What are we up to? Crime!

[OddBob]

We have been discussing crime on IRC lately.

We think crimes ought to be handled like this: when you commit a crime, it gets added to your "rap sheet" (only if you get caught however). Each crime has a specific punishment, more often than not a fine. The number of crimes you hve and their severity determines your level of "wantedness". So if you have one parking ticket you might be able to conduct buisiness as usual almost everywhere but a mass murding slaver will have trouble even approaching firendly stations.

Here is a list of crimes:

selling military goods without an ID
purchasing military goods without ID
attacking a friendly ship
destroying a friendly ship
attacking a station
murder (anything you do that kills someone)
destroying a station
destroying a law enforcement station
destroying a military station
destroying a mililtary ship
selling illegals
buying illegals
posessing illegals
installing illegal equipment
having illegal equipment installed
installing/using a radiation weapon
evading arrest (not stopping when "pulled over")
dealing with enemy soveriegns (ares)
consorting with criminals
aiding/abetting criminals
hacking (if implemented, probably various levels of severity)
buying/selling slaves
enslaving slaves
theft (currently only applies to looting a friendly station)
running through customs
vigilantism (attacking a station you do not have a permit for)
forgery (using a fake ID)
attempting to violate the quarantine
espionage (applying to enemy soverigns)
mining without a permit
mining someone else's claim
failing to pay fines

"bogus" crimes (for corrupt officials, police forces you have angered, etc)
being irradiated near a station
littering (jettisoning cargo)
failing to fill out paperwork
firing a weapon in controlled space

punishments:
fines
death (shoot on sight)
confiscation of items
taking away rights (purchasing, IDs, missions)

Punishments are based on the value of what you took. They must be more than that value otherwise getting caught is just breaking even - but no court can catch allt he offenders so they will charge you a multiple of the value anyway to account for the unsolved (and un-reparated) crimes.

The punishment for destroying a friendly ship for example is twice the worth of the victims cargo/cash/ship (can be any multiple but it has to be more than his net worth otherwise you can just break even if you get caught by selling his stuff) plus a fine for murder. They will also consfiscate the weapon you used if you didn't ditch it.

The fine for murder (rather than paying a life for a life) is to allow a little more flexibility in the criminal system. Personally I can see it working just fine either way though.

[Psycholis]

This might be kind of bad for when you're late game and accidentally shoot through escaping sapphires with your IM-90... Then again, you could probably afford the cost of that crime at that point anyway...

[Arisaya]

The problem with getting in trouble for killing ships is that they tend to be so frail.
Only things like possesion of contrabands, crimes against civilization (ie, slavery) and mass murder (killing friendly stations)- the things you have total (or near total) control over should you be able to get in actual trouble for.
Things like killing friendly ships should merely lower their disposition towards you. If you hit a friendly ship way too many times, like a station it should begin fighting back, though getting hit a few times should not get them too mad at you.
Also "good deeds" should counteract people's negative feelings towards you. Ie, if you put a few dings in some guy's ship but you freed a ton of slaves, i think that it should outweigh his scrathes. + serves him right for not buying insurance.

[Bobby]

if you destroy or shoot something friendly from far away(ie, farther than lrs) you should have no punishment(particularly being banned from docking with stations), after all, if you can't see it, you can't intentionally shoot it, making it a total accident! besides, how would they know it was your shot anyway?

as for shooting friendly ships, they are too frail, and if enemies are around should be ignored sometimes, or perhaps a fine at most.

(both cases assume you are not targeting it.)

[OddBob]

as for shooting friendly ships, they are too frail, and if enemies are around should be ignored sometimes, or perhaps a fine at most.

Why? Why should you be allowed to take their items and lives for free? Just because you don't want to aim carefully when you are firing? "Accidentally" killing people has never been okay, it doesn't make any sense to me to make it so here.

Such a system would ENSURE that friendly ships can never become anything more than just useless background scenery.

[Arisaya]

as for shooting friendly ships, they are too frail, and if enemies are around should be ignored sometimes, or perhaps a fine at most.

Why? Why should you be allowed to take their items and lives for free? Just because you don't want to aim carefully when you are firing? "Accidentally" killing people has never been okay, it doesn't make any sense to me to make it so here.

Such a system would ENSURE that friendly ships can never become anything more than just useless background scenery.

give friendly ships uber tough armor then.
flying a sapphire around where phobos dreadnaughts, ventarii destroyers and wtfbbqpwng playerships go whizzing around blowing up everything in the cross fire is NOT a smart idea to begin with. If they can't armor up, then make the concequences as big and bad as the level 2 ships they are (which is slightly more than a hornet battlepod )

[OddBob]

Keep in mind the game does need cash sinks, and that not every crime is automatically recorded. You have to first be seen doing it and then you have to get caught. Enforcement is likely to be thin on the frontier and who is going to come fine you on the front lines?

I frankly think it is ridiculous that any society would not care if you killed someone (it is not their fault because they didn't "armor up", nor was it theirs for getting in the way of your bullets) - fun is more important than realism but balance and consistency are important too. Right now friendlies have no items, not even the traders you see flying around. That's silly. If they had items, you could steal from them. However you'd have to take a risk of being caught and fined. Currently killing a friendly has no consequences. If they have a base you can't dock there but that is it. That is not consistent with the established ideas of the game (killing stations is illegal, pirates are criminals, etc).

We also discussed on IRC the concept of liability insurance, that you could buy and pay (over time) and that would nullify fines for accidental deaths of civilians.

[Arisaya]

liability insurance might be a bit better, but the crummy ships really need to be kept away from the frontiers. ships on par with the enemies should be out there, not ships that would get killed by a crummy little charon stronghold.