¶ Detective
| SECURITY STAFF | |
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Access: Brig, Detective's Office, Coroner Office, Morgue, Maintenance, Weapon Permit Additional Access: Security Difficulty: Medium Supervisors: Head of Security Duties: Investigate crimes, gather evidence, look badass, smoke cigarettes Guides: Space Law, Antagonist Guidance, Contraband Alternate Titles: Forensic Scientist, Forensic Technician, Private Investigator |
The Detective's job is to investigate the remains of any crime, identify the perpetrator, and then ask Security to arrest them for you. That's right, you have limited security access because you're supposed to be an evidence collector and hunter of monsters, not a goddamn beat cop or warden.
You are not Security. You are an investigator. Your revolver is only for self-defence.
Bare minimum requirements: Scan evidence uncovered at crime scenes, look up the fingerprints and DNA strings, and pass the names on to the rest of Security.
¶ Problem Sleuth
As a detective, your primary duty is to investigate crime scenes and use the tools provided to you to identify the perpetrators. You can do this with your Forensic Scanner, your PDA, and some basic intuition.
Your Forensic Scanner is located in your backpack, and the closet in your office has a spare. Go to the crime scene, take a picture of relevant things with your camera and then scan all the surfaces around the scene, such as doors, walls, consoles, and of course, out-of-place items. After the evidence has been scanned, place it in an evidence bag for storage and later reference. Be sure to scan any bodies for prints and fibers as well, provided that they haven't been hauled off to genetics or the morgue already.
If the latter case is true, head on over to the morgue and scan the body. Hopefully, the person who brought them in wore the Medbay standard-issue Nitrile gloves, or you might find yourself with a rather annoying case of mistaken identity. If this was not the case, be sure to identify who hauled the body in - And ideally, anyone who touched it during the process.
Once you've finished surveying the crime scene, return to either your office or the nearest easy-access Security outpost (if you can get past the outer department doors, you have access to any departmental security office). The former has both a Security Records and Medical Records computer; these allow you to check the fingerprints in the Security database to discern the owners, and the same is true of blood on the Medical Records computer. If you've found a weapon with someone's prints on it (And that person was not the confiscating officer), you've probably got your perp dead to rights. Similarly, if there is blood but nobody, you can easily identify the deceased.
Finding fibers can either improve or throw off your lead. For example, if the deceased Captain has fibers from insulated gloves and an Engineer's jumpsuit all over him, it's no great leap of logic to say that an Engineer was the one who did the deed. Conversely, finding nothing but fibers from your suit, or worse, black gloves, could throw you off and just leave you with a cold case.
If you get a single hit, you've got your guy. Make sure to set him to arrest and bring him in for questioning. It's always a good idea to speak over Security radio and inform them that you've identified the criminal and that you'd like them arrested - The rank-and-file officers will more often than not be happy to oblige, considering in their eyes, it's open season on anyone with the red-and-white 'w' above their heads. Provide them with any information that could assist in the arrest: Possible contraband on their person, alternate identities, and basic identifying factors like jumpsuit color and hairstyle.
If the criminal is caught, they may have a trial depending on the severity of the crime and the willingness of the command staff to host one. As the prosecution, you must attend this trial. Bring all the evidence against the criminal including fingerprint scan results, pictures of the crime scene, and testimonies from possible witnesses.
¶ Occupation: Dick Gumshoe
Of course, it's important to keep your evidence at least somewhat organized, but if you're feeling particularly hard-boiled and want to go the extra mile (and you manage to convince the right people to try a criminal before punishing them), here are some tips:
- Use your hand labeller to mark everything related to one case with a name you'll easily recognize. (For example "Clown Case" if it was the clown who honked for the last time.)
- There are multiple lockers in Evidence Storage, stick to one per case.
- Stay in contact with Coroner, make sure he reports any unusual deaths and will perform Autopsies for you.
- File all paperwork that belongs to a single case away in one folder. You start with two folders in your office and there are plenty more around the station.
- File the folders of closed cases away in your filing cabinet so you know where they are if you suddenly need them again.
