QOL Update - Prison Time Adjustments / Chargestacking / Helicopter Patrols

[Rowze]

I wont make this another ''nerf pd'' suggestion but i'd rather name it a quality of life update, mainly for criminals. 

Criminals (myself) are already afraid of PD/SD, we dont want to be nowhere NEAR them when we commit crimes and if we are, we try our best to escape. But it has come to a point where its not even enjoyable anymore, this is where my suggestions come into place:

Prison Time Adjustments - My suggestion here is to cut down the prison time by 50%, adjust all laws in the penal code, the FINES are okay but the time is not okay. Im not saying all of them need adjustments but for instance, evading should not be a 1hour jail time, and if you have a firearm on you thats another 1hour. So lets say you're just evading and you have a firearm on you thats 2 hours to spend in jail for what? Doing practically nothing that horrific. Cutting the time in half would be beneficial as it wouldnt discourage criminals from doing crime.

 

Chargestacking - A SAMP server i used to play had a rule against chargestacking, some charges could not be stacked with others and when i see ''Attempted Murder x5'' just so you get 10 hours in jail should not be allowed. Some cops also add random charges just to increase your time, which should be disalowed OOCly to not ruin a criminals experience on the server by sending them to jail for 5hours just because they evaded and had some fun, giving the cops something to do aswell instead of just standing still half the day.

 

Helicopter Patrols - It has happened a MILLION times now when a helicopter spots people at a drug lab, why are helicopters allowed when its NONRP for LEO ground vehicles to enter a drug lab?

An illegal faction would decide to hold down a drug lab to collect a large ammount of plants for their operation, when a helicopter suddenly flies over it and calls it over the radio causing the drug lab to be raided by cops.

 

I strongly believe that if we enforce the three suggestions i listed ontop, criminals would be more keen to do crime and still remain afraid of the cops as they should be at all times.

 

Disclaimer: I dont have anything against the current LEO's, i just believe that some restrictions and updates should be made on their side to make criminal roleplay more enjoyable

[migati]

+1

[Omer_708002]

+1

[Fraz Dunne]

+1

[hrxvey]

+1

If someone felony evades, give them a felony evading charge. not felony evasion, reckless operation, felony public endangerment and face concealment. yeah there's the whole idea of "If you can't do the time don't do the crime", but lets be honest, what are you all gonna do without crims? Cops need crims to function and to actually have fun. prison should be a deterrent ic'ly not oocly. I couldn't think of a single person who would rather be in DOC than cutting about interacting with 10x the amount of players, with not much of a limit. 

Someone who I can say is the perfect balance for strict but fair when it comes to a LEO character is RedHot. He will try as hard as he possibly can to catch you, but once he does you will get put with the bare minimum. For example, one night I was evading in my Issi sport, and ended up getting caught, but because I knew it was RedHot who would be charging me, I wasn't bothered at all because I knew that I would only get the set 1 hour for felony evasion (and nothing else!). Cops who will do the polar opposite and give me 3 hours are just silly IMO and are the biggest reason my playtime has reduced so much over the recent months.

Following on, another issue with this system is, that you get hit with the "This is an IC issue, you can speak to someone who is in a command role within PD/SD about this ic'ly and try to get things changed" ( not a direct quote just something along the lines of what I've read before. This argument is honestly one of the most stupid, and angering things I've seen. If OOC restrictions are put in place for charge stacking etc, no one will do it, but if its an IC thing, people will do it (plus it makes no sense ic'ly for this to happen anyway). If someone genuinely has a counterpoint for the charge stacking rule, please quote any of what I've said so that I can give it a read.

[Bala]

I was asked to provide feedback and it just feels a little bit like the faction cap suggestion that Melody made, in that they are short term "fixes" to a long-term problem.

I'm not going to comment on the helicopter one because I don't know anyone in PD that goes flying over labs deliberately to look for people. I can't imagine that Osborn and Co. would allow that sort of thing from SD either. I'm sure there are odd cases where it's happened but certainly nothing to take drastic action over.

Now, when it comes to the prison time adjustments and the charge stacking stuff, I do feel a little bit like you could cap the prison time at 30 minutes and only have one instance of a charge on your jacket and you'd still have a shit time in prison. 

If anything, it's the fines that are a killer because making money as a criminal from what I've been told, is a real grind and to lose it in a heartbeat over what you might consider to be some fuckery would be a tough thing to swallow.

Prison has always been a rough experience in Eclipse or at least since I got here in 2019. It doesn't matter who is running the faction, what the prison looks like or how long you go there, going to prison in Eclipse is an OOC punishment because not only is there not anything of real interest or significance in that place, everyone is either fighting or alt-tabbed watching whatever is popping on Netflix.

If we fixed up the prison to the point where you could continue to build your roleplay but also take part in activities that stimulate and make sense for a prison (not digging for ore in the middle of a concrete yard) then those 2-3 hours don't feel quite so bad. 

There's been too many instances where we treat symptoms and not root causes and it gets us nowhere.

 

[Jett_J]

I can say that there are rules against "charge stacking". If you notice a certain person is always "charge stacking" then gather the evidence of that and bring it up to faction management. But everyone seems to interperet charge stacking differently.

