Cameras: What can done to make them more interesting.

Posting this to allow the conversation on camera's to continue. They appear to be a somewhat divisive topic with differing opinions on just how good they are. Lets talk about them. How can they be made more interesting? More thematic? Potentially less overpowered without compromising usefulness and so on. I have some ideas that I mentioned in the guided discussion, in no particular order.

Note: I am not very familiar with cameras myself. And I do not mean to suggest that any particular change should absolutely be done, that they should be done in a vacuum without other changes, or that all of these ideas should be all added together.

Some possible ideas to mix and match:

Make cameras damageable outside of simply spraying them. Give securetech/electrotechs more to do.

Make cameras able to be destroyed. Add more to maintaining a network, more work for techs.

Add camera tiers. Low end cameras may suffer signal outages, sporadic static, be easier to remove, damage, destroy, struggle with keeping track of things in certain environments such as crowded or maybe certain weathers, or be reliant on a sic signal. There could be craftable options. High end options may have security and self defense capabilities.

Camera decay. That camera's easier to remove without maintenance over time.

Power outages were mentioned too but I think that deserves its own topic.

They are fine as they are really, maybe remove the stuff that lets us smell people and understand all languages though that should be ignored icly anyways. (if codedly possible)

I think the idea in guided discussions to add ambient vehicles moving that shows up on feeds too was a good idea though to help against small worlding.

Edited by Mikael at 11/07/26 3:25 pm

if decay is added id like there to be techies that can be hired to restore cameras back to their original integrity from when it was originaly set up

the camera stealing market does not need to be more competitive- but alot of that is specific IC situations. the best of the best are not invulnerable, even for techies.

I think Bubbles made it pretty clear in the discussion that they've seen some extreme examples of small worlding through cameras, which I know some people might not be connected to the efficacy of cameras as a gameplay mechanic but I do think they are related.

And I am strictly against anything that enables people to sit behind locked doors and accurately track the movements of people across entire sectors of the game world, with impunity, and the only protection we have is trusting them to not small world everything they can see.

I get the feeling that this system was better served in years past where the game population was much smaller, and there were less actual RP avenues to exploit to find and locate people.

As for ways to improve them, and I know this was said that it might not be possible the way identity is built in Sindome, but a filter on the camera's feed so it only reports back shortdesc instead of names, would go a long way to control how much actionable and immediate detail is fed to people behind the monitor.

Also limiting power sources in locations so you can only have so many devices installed, or even limiting power sources in places your security equipment is being watched.

rolling power outages like SIC, ambient damage/maintenance requirements, make techies more useful and make them require in world intervention more often. Stuff like that.