From here on out you will be able to obscure camera feeds, and microphones with spray paint, causing them to be temporarily disabled. The IC reasoning here is that if you're spraying crap all over a camera or a mic, it's fucking with the sensors and it will stop working.
Because this is a game, and spraypaint is cheap, the defacement (which uses the same background code as art defacement: deface on spraypaint cans and clean on aerosol cans) will be auto cleaned after a certain amount of time. Assume that the security gear has some kind of nanite polymer component that slowly breaks down foreign substances that are added to it.
Depending on where the camera is, your defacement will last 1-2 weeks. This also means GMs don't need to spend time cleaning up cameras on places like Gold. HOWEVER. There is an IC way to clean the equipment. You can use solvent can's to clean them up right away.
This means that WCS and Janitors and possibly corpsec will have more to do. If people are messing with their ability to see things, they'll want to be checking those cameras and mics to make sure they are ALL good.
Anyone running a camera network for the purposes of keeping an eye on their building/turf will have to do more upkeep to keep their network running smoothly, which will hopefully result in IC things that people can do (hire someone to check all your camera feeds, janitors or corpsec doing their rounds should look for evidence that cameras are defaced, etc).
Anyone wanting to MESS WITH SOMEONE can now hire folks to go do temporary damage to their ability to monitor their turf/building/whatever. This allows gangs and syndicates to mess with each other. It also allows corps to fuck with each other in a 'this isn't the end of the world but more like a prank' kinda way.
Looking at the cam/mic will show you ALL the ways it has been defaced: The sensors are obscured by bright gold paint.
Looking at a feed on a monitor will show you it as well: Feed from security camera [c-27796] at REDACTED [#1734]: The sensors are obscured by bright gold paint.
This means that you can tell from a glance if something is working or not. If it's not working it's not transmitting data to you, so you won't hear or see anything.
This change DOES NOT EFFECT things like motion or thermographic, motion, firearm, cyberware, or gun turret equipment. So, we have also made things like thermo and motion sensors MORE useful than they were previously (since wtf was the point of a motion sensor when a camera would show you motion AND who it was).
This idea was based on a BGBB post I saw earlier today, so please remember we DO pay attention to these, and in fact, are one of our main sources of inspiration.
-- S