- Make copies of important case-related documents for yourself (Or the rest of Security, if you prefer to keep the originals)
- Although you can do the prosecution yourself, the Head of Security will probably not want to miss out on this chance. Make sure they know exactly what evidence you found and what you will testify about in the trial.
¶ Advanced Detective Work
If you have multiple suspects and matches, you're going to have to do some more investigating and possibly some interviews.
Crimes committed by groups of people provide some distinct advantages and disadvantages for both you and security forces in general. Group crimes are often easily noticeable to any bystander, and the interrogation and subsequent confession of one suspect can lead to a string on the entire group. On the other hand, these pairs or triads or even larger groups can be difficult to take down without a lot of manpower and commitment on the part of security forces. Changelings and sometimes traitors operate in groups, so you'll have to exercise extra caution when investigating crime scenes you think they're responsible for.
When you do have multiple suspects, it's usually because of inconclusive forensics results. Because you're going to have to figure out the crime using more traditional methods along the lines of interviews, you should make sure to bring your universal recorder with you. Note that a universal recorder also acts as a universal translator, so you should be able to collect the testimonials of sentient slimes, monkeys, and, in the most bizarre of scenarios, xenos.
When conducting interviews, make sure that you set out with a hunch. Only interview people and only ask questions that you think are relevant to the situation. However, in some cases asking a non-pointed question can throw a bluffer off and cause them to slip in their story. People who seem more friendly after moving on from a subject may be lying.
Take Medical Analyzer from medbay. It tells you the types of damage a person has on them, any advanced diseases, and most importantly in your line of work their time of death. Use this last fact to narrow down possible suspects. But in general, such business is in the hands of the Coroner, always keep them close, they can provide a lot of information through Autopsies.
Don't forget: You have access to the Interrogation room in the brig. Great for when you want to be more thematic, or just need some privacy.
¶ Spare Time
Technically, the above represents the entirety of the detective's job. Despite this, you will rarely be called upon to investigate a crime, you will have to investigate crime scenes on your initiative. Luckily, there are some other things that the Detective can do instead:
- Snoop around. You have access to the maintenance shafts around the station, allowing you to find things off-camera.
- Be a general assistant to Security.
- Be a personal bodyguard to somebody, ideally a weaker head of staff like the RD. You're quite intimidating aesthetically, even though you're no more (and arguably less) dangerous than the average security officer.
- Use the camera terminal in your office to scan the station - it looks like an old-fashioned TV. Look around for any crimes, then report it over the Security channel or head over there yourself. It's probably not a good idea to announce it over the general radio, or the criminal in question will usually realize that you're onto them and get away.
- Update the security records. This is meant to be the Warden's job, but you'll be hard-pressed to see him doing that.
- Check on disposals. Many criminals often dump victims, contraband, weapons, and everything you can think of into disposals. Stop by every once in a while, you never know when you might find a dead body.
¶ Equipment
The detective has a lot of shit in his office, which might bewilder you. Luckily, the only necessary stuff that you don't spawn with is your revolver and speed loaders for it.
Here is a list of stuff that either Detective spawns with, or is in his office:
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Cigarettes and Zippo lighter - necessary, smoking is cool.
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A worn suit, coat, and hat. Not only do these make you look cool, but they act as armor. Also, the hat has a stock of booze candy corns.
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A White Crayon that you can use to outline a corpse
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Black gloves - as stated above, NEVER take these off if you are planning on being an actual detective and doing your damn job, or you will get your prints on the evidence and fuck up the entire investigation.
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A security radio headset Secheadset.pnggives you access to the security channel so you can tell the officers to arrest insert-criminal-name-here.
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A seclite is the standard issue security illumination device. Can be turned on and placed in a pocket, freeing a hand for dark maintenance tunnels.
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A classic police baton, for self-defence
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Your forensics scanner is found in your backpack. Use this to scan for fingerprints and trace fibers. The forensic scanner lists fingerprints, materials, and fibers in a timeline, sorted by oldest first to newest at last. Very useful to know when a piece of evidence or an item of interest has been handled by several people before being scanned.