Serious crimes for example, murder, hit and run, battery, assault, kidnapping are allowed to be "stacked". If you shoot three people, you can expect to be given murder/attempted murder three times. You cannot stack smaller things like evading, unless there has been substantial time between each event. So if you evade, get away, then evade again like 5 minutes later, you cannot be charged twice for that. Another time stacking is not permitted is if you're carrying two firearms, you cannot get two charges of possession of illegal firearm.

With that being said, people are NOT allowed to place charges because they feel the person deserves more time. So you cannot place every possible charge that can be found in the penal code. This is called "ransacking" and there are OOC rules against it.

I'll provide a few examples directly from the rules regarding "ransacking" so there is no confusion:

~John Doe is arrested for trespassing with a mask. He is charged with trespassing and face concealment. This is OK!

~John Doe stole a car, and decided to felony evade the police in a dangerous manner. He is charged with Felony Evading, Grand Theft Auto, Reckless Operation/Felony Public Endargement This is OK!

~John Doe has robbed a bank, evaded the police, driven recklessly, hit someone along the way, and injured them. He is charged with Bank Robbery, Felony Evading, Possession of an Illegal Firearm, Felony Public Endargement, Felony Hit, and Run. You then decide they need more time, so you throw on Face Concealment and Failure to Comply. This is NOT OK!

These examples apply to SD specifically but I'm sure PD shares a similar rule.

Helicopters follow the same rules as a normal unit. SD does not permit helicopter patrols to fly over labs, then call out people picking/cooking drugs, then raid the lab. Now if we believe a suspect has fled into a lab or we receive a 911 call then a helicopter could do a fly-by and report any illegal activities which would give us reason to enter.

 

+1 to reducing jail times. I don't think all charges need an adjustment but there are some that should be reconsidered. I would say that jail time for new players is very fair how it is now.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Jett_J

[khlifa]

+1

[jasonX]

+1

[Requiem]

14 hours ago, Rowze said:

Criminals (myself) are already afraid of PD/SD, we dont want to be nowhere NEAR them when we commit crimes and if we are, we try our best to escape. 

To start, sounds like the proper job to some extent is being done based on this statement. Crims SHOULD try to avoid cops and be worried about getting arrested. Would be unrealistic if they weren't. 

For your prison time recommendation: As stated above by Bala, it doesn't matter how much time you have in prison, its probably gonna be a shit experience. Changing the time isnt gonna help that. Need to attack this at the root cause of the issue, which the staff team/devs have admitted is an issue and have agreed to make changes and renovate the prison at some point.

Chargestacking: There are already rules against this for LEO's. Both IC via the Penal code and internal policies, and OOC via server rules, and again faction policies. There are certain charges we are allowed to add multiple times ONLY if its what actually happened. But as Jett said above, LEOs are never allowed to just add charges for no reason. But we have the court system for that now. Also IA for PD can be used IC and OOC if any specific officer is doing anything corrupt such as this.

As for helicopter patrols: I have 150+ hours as a pilot for PD and I can safely say that no one flys over labs and calls out people there for no reason. We have rules in place, for both ground units and air units, that we are not allowed to camp labs or go to them for no reason. LEOs are only allowed to go to labs if we have a reason to, such as a 911 call was placed for that location or we hear gunshots coming from there, or chase someone into one. After the situation concludes, LEOs are required to ICly "forget" the location is a lab until our next encounter with it as well. 

TL;DR - pretty much everything you mentioned already is enforced and has rules around it. 

[zooke1]

An illegal faction would decide to hold down a drug lab to collect a large ammount of plants for their operation, when a helicopter suddenly flies over it and calls it over the radio causing the drug lab to be raided by cops.

 

I really doubt this ever happened the way you put it. Both PD and SD have STRICT rules when it comes to going into drug labs. We never go in just because there's people in there, that's excluded. We usually go in if someone calls 911 and reports crimes being committed ( if a felon calls 911 from a drug lab, reporting a crime, the call is ignored by PD / SD ), if medical calls come from the are, we assist MD, especially if someone states ''I've been shot'' and even if we do not assist MD, sometimes they call us on scene and we have to respond. And the last scenario is that a warrant hunt is happening and you're just unlucky to be bunched together with a wanted guy that wasn't smart enough to turn off his phone. So next time you make a suggestion, try to keep it truthful, not claiming that PD and SD randomly go into drug labs. If they do so, make a report since it's against server rules!

 

When it comes to prison time, I really agree, it should be drastically reduced. DOC it's simply boring and lacks any opportunity to keep yourself busy for longer than 5 minutes. Some people may only get to play 5 hours a week due to work, school, family, whatever. It's obvious that they don't want to jump onto Eclipse and engage into something fun at the risk of spending 8 hours in jail and not being able to play at all for the rest of the week. I'm sure people will say that reducing jail time to 2-3 hours will make criminals commit more crimes. So? Why are we trying to become a real life simulator, LEOs, medics, mechanics, businesses, they can't function without criminals because they simply get nothing to do. Criminals probably use the mechanic shops most often and they also call EMS more often than civilians or cause PD / SD to call EMS. I'm totally fine with more crime, it would make most people enjoy the server like they did back in 2020. I doubt anything will change in the near future but it would be lovely if criminals were given more freedom again, without criminals none of us has anything to do.

