"Suspicion" - The missing secret sauce for NPC behavior with depth and simple implementation method!
This is what initiated the idea:
Once his ship explodes the authorities chime in on local communications advising me "Crime seen cordon initialized, all ships must submit to police scan." Now normally I wouldn't care but right now I happen to be carrying 20 tonnes of illegal salvage that I need to turn in. I low wake without submitting to the scan and travel to my destination without incident. This is when it hits me. I just left the scene of crime without being verified by the police forces that I actually am an innocent. If I fled the scene of a crime (even as a victim) like this in real life police would pursue me and be highly suspicious of my behavior.
The idea itself:
How I would implement "Suspicion" as a feature:
Examples of actions that could increase "Suspicion":
What I feel the over all effect a "Suspicion" mechanic implemented in this way would add:
If you like this idea please rep this post and reply. I especially encourage the addition of ideas that could possible affect the level of suspicion a faction has with the player or other possible conditions that could be applied to it.
Thank you for reading!
This is what initiated the idea:
So I'm running missions for my faction and I get interdicted by a Vulture. I'm clean, at least in the system I'm currently in. The vulture is a bounty hunter and he is after a bounty my own faction put on my head for a contract they hired me to complete. I need to pay closer attention to the legality of my assassination targets. The bounty hunter doesn't care that I'm clean in our current location. He interdicts me, I submit and he attacks. It's on. I engage him. It takes me long enough to destroy his ship that the system authorities arrive and pitch in, not that they did any good.
Once his ship explodes the authorities chime in on local communications advising me "Crime seen cordon initialized, all ships must submit to police scan." Now normally I wouldn't care but right now I happen to be carrying 20 tonnes of illegal salvage that I need to turn in. I low wake without submitting to the scan and travel to my destination without incident. This is when it hits me. I just left the scene of crime without being verified by the police forces that I actually am an innocent. If I fled the scene of a crime (even as a victim) like this in real life police would pursue me and be highly suspicious of my behavior.
The idea itself:
I would like have "Suspicion" added to the game as an NPC behavior. The idea here being that any time you do something that law enforcement may find suspicious (like fleeing a crime scene without submitting to police scan as one example) the faction that was attempting to perform law enforcement becomes suspicious of you. The result of this is that the chance of law enforcement tracking you down and trying to scan you goes up as a result. The more suspicious your actions are in a factions controlled space the higher the chances they will seek you out, interdict you and do a "traffic stop" to ensure you are a law abiding citizen.
If system authorities stop you and you aren't wanted, don't have a Pilots Federation Bounty, don't have a dormant bounty, aren't carrying illicit cargo or breaking other laws the stop is considered complete and the faction that stopped you resets your suspicion with them to 0.
If system authorities stop you and you aren't wanted, don't have a Pilots Federation Bounty, don't have a dormant bounty, aren't carrying illicit cargo or breaking other laws the stop is considered complete and the faction that stopped you resets your suspicion with them to 0.
How I would implement "Suspicion" as a feature:
- I would add a column/data point to the players minor faction reputation that would store the value for how suspicious that faction is of the player.
- I would also add a column that dictates the last time suspicion was adjusted for that player with the faction.
- On H-Jump (similar to the existing bounty system) any suspicion of the player would be calculated for all factions currently suspicious of them. When this calculation is performed any suspicion past a certain time threshold would be removed. The result would be that normal chances of law enforcement encounters would take place once suspicion is removed.
- Depth could be added to this calculation by having the time threshold for how long a faction remains suspicious of you increase based on how suspicious the faction has become.
- The time limits on how long suspicion lasts should be balanced around the intent of creating short to mid term recognition of the players activity within a factions territory.
- Suspicion should never reset on death, logout or instance change and instead be based on real time to prevent exploitative removal of the effect.
- Whenever a player enters an instance (cruise, normal space or planetary) the faction that controls the instance is checked and the suspicion level is used to appropriately increase the chance that law enforcement present in the instance will attempt to interact with the player.
- If a player submits to law enforcement scrutiny and is found to be clean and not breaking any laws that factions suspicion of the player is reset to 0. Alternatively you could keep the suspicion and have the value lower by a set amount or percentage each time the player is found to be clean in the eyes of that faction. This alternative could allow for more long-term use of the suspicion mechanic which would primarily impact players that are very active in specific areas.
