cheatonus

Regulations and rules can change...

First, reasonable suspicion. Reasonable suspicion only works because there is a justice system in place, and in the case of the US you're supposedly innocent until proven guilty. In the absence of a justice system officers should weigh heavily on their sense of justice to determine if the person they're charging deserves the charges, or is the correct person. Reasonable suspicion is also a reason to detain or search someone, it's not a reason to charge someone with a crime. In the case of the US justice system (and I understand we don't 100% operate under these principles, but I'm American and it's what I know so it will be the basis of my arguments) charges are not brought against a defendant until the completion of an investigation. To me, in the case of ECRP that AT LEAST means a 100% verification of the identity of the suspect in question. It is my opinion that in the ECRP world, if you don't have the person in custody you should not be bringing charges against he person without a 100% bonafide ID of the defendant. If they had on a mask, you don't have body cam or pictures of any identifiable markings on the persons body to match against a database, you don't have fingerprints, then that person walks. At a point in the recent past ECRP leadership decided to greatly increase jail time and fines for criminals. They did not, to my knowledge, also increase the burden of proof for officers for putting charges on people. This being the case I think it's incumbent upon the PD to be considerate of the player's time and investment in the game. This is an OOC thing, yes I realize that but bear with me. Criminal characters are not played (necessarily) by criminal players. We are just gamers like you. By making the choice to make a criminal character there are obviously some things that go along with that. Things like jail and fines. As we all can agree making money in ECRP requires some effort and time, yet players with legal characters basically have zero risk of this money ever being taken from them. They have zero risk of their character being thrown in jail and losing time they could be making money (especially with new robbery rules, which are... OOC). Therefor, I think it's important that OOCly PD and SD consider heavily how they treat criminal characters ICly and how that relates to the effects it has on the player OOCly. My point is, protect the criminal. PD should have rules in place which lean very heavily towards NOT putting charges on people unless it's absolutely verifiable the person committed the crime. Putting charges on people should be taken with great weight and heavy consideration and no be considered a point of victory, but something done when criminals are apprehended and brought to justice. It should never be done from afar on a whim as a means of revenge or winning a fight. So here is an example in this very post and in the report that spawned all of this. You have an officer who dropped a bunch of charges on a person because they were pretty sure they knew who it was. They think they know, but they don't actually know. Why bring those charges? Protect that criminal. Let them get away because you didn't apprehend them. There was zero need to do this. It helped no one. It brought no one to justice. It was just a means to win a fight without actually winning the fight... it was like having the last word as you walk away from an argument. It's a power move. There should be no power moves in this dynamic. PD out guns, out mans (most of the time), out speeds, out armors, out healths, out ammos any criminal organization... you have every advantage in almost every encounter. Why do you need to drop charges on people you don't apprehend to put icing on the cake? Let them get away. Let them have their day. Let that player OOCly feel a sense of accomplishment so next time you want to arrest someone they will be there. By placing all these charges without a suspect in custody you OOCly demoralize, you take away assets which took real time to accrue and in the mean time it cost you nothing. Moreover you get paid for it. Protect the criminal. IF you don't get them let them walk scott free. There is zero downside to this, other than the fact that there may be less criminals in prison for DOC to interact with. You've lost nothing and I've lost hours of OOC time invested that I'll never get back because of an OOC choice I made to take my character in a criminal direction. Give me a break, I mean that sincerely, give us a break. Stop dropping charges unless you have me in custody or you've positively identified me through some IC means like seeing my face, or identifiable markings on my body, a fingerprint, something. Have something besides a history with the character to bring charges. In our tiny world that shouldn't be enough. Essentially what I'm hearing in this argument is any criminal that has any history with any officer will always get charges in any encounter both are involved in because the officer by virtue of this relationship will be able to identify the criminal because of that criminal's style choices. This is not how this dynamic should work. Criminal characters should be able to get away with things sometimes, and officers should let them by having in place a burden of proof which extends beyond being fairly certain it's X person because they dress like that a lot. PD doesn't have to win something out of every encounter and we rarely win anything with you. Give us a break. We just want to RP like you just want to RP. We're just players like you are. We want to walk away from an encounter occasionally that costs us nothing, just like you do. What a dull job being a cop would be to wake up one day to no criminals. Anyway, I digress. On the topic of what's IC and what's OOC I think the current system takes too much away and puts too much burden on the criminal player to defend themselves after the money is gone and the time is served in the form of IA reports. There needs to be more done before charges are brought to protect the criminal, whether this be OOC rules changes or IC procedure changes or a complete mindset change in PD. I don't know what the answer to the metagaming question is, I can go many directions on that. But I don't think any officer should be placing any charges on any criminal without a 100% certain identification based on things beyond clothing and voices. I have personally misidentified people in my own gangs because others dress similarly and/or they have similar voices. I think sometimes IC things need to be discussed OOCly to make sure that the OOC motive is fair and reasonable. We are all equal here outside the game and that sense of fairness should carry over into the ruleset we carry into the game with us when we play. By choosing to play a criminal character I expect that means run-ins with police. I expect that may mean sometimes being on the lam or going to prison and paying fines. But I also expect that my OOC investment and the value of me playing my character and what it brings to the ecosystem of the game be respected as well. My time is the same as your time and my time investment shouldn't be held at a lesser value because of a "do the crime do the time!" attitude. I'm not a criminal, that's just my character. In my opinion there is no in-character way to deal with this that is equitable in the current system. Be certain, have proof, or don't bring the charges... protect the criminal, PD. Thanks for your time.

