[WIP] Criminal Record OXP

[Wildeblood]

Criminal Record OXP ver. 0.1
Date: April 12th, 2012
Author: Wildeblood


This OXP introduces GalCrim, the Galactic Criminal Records Database. No longer can criminals exploit the wonder of faster-than-light space travel to literally stay ahead of their criminal records! If you find the idea that you could expunge a criminal record just by hopping about from planet to planet a few times just a bit too easy, if life in the Galactic Co-operative sometimes seems like it's all just some kind of a game, place the Criminal Record OXP into your "AddOns" folder. Oolite will then maintain a permanent record of any legal misadventures you might have. (It won't of course, because this is only version 0.1, not version 1.0)

What this version WILL do:

1. Stop the nonsense of resetting the player's bounty to zero by making a 'galactic' hyperjump. This OXP replaces Oolite's single player bounty with a table of eight bounties, recorded separately for each galactic sector. Players on their first trip around 'the eight' will indeed get a fresh start, and a chance to make a new life as a law-abiding citizen, after jumping to a new sector. But after that, if they return to a sector they fled from with a bounty on their head, it will still be there waiting for them.

2. Allow control over the rate the player's bounty decays, separately for each sector. Oolite reacts to criminal acts by placing a bounty on the player, which then rapidly decays, halving after each witchspace jump. You might think that is too easy, or you might think that is too hard. Open the "Scripts" folder within the OXP, and then the file "galcrim_record.js". Near the top of the file you will see this:-

Code: Select all

=================================================================================
			INITIALIZATION OPTION - GAME STYLE

	1	Game with eight levels of increasing difficulty.
	2	Complacent Old Worlds and zero-tolerance frontier.
	3	Authoritarian Old Worlds and lawless frontier.
		Other values default to Oolite's usual 0.5 decay rate after each jump.

	This sets elements 8-15 of the this.galcrim_chartwide[] array,
	which store individual decay rates for each chart.
=================================================================================

this.gameStyle = 2;

Setting this.gameStyle = 1 results in the player bounty being reduced to just 30% after each witchspace jump in sector 1, but being permanent, and never reducing at all in sector 8. In other words, a game with eight increasing difficulty levels.

Setting this.gameStyle = 2 uses Oolite's normal 50% decay rate in sector 1, then is less forgiving as you move out to the frontier in sector 5, and becomes easier again as you move back.

Setting this.gameStyle = 3 is the opposite, and new players starting out at Lave better quickly learn to behave themselves.

Edited: removed download link.

[Disembodied]

I've not downloaded this or tested it (I am, nominally at least, at work just now ...) but it's an interesting idea: anything that adds a few more subtleties to the game is good in my book!

One thing though: if it gets harder/takes longer to clear a criminal record by simple passage of time, I think there needs to be other ways of becoming Clean again. I am not an habitual criminal , so my experience is pretty limited, but I do know that players can have the opportunity to pay fines and/or clean up after the craboids to work off minor indiscretions ... how does this work? Might it in fact be possible for players to volunteer for minor punishment to scrub themselves back to "Clean"? (More minor than being attacked by the cops, anyway.) Of course, it could be possible to link things like fines (or time spent cleaning up after the craboids) to the permanent criminal record ... perhaps some sort of multiplier could apply for repeat offenders.

[Cody]

Might it in fact be possible for players to volunteer for minor punishment

Voluntary attitude adjustment? Hmm... not too sure about that!

[Gimi]

Voluntary attitude adjustment? Hmm... not too sure about that!

Wouldn't work on hardend criminals anyway EV.

[Disembodied]

Might it in fact be possible for players to volunteer for minor punishment

Voluntary attitude adjustment? Hmm... not too sure about that!

It's more for the "Oh bugger, I forgot to sell that 1t of narcotics before I launched" criminals. Quick dock, pay the fine, sorry officer, won't happen again! Better that than a potential death sentence hanging over you ...

[Wildeblood]

One thing though: if it gets harder/takes longer to clear a criminal record by simple passage of time, I think there needs to be other ways of becoming Clean again.

Rumour has it you can just bail out in an escape pod, and your criminal history goes down with your ship. But while looking for things to copy inspiration, I found something in Commander McLane's Anarchies OXP to copy that inspired me, so forget that idea.

