SD and PDs jurisdiction

[SaltyPoiosn]

So since coming back to the server I've noticed that SD units are more commonly than not found within city limits. I believe i know why this may be. 
 

If you have ever played a criminal character you will know that a couple years ago most of the labs were up north. Meaning that SD got a lot of action and it added a healthy balance because PD would always be busy as its always populated with something going on. However with the release of rotating labs theres a chance that literally nothing happens up north besides traffic stops and the occasional bank, unless of course a major lab is opened. 

I miss being up north and seeing SD patrol, always watching over your shoulder whilst smuggling weaponry and goods into a lab. The county feels dry and dead now. Even when the server pop is up. 
 

In conclusion im basically asking for some more variety with labs and splitting it 50/50 so that there is always a need for us crims to be up north, as well as SD not always responding to things in the city. 

[Demonmit1]

the cycling of lab locations would work and should be allowed to work, but staff regularly close down labs and open labs with commands, breaking the script. staff need to just let things play out without intervening. if a "bad" lab opens up, it shouldn't be OOCly shut down.

[SneakySniper]

what demonmit1 said. Its the same labs constantly opening up. We need some variety, at least half in city half up north. 

[Bala]

The simplest answer is that, the server population overall has declined but the amount of people in law enforcement factions, specifically in this case SD, has not. SD is more or less the same size it was when we were 50-100 players better off.

Even when we're pulling 200-250 people, why are we doing that? Usually some gimmicky event is going on. Unlikely to stimulate any sort of long term growth, more a short term spike.

We could put all the labs and chops and banks in the County, wouldn't make much difference at this point because the player base gravitates to the city where there are other people.

I feel for SD because the environment they grew in, is no longer the one they find themselves in but like too many aspects of this community, the situation remains neglected and players/faction leaderships are forced to find their own solutions trying to solve problems that they frankly shouldn't have to.

If the server was being properly cared for and attended to, we wouldn't have less people, period. 

Edited January 14 by Bala

[Hubie]

#bringbacknorth

[SaltyPoiosn]

3 hours ago, Bala said:

The simplest answer is that, the server population overall has declined but the amount of people in law enforcement factions, specifically in this case SD, has not. SD is more or less the same size it was when we were 50-100 players better off.

Even when we're pulling 200-250 people, why are we doing that? Usually some gimmicky event is going on. Unlikely to stimulate any sort of long term growth, more a short term spike.

We could put all the labs and chops and banks in the County, wouldn't make much difference at this point because the player base gravitates to the city where there are other people.

I feel for SD because the environment they grew in, is no longer the one they find themselves in but like too many aspects of this community, the situation remains neglected and players/faction leaderships are forced to find their own solutions trying to solve problems that they frankly shouldn't have to.

If the server was being properly cared for and attended to, we wouldn't have less people, period. 

I would say server pop is a large issue and most certainly constitutes to the lack of activity up north, but i believe my original point does stand relatively true. 
 

As a criminal we dont really care about all the civs that hang out in the city because we are trying to make money either doing banks or cooking. Which typically reside up north. Im not saying close the city labs. Im simply stating that there needs to be more variation. I would recommend the labs being automatically closed/opened on a more frequent basis in order to try and bring some life up north. 

I do agree that development needs improvement, especially when it comes to north. Gone are the days of bayview and the pier being hotspots. Now it feels like benny’s is the only hotspot.

[alexalex303]

12 hours ago, Demonmit1 said:

the cycling of lab locations would work and should be allowed to work, but staff regularly close down labs and open labs with commands, breaking the script. staff need to just let things play out without intervening. if a "bad" lab opens up, it shouldn't be OOCly shut down.

some of the labs are literally worthless tho because of their table combinations, just because they're up doesn't mean anyone would realistically use them

[Demonmit1]

Just now, alexalex303 said:

some of the labs are literally worthless tho because of their table combinations, just because they're up doesn't mean anyone would realistically use them

so? why are staff intervening? if a "bad" lab is open, big groups wont care to use it, smaller groups or solos would take advantage. let the system play out. staff shouldn't intervene with their admin powers to force open or close labs for themselves or their friends because a lab is inconveniently placed or not optimal to print money at. 