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A PDA comes pre-installed with the Security Records application, and you can also download Medical Records too. Use it to identify fingerprints on the go.
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Your .38 revolver Detectivegun.pngcomes complete with the ability to reskin it, fire special ammo, rename it, and even modify it with a screwdriver to fire the exceptionally lethal .357 caliber rounds.
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Speed Loaders Ammo 38.png for the revolver, you may want to put these in your internals box. You must deal with the Cargo Bay workers if you run out - Remember to recycle empty speed loaders into the Autolathe for a full refund!
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.38 Ammo types:
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.38 Normal: Standard, 25 brute dmg - Available from Cargo, Autolathe, Security techfab, Starting holster.
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.38 TRAC: Implants a weak, short-lasting tracker, 10 brute dmg - Available from Cargo, Security techfab.
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.38 Match: Increased ricochet ability, 25 brute dmg - Available from: Cargo.
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.38 Rubber: Does disabler-level stamina damage, still does reduced brute damage, 10 brute dmg - Available from Cargo.
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.38 DumDum: High chance to embed, Weak against armour, Sharp, 15 brute dmg - Available from Cargo.
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.38 Hotshot: Sets target on fire, 20 brute dmg - Available from Cargo, Security techfab.
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.38 Iceblox: Cools target body temp to 100K causing slowdown and burns, 20 brute dmg - Available from Cargo, Security techfab.
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A universal recorder, for documenting interviews with suspects, witnesses, and more.
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A hand labeller. In theory, this is for labelling evidence, but it's just as entertaining.
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A camera. This is supposed to be for taking pictures of evidence and suspects, but most of the time it is for taking pictures of The Owl.
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A pair of handcuffs Handcuffs.png for incapacitating a crook after you run out of bullets and retaliate in self-defence using your gun.
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Nothing says you're serious like your Armored Vest. It's just like the standard-issue security vest, except this one comes in beige and has an awesome gold badge on it.
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Stalk potential suspects who haven't turned off their suit sensors with the crew pinpointer.
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The Security Holotape Projector can be used to cordon off crime scenes, making it easier to prevent your evidence from being contaminated.
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Binoculars greatly expand your field of view to catch criminal activity that wouldn't typically occur in front of security personnel.
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A spyglass kit, containing a camera disguised as a pocket protector, connected sunglasses, and instructions. Useful for keeping an eye on various objectives, or watching an undercover agent.
If you're looking for more equipment, the Warden can issue you some more standard security equipment.
¶ Tips
- To keep an item that's on the ground (or inside a storage item) free from forensic contamination, you can place it in an evidence bag without touching it, and when you're done moving it around you can hold the evidence bag in your active hand, have your other hand full with something, and press your activate object key (default: Z) to drop the item in the evidence bag on the ground without ever contaminating it.
- It's a great idea to use the hand labeller in your office when the round starts and give the label your character's name, then slap that label on your black gloves. That way, if you touch something and then scan it, you'll see that the fibers on the scanned item will specifically state your black gloves with the hand label on them separately from other black gloves that may have touched the same item.
- If you want to check if a husk was drained or burned, try extracting blood from it with a syringe or scanning the body with a health analyzer or your PDA's medical scanner.
- Got a husk in genetics? No ID on him? Use the scanner on the body to get the fingerprints and you know who that poor sod was.
- A health analyzer will allow you to scan a body for chemicals in the bloodstream by right-clicking the body - This can be useful in finding abnormal toxins if a body is fresh.
- You can put an empty speedloader back into an autolathe to receive a full refund of materials
- You can use Meson Scanners to find hidden walls; they show hidden doors as open spaces when not in direct sight of them.
- The Detective's scanner can be used at range, to scan containers and such.
- You can get a person's fingerprints by directly scanning them with a forensic scanner.
- You can use a wrench on your revolver to modify it to shoot much more lethal .357 rounds. Remember to eject the loaded rounds, or it'll end up going off in your face.