i've gone away from this thread for a bit and have been just chillin and watchin, and thinkin...
Unfortunately the more I think about it, the more I realise we need to fullfil 2 goals which (in my opinion) require a fairly drastic change to the way the current crime and punishment system works... I do not see a 'simple' fix because ultimately simply making the penalty for random murder harsher will not solve the real underlying problem of making PvP meaningful and rarer while seriously deterring the newbie killers and that particular sort of antisocial behaviour while maintaining a beleivable 'justice' system and may well impact on other activities like piracy in a negative way...
Such a system does have to be weighted more towards player vs player interactions, making the choice to kill another player in certain circumstances not as harsh as killing a player in other circumstances.
For example. A pirates choice to kill a player running from them should be a last choice not a first choice, but firing on them to disable their ship should not be unduely harsh because otherwise we drastically affect PvP Piracy in a very negative way and that is not a desired outcome.
The system needs to be much more granular than it currently is and it needs to retain a history of the players behaviour beyond being clean / wanted and in a way the carries on beyond ship destruction.
I propose that what is needed is a lawefulness state (clean / wanted) and a criminal state stat for commanders, the criminal state stat would be both going positive and negative or it could be just a negative stat. The criminal stat of the commander would be different for each major faction, you would have one stat for alliance, one for empire, one for federation and one for independant systems.
Do legal deeds such as complete legal missions (trade, courier, rescues, kill / assasinate miscreants***, etc, bounty hunting criminals*** without breaking local laws, etc) would raise your criminal stat towards the positive.
Doing illegal deeds such as smuggling illegal cargo, fetch illegal cargo, killing / assasinating clean ships***, and missions of those sort would lower your criminal stat towards the negative.
Getting caught doing illegal things (killing clean ships and being reported for it, getting caught smuggling, friendly fire incidents, etc would all have extra negative weighting on the criminal stat as well as having an impact on the lawfulness stat, so you would get the fine or bounty as well as have an additional hit to your criminal stat.
*** Note that the weighting and impact on your criminal state when the target is a Player would be significantly higher than if it were an NPC.
The criminal status AND major faction relationships of a player would go some way to determine wether or not bounties on that player end up faction wide and the response from the faction with regards to docking privliages and police response when seen in their space by that major faction aligned minor faction authority ships. So if you are a ciminal inside of a given major factions space, and you end up with a bad relationship with that faction, you may well be on a KOS list for that faction as well as being denied docking access across that major factions space.
Another aspect to this, if while you are flying and you commit a crime that results in docking privliages being revoked in the major factions space and your last port of call was at a station aligned to that major faction, should your ship get destroyed before you get to dock somewhere else, you end up being placed in a non aligned 'restart' system that may well be on the other side of the bubble. Note I said restart system not starter system.
Player vs Player criminal behaviour weighting needs to be individialised per different crime type, firing on a clean player with shields up should not have significant weighting, hatchbreaking should have less weighting than doing hull damage to a ship, doing hull damage should have suitably more weighting than firing on a ship with shields up or hatchbreaking, and finally killing a clean player should have a very significant weighting on the criminal stat.
The criminal stat would stay with you, permanently, you would only be able to modify it by the deeds you do, and its meant as a means to show what kind of player history that person has. Some will obviously aim for the most negative they can, and that should be okay to do that.
Police response times would be revamped to take full consideration of the following
Systems wealth level - the higher the higher grade of security NPC's (NPC's in high end ships with A class outfittings for example)
System security level - the higher the level, the faster and more intense the response, higher level NPC respondants and more of them in a shorter time frame.
Players lawful stat (clean / wanted) and players criminal stat - the more negative the stat when wanted, the higher numbers of NPC authority ships that are initially sent and the higher the likeyhood of backup reinforcements coming and the more noticable an effect it has on the 'response times' for the authority to arrive.
Relationship to minor faction - the more negative the relationship the higher the likelyhood that security will interdict you in force during supercruise, regardless of lawful state with them, and if you are hostile and wanted then you should expect serious interdiction attempts / authority response whenever an NPC authority sees you in their space.
Relationship with the aligned Major Faction, if your relationship with the aligned major faction is poor and your criminal stat with them is also poor then you would expect higher rates of naval interdiction attempts especially around 'checkpoints, war zones and conflict zones, and when in areas of space where powers aligned to that major faction exist (example, imperial enforcers interdicting you when you are wanted across the entirety of empire space, or fed agents when you are wanted across the entire federation)
The positive and negative aspects of the criminal stat would only be added / subtracted when performing actions outside of anarchy space. Performing actions inside anarchy space would have no impact on the criminal stat.
