used to have two desks because one of them gave on the main hallway (accessible to everybody in sec), and one gave on the equipment room (only accessible to officers). So you could drop armory equipment there if you didn't want any random detective or IAA to grab them. Since both desks now give onto the same hallway (and are right next to each other), one of them is pretty useless. It'd be nice to reshuffle the gear and windows along the rightside wall so that the warden has a door they can use to get to the prisoners or the people in the lobby without losing sight of them (yes, it's just a few more steps, but the fact that there's a period of time where you can't see them/they can't see you is kinda awkward).

The warden losing direct armory proximity isn't such a tragedy, imo.

-The lockers room/equipment storage

Feels really naked. Maybe move the lockers to either side, or simply reshuffle the way gear is arranged somehow? There's a big empty space on the top part that feels really awkward - and since it's not a very trafficked area, there /could/ be something in the middle there.

-Interrogation

Has moved to a 4x3, 2x3 layout (instead of 3x3, 3x3). I don't really understand the reason for this change (though maybe someone can explain it?) Both doors should be on the north side, both for the sake of uniformity (so you can move from one to the other quickly, if needed) and so people that want to move in/out of interrogation don't have to walk into a chair (that somebody may be sitting on).

-Morgue trays in evidence lockup

That's kinda creepy? And doesn't really make much logic (there's a morgue next door!) The station morgue is already a secure area, and forcing security to work with medbay is bound to have better results than having sec detain corpses in fuckoffville only to forget about them. Plus sec doesn't have an autopsy table anyway, so the lockup morgue is really redundant to the other one.

-Permabrig

The two air scrubbers are now /in/ perma. Place behind vending machines serving as makeshift "doors" that prevent them from being accessed by anyone without a wrench. I'm not sure if that was the system you guys came up with intentionally, but if so it has to be the most macgyverish solution to a mapping problem I've ever seen.

-Derp, it's always been like that.

-Insanity ward

Is gone? Idk why. It was nice that it had its own set of straightjackets, muzzles/blindfolds, sleeptox, etc. That way if someone really insists on roleplaying an insane character you /can/ give them a bit of RP.

-Shooting range

Is also gone. It was a nice place to test weapons from science (or strap someone to the target stake to execute them by firing squad during a rev round). I don't really see why it couldn't be readded.

Suggestions

-Armory

I'd actually like to see a brig design where the armory isn't open to space. There is pretty much one instance where the armory gets blasted from the outside, ever, and that's on nuke (and when antags try to replicate nuke, but I've never seen someone do something that clever here.) What it does is remove security from combat instantly (not bad), and brings the nuke ops a whole extra load of trouble as everyone starts ordering guns from cargo or make them from science (probably bad for the ops). Making the armory harder to access would actually force ops to storm the brig, which, you know, could be pretty cool. (Or end rounds terribly quickly. I'm not sure.)

-Communal Brig

This is something Bay (and a few other places) have, and it's pretty neat. Would require some major reorganization as well, but basically, all cells lead to a "main" area, a bit like perma, that all prisoners can access during their sentence. You get prisoner roleplay, prisoner fights (so you actually have a reason to put someone in isolation, or back in their cells!), and people can totally get caught intentionally committing crimes so they can get inside and shank their target who pissed off the syndicate.

General Thoughts

You guys aren't working with space as efficiently as you could, imo. Unless this was based off another layout (and some things were plainly forgotten), there's a lot of things that have been either squished down or are plainly missing (shooting range, processing, detective's office having direct access outside of the brig.) Some of these are minor (the detective thing), but some aren't (entire missing rooms). Some things feel like they were cut and pasted from another map without too much thought to form or function (armory access has two doors, one of them leads to the briefing room, but the other leads to a small hallway right next to it that is only connected to perma - the warden's office having two desks leading on the same hallway, and so on.) and some of the other rooms feel like they've simply been put in wherever they'd fit (well, only the HoS's office. But it used to look great, and now the cool round shape with all the windows is gone.) There's pretty much infinite space to extend northwards (and you can move the solars to the east, gaining a good 5 tiles), so you shouldn't be afraid to make the brig bigger. It'd really work fine.

Edited May 16, 2015 by Guest

[SgtSammac]

-Permabrig

The two air scrubbers are now /in/ perma. Place behind vending machines serving as makeshift "doors" that prevent them from being accessed by anyone without a wrench. I'm not sure if that was the system you guys came up with intentionally, but if so it has to be the most macgyverish solution to a mapping problem I've ever seen.

