So how do you ensure that defending oneself from unprovoked attempted murder is not ever recognized as an illegal act, regardless of arbitrary game mechanic switch status? I'm open to other suggestions.
Report crimes should also report one's own crimes...
- Thread starter Aashenfox
- Start date
So how do you ensure that defending oneself from unprovoked attempted murder is not ever recognized as an illegal act, regardless of arbitrary game mechanic switch status? I'm open to other suggestions.
I don't know if the game mechanic as it currently works, works this way. But I would assume the logic of turning off reporting is because you are already engaged in criminal acts such as smuggling and therefore don't want the police turning up to your fights, even if it is self-defence as they will attack you for your other crimes. If this is the case then the smart move would be to try and get away from any fights, as even if your current status is clean, reporting that you have been attacked will see you done for smuggling while if you fight back you will be reported for assault and the police will show up and you'll find yourself in the dock for both smuggling and assault.
It will make sense when there are more game mechanics that have people roaming around systems guilty of crimes that haven't been detected yet and therefore are trying to keep a low profile. I.e. smuggling is made both more perilous because people know that you have valuable cargo and won't be reporting crimes against you, while at the same time more lucrative if you do make it through. The new C&P system might help in this respect with ship bounties, depending on if the police can, through a scan, discover that although you're in a clean ship, you are indeed a criminal.
Last edited:
I second this, all that is required is to facilitate the option in a drop-down menu like the option to choose a faction in a Conflict Zone in the very same functions tab.
Then no cops will arive to ruin the funsies
The situation being, you are being attacked, but you do not wish for cop response to ruin what could be fun and exciting, either because you wish to do it solo for the challenge, to void any arguments that the fight was won due to cops, because you have a weapon loadout that is liable to hit the cops by misstake or that they will use the point defence on your weapons automatically (like mines), or simply because you think it is more fun that way.
As an option it would not ruin anyone else wishing to use the old system; unless the attacker knows you have crimes off and wish to make you wanted because they know you will fire back and get cops to support their assault.
Which comes down to an important point... There is no need to ensure this. It's not a question of whether it is illegal or not (it always is), it is a question of whether the police find out.
No, you have that backwards. Every legal system in all of history allows for the right of self defense from unprovoked attack under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. For some completely bizarre reason, you and others think the elite universe should be the VERY FIRST EVER, either in reality or a video game, to not only deny this basic right, but actually penalize the victim.
Last edited:
When in a star system with Law - you make sure RCAM is ON and then when you and your initial attackers are Clean, and they attack, they get marked as Wanted - then you can blast away.
Not wanting the po-po to appear in ANY incident of violence should not be an option, in a star system with Law.
This is so simple that it's suspiciously like wanting anything different from this looks like meta-gaming Frontier.
I don't deny you that point, but I say the right of self defense cannot be invalidated by Anything. Self defense overrides any system of law or crime and punishment. See also this post...
Technically you may be correct, I'm not sure if you actually are, but let's take it as a given that you are. Practically, history is positively littered with examples of folks who "had the right" but were still ground into paste by the legal system. In a universe as systemically corrupt as the ED galaxy, with the only "universal" law being that which can be agreed between corporate states, democracies, theocracies, monarchies, patronages etc, it's no kind of stretch at all to postulate a system whereby failing to report an offense against you to result in that offense being inadmissible as a mitigating circumstance, thus removing a "right" to self defense if you don;t report the crime you;re defending yourself against.
In effect, that is the current state in the ED universe. FD can change it, and folks have made arguments for them to do so. But your argument from the "real world" is far from unassailable.
In the UK if you kill someone in self-defense you'll still be arrested and questions by the police. Some folks have even been put on trial for shooting intruders in their own homes.
It's not as black & white as you're making out.
In any system - virtual or real - where there is law enforcement - law enforcement will attend the scene of a reported crime.
If violence is happening when the police get there, their first priority is to find out what's going on. In the real world it'll be to stop the violence happening then sort out who's at fault for what.
In ED - the police arrive when a crime has been reported and they investigate to see who's Wanted, then their actions depend on that.
Once again - in star systems with Law, the police should always investigate when violence is reported - otherwise all star systems might just as well be Anarchies.
Look, the system now is really simple. Either have RCAM on or off, and it's the player's responsibility to decide which and deal with the consequences of their decision. It can be a double-edged sword.
And this suggestion and the other thread is based on an assumption - a naive one at that - that all players in Open, whether they're PvP'ers or not - are honourable. Well, they're not.
A "report crime but don't send the po-po" toggle would basically render star systems with Law to be like Anarchies. It's the "make this system Anarchy anyway" toggle. It goes against the concept of a place with Law in which police investigate reported crime.
You want an 'honourable' fight with other PvP'ers, you do it in star systems without Law, or you make sure your oppoent also has their RCAM switched off.
I'd fully support Frontier adding indication of a player's RCAM status on the HUD by the way - that'd be a very simple and quick way to solve this entire problem, without effectively turning every star system with Law into the equivalent of an Anarchy, without adding any further complication to Frontier's crime detection code (seriously - you might think of it as Just Another Toggle binary variable, but adding yet another variable into a decision-making algoryth can introduce unintended consequences in code).
In summary - I object to this suggestion because there are already existing solutions, RCAM is a double-edged sword which adds nuance to the game in terms of consequences for making the wrong decision, and I don't want star systems with Law to effectively be the equivalent of Anarchies. I do however reckon Frontier should definitely add RCAM status to the HUD for other players to see - think of it as a system-wide broadcast beacon which not only can summons Po-Po, but also acts as a warning to every other ship that Law Enforcement WILL be notified - or not.