Bobby Forsyth is not a young man. He's been around the block a few times by now, but he's always kept his nose clean. He grew up in Amarillo Texas where he eventually ran his father's car dealership. After 30 years in the car business Bobby was bored. He didn't want to die behind a desk like his old man. He sold off the dealership and hastily moved to Los Santos looking for an adventure. After arriving in town Bobby quickly settled into one of his old pastimes, poker. After a few months it occured to Bobby that playing poker wasn't going to be enough to satiate his adventurous side so he set out to get to know people. Since he was an old hat in the car business, and he liked the place, he applied and started working as a mechanic at Bayview Auto Services. Bobby is an adept mechanic having worked as one for many years before taking over the car dealership in Amarillo. But the job was a means to an end, a stepping stone. He was sure it would lead him to the right people and situations to get him the excitement he was looking for. One afternoon he saw an ad for a car meet and thought this might be a good opportunity. He hopped in a tow truck and headed to the Los Santos observatory and there he first met The Wanted. These guys were different. Were they a gang? A car club? Street racers? Maybe all of the above. Either way, they were interesting people. These guys in orange behaved nothing like the previous people in colors he'd run into around town. They had honor, integrity, they loved cars, they didn't rob him... he was intrigued. Later that same evening Bobby would exit his home with shotgun in hand after one of his buddies told him there was a gang outside. He found a familiar crowd of Orange vehicles. He didn’t know what they were up to but they told him he was safe and everyone had a good laugh. Working at Bayview he got to know many members of The Wanted. Acid would make appearances. Clutch would show up almost daily. Others, like Skeetle and Wesley would come through and they always treated him with respect, but more importantly they seemed to be having a great time and enjoying life. One day at work, tired and bored, Bobby suddenly realized he was right back to where he was in Texas, working... stuck in a 9 to 5. This was the day he made the decision... he would ask to join The Wanted. To Bobby's surprise he was welcomed with open arms. It seems all of his networking paid off. He now had another family outside of Bayview, a family that didn't just consist of people he worked with. What the future holds no one knows, but it didn't take long for Bobby to get in on the fun. Great things don't last forever. The war with The Council threw Bobby for a loop. Many of these people he was fighting against were friends, or at the very least people he liked and respected. It wasn't easy to point a gun at them, but he did what he had to do and in the end The Wanted was lost. Bobby, not knowing what to do next was also lost. He tidied up some loose ends and went back to Texas to clear his head. When Bobby returned to Los Santos many things were different, and many things were the same. Many brothers and sisters had left town for good, many others were right where he'd last seen them. He went back to Bayview and asked for his job back and was given it with no hesitation. It was nice to be around some familiar faces and make a little money, but again the excitement wasn't there. Bobby went to seek out his brothers. To his surprise almost everyone he loved and respected had joined Los Zetas. He did the only logical thing, he set to join them too. Bobby's time with the Zetas would be fruitful, productive and unfortunately short lived. Not long after he joined them the leadership decided it was time to quit while they were ahead. The sudden, but wise decision of LZ leadership once again left Bobby without a formal family. After some soul searching and spending time with friends he was made aware some of his closest family were organizing under a new banner. It was a no brainer, he would join his family... his familia. So begins the next chapter for Bobby Forsyth, along side his brothers, the Shakurs, and the rest of La Familia.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that. I believe it would not only contribute more tow trucks, but also more official faction jobs and management positions. Thanks for your contributions to the discussion!