[Jimmy Lynnch]

Buff a couple labs up north table wise and rotate them, there is loads of labs. I'm sick of the same 7-8 being open. However there are some labs such as grandmas that shouldn't even exist.

[Demonmit1]

idk what that double posted, weird

Edited January 14 by Demonmit1

[alexalex303]

10 minutes ago, Demonmit1 said:

so? why are staff intervening? if a "bad" lab is open, big groups wont care to use it, smaller groups or solos would take advantage. let the system play out. staff shouldn't intervene with their admin powers to force open or close labs for themselves or their friends because a lab is inconveniently placed or not optimal to print money at. 

because, if big groups have no good labs to use, that's a major issue for them as its not just a place to print money at but also a place where they obtain stuff to maintain their turfs, and if no good lab is open for an extended period of time, you are damaging the morale of the most active criminal players

I get the whole argument with helping solos or smaller groups, but not at the expense of large groups

[Demonmit1]

17 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

because, if big groups have no good labs to use, that's a major issue for them as its not just a place to print money at but also a place where they obtain stuff to maintain their turfs, and if no good lab is open for an extended period of time, you are damaging the morale of the most active criminal players

I get the whole argument with helping solos or smaller groups, but not at the expense of large groups

big groups are more than aware of how to get a lab shut down. having a pocket admin helping you out cause you're friends is not the solution. staff need to avoid interfering.

If you have high upkeep on turf, deal with it? thats the cost of having a large amount of turf, or overextending your turf, you have higher upkeep costs. Cant maintain that upkeep cost cause the most optimal drug lab isnt open? why didnt you stock up for the situation? why not split up your numbers to hold the smaller labs to run? why not fight other people and steal their drugs? why not pay solo's or small groups to cook for you and take the risk for a higher cost? or take a hit by LEO to get a lab shut down you want shut down? or just deal with it, drop a turf for a few days to reduce upkeep, and just have less import power occasionally? why do staff need to coddle experienced long term players running factions?  why remove any critical thinking or planning from illegal factions? its just a continuation of server staff protecting low RP standards of the criminal playerbase.

The script for cycling labs breaks when an admin forces a lab open or closed. When admins forcing a good lab open for the big gangs to be happy, staff are perpetuating a play to win mindset, that the big groups need the most optimized efficient labs to survive. running a 30 man group, over extending your territory so you have more import power to mass import military grade weapons should be hard to manage efficiently. Keeping everything running 100% efficient for the maximum profit and drug production per hour for the big groups stagnates interaction and roleplay. There should be a back and forth, sometimes the good labs are open, sometimes they're not, and having this flow creates some amount of scarcity at times, which creates reasons to have conflict, negotiation, and territory control shifting. 

Edited January 14 by Demonmit1

[Homast]

Demonmit has a point.

Just because a lab doesn't have good table  combos (Like 8 LSD tables, 2 Crack and a weed table or inverse) does not make it a bad lab. It makes it one that isn't aimed towards a quick cook or large scale group cooks. 

Take the old lab behind the rockford clothing store, That was all things considered, a bad lab. Not because of low table count, of which there were a total of 7 tables (1 weed, 1 crack, 5 LSD), but it was bad because of location, and as such, has since been removed. 

I feel like there's a solution,  but it'd require development work, and we're all relatively aware of how that would fare with being implemented.

Classify the labs. Upon creation, assign a lab a size class: Small, Medium, Large, Mega.
Cayo - Mega
Quarry - Large
Dam - Medium
Tugboat / Containers - Small

Make it so with every rotation, there's 1 Large, 2 Medium, and 2 Small Labs open. This achieves 2 things: It enables there to always be a location for large scale cooks to happen and invite the possibility of gang conflict! Woohoo! PVPers are happy!
Medium Lab numbers would allow Large gangs to be more conservative and safe due to their smaller size making them less desirable for say, the whole gang to want to cook at, but it's still possible. This also has the inverse effect of allowing  smaller gangs an increased risk for an increased payout.