[Sarahh]

1+

[NoahG]

+1

[okamiii]

I have some ideas that could possibly help the server with prison times/charges:

 

In my opinion the charge system should be reworked so that every charge has a minimum and maximum time/fine that LEOs can select on their own discretion, to reward people who provide good RP without risking breaking OOC corruption by placing less charges, this would allow people to RPly get charged correctly but not get punished as much for their crimes, this could also work with a percentage system instead of selecting the time you want to give them.

 

Another way to improve criminal roleplay is to reduce the max prison sentences again, if you can pay your fines the maximum sentence should be 3 hours, and if you can't it should be 5 hours. License suspensions should also be reduced to 12 hours in my opinion as it basically stops you from doing anything for a day without risking going to jail, and for criminals if you have a gun on you back to DOC for like 85 minutes which resets the 24 hour license suspension and basically means your day is over.

[equ1nox_]

-1 to the last 2 suggestions. 

On 12/13/2022 at 4:53 PM, Rowze said:

Some cops also add random charges just to increase your time, which should be disalowed OOCly to not ruin a criminals experience on the server by sending them to jail for 5hours just because they evaded and had some fun, giving the cops something to do aswell instead of just standing still half the day.

We have the penal code for a reason. While I personally dont place all the obscure charges that a criminal COMMITTED, there is completely nothing wrong with charging someone to the fullest extend by the penal code. Charges like face concealment, unlawful assembly, felony public endangerment, etc. might be unnecessary but there is nothing OOCly wrong about those charges, they were committed by the crim. What charge stacking is is giving someone evading an officer every time they evaded after losing the cops earlier, or for every time someone didnt comply with a lawful order. Therefore, I disagree with this suggestion, as it is IC.

 

On 12/13/2022 at 4:53 PM, Rowze said:

Helicopter Patrols - It has happened a MILLION times now when a helicopter spots people at a drug lab, why are helicopters allowed when its NONRP for LEO ground vehicles to enter a drug lab?

An illegal faction would decide to hold down a drug lab to collect a large ammount of plants for their operation, when a helicopter suddenly flies over it and calls it over the radio causing the drug lab to be raided by cops.

 

From my experience, flying over drug labs randomly is something we dont do. The only time I fly over a drug lab is if there is someone of interest inside the lab, and we want to know how many people are there before entering or if someone evaded into the lab. I would also like to clarify that if a helicopter spots 10 people in a lab without the conditions I mentioned (which arent exhaustive) then there isnt enough reason to just enter the lab just because 10 people are there. They need to be actively committing crimes for us to enter a lab.

[Requiem]

4 hours ago, okamiii said:

In my opinion the charge system should be reworked so that every charge has a minimum and maximum time/fine that LEOs can select on their own discretion, to reward people who provide good RP without risking breaking OOC corruption by placing less charges, this would allow people to RPly get charged correctly but not get punished as much for their crimes, this could also work with a percentage system instead of selecting the time you want to give them.

Nice thought, but this wouldn't work because every time any LEO gives a crim anything but the minimum time, there will be complaints, regardless of RP quality. 

[Josh Armani]

+1

[AnakinB]

On 12/13/2022 at 4:53 PM, Rowze said:

Chargestacking - A SAMP server i used to play had a rule against chargestacking, some charges could not be stacked with others and when i see ''Attempted Murder x5'' just so you get 10 hours in jail should not be allowed. Some cops also add random charges just to increase your time, which should be disalowed OOCly to not ruin a criminals experience on the server by sending them to jail for 5hours just because they evaded and had some fun, giving the cops something to do aswell instead of just standing still half the day.

I agree with this, I honestly feel like there's people who dislike me OOC when I used to play and whenever they got the chance to place charges would add as many as possible, mostly because there were people from gangs who I wont name who I never met on their cop characters who would for some reason add every possible charge they could just to inconvenience me, now idk if that was just them being mean ic but I feel that had something ooc behind it but naw chargestacking shouldn't be allowed, as I feel it doesn't really provide a good environment between crim and pd, which heavily rely on each other, a mutual respect kinda thing. 

 

On 12/13/2022 at 4:53 PM, Rowze said:

My suggestion here is to cut down the prison time by 50%, adjust all laws in the penal code, the FINES are okay but the time is not okay. Im not saying all of them need adjustments but for instance, evading should not be a 1hour jail time, and if you have a firearm on you thats another 1hour. So lets say you're just evading and you have a firearm on you thats 2 hours to spend in jail for what? Doing practically nothing that horrific. Cutting the time in half would be beneficial as it wouldnt discourage criminals from doing crime.

+1. We're all here to play the game and have fun, we shouldn't be punished for providing RP to both ourselves and the police by doing illegal activities and while obviously there should be some sort of IC punishment, my whole day of playing shouldn't be ruined by me doing this, because once more at the end of the day we are all playing a video game.