Rokuro

I see a lot of controversy over the police dropping their gear when killed. I do agree it isn't fair that the police has a infinite supply of some of the highest tier armor and weapons at their disposal at zero cost compared to criminals who spend their life blood and time to get funds to afford such weapons and armor at a even lesser tier of combat capabilities. We keep getting this argument that people would farm cops for their gear but in reality there are rules already in place to prevent "DMing and cop baiting" if anything of the sort happens we can always report. All of the large gangs like to ensure that their members follow all the rules and if there are changes we even notify everyone so that we don't break em. Just because we're criminals doesn't mean we're all rule breakers out to kill cops for fun. We can not for the sake of fearing those who would abuse this prevent and stagnate the server from developing into a better server. Heavy equipment shouldn't even be used for a routine stop that is worth $500. RP-wise it doesn't make sense for a police officer to be pulling out a carbine on someone for $500 in the first place. At most the police would be using their standard pistol with the same amount of ammunition that would be of the force's operation procedures. This means at most you would have a pistol with 50 bullets that would be used up in a gunfight so it would be even less than that. If the the police officer complies to demands then at most the criminals would get a pistol with 50 bullets and armor. This leaves the surviving police officer with the ability to RP, use a sketch artist, dash cam, and gopro footage. If the police officer is killed then they would get 0 armor and a pistol with less bullets and they could still be caught via dash cam, gopro, or other ways detectives can find them. If the criminals are caught then you can apply charges and throw em in jail. Onto the touchy subject though, big shootouts with both sides having heavies. All shootouts for criminals is at a loss, there is no real gain for doing it besides saving your buddies from being arrested or escaping with your life. From my experience criminals do not engage the police unless the criminals have at least twice the numbers of the police. The sheer survivability the police has compared to criminals is huge and we criminals know that if we do engage it's always gonna come at a cost of lives. If the police do start dropping their equipment then the criminals would have access to police heavy weapons, the armor as stated previously would have been destroyed unless they were caught under FearRP. If the carbines have limited ammunition then it could be possible that you would have none left after a huge fight. If the only way to accumulate more 5.56 is by killing cops then it should even out after awhile. Aye, criminals could stockpile a ton of 5.56 but it would of came at a cost of them spending their own money, using up their own ammo, risking their lives, and risking their friends lives. To make it worse the criminals would quite possibly divide amongst themselves and as stated earlier, criminals won't engage most of the time unless they have twice the number. High Risk = High rewards and that's how it should be. Right now it's just high risk and no rewards.

How would you go about it then?

First I would like to point out that this is not a salty post about being robbed but instead a suggestion that falls more into line for roleplay. Alright onto the topic at hand, which is consistently committing crimes and how damaging it is to the community. I, for one, am a criminal based player and fully enjoy the criminal lifestyle that my character is but I do find some of the things other criminals do very unrealistic. Constant robberies back to back (Against players, not stores) Problem: The most unrealistic thing I've seen is people robbing others then not laying low for a certain amount of time. Some folks goals are to continually steal from other people rather than have side jobs like dealing drugs or even working a job. If we are trying to replicate real-life then understanding that even your average criminal who robs others don't do it repeatedly because there would be a massive amount of consequences. Criminals shouldn't just steal from someone and hide for an hour (or less) and then rush out to do so again as laying low for a few IG days would make perfect sense. Most of the robberies that happen rarely turn a profit unless it was at a drug lab so considering targets to rob should be something RP wise criminals should consider. I don't understand quite fully how players don't case their targets to see if they have money or anything worthwhile. It seems to me that as long as you don't have "New Player" protection (sometimes not even with that) and someone sees you without it then robbing you is one of the first things they do even if the victim looks like a broke, homeless man. If I could explain, I would use the star system when it comes to being wanted. As an example, when you rob someone, you should in your mind, consider that you just got 1 star because after they comply, they might call the cops. If you get in your car drive off and two hours later rob some else that 1 star should still be there because the police 'would' be looking for you. This should include your gangs because usually all of them wear the same colors, and cops would be on the lookout for all of you. Despite knowing that you have 1 star for being wanted if you continue to rob folks, it gives you even more RP incentive to lay low. This logic doesn't even seem to apply to this server, and I find it very immersion breaking. Solution: Robbing people should be more rewarding but shouldn't be allowed to happen so often. The problem with robbing someone is that there's no real way to tell if you have pocket money on you or not so most the time it just keeps robbing until you find some chump with 10k in his pocket. Allow the robbers to steal 'credit cards' that they can use to withdraw a limited amount of money from an ATM with the stolen card. This seems like it doesn't make sense but bare with me and listen to my reasonings. After you rob someone, there should be a cooldown so that you can't just rob people consistently and if the robberies pay you with good money the criminal could then lay low with the cash they just made. If you steal from someone and they had nothing worthwhile, and you get a cooldown to rob someone, then it seems like a massive punishment for the criminal without a real reason. /rob would allow you to steal their credit card and withdraw 1000-3000 dollars in the next 10 minutes or the victim has to report it to the police just in case of fraud! (Sounding like real life now, huh?) The 10 minutes to withdraw funds would make sense and stopped as there has been 'Unusual activity on your card.' If the victim does not have enough funds in their bank, then they would owe a debt until the police can clear up the misunderstanding or the victim pays it off because they don't call the cops like B*T*HES and man up to it like real thugs. A cooldown timer for robbing others could last 2,4,8,12 IRL hours (Iunno yall pick a reasonable one) until they can rob someone again. If anything you could even add a victim cooldown timer for being robbed! "Man...go on ahead and search me. My wallet just got stolen like 4 hours ago! I ain't got shit they even froze my cards so I can't even withdraw money.". Hell, the robbers might even pity the fool and throw him a hundred dollar bill at this point. This would prevent the same people being robbed repeatedly but still award the criminals for attempting to do so. People at this point would have to pick different targets, and multiple people can't deprive the same person of their credit card numerous times within a small time frame. This still allows the robbers to group up and rob a large amount of different people and split the funds but sooner or later they'll run into the cooldown and will have to stop. Frisking people to remove guns and other things should still be allowed, but it should be within moderation of the player to understand when they are committing a robbery and when they're removing potential threats such as a gun or taking their radio/phone to prevent backup. All of this is honestly just a suggestion and my own opinion, and I think it can be more refined, so leave your comments below with not only criticism but with ideas to improve it. Best of luck Los Santos! Hope to rob you and get robbed by you under better conditions! Cheers mate!