Playing as a janitor is a good way for a new player to learn the game. While it’s funnily enough an important role to reduce perceived chaos and tone the station tension down, it could use more personal agency. Introducing a lost & found section that the janitor and security can access when finding non trash bag-able items on the ground can be a good way to utilize a players lack of knowledge to introduce more chaos and potential for storytelling by finding high value/dangerous stuff on the ground that you don’t know the purpose of and giving those items away to people who ask for them. You could also add a small section in the same area to put items that are valuable for Cargo with a handbook next to it explaining to the janitors what things are useful to Cargo. PS: (Asked a veteran janitor for this) For people who can identify contraband material you can still put those things in lost & found and give them out by saying “I’m not security, it’s not my job to manage contraband”.
im not too keen on this idea… being a jani based thing, though often in places the jani would do this IRL often things that are lost in SS14 are lost from foul play… and taking contriband, lost headsets or PDA’s and not telling SEC would remove ways the detective can find clues to who is doing murders on the station.
This isn’t to say you couldn’t do this anyway, just grab a crayon and setup a two way windoor like at hop or sci and you should be good to go, engineering could likely get this setup in after the 10 minute mark in around 5 minutes.
There’s nothing stopping you from giving contraband material to the sec even with a lost and found, just that the opportunities for more interactions will arise. The Sec and detective can still go into the janitors room and the janitor can already mess up the work of detectives without a lost and found.
Also, having an official place built is different than just building it yourself you would have to agree right, even if the two were to be the exact same, as it would become a mechanic every round rather than the few times people build it and people could begin to play around it. It would also help with rounds where there’s not much to clean.
I mean… yeah an offical lost and found is more offical… but I dont think attaching it to Jani is the right call. Generally Jani isn’t in their office and is roaming looking for spills or trash so any lost and found by them would be a prime target for Grey-tiding and Antags
There is also the question of; how many people would use it? If you go crit you may drop what your holding and that MAYBE important. but generally random items left outside the vents are left as they are no longer wanted.
Also if we’re making a lost and found SEC is way more able to return items to their owners. the Detective, thanks to there finger printing, can match lost items to their owners and then reach out to them. Using them as a lost and found also gives them chance to get ahead on crime. I remember this one shift where I picked up a bag from disposals and as I was a clown that shift make a ‘fake’ crime scene, turned out the bag belonged to a real murder victim and I haddn’t considered that. If I had handed it to sec, they might of been on the case much-much faster.
Lost and found will be inside the janitors room with openable glass with the bin for the items in viewing of the glass. Most of the non trashbag-able items you find lying randomly on the ground are non contraband such as regular clothing. Your job is to clean and pickup trash, but in this case every 1/10~ “trash” might be useful to someone, whether for roleplay or gameplay. Rather than just picking up those things and putting them in the disposal, you can put them in lost and found. You don’t have to be there, only when you refill water/supplies or someone asks over radio if they see their item inside. It’s a thing that adds something, you don’t have to use it; but if you do it adds to the experience. That’s it.
I already use the front desk that most Janitorials have for this in the 1 in 1000 case I find something ‘neat’ in a trafficked area I want to clean up. Otherwise I leave it at Cargo’s front desk or if its semi dangerous, give it to the warden.
Like really, what else is jani going to use their front desk for? I’ve left cleanades there as a ‘grab it if you need it’ and they’ve sat there all shift as is.