Promoting police roleplay - separating Police and Military identity?

[Levenna]

I guess the question is what this actually accomplishes. I guess instead of the criminal docking at a nearby lawful base, they will have to keep running until they get to some Junker base or an unlawful station. But unless you have the firepower, doesn't that just mean a longer chase with the criminal still docking to get away from you in the end?

You would be amazed how many smugglers get out of any kind of consequence by just F3'ing on the nearest base. That alone being prevented is pretty powerful and a very strong incentive to play police IDs with nodock. Two fighters can kill a transport pretty reliably. One talented bomber, maybe, one gunboat is frankly overkill. Point is that transports aren't *that* durable.

Oh I agree, I remember during the taste of the future event, me and another bomber unloaded on a synth transport that just managed to dock on Stuttgart. But say if we were police with nodock and that was a smuggler, there's no way he'd get away from us even though Darmstadt is relatively close.

I guess I was more thinking of what happens on a solo patrol, but then again people can just pair up if they want.

I mean, if it's a solo bomber patrol or a solo gunboat patrol it'd still probably clear the transport. Solo fighter patrol would be rough but at that point it kind of just is what it is, I think. At least not without a comprehensive rework of that interaction.

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[03.07.2024] LNS-Beast***: we can do this every day but you have to buy bigger stronger ships...and i'll help you

[Antonio]

Promoting police roleplay

/nodock for indies.

ID balance:
Police - /nodock and /tlagsnet
Military - battleships, in some cases better ZoI
Intelligence - the best ZoI, engagement rights sirius-wide

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SNAC Montage Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Thruster SNAC

[Lord Caedus]

Promoting police roleplay

/nodock for indies.

ID balance:
Police - /nodock and /tlagsnet
Military - battleships, in some cases better ZoI
Intelligence - the best ZoI, engagement rights sirius-wide

I still think police should lose their cruiser allowance, maybe they can get some additional flhook stuff to compensate for that?

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[Stewgar]

Playing police not only needs to be fun to RP but it also needs to be profitable somehow. Since this community has turned more PVP centric, we've seen the disappearance of police factions and roleplay in general. Here are some ideas that can help:

1. Convertable commodities. I've been testing with somebody about having commodities convert depending on the ID that the ship has mounted. Cardamine in the hands of a Junker would convert to "Contraband" or "Evidence" for Police ID. Evidence commodity could be sold at specific police bases for profit. This would promote police play in a PVP/profit standpoint.

2. Promote patrols. Stashing low probability NPCs that carry high profitable contraband but are also difficult to kill (would require multiple fighters/bombers) would promote factions and precinct roleplay.

3. Disable dock camping. Whether this is a rule or something imbeded into hook, police camping at the finish point of a smuggling run means that smugglers will just dock up at Rochester and wait for the police to log off. Some of the best fun I've had involved pursuits - we can manufacture that with some nerfing around buy/sell points.

Foods for thought!

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It ain't about what you are capable of, it's about what you're willing to do.

[Haste]

Police IDs are based as hell and could be strictly worse than Navy/Intelligence IDs and I'd still play them. That is however not the norm. People love being super mega grand turbo super admirals, and police IDs do not allow that. The only way you'd see more police play is if more people with an interest in roleplay would play Discovery. More specifically, an interest in roleplaying anyone less EPIC than an elite navy pilot (admiral).

(They're also fine, for anything gunboat and below the police IDs are just better navy IDs as far as I can tell.)

What I personally find funny is that the entire server plays Navy IDs like Police IDs as it is, as I barely ever see anything even vaguely resembling military roleplay from military IDs. All we need to do is just switch the infocards of the Navy and Police IDs and it'll all be fixed.

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[TheSauron]

Police IDs are based as hell and could be strictly worse than Navy/Intelligence IDs and I'd still play them. That is however not the norm. People love being super mega grand turbo super admirals, and police IDs do not allow that. The only way you'd see more police play is if more people with an interest in roleplay would play Discovery. More specifically, an interest in roleplaying anyone less EPIC than an elite navy pilot (admiral).

(They're also fine, for anything gunboat and below the police IDs are just better navy IDs as far as I can tell.)