 

I am 99% sure that is how it's always been. ALWAYS

[Guest]

-Permabrig

The two air scrubbers are now /in/ perma. Place behind vending machines serving as makeshift "doors" that prevent them from being accessed by anyone without a wrench. I'm not sure if that was the system you guys came up with intentionally, but if so it has to be the most macgyverish solution to a mapping problem I've ever seen.

This has always been, they are controlled by a console outside of perma. http://puu.sh/hPtbv/9b1a891f56.png

Most of perma is a copy/paste with a little more room added in the access to the prision wing.

 

-Armory

I'd actually like to see a brig design where the armory isn't open to space. There is pretty much one instance where the armory gets blasted from the outside, ever, and that's on nuke (and when antags try to replicate nuke, but I've never seen someone do something that clever here.) What it does is remove security from combat instantly (not bad), and brings the nuke ops a whole extra load of trouble as everyone starts ordering guns from cargo or make them from science (probably bad for the ops). Making the armory harder to access would actually force ops to storm the brig, which, you know, could be pretty cool. (Or end rounds terribly quickly. I'm not sure.)

I remember someone saying (I believe it was Skull, don't quote me) that it's a requirement to have some part of the armory connected to space, we have had loads of people post pictures to us about internal Armory. Honestly if Nuke op's go to the armouy every single round and are un-noticed (because of zas problems or lack of people meta-ing) I might change the camera to a motion detector. That way if they go near there they run the risk of letting the AI/borgs know they are there.

[K0NFL1QT]

That might be an acceptable compromise, Scopes. I might just start making that standard operating procedure as an engineer.

[Frances]

I remember someone saying (I believe it was Skull, don't quote me) that it's a requirement to have some part of the armory connected to space

Okay, but why?

[Guest]

Can I ask you to rephrase the question from just why?

[Witt]

Ok, so looking over some of the presiding issues, I have made a few changes:

Interrogation - It has always had those dimensions, it is only rotated 90degrees, I did move the door to the north wall.

Processing - added a small processing room between Equipment storage and isolation

Insanity ward - not really added, however there is now a sec/med secured locker across from the Isolation rooms with the supplies

Armory - Like scopes said, It was mentioned to myself that it needed a wall to space

Firing Range - Its only sort of gone, it was planned for the firing Range to be a holodeck simulation, minor bugs and runtimes delayed its launch

Evidence - added a file cabinet labeled as closed cases, removed one morgue tray

[Frances]

Can I ask you to rephrase the question from just why?

Why must the armory be directly connected to space?

Like, I get what it does, but is there a reason why it must be an absolute requirement? In my first post about the armory I stated some reasons why it might be interesting to change it.

[Dzheymz]

Can I ask you to rephrase the question from just why?

Why must the armory be directly connected to space?

Like, I get what it does, but is there a reason why it must be an absolute requirement? In my first post about the armory I stated some reasons why it might be interesting to change it.

 

Balance. The crew can't obtain weapons really from cargo because the locks on closets and crates are made of diamond-encrusted titanium alloy coated in tungsten carbide, and R&D is so terribly fucking hard to upgrade beyond 2-3, you'll get never get anything meaningful, at least, in my experience, speaking for both cargo and science. If the armory is even more secure than it is now, there's basically no hope for the crew to overthrow a shitcurity (especially worse than usual, I mean) if they wanted to, aside from maybe welder bombs.

As it stands, a determined team of engineers can break in and raid the armory given a fair amount of time (or explosives), and is balanced enough.

[Jamini]

Balance. The crew can't obtain weapons really from cargo because the locks on closets and crates are made of diamond-encrusted titanium alloy coated in tungsten carbide, and R&D is so terribly fucking hard to upgrade beyond 2-3, you'll get never get anything meaningful, at least, in my experience, speaking for both cargo and science. If the armory is even more secure than it is now, there's basically no hope for the crew to overthrow a shitcurity (especially worse than usual, I mean) if they wanted to, aside from maybe welder bombs.

As it stands, a determined team of engineers can break in and raid the armory given a fair amount of time (or explosives), and is balanced enough.

 

I can get enough tech to make the high tier of weaponry from RnD with about maybe five minutes of dedicated work. Producing them is trickier, but there are means to gather silver and diamonds (illegal ones) that very few people employ. Also: bombs.

Cargo can easily, easily make powered crossbows and obtain other gear which can utterly wreak most opponents, even ERT. (I've, in fact, killed a few ERT with them)

If you think engineers need guns to overthrow security, you clearly know nothing. John snow.

As for crates. Crates are piss easy to open if you aquire an emitter or a gun of any sort.

--

That said, the reason the armory is exposed to space on one side is to make it easier for antags to neuter security.