Security Officer

Cogmap2Cogmap1DestinyClarionOshanAtlasManta

Your main base. This is where you spawn and all of your equipment is stored.

Your main base. This is where you spawn and all of your equipment is stored.

Your main base. This is where you spawn and all of your equipment is stored.

File:ClarionSecurity.png

Your main base. This is where you spawn and all of your equipment is stored.

File:OshanSecurity.png

Your main base. This is where you spawn and all of your equipment is stored.

Your main base. This is where you spawn and all of your equipment is stored.

Your main base. This is where you spawn and all of your equipment is stored.

A Security Officer is an agent employed by Nanotrasen to act as law enforcement aboard its stations. While many restrictions, laws, and customs surrounding due process may be relaxed in space, Security is still expected to maintain the base minimum of Space Law, act within the boundaries of their authority, answer to the station's chain of command, and generally avoid purposefully murdering innocents, brigging them forever, etc.

Underappreciated and often understaffed, Security Officer is an intensely demanding job that requires knowledge of not only many game systems, including combat, but also the culture and rules regarding Security. The wrong decisions can have huge consequences, and it's one of the few roles that get more stressful with more people on the server. It's decidedly not a good job for players new to the game, and that is why it is timelocked. What's the payoff? Aside superficial things like from like swanky outfits and cool gear, a pivotal role in the flow--and fun--of the round.

A person who starts the round as a Security Officer cannot be a traitor, though the antagonist selection process happens before jobs are assigned, meaning that putting security officer in your preferred jobs will not preclude you from your fair chance at getting an antag round.

When Do I Get to Play Security Officer?

Security Officer is time-locked to 13 rounds participated, meaning you cannot join as Security Officer or spawn as one at roundstart until you have 13 complete/mostly complete rounds played. Specifically, that means that for at least 13 separate rounds, you must have done one of the following:

• For both RP and non-RP servers, have connected to the server and declared ready before roundstart
• For the non-RP servers, joined the round after roundstart before the 40 minute mark while there was no shuttle on route
• For the RP servers, same as above but before the 80 minute mark.

The rounds can be non-consecutive, it doesn't matter which servers you spent those 13 rounds on since it's based on those played across all servers (i.e. you can spend those 13 across all the servers or just one server), and choosing to observe doesn't count towards that 13.

While you could just spend those 13 rounds by logging off at the 5 minute mark, not only does that look pretty suspicious to admins, but you're also ultimately doing a disservice to yourself. Those 13 rounds hinder what jobs you can get, but they also are supposed to help prepare you for it.

For one, those 13 rounds are a chance to get a good grasp of the controls. Not a comprehensive grasp, a comfortable grasp. By no means are you expected to know every single hotkey in every single control scheme by then, but hopefully you know enough that you can hold your own without smacking yourself with your own shoes. Security Officer asks you to use many different item interactions, particular those relating to intents during combat, and those 13 rounds are there to help establish some base familiarity with them.

More importantly, they're for you to get used to Goonstation's mechanics and its culture regarding Security. Part of it is controls, as previously discussed, but it's also what kind of antags there are, what they do, what kinds of crimes people commit, what is or isn't a crime, maybe even how Sec reacts to these crimes, especially which ones they actually prosecute. Again, you're not expected to be a walking encyclopedia, but hopefully by then you have a good idea of the things crew do vs the things antags do and ideally at least realize that executions/life sentences for every time all the time are genuinely not fun for everyone, as much as people like to joke such.

In short, those 13 rounds give you space to learn the game before you tackle Security Officer, a job that requires you to know a lot more about the game than a typical newbie might. Plus, it's much easier and much less stressful to learn about controls, game mechanics, and community culture when you're not playing a job where everyone expects you to know all these things.

The Basics

Security is responsible for maintaining safety and order on the station and as such is one of the most important departments around and also the most hopelessly overtasked. Due to the fact that you have the tools and legal support at your disposal to make any crew member's day a living hell, try not to overextend your authority. A good security officer is helpful, trustworthy, and ready to bravely defend the station from all kinds of evildoers.

