Sonic Earmuffs

[Midaychi]

Item, looks kind of like techy earmuffs, goes on ear(s) slot, detective gets one in their locker.
Wearing it muffles sound around you but displays footsteps underneath mobs in range pink panther style that move and uses their direction for the icon direction of the footsteps. It also shows vague sparkles when they do something that causes noise. Doesn't care about line of sight. Bonus points if it displays different footsteps based on WHAT the mob moving around is.

Traitors can order one that looks like a standard encryption key and goes in a commlink, and doesn't muffle sound, but makes you moderately more susceptible to sonic-based maladies.

[paprika]

So it's thermals...?

[Reece]

Sounds pretty cool actually

[Okand37]

It would definitely be interesting, and prints could just as easily be made with reskinning bloody footprints, but I am sure about the actual practical use of this. As it stands, there aren't a lot of people using the current detective tools thoroughly as we have now.

[lumipharon]

This sounds really neat, but functionally it will be ghetto thermals.

[Midaychi]

This sounds really neat, but functionally it will be ghetto thermals.

That's the idea. Thermals helped solve and find crimes to detective, but thermals themselves were overpowered and a big game unbalancer.
Sonic Earmuffs would be something to help revitalize that and get the private eye seeing more privates, but balancing it through semi-anonymity. If you really want to know who's tip tapping at your door step, you have to do some gumshoe detective work first. Also it takes up the ear slot and muffles sound, so you can't really use it concurrently if you intend to hear things or use comms.

It would unfortunately get abused to antag hunt, though. Maybe certain kinds of footware can muffle footsteps, like the Pajama bunny shoes?

[RedMcCloud]

This sounds really neat, but functionally it will be ghetto thermals.

That's the idea. Thermals helped solve and find crimes to detective, but thermals themselves were overpowered and a big game unbalancer.
Sonic Earmuffs would be something to help revitalize that and get the private eye seeing more privates, but balancing it through semi-anonymity. If you really want to know who's tip tapping at your door step, you have to do some gumshoe detective work first. Also it takes up the ear slot and muffles sound, so you can't really use it concurrently if you intend to hear things or use comms.

It would unfortunately get abused to antag hunt, though. Maybe certain kinds of footware can muffle footsteps, like the Pajama bunny shoes?

Make it so barefoot people's footsteps aren't seen.

[paprika]

And people who are walking

[DemonFiren]

Or the footsteps of anyone wearing noslips, or the footsteps of anyone walking.