Not really sure what you mean. I don't think there's anything I stated that aren't facts. I'm not saying DCC isn't good, or useful, I'm just saying it's not a necessary service. You're making logically fallacious slippery slope type arguments. I'm not comparing this to DCC, I'm differentiating between them. I agree there may be an IC solution, but I think adding another faction would be more beneficial than just resolving the issue ICly. At some point giving service to players becomes an OOC problem as well. I'm trying to think alittle bigger than "lets just let the current people handle it ICly!" Frankly that's kind of a cop out argument, and a very close minded one.

+1

Rules can change. Tow requests when I was a mechanic were pretty much constant, especially during peak hours. Unless things have changed it was always IC policy at LSC that only certain people could use tow trucks, it was a rank thing. But honestly I never agreed with that. But it's beside the point. I still think this new faction could be great RP opportunity. There's a lot of possibilities there, including towing for PD, towing from NCZs, etc, for people to interact. I've seen a lot of PD driving tow trucks lately with my own eyes. The big difference between this and DCC is no one actually needs DCC. People use it because they may want a bit of convenience, but they can always walk or get a ride from someone else. The same can't be said if your car is stuck or permastalled. I think like any other faction sometimes activity would be very high and others very low. I don't think it would be dead by any stretch of the imagination.

I respectfully disagree. I spent a large amount of time as a mechanic in the server. What you've outlined are exactly the reasons we need this. "not the only one, have to repair cars, little to no mechanics." I would say if you need RP out of the shop you should consider going off duty and getting out of the shop. Honestly, if you want to put this in the context of realism, most mechanic shops (at least in the US) that I'm aware of don't run their own tow trucks. This is always a separate service and company completely independent of the shop. Of course there will be times when there are no on-duty LSTS drivers, but that's when the mech shops could pick up the slack. I personally think if run correctly this could be highly successful and a very welcome and useful addition to the playerbase. No one should have to spend their 2-3 hours of playing time they get in an evening waiting for someone to come tow their car. Thanks for your input!

Yes, Mr. Raven is quite right. I'm making a suggestion based on a chronic issue that I see and looking for a solution that will create more RP opportunities for everyone. While it may reduce some RP opportunities for current mechanics it will increase RP opportunities for other people who can't currently get a faction job because there are none hiring. Also, keep in mind, I don't suggest taking away towing from the mechanics completely, but they would not be towing if there are LSTS employees on-duty. I also suggested taking the impound yard away from PD and putting it in the hands of this faction which would decrease or eliminate a bottleneck there as well. I'd also like to point out that within this suggestion there's also a suggestion of making towing profitable by adding a distance metered fee to the towing vehicle/faction script much like DCC has currently. Also these people would not have the ability to repair cars in the field, they would have to tow the vehicle to a mechanic shop for repair. The mechanics would still have the opportunity to meet and RP with the owner of the vehicle. Honestly I hadn't considered running this myself, was more an opportunity for someone else but I'd certainly help to launch it. Don't heap management responsibility on top of me Raven!!

It wouldn't be taking it away, per say. It would be moving it to another faction. If towing is the best part of the mechanic job and you enjoy it then you would just move to LSTS. As someone whose character was a mechanic for a long time I will say towing is the part I enjoyed the least. Also, I think the IC rules make sense and I don't think changing them will fix the OOC issue... which is there just aren't enough mechanics to both handle the mechanic demands and the towing most of the time due to OOC faction limits. This will dedicate players to not only servicing tow calls but also taking care of abandoned cars and impound towing. Thanks for your input!

I guess that depends on your definition of "handled." They're only allowed so many employees through faction caps and money. Spend some times in #i_have_a_question and look at how many players are waiting an hour or more for a tow. Personally, if I thought they had it handled I wouldn't have made the suggestion.