Having the 2 Small labs allows solos and smaller gangs to do their thing with relative ease, as again, nobody cares to cook at a small lab,  thus giving a small  amount of security with the tradeoff of being slower, while also allowing  solo criminals to play criminal characters and pursue money making  activities outside of robbing ATMs.

I also agree with Demonmit when he says Staff shouldn't be interfering with labs. Let it play out. EVENTUALLY someone WILL push these labs and do a sloppy job at it, attracting Police, at which point it'll get shut down.

[SaltyPoiosn]

3 hours ago, alexalex303 said:

because, if big groups have no good labs to use, that's a major issue for them as its not just a place to print money at but also a place where they obtain stuff to maintain their turfs, and if no good lab is open for an extended period of time, you are damaging the morale of the most active criminal players

I get the whole argument with helping solos or smaller groups, but not at the expense of large groups

They can co exist though, the main point of my post was activity up north allowing for more of the traditional “county” police interactions for everyone. Crims and Civs. 
 

You and Tim both have valid points and imo are both correct. Having good and bad labs open at the SAME TIME is vital for the health and morale of both small groups and larger groups. There are enough labs to go around and the distribution of good and bad labs are relatively evenly spread. 
 

More to my original point, the current north labs open are quarry and north lab. This is a major issue as quarry is incredibly easy to get to completely out of sight of the police so theres minimal risk. Then north labs which is an example of a bad lab. So now your only options are Bitcoin and Container. 
 

Overall i think staff should intervene with the opening of labs but just evenly distribute them up and down the map.

[Earl Mud]

Right now lab rotation is so stagnant. Anytime a lab closes all I check now is bitcoin boat, island, and garbage and 9 times out of ten thats what has been opened. Idk why its the same labs open everytime. We need variety. Id rather have have 5 shit labs open that are rarely open than what we have now. Its crazy we have so many labs but they are are never open. We had all these new labs to discover and they have never opened. Is the script broken or something? 

[alexalex303]

1 hour ago, SaltyPoiosn said:

More to my original point, the current north labs open are quarry and north lab. This is a major issue as quarry is incredibly easy to get to completely out of sight of the police so theres minimal risk. Then north labs which is an example of a bad lab. So now your only options are Bitcoin and Container. 

What do you mean? Any time a single shot is fired at quarry it gets swarmed. Quarry is most definitively not a lab with minimal risk. 

[sakkama]

3 hours ago, Homast said:

Classify the labs. Upon creation, assign a lab a size class: Small, Medium, Large, Mega.
Cayo - Mega
Quarry - Large
Dam - Medium
Tugboat / Containers - Small

and thats exactly what we have rn, one 6 tables lab, one 5 tables lab, two 4 tables labs and one 2 tables lab, at least as far as i know and i think thats fair enough.

[SaltyPoiosn]

1 hour ago, alexalex303 said:

What do you mean? Any time a single shot is fired at quarry it gets swarmed. Quarry is most definitively not a lab with minimal risk. 

I said traveling to and from Mr Steel, my point is that you dont have to even be worried about police presence whilst transporting illegal weaponry/goods up to those types of lab, which in turn lowers the interactions for SD between criminals. 

Edited January 14 by SaltyPoiosn

[Lewis]

Hey friends,

Speaking on behalf of the staff team on this one, we don't close bad labs down - I've shut a few recently and opened alternatives because pre-planned RP opps were scheduled to happen there, 

I do open the odd extra lab from time to time! There will be some new labs open in the future!

Hope this clarifies things!

- Lewis

[moment]

As I said myself to FM, the tables up north need to be tweaked and hopefully adjust the rotation 50% labs in the city and the other 50% up north.

Right now as you clarified PD nad SD are teaming up in the city since there's no activity up north however this should not be an excuse to have way overboard LEOs. It's detrimenting to the criminals and to the server itself.