Oh, you might have misinterpreted something I wrote above:-

...being permanent, and never reducing at all in sector 8...

I didn't mean it would prevent paying of a fine to clear your bounty. Just the opposite: my goal is to make sure players do pay their fines, not just hop around a few times to extinguish them.

[Cody]

Rumour has it you can just bail out in an escape pod, and your criminal history goes down with your ship.

This has always been wrong, I reckon. The escape pod should be for emergencies only, not for clearing ones criminal history.

[Diziet Sma]

Rumour has it you can just bail out in an escape pod, and your criminal history goes down with your ship.

This has always been wrong, I reckon. The escape pod should be for emergencies only, not for clearing ones criminal history.

Loopholes are there to be taken advantage of.. isn't that what every politician crook in history has taught us?

[Cody]

Loopholes are there to be taken advantage of.. isn't that what every politician crook in history has taught us?

Indeed! But this particular loophole is akin to robbing a bank, jumping in the getaway car, and then changing cars and automagically becoming innocent.

[Disembodied]

I didn't mean it would prevent paying of a fine to clear your bounty. Just the opposite: my goal is to make sure players do pay their fines, not just hop around a few times to extinguish them.

That sounds fine – apart from anything else it's a much-needed money sink. But I'm not clear myself on the process of how fines come about. If you dock as an offender, do you automatically get the option to pay a fine/have your attitude adjusted? Or is it random? Basically, I think there should be an option for sort-of honest traders to turn themselves in, pay the penalty and get back to business without the hassle of being shot by Vipers in the aegis (have you ever been shot in the aegis? It's no laughing matter ... ).

A permanent criminal record would still allow for an escalation of fines: a first offence might get a slap on the wrist, but by the third time you might have to stump up serious money to clear your sheet.

[Mauiby de Fug]

Neat! Keeping a record of your bounty for each galaxy seems like a really good idea - I'm surprised nobody's done it before!

From my own in-Ooniverse perspective, the idea of different levels of leniency for different galaxies doesn't quite fit. I'd imagine that GalCop would have the same overall standards in each. There might however, within each galaxy, be areas with different customs and tolerances. This could well be difficult to program. What might not be so difficult is to skew it so that different planets would have a decay rate, based on a combination of their government type, economy status, and tech level. For instance, jumping to a rich high tech democracy would not reduce your bounty by much if at all. Jumping to a poor low tech anarchy, however, might well reduce your bounty by quite a bit. Just some thoughts!

[snork]

I like this a lot, the per-gal-sector record, and the adjustable per-jump clearing. Nice!

One thing though: if it gets harder/takes longer to clear a criminal record by simple passage of time, I think there needs to be other ways of becoming Clean again.

I do not have sth. bounty-showing installed (do not want), so do not see efeects ...
But I have read somewhere, once, that helping the police in their fights is supposed to have an effect on one's own criminal record.

But what makes me wonder if this is true is that I have never again read it mentioned here on the boards, whenever the talk is about becoming clean(er) again, or such.

Can anyone confirm or deny this ? How strong is that effect, if at all ?

------------------------------

Oh - would it be possible for them scripts to (optionally!) take notice of the hyperjumps, but only execute the bounty-reducing effect on docking with the main station ?
This could prevent the "bounty down to zero for free" by repeatedly jumping to-and-fro closeby systems. could it not ?

[Cody]

Can anyone confirm or deny this ? How strong is that effect, if at all ?

Every time you get a "thank you" message from a police for helping him, your bounty is reduced by 20%

The trouble is that after thanking you, the Viper will then attack you!

[Disembodied]

What might also be a nice addition would be to have an occasional chance of clearing your record on the cheap with a donation to the Old Viper Pilots' Benevolent Fund. A nicely judged bribe – with the size based on your current record, the wealth of the system, and the government type (I'd make Corporate States the most likely to take bribes, then Anarchy, Multi-Government, Feudal, Dictatorship, Communist, confederacy, Democracy) – could see you Clean again at a discount rate. Pitch the bribe too low, though, and you might find yourself in more trouble than before.

[Cody]

A nicely judged bribe

Which appears to be rampant in the core game, judging by the amount of times I lose value on an offender's escape pod.