Security K9 unit ghost role

[JustinWinningham]

First draft of Security K9 ghost role proposition

[Cojoke-dot]

So how this works is thats it's a security Remi who can search people faster? The new job is just a secoff with a pet then correct? The K9 dog would be considered a familiar then, would the ghost role be focused on an item or the K9 person?

Sounds cool I guess, the sniffing could definitely be broken with how it's implemented. Would it detect contraband, chemicals, or explosives? Could it smell stuff in a storage implant? At the very minimum it should take about 10 seconds for the dog to sniff so people can react and it's not just constant contra checks on green.

[JustinWinningham]

So how this works is thats it's a security Remi who can search people faster? The new job is just a secoff with a pet then correct? The K9 dog would be considered a familiar then, would the ghost role be focused on an item or the K9 person?

Sounds cool I guess, the sniffing could definitely be broken with how it's implemented. Would it detect contraband, chemicals, or explosives? Could it smell stuff in a storage implant? At the very minimum it should take about 10 seconds for the dog to sniff so people can react and it's not just constant contra checks on green.

I asked people a few times and generally people thought it would be more appropriate to be a ghost role instead of a full job. But yes you would act like a department level familiar - or attached to a particular secoff. The ghost could spawn as an activation off a K9 handler one time use item similar to syndiecats or just as a regular random mob.

I hard agree that it could be broken, the sniffing would take time just like stripping to prevent abuse. My initial proposal would be for it to ONLY detect explosives, with things like drugs / reagents added later on if the base concept proved successful.

[NoElkaTheGod]

You mentioned it being able to sniff food. I think it would be funny, if food took priority over everything else. That way you can carry a steak around, so that K9 would not be able to detect any explosives or whatever you have.

Also consider K9 with cogni.

[SlamBamActionman]

I went into this proposal sceptical because any buff to Security is of course a nerf to antags, and as AI has shown being caught via monitoring is a fairly boring. But I do think your implementation might work due to a combination of factors:

• I would definitely go with the smell option 2; having a passive ability that can detect antag activity might become annoying, so making it an active action allows other players to react.
• A lack of radio or ability to restrain makes the K9 unable to effectively act solo. It becomes more of an assisting tool that goes alongside a SecOff. This is the necessary downside required to make the K9 balanced.

I can't speak directly to the proposed number values; movement speed is very important in this game so I probably wouldn't go for more than 115% speed. I am not sure if the bite should induce slow in the target; might be better to have it deal major stam damage instead (there's a property to increase the multiplier of stam damage from damage dealt, used by stuff like the Truncheon), but then again inducing slow might be more balanced against enemies like Nukies.

I'm not sure about it being a role that becomes available progressively through the round. Perhaps just one roundstart is enough.

Overall I find the proposal interesting and would love to see it playtested.

[Errant-4]

Note, I don't think it should be called K9, because while naturally Sec will always have connotations to police, that is a parallel that we have been intentionally trying to avoid on multiple occasions, such as by making them red rather than blue. Afaik they are supposed to be closer to mall security but with (more) guns. We could come up with some way funnier name for the role, or perhaps just giving it a specific name, which could also enforce that there should not be more than one of them, if even that.

An alternative to stun or stamina damage on the bite could be a latch-on ability. This would essentially make the secdog as if it was dragged by the target (possibly also blocking a hand?), who can't let go. The target is slowed by this. The dog would not be able to bite while latched on, making this a somewhat risky proposition, as the target could just start punching them to get them to let go. Although that too is a risky proposition, because then the dog can just opt to let go and start biting instead.
Since the dog is the one being moved while latched on, this can't be used to control, detain or significantly harass, only to help someone else catch up to the target.