There should be a change inbound but not sure if it's confirmed or not. 
@risk
 

Maybe risk have some extra time on her hands and adds her notion on this.

[risk]

Hello!

To start, we understand the concerns around north labs feeling less valuable IC, the lack of consistent criminal activity up north, and the perception that this contributes to heavier law enforcement presence in the city. We also hear the feedback regarding lab rotation feeling stagnant and concerns about staff intervention impacting the intended cycling system.

Regarding lab value and north side activity: yes, there are plans to review and adjust labs, including what they contain and how they function, with the goal of encouraging more meaningful criminal activity in the county in such a way it does not negatively affect LEO in the city. I want to be upfront that I do not have a concrete timeframe to share. I would rather under promise and over deliver than give an estimate that myself or @Lightninbolt9 cannot realistically meet. What I can confirm is that this is on the priority list for multiple reasons, even if it is not the top item at this exact moment.

On the broader concern of law enforcement response and balance: I cannot speak on behalf of LFM or LEO leadership, but I can say with confidence that these concerns have been noted and discussions are actively happening across oversight teams and factions. There is always a middle ground to be found, and improvements on the FM side with point one are intended to support that balance rather than worsen it.

As for staff interaction with lab rotation, I reached out earlier today in staff chat to better understand the context behind recent actions, outlined above by Lewis. In general, I agree that systems should be allowed to play out as naturally as possible. At the same time, one of FM’s current goals is to reduce static, grind focused gameplay in favor of more dynamic interaction. That can sometimes involve intentional changes that lend itself to the storyline at hand or server needs at the time. While I have not personally shut down an active lab, I will be clear that we would only ever do so if it is not actively being used, not under investigation, and not about to be entered by either criminal or legal factions.

Finally, on rotation variety: this is the most immediately actionable piece. I will be reviewing the current rotation setup within the next 48 hours to see what adjustments can be made to improve variety with the existing system while larger changes are still being worked on.

I appreciate the thoughtful discussion and the effort many of you have put into offering constructive feedback and ideas. That kind of engagement genuinely helps move things forward.

[Ritchie Stones]

19 hours ago, Bala said:

The simplest answer is that, the server population overall has declined but the amount of people in law enforcement factions, specifically in this case SD, has not. SD is more or less the same size it was when we were 50-100 players better off.

Even when we're pulling 200-250 people, why are we doing that? Usually some gimmicky event is going on. Unlikely to stimulate any sort of long term growth, more a short term spike.

We could put all the labs and chops and banks in the County, wouldn't make much difference at this point because the player base gravitates to the city where there are other people.

I feel for SD because the environment they grew in, is no longer the one they find themselves in but like too many aspects of this community, the situation remains neglected and players/faction leaderships are forced to find their own solutions trying to solve problems that they frankly shouldn't have to.

If the server was being properly cared for and attended to, we wouldn't have less people, period. 

but i noticed that many servers had the same issue, especialy in rage mp, isnt it also mostly part of the boom being over ? 

[risk]

I just wanted to follow up on this. 
 

Game Affairs has gone through and made some adjustments to a handful of labs up North regarding their “value” and started looking in to how the script affects rotation and how we can best find that middle ground.
 

Further adjustments will continue as we see what, if anything, this impacts but these were the immediate changes. You can also, as Lewis mentioned, expect to see more labs created. 
 

There will be some trial and error involved in this process, so we do appreciate your patience. We are always open to hearing your concerns and suggestions! 

[imran]

it should be splited into 2 types of labs, ones with car's chopping tools and grown plants, and ones cooking tables, and all cooking tables should be located between sandy and poleto, this is the best balance between the ones who suffers from the lack of intractions and the ones that suffers from intensive interactions

[moment]

Hi a quick follow suggestion that I thought of as of lately regarding lab rotations;

Sometimes we go even on a whole month with the same rotation, I would say to create variety most of the time.

- At the end of the week no matter what labs are active rotate with new / fresh ones.