Security is shit for a couple of reasons, and here's why nobody plays as Sec
1: You have no license at all to be a shitter.
Assistants are basically "A for Antag" in my experience of things. Other roles will often be shitters, but as Sec, you are beholden to not just start murdering people off the cuff for no reason. Nobody else is under that same restriction. Ahelping, the supposed ultimate weapon against the shitters, does nothing. I have ahelped every single round I have played on kiwi for the past five rounds. (Last round I played, two Heads, an Assistant, and the Chaplain were all total shitters.)
2: You have weak as shit gear.
The stun baton is pretty weak. After one hit, a couple of seconds later someone falls over. That's more than enough time for them to kill you or get into a hard to reach place to wait out their tiny knockdown. The disabler needs four shots to put someone down and has maybe twelve shots, I haven't counted. Pepper spray is situational and most people wear gas masks anyway. Flashes are okay. Energy bola are somewhat useful. The only good thing Security has, the only thing they have that isn't just immediately outclassed by something a random person in Medical or Engineering could make for themselves, is their armor. Contractors have stun batons that shit all over your own, because their stun batons actually work.
(Heads also have the shitty telebaton, which is basically worthless as someone can just get up after the first hit and kill, but heads usually also have things like flamethrowers, poisons, or real guns.)
3: Space Law
If some shitter is a total shitter and you don't find antag gear on them, you have to put them in the box and let them sit for five minutes. If they win the fight, you die and they hide your corpse.
4: Reliance on others
I cannot tell you how many times on /tg/ station I as a sec officer watched all other officers be total retards and run off alone and die. Sec comms are frequently taken from empty lockers and most officers don't seem to want to coordinate at all. Screaming futilely over :S as everyone runs off one by one and dies is one of the most frustrating experiences in SS13 as it isn't your fault that the station is getting fucked.
5: You're horribly outnumbered
Even if you did coordinate, almost nobody plays as security for the above reasons, and it's only a matter of time before the shitters beat you to death and steal your gear.
But kiwi seems to be a reverse, security really does need their tasers and decent batons back; preferably with loyalty firing pins in them.
I've thought a lot in what little spare time I have about the KiwiStation security problem, and came to a very similar conclusion. In higher pop servers with less shitters targeting them, the tasers and turbo batons end up being a lot of un-fun for anyone trying to play any form of antag, especially with 4-8 officers all chasing you strapped with insta-game over guns. Kiwi's generally different though, usually its 1, maybe 2 "lone sheriff" officers trying to handle typically twice that number of legitimate antags
on top of the /tg/ shitter rejects, using weaker equipment better balanced for a security force with more robust numbers.
Changing their equipment to the old tasers and batons with mindshield pins wouldn't be a complete fix to the problem, but it would level the playing field a little and maybe encourage people to not give up wholly on Sec.
The backswing on this is it opens up Sec to be the new choice for shitfucks to try and join and self-antag in, maybe this change to the good equipment also coincides with a "you have to play on the server for [x] hours" lockout for sec roles and a heavier hand in role bans.
I dunno, spitballing here.
BYOND account: Canis Cucurbita
Character name: Elliot Kemble
Ban type: Server
Ban length: Permanent
Ban reason: View attachment 1803234
Time ban was placed: 2020-12-22 01:08:14
Round ID in which ban was placed: 841
Your side of the story:
I was the Quartermaster of that round and a gun event wizard had recently been killed and I was chilling around the halls, collecting guns people left behind to throw in cargo. I saw sec officer dual wielding disablers while laying on the ground and decided to watch what'd happen from around the corner. I saw him start unloading into the chaplain and then HoP and the warden eventually came to help cart off the both of them. I had previously seen the HoP and chaplain help kill the wizard and had no reason to believe they were up to no good, from my perspective it seemed like sec was getting angtsy about everyone having guns so I escalated the situation by unloading my gun into the arresting officer and healing the chaplain and HoP then declaring that secs were shits and to attack them if they tried coming into cargo after someone declared I was a criminal over comms (I explained how I saw what happened over comms with my megaphone). I didn't realize I had been in trouble for any of this until I came back after being afk at round end and noticing the round was being delayed. After I retruned I hadn't see any admin messages directed toward me and the only other ones I saw were centcomm messages that made the round seem like there was a lot of other shit going on that I hadn't seen. The only other sec officer to get killed through my actions was one who got shot into crit by one of my miners and brought into cargo.
Additional information:
I recognize that there had been more to that round than what I had personally seen and I shouldn't be be wrangling people I thought were being shitters. Sorry for the long winded text, I didn't have the chance to explain what had happened in the round itself.
I personally watched about 20 minutes of your behavior. You ordered a fuck ton of guns (forget this part in your side of the story?), broke into the weapon crates using a miner's KA (I gotta give you some props, neat trick putting it in the vacuum of your empty shuttle bay while you stand safely in the plastic flaps, ensuring full damage from the KA and a faster break of the lock,
clearly you've done this before), then told your cronies to arm up, declared to shoot any security you saw, and to take the shuttle while armed to the teeth, blasting dead anyone who looked at you funny with your cargo techs and miners in a tight group. When the round over was delayed, every single shitter,
including you, disconnected, hoping not to be noticed I guess. All in all, pretty coordinated for 3-5 random self-antags, depending if you want to include your collaboration with the HoP and Chaplain.