This would be a faction that works in tandem with the mechanic shops. LSTS employees would be responsible for taking tow calls and towing the vehicles to the customers requested destination. This would use similar script to the DCC script. The LSTS employees would be responsible for answering all tow calls and taking the caller to either a mechanic shop of their choice or the nearest gas station. When the player's car is hooked up to the tow truck and the player climbs in the cab of the tow truck with the driver the driver can start a meter, similar to a cab meter, which will stop and charge the customer when they leave the vehicle. The OOC advantages of this is it would give players who need tow truck service better service as they wouldn't necessarily have to wait for a mechanic to be free or on duty to tow their car. There would be a whole new group of people available to take tow calls. I think it's fairly obvious based on current wait times and complaints I see in discord that the responsibility of towing vehicles is a burden on the mechanic shops in general which are either bogged down with mechanic work, have no mechanics on duty, or have IC rules and regulations in their own factions that keep people from using tow trucks even if on duty. It would also give more legal faction job opportunities which may be considered more entry level like DCC. LSTS would become the defacto towing service for LSPD and SD which means cops would only tow in dire or dangerous situations. Part of the function would be to help keep roadways and other areas (NCZs?) clear of abandoned or illegally parked cars when not on tow calls directly for players. It might even be good to let this faction handle the impound yards. In some areas police don't have their own impound they contract out their impound work to a 3rd party. RP opportunities are for newer characters with good admin records and legal records to meet more people, explore more of the world, and have more general RP opportunities. More non-scripted job opportunities for players to choose from to expand the development of their character. There may be some good tension and competition between LSTS employees and employees of Bayview and LSC. More higher level owner/manager opportunities for experienced players. In conclusion, I see this as a faction that could be very helpful in reducing overhead for other factions and even staff. It can increase speed of service to players and increase their overall satisfaction with the playing experience. Thanks for reading!

+1

This will probably be unpopular, but it's just my opinion. Cooking drugs in high-rise apartments is NRP. It's beyond unrealistic. I believe you can even injure or kill your neighbors via fumes and explosions in game. Regardless of that no one would ever do this IRL. These are nasty, toxic, caustic and acidic chemicals. There would be considerable risk to the building and people inside. It would be far too easy to get busted. You would get the police called on you in an instant by your neighbors because the smell and fumes would be overwhelming. I'll never be a person who sits and proclaims that ECRP is intensely realistic. Obviously there's some give and take there because it's a video game, but this is beyond silly IMO. People would generally try and do this as far from population centers as humanly possible to avoid being caught. Want to do it in a detached house? Fine. An RV in the middle of nowhere? Even better. In a low-rise, low rent apartment in the hood, OK. But cooking meth and processing cocaine in a luxury high-rise apartment building? Just no. That's off the chain unrealistic. Just my 2 cents.

reserved

I started this as my own suggestion but I'll move my verbage to this thread. It isn't unusual for gun enthusiasts to make their own loads at home. I propose the addition of ammunition tables similar to drug tables. The ingredients would be brass, lead, and gunpowder. Brass and lead would be available through a vendor at the foundry, and/or mine-able for use on the table. Gunpowder would be available at humane labs (or via laptop import). Generally bullets have 4 main components; a primer, a casing, the propellant, and the bullet itself or the load. Gunpowder could even be a product made from a drug table using the existing chemicals. Different types of bullets would take different combinations of ingredients as some bullets have a bigger casing and a smaller load, or require more propellant. For instance a combat pistol bullet is much smaller than an AK bullet so would require less materials and be faster to make. This would create a nice ammo black market without sacrificing the integrity of legal licensing. It would make use of existing in game mechanics, i.e. the drug tables, and add another RP scenario for criminals. I don't suggest ammunition be removed from the laptop, but this is a substitute and probably will work more slowly then just ordering from the laptop. See chart below for ammo sizes. The 7.62 x 39mm load is standard AK load, .45 is a heavy pistol, etc, etc.