In reality matters of self defense are almost never resolved on the scene. In the case of death, it would be on the victim to prove that it was self defense, and he would call in evidence that was available. This is a video game there's no need to pretend that they're world ever be any doubt who was an aggressor. Also were not talking about the unbalanced case that you seem to refer, where murder is an inappropriate response, because ships don't attack each other in elite without warning simply to give someone a bloody nose, EVERY fight is a fight to the death, so nothing you write invalidates or is relevant to...
Yeh it happens in some cases where there isn't enough evidence, that the victim gets punished, fortunately this a video game and such cases need not happen or be simulated.
Last edited:
Oh, not just "lack of evidence" - also "The person you were defending against is our friend so we're going to prosecute you instead" or "Pay the cops the right squeeze and your crime goes away. That's what the other bloke did...." or "You're not a citizen, are you even here legally? Why would we believe you?" or "Hang 'em both. Let God sort 'em out" or "I believed him to be reaching for a weapon so I fired, Sir... "
And the ED universe is NOT a place where human or civil rights are anywhere near as theoretically "respected" as places that currently exist where folks technically have the "right of self defense" and yet suffer all those above outcomes on a regular basis. There is no "innocent until proven guilty" in ED. It's more like Napoleonic law where there is a greater need to prove your innocence in the face of an accusation. Which you do in cases of self defense by reporting the attack you are defending against.
I can only say again that in a video game where all this is under control, that a system that punishes the victim of an attempted murder for defending himself is not just morally wrong, and at odds with the clearly stated and intended design of the punishment system (to make consequences more severe for unprovoked attacks), but plainly a broken game system, because no system in reality (or any other video game to my not insignificant knowledge) has ever been so cruel and unusual.
Last edited:
I think most of the people responding here may be using RCAM for something different to what Frontier intended. It seems most people see it as an option to allow you to go bounty-hunting without the police getting involved, so it's just you versus your quarry. I think the idea of not wanting the police to arrive, like when organised crime gangs are sorting out their differences, is because you're all guilty of something and if you do call the police when you get attacked then the police will come and get you as well as your attacker.
Your point of view would be perfectly valid if ED's universe was fair and just. Frontier, however, have went for an inherently unfair flavour. Judgement is swift and deadly. You can get evaporated for loitering. Meanwhile murder is a bounty which you can escape from if you're clever.
It's a Dystopian universe, the ED universe.
Dare I say.... Dangerous?
I really don't want to go down the road of calling folks 'snowflakes' for asking for some Get Out Of Jail Free toggle, but I'm finding it eye-popping to see such a request from particularly one or two people in the other thread who I regard as being rather - how would one put it? - rabid indiscriminate "PvP'ers". Or as some like to describe themselves: "Emergent content delivery specialists". Yet at the same time, these very same people want the game changed to have cops entirely removed from their game-playing experience - something which adds a bit of nuance to star systems and is itself involved in creating emergent content such as being the victim of an attack and being the one to gain Wanted status by the Law.
I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? Who asked for a get out of jail free card? How does that even make sense in the context? We're talking about self defense? I gotta assume you're just trolling me now, there's no other explanation for the way you approach this topic, giving loophole explanations to cover everything while completely ignoring the obvious, here it is again. What you are actually asking for is to keep your gank for free card, whic his so awesomely trollworthy that if the victim defends itself and wins, IT gets the full effect of CnP! How clever and not game breakingly idiotic at all!
Not only is it unreasonable to deny any individual the right to defend their own life, but downright insane to punish them for it, when it is clearly entirely reasonable and appropriate. Even putting aside that it flies in the face of what FD said is the purpose of CnP.
Last edited:
I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? Who asked for a get out of jail free card? How does that even make sense in the context? We're talking about self defense? I gotta assume you're just trolling me now, there's no other explanation for the way you approach this topic, giving loophole explanations to cover everything while completely ignoring the obvious, here it is again. What you are actually asking for is to keep your gank for free card, whic his so awesomely trollworthy that if the victim defends itself and wins, IT gets the full effect of CnP! How clever and not game breakingly idiotic at all!
Not only is it unreasonable to deny any individual the right to defend their own life, but downright insane to punish them for it, when it is clearly entirely reasonable and appropriate. Even putting aside that it flies in the face of what FD said is the purpose of CnP.
No, foxy. I'm not trolling, I'm serious - and for the reasons I have laid out in the other thread.
It's a bad idea for the wrong reasons and it fundamentally changes how Law Enforcement in systems with it would work.
"Huge" is apparently a very subjective term then. There is nothing wrong with the mechanical or game play enabling nature of having this as a third option, you just view it as breaking your immersion. In which case the solution is simple: don't use this third option if it bothers your sense of immersion.
I object to your objection because allowing for self defence to be legal does not break anything in the game. It simply allows for self defence to not be considered a crime. It is an evolution of the system to go along with the evolution of C&P. This game's systems must all evolve accordingly with each other if it is to continue going forward. You cannot progress some parts of the game while leaving other connected parts to become cumbersome as a result and nigh on atavistic in their inadequately sub-par functionality.
Please.
Self-defence is already NOT a crime if you have RCAM enabled.
If you choose to disable RCAM, that's a choice you made, and you should take responsibility for it if you make the schoolboy error of shooting at a clean ship.
The system is fully working. Introducing another toggle to disable police response renders the whole concept of a system having security, pointless. Making such a change just to satisfy the hubris of a minority of players would be bad for the game on the whole.
Seriously folks, just suggest the PvP flag already, get it over and done with.