RFC: Bounties and Galcop law

[cim]

Currently, the following things in the core game can affect a ship's bounty after set up:

They are not intended to apply to police ships (and if a police ship does end up with a bounty, it will be removed), and do not apply to Thargoid ships in current trunk.

General:
A - fired missile at a police ship with an ECM system (bitwise OR with 64)
B - caused energy damage to a police ship (bitwise OR with 64)
C - a police ship accepts a distress call from a ship targeting you (bitwise OR with 8.)
D - distracted someone attacking a police ship and police ship thanks you (20% reduction in bounty)
E - attacked main station (bitwise OR with 96 or 64, depending on current legal status)
F - entered new system (halved)
G - shot someone while in view of cops or station (bitwise OR with value set in cop/station AI - 7 for cops, 15 for station)
H - ship switches target to a clean target, or offender ship switches target at all, and the previous target thanks the new target, whether or not the police are watching (ADDITION: 5-20Cr.)

In 1.76 "H" is in practice NPC only as the player switching target never gets noticed in that way. This could change in future, though, if the way NPCs considered the player's targeting changed.

Player only:
I - using escape pod (reset to zero)
J - entered new galaxy (reset to zero)
K - illegal exports (bitwise OR with total goods penalty)
L - paid fine (and carried out community service) on docking (reduced according to size of fine)
M - destroying police ship (bitwise OR with 64) though unless you destroy the cop by ramming them, this will have no effect as A or B will already have done this

NPC only:
None of these require "the law" to actually notice the crime!
N - offender mothership accepts new clean escort (ADDITION: 1-15Cr.)
O - clean escort accepted by offender mothership (ADDITION: 1-15Cr.)
P - ship with role "pirate" destroys ship with a bounty (ADDITION:target's bounty)

Note that N and O are unrelated to the modification of escort ship bounties that occurs when the original escorts are created.

Proposals:
There are two things I'd like to neaten up:

• the player should not get special treatment (I-L, N and O don't break this as in theory they might apply if you ever saw the other type of ship doing that)
• all bounty increases should be by bitwise OR, not addition, to stop bounties getting ridiculously high

The easiest way to do this seems to be:

• Make reason A apply even if the police ship does not have an ECM system. (B would apply anyway if the missile hit, but it seems to be an unintentional omission)
• Remove reason H. Its existence has already been questioned in this thread. It's major problems are: it can happen without the police around; it can't happen to the player for no obvious reason; it uses addition rather than bitwise OR so the bounty can reach ridiculous levels.
• Make reason M apply to non-station NPCs as well, though it's unlikely to happen in practice.
• Remove reason N, as the mothership will already have a bounty, there doesn't seem to be a reason it should get more, and this happens even if the cops aren't looking.
  However keep reason O, even though it doesn't make much sense, to prevent the player being attacked by a Clean escort for a pirate Python in the core game.
• Remove reason P, since it doesn't seem to make much sense. Why do pirates' bounties increase when they kill another offender (or a Thargoid)? Is there some Highlander-style "ultimate pirate" competition? Truth is, we don't know.

As a consequence of doing all this - especially the removal of H - pirate bounties are likely to end up a little lower than before. There are a few options for this - my preferred option would be to increase (and slightly randomise) the bounties given by reason G, but alternatives would be to increase the initial pirate bounties given by the system populator, or to accept the lowered bounties as unimportant.

What do you think?

EDIT: Fix unwanted smiley

[SandJ]

.....

[Cody]

I had to look-up bitwise OR - I think I understand it now <coughs>. Pirate bounties are irrelevant to my game-play style - it's my own bounty I have to take into consideration - so it sounds fine to me. I do think that I and J shouldn't reset the player's bounty - but that's another matter.

[cim]

C - a police ship accepts a distress call from a ship targeting you (bitwise OR with
What do you think?

I think you need a space between the "8" and the ")" in "8)" to prevent the smiley.

Thank you...

[Wildeblood]

(bitwise OR with 64)

What does that mean in English?

I know the bounties you get for attacking police are very broken. If you accidentally ping a police ship with your laser, your best course of action is then to turn arsehole and finish it off cold-bloodedly, because your bounty doesn't increase after the first accidental hit, but if you don't finish it off it will chase you remorselessly. That's broken. Unless the design intention is to lure the player into a life of crime. (In which case, why the rapidly decaying bounties?)