As security is responsible for rooting out antagonists and taking them down, how you play will directly affect how difficult the round is for the antagonist players. Lackadaisical security is frankly pretty boring, so get out there and make the enemy get creative. Scan hacked airlocks for fingerprints. Try to figure out who bombed genetics and how, and go looking for them. Keep an eye out for people with concealed faces, ask people how they got blood on their hands--or better yet, scan them, check the database, and figure out who it came from. Quietly tail guys who seem suspicious. Go undercover as a quartermaster and bust that botanist for trying to sell weed. There's no need to be a hypercop every round, but it's definitely more fun to be a criminal when there are people out there who will actually bust you for it.

Some pushback from troublemakers is normal, but if you find yourself being excessively griefed just for being a security officer, adminhelp it.

Your Gear

Security gets a red-striped security headset capable of normal comms and a secure security channel. Type :g before the message to be sent to go through the secure channel. Command officers can coordinate security activity and conduct oversight, and in general, having a special channel that doesn't broadcast to every person on the station can be quite helpful.

You start with armor, SecHUD shades, and a flash, a whistle, and some handcuffs in a security pouch in your pocket. You also get a requisition token, and you should go to Security and insert it into a security weapons vendor as soon as possible, for this is how you get your main tools for subduing suspects.

Not every situation requires use of force or an arrest, but for the ones that do, subdue the suspect(s) your stun weapons, with minimum necessary force. Once the suspect is downed, use handcuffs to restrain them. Once you start pulling a cuffed suspect (no need to use Grab intent), they are incapable of running away, but bumping into someone else may break the hold. The port-a-brig is the safest way to transport prisoners.

The security records computer has records for every member of the crew. If you login and set someone to Arrest, they will be pursued by Officer Beepsky and other securitrons. If you're wearing the security HUDs, this will allow you to co-ordinate who to arrest, and keep things in check. Your PDA keeps you in contact with securitrons, alerting you when someone has been detained, and lets you issue fines and tickets to offenders who don't merit arrest.

It's a good idea to refer frequently to Space Law as a set of guidelines so you'll know how to react in any given situation.

Your Weapons

Most of the weapons Security has at its disposal are non-lethal energy weapons that drain stamina. If you drain them to below zero stamina, they will drop the items they're holding and fall to the floor, knocked out for a certain duration depending on the weapon. If you don't, you disorient the person, causing them to move erratically, be slowed down, and tilt rather amusingly.

Every officer starts with a flash in their starting pouch. It's a melee weapon with a random amount of uses that can stun one person next to you if they aren't blind and don't have proper eye protection-sunglasses or a welding helmet. Using it in-hand can disorient people in small, 5x5 area around you, making them easier to stun. A good minimum force tool, but you need something stronger. If the bulb burns out, you can't recharge or replace it. Instead you need to get a new flash at a SecTech.

You can redeem your requisition token at a security weapons vendor for a loadout with some real workhorses:

• Each loadout starts with a stun baton, a melee weapon with 8 uses before it needs to be recharged. It has to be on to stun someone. When you click on a tile at least two tiles away from you while on Disarm intent, you launch a spark that causes the previously mentioned disorientation. When hitting someone with an active stun baton on the Harm intent, you will instead stun yourself! If dropped, the baton can easily be turned against you, handle carefully.
  • You can expand its capacity to 12 uses. by swapping its cell with the 300 unit one in the security pouch in your pocket.
• You also usually get an second weapon, a gun, depending on loadout. Tip: Using it on someone next to you while you're on Harm or Disarm intent will make you shoot them point-blank (Help will just make you try to hit them with the gun, Grab will make you try to hold them at gunpoint and take them as a human shield.) Point-blanks always hit (because you'd be defying physics if you miss at point-blank), but otherwise have no additional effects.
  • Standard gives a taser, a ranged stun weapon with two modes. One is a single shot mode with at most 8 shots available, and the other is a burst shot mode with at most 4 uses. You'll need to land two successive single shots or one burst shot to stun somebody completely. Successive shots stun for longer. Simple and a true classic.
    • You can expand its capacity to 4 uses of the single shot and 6 of the burst shot by swapping its cell with the 300 unit one in the security pouch in your pocket.
  • Offense grants a wave gun, another ranged stun gun with three settings. Inversion wave has up to 10 shots and starts out weak, but stuns longer the farther it's traveled, transverse has up to 6 and goes through all obstacles but is short-ranged, and electromagnetic disruption has up to 3 and does no damage but fries many electronics. Requires strategic spacing but can be powerful.
  • Control gives a taser shotgun. This ranged stun weapon requires two hands to wield and can fire up to 30 single stun "pellets" that are somewhat weak but very cheap to fire or up to 8 spread shots of 3 stun projectiles that can down someone if they all hit. It also gives some crowd dispersal grenades, which creates a cloud of capsaicin that blurs vision, impedes movement, and sometimes briefly stuns. Like the name implies, it's good for
  • Instead of another weapon, Support gives robust donuts and injectors full of morphine. The donuts are full of chems that significantly reduce stuns and can help dying people, while the morphine negates the slowed movement associated with damage and can knockout at high doses. Built for custom-made loadouts that use other stun weapons.

Each loadout comes with a secbelt for holding all your weapons and a special pinpointer for the weapons that come with the loadout, so they can be relocated if lost, e.g. wen you are killed and revived, but your corpse has been looted. It's recommended to keep this in Security or a safe. It's usually a bad idea to keep it on your person, because whoever loots your gear from you usually also swipes the pinpointer too.

Stun batons, wave guns, tasers, and taser shotguns all must be recharged at recharger when depleted. Tasers in particular can also be charged at a special recharger rack. You can Examine the gun to see its current battery capacity and cost for the current shot mode.

In addition, you have many other weapons at your disposal.

• When activated, the barrier in Security equipment lockers passively reduces damage from melee and ranged attacks. When you bash someone with it, it might knock them back or fall onto the floor.
• The riot launcher launches smoke grenades that blur people's vision and make them cough, dropping whatever they're holding. The grenade hurts if it hits someone directly, so be careful.
• In addition to more specialized equipment, the armory contains contains riot shotguns that stun and do knockback and moderate damage to unarmoured personnel and pulse rifles that throw people quite far.
  • By the default, only the Head of Security can enter the Armory, though you can access the pulse rifle and shotgun racks inside it just fine. However, the Head of Security or three fellow Security personnel can use the armory authorization computer to allow all Security members to access the armory. You could also simply ask the Head of Security to grab one of these weapons for you.

Tickets to the Prom

Ticketing people is an important and amusing alternative to more serious punishment. Your security PDA is your key to this system, known as Ticket Master. To access ticket master: Boot up your PDA and go to file browser, click into Ticket Master. You have two options: Ticket or Fine.

Ticketing is regarded as a mild punishment, fit for clowns and drunks alike. It's also fit for inanimate objects, if you feel like ticketing the janitor's mop instead of the janitor himself. Feel free to give whatever reason you feel like.

Fining is a step further, invoking angry reactions of various degrees. Unlike ticketing, this requires the full name (i.e: Joe Mc Scrubs) of the recipient, as it will drain the bank account of those you fine. Obviously you can't fine George the dog as he doesn't have a bank account. Fining requires confirmation from a Head of Staff, unless of course you are a Head.

What's even cooler about this is that both tickets and fines are logged on goonhub. Be creative!

Due Process

As a security officer, you may find yourself having to make arrests several times per round. If you're quick and efficient, this is a painless process. If you're not, it can turn into a giant headache for everyone involved.

Processing badguys:

• Detain the suspect with minimum force.
• Handcuff the suspect and restrain them by pulling them. If their crime requires a brig time, bring them into the office, preferably via Port-a-brig.
• In the office, tell them you're going to search them before doing so. Empty their pockets and remove their backpack. Look through everything. Be sure to open containers inside containers, such as boxes inside backpacks. Be sure to replace all items in the containers when you're done. Don't strip them in the hallways
• If you need to brig them you can feed them into the little chute next to the brig. Remember to set the timer!