It isn't unusual for gun enthusiasts to make their own loads at home. I propose the addition of ammunition tables similar to drug tables. The ingredients would be brass, lead, and gunpowder. Brass and lead would be available through a vendor at the foundry, and/or mine-able for use on the table. Gunpowder would be available at humane labs (or via laptop import). Generally bullets have 4 main components; a primer, a casing, the propellant, and the bullet itself or the load. Gunpowder could even be a product made from a drug table using the existing chemicals. Different types of bullets would take different combinations of ingredients as some bullets have a bigger casing and a smaller load, or require more propellant. For instance a combat pistol bullet is much smaller than an AK bullet so would require less materials and be faster to make. This would create a nice ammo black market without sacrificing the integrity of legal licensing. It would make use of existing in game mechanics, i.e. the drug tables, and add another RP scenario for criminals. I don't suggest ammunition be removed from the laptop, but this is a substitute and probably will work more slowly then just ordering from the laptop. See chart below for ammo sizes. The 7.62 x 39mm load is standard AK load, .45 is a heavy pistol, etc, etc.

I completely agree with Bruce's post. I especially think the "public" areas rule is difficult. I understand the need to protect non-crim players from constant harassment. My character was legal for a long time and it gets tedious having to constantly worry about being robbed just getting from point a to point b, or standing in a clothing store hindered by scripts. However, crim-on-crim crime shouldn't be held down by the same rules. If there's an RP reason to accost someone it should be allowed, whether this be gang retaliation or warfare. IRL drive-bys and other public violence happens quite often where gangs are concerned. Since we don't have drive-bys then I think public hold up of rivals or retliation targets should definitely be allowed, even in RPly crowded areas. Also I would suggest that there needs to be some big advantage to using the existing scripted drug labs, like speed, so that players actually use them and there are more criminals at-large to be targets for other criminals. Finally, I agree the chops are a mess. It's almost unusable due to constant police intervention and this used to be a big source of criminal RP. Keep in mind, just because police RPers want constant RP with criminals doesn't mean criminals want constant RPers with cops. We want to interact with each other doing illegal things. Not sure what else to say here. Thanks for the post, Bruce!

In many roleplay games I've played in the past two larger factions wouldn't be able to ally together and declare war on a smaller faction. There were rules if engagement in place to prevent larger factions from ganging up and trouncing smaller factions. This prevents people's ooc time investments from going poof overnight. Also, any declaration of war between factions had to have a valid RP reason and admin approval. It would have been a terririal dispute, a business competition issue, or repeated and continued disregard of borders or something of this nature. General disrespect would have been laughed out the door as a reason, especially in the case of a larger group attacking a smaller group. Granted these were mostly text based games back in the dark ages of the internet, but we still followed largely the same ruleset in regards to things like meta and powergaming and NRP. Most of this can still apply to this more modern setup. The idea that RP is always fluid and changing is true, but it's also a game played by humans and the players playing the characters need respected OOCly for their time and efforts sometimes in lieu of IC things. If this wasn't the case we wouldn't need rules, admins, or any OOC intervention at all. Violence "just because" shouldn't happen between large factions. At the very least both sides need to OOCly agree to go to war and an admin should rubber stamp it. There should be some sort of diplomatic process and reasons beyond respect for mass killing and citywide warfare. Just my 2 cents.

RP is what you make of it. If you want to view the counterfeiting thing exactly the same as the drug lab thing that's your choice. If you want to RPly choose to look at them differently that's probably a better choice. It doesn't really matter if the mechanisms/scripting is very similar. It matters what you make of it RPly. I personally think it would be a great use of many big indoor spaces in town like construction sites and factories to bring some of the manufacturing type criminal activities into the city. Maybe the volumetric side of things is on a much grander scale and would require the use of a mule or phantom instead of a bag to get to a dropoff. There are many ways to approach this to make for good RP.

+1 Indeed

Love it. Serious flavor. +1

Donors already get special treatment if they get VIP level. Extra fuel. Extra EXP I think? Lower jail fines. and a few other things. So i'm not really sure where this is coming from. -1

If this is your reason for -1 I think you've missed the point of the original post. You would have a valid RP reason to humiliate the person at that point. The point is to avoid the "handshands" crowd from just balding everyone they rob for no valid RP reason.

+1 Hair cutting is a form of humiliation. It should be reserved for those instances when it's appropriate, ritual initiations, shaming a rival gang member or seeking revenge on someone. It should require consent and probably most of the time some sort of timeline as to how long the person getting their wig removed will remain that way. There's no valid RP reason a street criminal robbing a random civilian would cut off their hair.