Increase spy camera limit / battery time
Description
Increase the amount of spy cameras one person can have placed down at a time as it's currently limited to two per person. Additionally, increase the battery life on these cameras.
Reason:
Cameras are a very strong PD tool and add a layer of depth and complexity to investigations. Only being able to place two is extremely limiting, it's not even a case of having the limit in place reduces the amount of cameras either - we still get all the cameras we need we just have different people own them and then share them around - this becomes an inconvinence because we have to wait for the right people to be online at the same time to share camera access.
Camera battery life increase would be good too. Some cameras are placed in very hard or dangerous to reach areas for the purpose of investigation RP, only having half an hour means you can't actually monitor them without burning them out quickly - you basically have to place it and just glance at them every so often and hope you get lucky.
The cameras are static so they are already pretty limited in what they can view.
Additional Context:
To counter this, you could add a 'Bug Sweeper' item similar to the metal detector that beeps when you are within range of a camera if the concern is too many cameras.
Or if the issue was too many cameras being placed everywhere, make it so there are two types of cameras - 'PD Spy Cameras' and 'Spy Cameras' and give PD ones more battery life / more slots to place so we can use them in legitimate investigation / surveilance RP.
It could even be a bigger/bulkier model so it's easier to spot but behave like the CCTV that VPD has access to at the building camera terminal on level 4.
The reason that spurred this suggestion:
We're monitoring a group in character who sporadically visits an area / property. We cannot reliably watch this area because it's hard to get to / sit in a car and watch/lie on a roof - so we use cameras. The cameras have a very limited life span which makes replacing it extremely difficult, also we are very limited to the angles which we can view due to the two camera per person limit.
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Comments2
kevbroseph
Oct 16, 2023
1: there are ways to get around the 2 limit rule if people work together on it.
2: they are indeed strong but I feel that people shouldn't be just sitting on cameras for extended periods of time.
3: there has been lots of discussion on various crim/PD interactions. Specifically no knock raids.
If the general consensus is crims should be smarter, then so should the PD.
My suggestion to address the issue is allow the use of Batteries to recharge the cameras.
Similar to how you remove the camera with a certain item in your pockets whilst targeting the camera.
Yes, officers will be exposed when attempting to recharge the cameras, but what's the difference if you were out there watching with binoculars or a Sony camera?
And as I stated above, there are ways around the camera limit through legitimate means.
Find out IC.
Brucy
Oct 18, 2023
"1: there are ways to get around the 2 limit rule if people work together on it."
I know & I know how to get around the limit, I addressed that in my initial post. There is no RP benefit for it to be like that, it's just a limitation that hinders their use.
"2: they are indeed strong but I feel that people shouldn't be just sitting on cameras for extended periods of time."
I agree, I'm not advocating for that - but for actual survielance work to build cases which is becoming a more common requirement, 30 minutes is not a lot of time when you are taking photos of movement in an area.
"3: there has been lots of discussion on various crim/PD interactions. Specifically no knock raids.
If the general consensus is crims should be smarter, then so should the PD."
That's literally what I'm asking for - if the communities expectation is to meet a higher burden of evidence, give us the tools to meet that criteria.
"My suggestion to address the issue is allow the use of Batteries to recharge the cameras."
I think that's a fine idea - but probably needs to be more than half an hour per charge - maybe 60 minutes per charge.
"Yes, officers will be exposed when attempting to recharge the cameras, but what's the difference if you were out there watching with binoculars or a Sony camera?"
As per my initial post, there are many areas where it is impossible or otherwise extremely difficult to watch with a hand-held camera or binoculars, that's what we use cameras for. If we are staking out a place we can use a physical camera or binos, we do.
"And as I stated above, there are ways around the camera limit through legitimate means.
Find out IC."
To reiterate, yes, I'm aware of how to get around the two camera limit - I don't think it's really a 'legitimate means' either and rather an unintended side-effect of the system. It doesn't provide any actual roleplay or depth besides having to constantly chase people up to place a camera down for you and then share it.