Ambient Security Device Theft
Take the load off of staff long term

Whenever a character enters a 'room' there is a chance that security gear installed in that room disappears (ambiently stolen or destroyed).

The odds vary based on location. In a secured area (can't be reached without passing through a locked door) then it's crazy low or zero. If it's on a public street it's higher. If it's in a secure space the odds are far higher (inside a shop for example). Security devices installed by staff as a part of a build will never disappear.

Why? Because it makes sense to me that ambient population (greedy, poor, angry, WCS and others) can and would remove or destroy security devices they can get to. Also, massive networks can, in my opinion, be stifling and some locations should simply never have cameras for any length of time for game balance or OOC game health reasons.

Once this is set up and well tuned staff can largely stop worrying about watching camera networks for balance issues as they will generally self correct over time once the odds are dialed in.

Effective camera networks are expensive to set up and you often need certain licenses to do so widely. They are trivial to temporarily sabotage, easy enough to take apart permanently, and policed by GMs in certain locations. If you know what you're doing, you can avoid showing up on them. Cams can be powerful but there are already a lot of limits to them which you can find out about in-character.

It doesn't make sense for devices to magically disappear with no recourse.

Not to branch off into too much of a different topic, but I do like this idea of shooting a camera and damaging it. Paired with a repairing mechanic, it could provide more opportunity for certain professions potentially.

I don't think the effectiveness of anything is exaggerated by players quite as much as cameras have been. Maybe chip locating had more fearmongering, but it's close.

Considering what a gigantic pain in the ass those networks are to set up and use, and how marginally useful they are now that characters technically can't be identified on them unless they out themselves, I really don't think they need to be constantly degrading in the bargain.

Cameras are everywhere IC, if anything there's way, way fewer actual cameras than there should be, and OOC no one is ever watching 95% of them anyway because it's a scrolling nightmare of spam to try to deal with.