What I personally find funny is that the entire server plays Navy IDs like Police IDs as it is, as I barely ever see anything even vaguely resembling military roleplay from military IDs. All we need to do is just switch the infocards of the Navy and Police IDs and it'll all be fixed.

I think this nails the problem on the head. There's nothing wrong with Police IDs besides the lack of nodock, and there isn't really a non-contrived way to empower them even further. The actual issue, as Haste pointed out, is that people are just not interested in playing rank and file police officers. No amount of buffing the IDs is going to change it.

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One MD Admiral

[Reeves]

This thread just makes me miss @Skorak and his extremely corrupt and cowardly LPI officer. That, I think, was the best fitting vibe to convey for the faction and it's a shame that it more or less died out in the present day.

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[rwx]

Hi guys. You are probably aware than there are currently no dedicated police official factions in any house. Moreover, even unofficially, only a fraction of active players in any house seem to be playing police characters. Frankly, I don't remember the last time I saw a BPA or a KSP ship during my forays into Bretonia and Kusari, and Rheinland only has a few dedicated players for its unofficial police faction (KPR).

If we assume that this is a problem, what should be the solution?
I wanted to open a discussion about what could be the minimal amount of modification which may lead to more players focusing on police roleplay.

My own solution is as follows: change house military id lines from "Can enforce laws within House Space" to "Can attack ships breaking laws within House Space."
The idea behind this is simple: the military is a blunt tool with little training about civilian disputes and smuggling regulations. Their solution starts and ends with the application of force. So if you want more options when dealing with criminals (e.g. fines), and the ability to make inrp arrests, you fly on police ids. If anything too big comes calling, you ping the military for help and disengage until you have more support.

What do y'all think?

Although posted something similiar a while ago in the Discovery Discord (to remove the enforcement line completely from militaries, got a rather negative response), on second thought I think it's a rather bad idea.

As I would welcome /nodock (and more .police to annoy people), I think it should be an OF benefit. If you can gather enough people to play police, you can go official.
The oorp lolwut docking is now reduced (I won't say it disappeared). People listen now more to orders than powertrading. The reason of /nodock was, that official police factions don't have to do FR5 on every smuggler. Some old community members might remember "Affiliation status notification"/"Notification of Rheinland laws violation".

However, nothing prevents you to bring this up in the Rheingov and adjust the law. An id line change wouldn't be needed if the law empowers only police players with fine + cargo demand.
You could even go further and include some commodities to still be finable for the RM. (Military commodities like munitions, light arms and so on)
(And you can simply change the law back if a tryout period doesn't satisfy your intent.)

[Czechmate]

This thread just makes me miss @Skorak and his extremely corrupt and cowardly LPI officer. That, I think, was the best fitting vibe to convey for the faction and it's a shame that it more or less died out in the present day.

LPI is at least unique and has (vital) place in the lore.

Other police aren't unique or distinct enough to have reasons to be played.

Edit: Even with LPI, you had bizzare misguided attempts like the Marshalls and many others who played them like the navy and let go of the distinct corporate angle... Police is just not meant to be mass played I guess and that's ok...not every NPC faction has to have and OF or Three

[Czechmate]

Promoting police roleplay

/nodock for indies.

ID balance:
Police - /nodock and /tlagsnet
Military - battleships, in some cases better ZoI
Intelligence - the best ZoI, engagement rights sirius-wide

I still think police should lose their cruiser allowance, maybe they can get some additional flhook stuff to compensate for that?

Gallia has dual IDs on indies and officials under one IFF.


[GN]G- has TLAGSNET, /nodock, /police. And I couldn't see a reason why they should fly caps (indies can). The guys were asking - but it doesn't make too much sense even though gends unlike other police are straight up enlisted and trained military force.

You should cut down caps, but then give them cool stuff like OP CDs, cloaks that don't break, intercepting Police Frigate with strong offensive power that can actually take down transports solo (a hotfix could be a special police frigate shield that is weaker but buffs core Regen significantly like some code snub shields) etc. etc. And yes, as only OFL whose faction has /nodock, /nodock for indies - knowing the command itself is a barrier to entry, the people who will abuse it will be knowledgeable trolls that won't be hard to pick out by staff.