- If a factions suspicion of you reaches a certain point and the faction is part of a super power (Federation, Empire or Alliance) the chances of encountering scrutiny by law enforcement in territories controlled by other factions aligned to the same super power could also increase.
- Certain actions that increase a factions suspicion of the player should also cause the NPC that became suspicious of the player to chase them (such as my scenario of fleeing a crime scene). Possibly even issuing you fines for fleeing in the first place if you do choose to cooperate.
- I would also implement "negative" suspicion values as well. The effect here would be that consistently cooperating with system authority would provide you a bonus that would reduce the chances of law enforcement would scrutinize you. This would create incentive cooperating with system authorities. Especially in places you happen to be heavily active. This would work in the same way as your local neighborhood police officers being able to recognize your vehicle and leaving you alone when you drive home at 3:00 AM every night.
- If a faction is suspicious of you any reputation losses with that faction will be increased while you are under suspicion. The effect would amplify based on the level of suspicion. To counter act this if "negative suspicion" is implemented, increases to your reputation with that faction are amplified, further adding incentive cooperating with law enforcement in areas where you are working on increasing your standing.
- Suspicion could be made to carry over to wanted states and dictate how aggressively system authorities hunt players who commit crimes.
Examples of actions that could increase "Suspicion":
- Fleeing from the scene of a crime after all combat has ceased and the police have announced they want to scan all parties involved.
- Taking an action that prevents a system authority NPC from completing or initiating a scan they have started, or messaged you saying they are going to perform. (Silent running/heat sinks, chaff, waking etc). An exception should be in place if they start or announce this after you are already charging your FSD as it would be unfair to raise suspicion if the player is already in the act of leaving.
- Evading a system authority interdiction.
- Being interdicted by a system authority, attempting to escape and failing.
- Fleeing the instance post system authority interdiction (both for failure and submission).
These are just some possible examples and are just things I personally would like to see implemented.
What I feel the over all effect a "Suspicion" mechanic implemented in this way would add:
First and foremost it would make law enforcement feel a bit more real and less like its limited to "ON" and "OFF". Right now existing law enforcement feels very binary and stale. These changes would make it feel a lot more in depth and reward players with increased benefits for being law abiding citizens and increased difficulty as they performing.
The area I'm most excited about this type of mechanic for myself is smuggling. Right now I can do any number of activities that a real life police officer would find suspicious while carrying illegal cargo and it has absolutely no effect on the authorities desire to scrutinize my behavior and ensure I am abiding by their laws. When you directly contrast this behavior to the fact that laws in the proximity of a station are enforced at a dystopian level, "Loitering is a crime, punishable by death!" it makes very little sense. As a result there is no increase in risk based on behavior when I'm already committing a crime in the factions jurisdiction.
When it comes to intentionally working the background simulation this would create a huge amount of depth for players like myself that BGS activity makes up 80%+ of our game time. It would make the factions feel more alive and responsive to the player.
In terms of PvP, if you carry suspicion over while the player is wanted this could directly influence the severity of how hard the factions law enforcement hunts the player while in their territory. This would provide a direct benefit to decreasing the likelihood of players wanting to consistently commit crimes against other players in the same area while not outright preventing it.
For a very simple to implement mechanic I believe this would add an enormous amount of greatly needed depth.
The area I'm most excited about this type of mechanic for myself is smuggling. Right now I can do any number of activities that a real life police officer would find suspicious while carrying illegal cargo and it has absolutely no effect on the authorities desire to scrutinize my behavior and ensure I am abiding by their laws. When you directly contrast this behavior to the fact that laws in the proximity of a station are enforced at a dystopian level, "Loitering is a crime, punishable by death!" it makes very little sense. As a result there is no increase in risk based on behavior when I'm already committing a crime in the factions jurisdiction.
When it comes to intentionally working the background simulation this would create a huge amount of depth for players like myself that BGS activity makes up 80%+ of our game time. It would make the factions feel more alive and responsive to the player.
In terms of PvP, if you carry suspicion over while the player is wanted this could directly influence the severity of how hard the factions law enforcement hunts the player while in their territory. This would provide a direct benefit to decreasing the likelihood of players wanting to consistently commit crimes against other players in the same area while not outright preventing it.
For a very simple to implement mechanic I believe this would add an enormous amount of greatly needed depth.
If you like this idea please rep this post and reply. I especially encourage the addition of ideas that could possible affect the level of suspicion a faction has with the player or other possible conditions that could be applied to it.
Thank you for reading!