Security roles (sec officer, vice officer, detective) and their superiors (HoS, HoP, captain) can read the Miranda warning to suspects by using the Recite Miranda Rights verb or *miranda emote. The wording is also customizable via Set Miranda Rights.

A Security Officer does not have the authority to assign sentences any more severe than confiscation of stolen items and 5 minutes in the brig. Execution, permabrigging, poisoning with Discount Dan's, or anything, anything, ANYTHING else requires the okay of the Head in command. In order of preference, that is: the Head of Security, the Captain, and the Head of Personnel. If the Captain tells you to execute someone and the Head of Security says no, listen to the Head of Security.

Good Officer Checklist

A Security Officer should always be able to:

• Justify any lives you need to take during duty. This applies between you and your colleagues and heads, the general populace, and lastly to the admins if they are looking into something.
• Attempt to respond to things happening. You are a good guy after all, do your job and change how people view security.
• Keep your cool! This is the biggest thing, losing your cool and having access to all those weapons will quickly go south.
• Mind your surroundings. Don't strip a guy in front of everyone else, do it where troublemakers can't disrupt you and potentially become a bigger threat than the guy you caught.
• Be careful not to leave prisoners trapped forever, most people do not need to be imprisoned for more than 5 minutes. If you need to keep someone locked away longer, be able to defend your judgment.
• Finally, be fun! If you're a good and robust cop, you have nothing to fear from the bad guys and would come out on top anyway right?

"Alright so who can I arrest?"

Space Law is the definitive guideline here, but you may find yourself running up against situations that don't neatly fit into it. For instance, if the chaplain throws holy water in an otherwise peaceful guy's face and reveals him to be a vampire, which one do you arrest?

How to Deal with Threats

A good security officer should know that there's more enemies to the station than just the criminals. Be sure to prioritize. For example if there's a space yeti eating the entire medical staff, it'd probably better to deal with that first than the wizard spawning THC golems and debutting people, and perhaps better to deal with that than the guy who's breaking windows. Keep in mind though that with changelings, wizards, syndicate operatives and other horribly overpowering shit you should seek the help of the crew, you're not alone in this fight, chief.