Unfortunately the more I think about it, the more I realise we need to fullfil 2 goals which (in my opinion) require a fairly drastic change to the way the current crime and punishment system works... I do not see a 'simple' fix because ultimately simply making the penalty for random murder harsher will not solve the real underlying problem of making PvP meaningful and rarer while seriously deterring the newbie killers and that particular sort of antisocial behaviour while maintaining a beleivable 'justice' system and may well impact on other activities like piracy in a negative way...
Such a system does have to be weighted more towards player vs player interactions, making the choice to kill another player in certain circumstances not as harsh as killing a player in other circumstances.
For example. A pirates choice to kill a player running from them should be a last choice not a first choice, but firing on them to disable their ship should not be unduely harsh because otherwise we drastically affect PvP Piracy in a very negative way and that is not a desired outcome.
The system needs to be much more granular than it currently is and it needs to retain a history of the players behaviour beyond being clean / wanted and in a way the carries on beyond ship destruction.
I propose that what is needed is a lawefulness state (clean / wanted) and a criminal state stat for commanders, the criminal state stat would be both going positive and negative or it could be just a negative stat. The criminal stat of the commander would be different for each major faction, you would have one stat for alliance, one for empire, one for federation and one for independant systems.
Do legal deeds such as complete legal missions (trade, courier, rescues, kill / assasinate miscreants***, etc, bounty hunting criminals*** without breaking local laws, etc) would raise your criminal stat towards the positive.
Doing illegal deeds such as smuggling illegal cargo, fetch illegal cargo, killing / assasinating clean ships***, and missions of those sort would lower your criminal stat towards the negative.
Getting caught doing illegal things (killing clean ships and being reported for it, getting caught smuggling, friendly fire incidents, etc would all have extra negative weighting on the criminal stat as well as having an impact on the lawfulness stat, so you would get the fine or bounty as well as have an additional hit to your criminal stat.
*** Note that the weighting and impact on your criminal state when the target is a Player would be significantly higher than if it were an NPC.
The criminal status AND major faction relationships of a player would go some way to determine wether or not bounties on that player end up faction wide and the response from the faction with regards to docking privliages and police response when seen in their space by that major faction aligned minor faction authority ships. So if you are a ciminal inside of a given major factions space, and you end up with a bad relationship with that faction, you may well be on a KOS list for that faction as well as being denied docking access across that major factions space.
Another aspect to this, if while you are flying and you commit a crime that results in docking privliages being revoked in the major factions space and your last port of call was at a station aligned to that major faction, should your ship get destroyed before you get to dock somewhere else, you end up being placed in a non aligned 'restart' system that may well be on the other side of the bubble. Note I said restart system not starter system.
Player vs Player criminal behaviour weighting needs to be individialised per different crime type, firing on a clean player with shields up should not have significant weighting, hatchbreaking should have less weighting than doing hull damage to a ship, doing hull damage should have suitably more weighting than firing on a ship with shields up or hatchbreaking, and finally killing a clean player should have a very significant weighting on the criminal stat.
The criminal stat would stay with you, permanently, you would only be able to modify it by the deeds you do, and its meant as a means to show what kind of player history that person has. Some will obviously aim for the most negative they can, and that should be okay to do that.
Police response times would be revamped to take full consideration of the following
Systems wealth level - the higher the higher grade of security NPC's (NPC's in high end ships with A class outfittings for example)
System security level - the higher the level, the faster and more intense the response, higher level NPC respondants and more of them in a shorter time frame.
Players lawful stat (clean / wanted) and players criminal stat - the more negative the stat when wanted, the higher numbers of NPC authority ships that are initially sent and the higher the likeyhood of backup reinforcements coming and the more noticable an effect it has on the 'response times' for the authority to arrive.
Relationship to minor faction - the more negative the relationship the higher the likelyhood that security will interdict you in force during supercruise, regardless of lawful state with them, and if you are hostile and wanted then you should expect serious interdiction attempts / authority response whenever an NPC authority sees you in their space.
Relationship with the aligned Major Faction, if your relationship with the aligned major faction is poor and your criminal stat with them is also poor then you would expect higher rates of naval interdiction attempts especially around 'checkpoints, war zones and conflict zones, and when in areas of space where powers aligned to that major faction exist (example, imperial enforcers interdicting you when you are wanted across the entirety of empire space, or fed agents when you are wanted across the entire federation)
The positive and negative aspects of the criminal stat would only be added / subtracted when performing actions outside of anarchy space. Performing actions inside anarchy space would have no impact on the criminal stat.
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