Security Officer
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 being shit. 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.
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 :h 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 a couple handcuffs and armor. You will find the rest of your equipment in your locker or in the vending machine. You have three main tools for subduing suspects:
- The flash is a melee weapon with a random amount of uses that can stun one person next to you if they don't have proper eye protection- sunglasses or a welding helmet. A good minimum force tool.
- The stun baton is a melee weapon with 10 shots before it needs to be recharged. It has to be on to stun someone. 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.
- The taser is a ranged stun weapon with 6 shots and must be recharged when depleted. You'll need to land two successive hits to stun somebody completely. When used point-blank on any intent except help, the taser will knock the target down instantly for a short amount of time.
- 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.
- The armory, which requires Head of Security clearance, contains riot shotguns that stun and do moderate damage to unarmoured personnel.
- 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.
Use handcuffs on a downed suspect 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.
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.
Whats even cooler about this is that it will go onto an online stat. 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.
Name | Attention | Mugshot | Description
|
---|---|---|---|
Garbage Security | Medium | Appearance: Looks a lot like you
Crime: Treating prisoners like animals. Being a bloodthirsty nutjob. Basically acting like Hitler. Notes: Weed shit security out asap. 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 shit. Power corrupts. | |
Rogue Silicons | Medium | Appearance: Takes the shape of a once friendly metallic buddies or an ominous AI
Crime: Not following their laws, murdering, bolting and shocking doors, calling you meatbag repeatedly. Notes: 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! | |
Vigilante | Medium | Appearance: Covered in the blood of innocents, boasting about how they murdered someone.
Crime: Non-antagonists outright murdering others they suspect to be antagonist, often stealing sec items and hurting innocents in the process. More than likely abusing stolen traitor gear. Notes: While killing antagonists isn't against the rules, vigilantes are hated amongst the community. It's often hard to distinguish between who's a traitor and who's a non-traitor just abusing traitor gear. Use your head when dealing with these assholes! | |
Traitor | High | Appearance: Frequently well disguised, a dead give-away is their nefarious tools
Crime: Murder. Arson. Grievous bodily harm. You name it, they've done it. Notes: It's not particularly necessary to always murder a traitor, especially if they're just goofing around. Be creative with your punishments. See below for examples of certain situations. | |
Vampire | High | Appearance: More than likely invisible and lurking in the dark with their bats.
Crime: Biting. Noise Pollution with their screams. Spreading rabies with their pet bats. Notes: Vampires weaknesses are strong lights, holy water and space (even if they're shielding themselves from the cold!) A vampire can and will resist one of your first stuns you inflict. | |
Wraith | High | Appearance: Invisible mostly. Tangible if they crossed salt lines like an idiot or chosen to be for the spooks. Possessed items are a dead give away, such as the lone frosted donut in security yelling for the blood of innocents.
Crime: Invasion of privacy. Weaponizing station property. Flagrant abuse of spooking. Notes: 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 | Appearance: Comes in blue, red and black, but always with a white archaic beard. Smells like moth balls and urine.
Crime: Flinging spells. Conjuring mayhem. Being hipster. Notes: 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. | |
Changeling | Very High | Appearance: So deadly as they can look like anyone, but their twisted fleshy abomination form makes no mistake what they are.
Crime: Making husks. Making people hallucinate dragons and monkeys. Looking ugly as heck. Notes: 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 | Appearance: Obese gelatinous goop of varying color
Crime: Consuming all in its path of ever hunger. Clogging up disposals. Making the station look even more shit that usual. Notes: 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 | Appearance: 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.
Crime: Blowing up absolutely everything you can imagine to hell and back, including the entire station. Notes: Arm yourselves as much as you can. Some might consider arresting an operative valiant, others a stupid affair. | |
Other Threats | ??? | Appearance: Gangsters, Zombies, Werewolves, Predators or Critters to name but a few.
Crime: All of (or none of) the above Notes: 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!
Supplementary Video
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Gallery
Jobs on Space Station 13 | ||
---|---|---|
Command & Security |
Captain · Head of Security · Head of Personnel · Chief Engineer · Research Director · Medical Director | |
Medical & Research |
Medical Doctor · Medical Trainee · Roboticist · Geneticist | |
Engineering | Engineer · Technical Trainee | |
Civilian |
Staff Assistant · Janitor · Chaplain · Mail Courier · Radio Host · Mime | |
Silicon | Artificial Intelligence · Cyborg | |
Jobs of the Day | Dungeoneer · Barber · Waiter · Lawyer · Tourist · Musician · Boxer | |
Antagonist Roles | With own mode | Arcfiend · Blob · Changeling · Gang Member · Flockmind ( Flocktrace) · Nuclear Operative · Spy Thief · Traitor · Revolutionary · Vampire ( Thrall) · Wizard |
Others | Sleeper Agent · Werewolf · Wraith ( Poltergeist) · Wrestler · Hunter · Grinch · Krampus · Gimmick antagonist roles | |
Special Roles | Ghostdrone · Monkey · Critter · Ghost · Cluwne · Santa Claus |