Name	Threat	Mugshot	Appearance	Potential Crime	Notes
Garbage Security	Medium		Looks a lot like you!	Treating prisoners like animals. Being a bloodthirsty nutjob. Possibly an actual antagonist who got a security job.	Weed bad security out ASAP, as one bad egg spoils the bunch. It doesn't have to be sec either; the Captain, HoP, Detective or any acting sec may also be awful. Power corrupts. People can get the security officer job from the HoP/HoS/Captain so don't assume they couldn't be an antagonist!
Rogue Silicons	Medium	File:AI64.png	Takes the shape of a once friendly metallic buddy or an ominous AI	Not following their laws, murdering, bolting and shocking doors, calling you meatbag repeatedly.	Just like humans, try to use non-lethal force: rogue AIs and borgs can be fixed by resetting their laws. This does not apply to emagged borgs or Syndicate robots!
Psycho Killer	High		Covered in the blood of innocents, boasting about how they murdered someone. Possibly saying they're not a traitor.	Murdering suspected antags, stealing security items, hurting innocents in the process. Likely using stolen traitor gear, possibly because they're a traitor; confirm it maybe.	Sometimes called vigilantes. It's often hard to distinguish between who's a traitor and who's a non-traitor just abusing traitor gear. Use some evidence and keep in mind a traitor isn't obligated to tell you they're a traitor, and as long as you actually have a good reason to believe they deserve execution no admin would stop you.
Traitor	High		Frequently well disguised, a dead give-away is their nefarious tools	Murder. Arson. Grievous bodily harm. You name it, they've done it.	It's not particularly necessary to always murder a traitor, especially if they're just goofing around, however, don't feel obligated to let them off the hook easy, feel free to confiscate their contraband and arrest them for crimes. Be creative with your punishments. See below for examples of certain situations.
Spy Thief	High		Frequently well-disguised, as a good spy should be. Their spy gear is a dead giveaway.	Grand theft. Breaking and entering. Being an unholy lovechild of traitors and greyshirts.	Spy Thieves can make potentially useful vigilantes/informants. A spy thief's PDA displays a list of items and machines to steal and their drop-off location, which means it's essentially a list of potential locations to stake out for other spy thieves and people to bodyguard. Only spy thieves can turn in the bounties. That means you can't lock the perp up and do the bounties yourself.
Vampire	High		Likes to fly around as a bat. Their eerily grey-skinned minions are sure signs of their presence.	Stealing blood. Noise Pollution with their screams. Causing hypothermia with their pet ghost bats.	Vampires weaknesses are the Chapel, holy water and Space (even if they're shielding themselves from the cold!) A vampire can and will resist your stuns, albeit at the cost of health.
Wraith	High		Invisible mostly. Tangible if they chose to be for the spooks or crossed salt lines like an idiot. Possessed items are a dead giveaway, such as the lone frosted donut in security yelling for the blood of innocents.	Invasion of privacy. Weaponizing station property. Flagrant abuse of spooking.	The wraith will strike when people are weakest, often targeting security HQ and medbay. They'll turn your baton and beepsky against you. Laying salt lines is your only defense, so consider visiting chemistry or the bar. Keep corpses out of sight, whether it be in a coffin, body-bag or a crate as they'll absorb it or worse.
Wizard	Very High		Comes in blue, red, black, green, and purple. Smells like moth balls and urine.	Flinging spells. Conjuring mayhem. Being hipster.	Wizards are a mixed bag. Be sure to study what spells they are using before making the assault. Wizards are just wrinkly dorks without their robes, and severely weakened if you manage to disarm them! Consider recruiting the ignoble chaplain to your cause if things get too tough.
Revolutionary	Very High		Sporting the trophies of dead Heads of Staff and fellow officers. Often wandering with lots of friends.	Conspiracy. High treason. Light and noise pollution via their flashes.	Kill, brig, and/or Debris Field/Adventure Zone-exile the Head (Revolutionaries), and the body will die. A brainwashed underling can be brought back to your cause with incredible violence, electropack torture, or a loyalty implant, but to fully stamp out the revolution, you'll need time, effort, and the entire crew working together.
Changeling	Very High		So deadly as they can look like anyone, but their twisted fleshy abomination form makes no mistake what they are.	Making husks. Making people hallucinate dragons and monkeys. Looking ugly as heck.	Do not go alone when fighting a changeling. They thrive in 1-on-1 fights. They're susceptible to fire. Unless you're armed to the teeth and have a death-wish, it's advised to run against an abomination. They are vulnerable when returning back to their human state.
Blob	Very High		Obese gelatinous goop of varying color	Consuming all in its path of ever hunger. Clogging up disposals. Making the station look even more shit that usual.	This antagonist is too fat to be arrested. It should be noted that most of the crew will be defending themselves against this creature as it takes over their department. The Scientists are often better armed than you at fighting this thing, consider their support.
Nuclear Operative	Very High		Have a very obvious name, stating their affiliation. Often sporting red. May be pulling a nuclear bomb through the hallways depending on how competent the crew is.	Blowing up absolutely everything you can imagine to hell and back, including the entire station.	Arm yourselves as much as you can. Some might consider arresting an operative valiant, others a stupid affair.
Other Threats	???		Gangsters, Zombies, Werewolves, Predators or Critters to name but a few.	All of (or none of) the above	Threats don't have to be actual players. NPCs such as critters can just be equally bad. And asteroids. Or even the occasional omnipresent admin. Anything that is a danger to the crew should be noted. Don't forget: In space, nobody can hear you scream.

There are other aspects to consider, too. More often than not, the situation won't be as clear-cut, requiring security officers to think on their feet. You may find yourself pondering as to what extent the law should be applied, for instance, in which case these scenarios might provide useful orientation:

• Traitor A is doing a gimmick, which doesn't really involve killing people unless in self defense. Traitor A's gimmick can be considered fun by most of the crew. You may want to either play along, provided doing so would make it more fun for everyone involved, or arrest the guy and run a little gimmick on your own (such as a public trial). Since traitor A is most likely still breaking the law and/or in possession of contraband, it's up to your discretion what to do, depending on circumstances.

• Traitor B is just trying to complete his objectives in a stealthy way. B is killing people when necessary, or if they're an assassination target, but he isn't going on a rampage. In this case, B should be arrested and have his gear confiscated. Arresting may cut the traitor's fun short, but it may also make it more fun for B as he has another chance to try and succeed. It'd also give the traitor ways to come up with plans for whatever may happen if he gets caught. If B tries to gun down security, well, he can't expect you not to fight back! Consult with the HoS or captain and if they decide execution is the best way to handle this sort of traitor, that's fine! A public execution may be more fun for everyone than tossing them naked out an airlock, though, and gives a quick-thinking traitor the potential to escape.

• Traitor C is going on a rampage! He is killing everyone he sees without compromise. You should do everything in your power to stop C; even lethal force may very well be justifiable in these kind of situations. While this cuts short the traitor's fun, mindless rampages aren't that exciting for the most part and tend to be less fun for the majority of players, too.

That said, these can only be guidelines and nothing more. Keep a clear head, use your best judgement and don't be afraid to ask colleagues or other players for advice!

Additional Resources

So you want to be a better Security Officer. Maybe you're fresh meat just trying to survive your first few traumatic Sec rounds. Maybe you're an old veteran who went on leave and wants to get back into the saddle. Maybe you're just an okay officer but want to be more than just okay. In any case, you definitely want to improve. Besides this guide, what other resources do you have?

• Other players! - It's been said previously, and it can't be said enough. Security is an inherently social role, and in any given scenario, no two officers will respond the same way. You might not agree with said responses, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but being exposed to different ones will help you shape your own.
  • OOC - Don't be afraid to talk to people in the in-game Out-of-Character chat. After a round's ended, and the details are still fresh on people's minds, it's a perfect time to ask all the pressing questions you had last round that couldn't be answered, like "Where did all those energy guns come from? Everyone I tried to arrest shot me with them." or "Why did Pubby McScrubs keep trying to break into Sec after we brigged him?"
  • Discord - Don't be afraid to visit the official Discord channel either, and it's better too since you're not restricted to the confines of the game and BYOND. You can ask and discuss all sorts of things here, from tactics ("How do I deal with a wizard?" or "What's a barrier good for?") to appropriate punishments ("What should I do about people who constantly break into Sec but don't otherwise seem to be antags?") to pressing moral/personal quandaries ("I feel like I was too rough on those revs.")
  • Goonstation Forums - Don't be afraid to check the out forums, even if you're just lurking and aren't actually planning on registering. Since it's a forum, you can naturally expect more detailed answers and explanations to your questions. Speaking of the forum...
• How to Security Officer 202? - Don't be put off by the fact that the thread's from 2016, the general ideas (especially on communication) and most of the tactics still matter; besides, the last few pages have far more recent responses. Includes lots and lots of specific tactics, like placing floor flashers, swapping out cells, and keeping your PDA window open.
• Space Law - As you might expect from a page called "Space Law", it describes veeery general guidelines for punishments, but also details appropriate use of force, arresting procedures, and the importance of communication.
  • Frontier Justice: A Treatise on Space Law - The above, basically, but as an in-game book, designed with the Goonstation Roleplay server's slower pace in mind.
• Beesmark's Goon Guide to Robust Security - A video guide explaining the loadout of a particular person who is not affiliated with the wiki. While the video is out of date, the written portion is still updated. Though many current Sec players find some of the items unnecessary and some tactics excessive (particularly removing eyes as punishment), it still explains some basic tenets of good security practice.

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