As for the galaxy jump and escape pod resetting your bounty, that's just lame, but easily fixed. However, some people seem to have strong feelings about changing anything, unless it's something they want changed. That's why I abandoned Criminal Record OXP, not because it wouldn't work, because it would be a can-of-worms too far.

Addendum: Something to bear in mind: until the player actually destroys something with a bounty, bounties are supposed to be an internal game mechanic invisible to the player. It's really only because of Bounty Scanner and Display Bounty OXPs that players are conscious of them. Anything which exposes internal behaviour of the game to the player should be considered a debugging tool, and not for general game play. Although I don't want to be in any way critical of Frame, I will say that once I realized the effect Bounty Scanner was having on my style of play, it instantly went from my must-have list to my verboten list.

[cim]

I had to look-up bitwise OR

Fair point - I should have explained that.

To save others having to look it up, bitwise OR works as follows:
- convert both numbers to binary
- if any bit in either number is 1, that bit in the result is 1
- convert the result back to decimal.

So, if your bounty is currently 17, and you export 11 credits of illegal goods (e.g. 5TC Narcotics and 1TC Firearms)
17 = 00010001
13 = 00001101
... so your new bounty is
29 = 00011101
... if you then shoot someone while the station is watching
7 = 00000111
...and your new bounty is
31 = 00011111

The consequence is that bounties don't go up forever, and especially not for repeatedly doing the same thing.

An interesting side property: no bounty award smaller than the size of a particular bit can increase your bounty above that bit. So, for instance, if you never do anything individually awarding a bounty of 32 credits or higher, your bounty can never get above 31 credits - so one of the consequences of the proposal is that no ship in the core game would ever have a bounty greater than 127 credits.

(Well, not unless the player exported 128 credits worth of illegal goods at once...)

[Smivs]

Regarding player bounties being wiped with escape capsule use and Galactic jumping, I agree this is wrong. GalCop Police should know your status whatever you do and wherever you go.

[SandJ]

Regarding player bounties being wiped with escape capsule use and Galactic jumping, I agree this is wrong. GalCop Police should know your status whatever you do and wherever you go.

In the Elite fluff, your status was attached to your ship, hence dumping the ship cleared ones rating.

As for GalCop's data being consistent between galaxies, that would require GalCop to be sending regular ships from galaxy to galaxy containing database updates. I think the different galaxies idea works better as a fresh start after jumping, like crossing the state line, rather than "just another 256 systems that are a bit tricky to get to".

Anyway, those two behaviours were Elite ones and changing them, like removing the Energy Bomb, continues to fork Oolite the space simulator away from Elite the game. And requires me to unlearn how the game works.

[Switeck]

"F - entered new system (halved)"

I know this is a core tenant of the game, but it feels broken as well. If a ship (player or pirate) has a high bounty (100+), why is it entitled to a huge absolute amount of bounty decrease while a ship with a low bounty (2-10) barely decreases at all in terms of absolute credit amounts?

The most wanted (high bounty) ships should only get small decreases of their bounty relative to their total. The longest delay from a typical hyperspace jump is only about 2 days, so a huge decrease on a bounty seems silly if only jumping multiple times between 2 very close systems.

How about a bounty reduction of only 15 if the current bounty is above 30?

(I believe this is already done:) And no bounty reduction at all on Thargoid-type ships.


As for using an escape pod or Galactic Hyperspace, both should reduce your bounty...but by how much is worthy of debate. I think it would be fair if both Escape Pod use and Gal. Hyper. removed 50 from the bounty.


Since I found a pseudo-bug/exploit with WHEN the bounty is reduced, please change that also.
Please make the bounty reduction done by regular hyperspace jumps ONLY when entering a new non-interstellar system and have that done during the this.shipExitedWitchspace = function()

Visiting nova systems should reduce your bounty, just because if you're willing to go that route to reduce your bounty...you're probably serious about being clean again.

[SandJ]

As for using an escape pod or Galactic Hyperspace, both should reduce your bounty...but by how much is worthy of debate. I think it would be fair if both Escape Pod use and Gal. Hyper. removed 50 from the bounty.

That I do not understand. I can see the argument for them staying the same (although I disagree with it) and I can see why they could be eliminated, but why would or should either of those things reduce your bounty?

[cim]

"F - entered new system (halved)"

I know this is a core tenant of the game, but it feels broken as well.

Commander McLane's [wiki]Anarchies OXP[/wiki] modifies this in (roughly) the way you suggest, and also removes the clearance from using escape pods.

Please make the bounty reduction done by regular hyperspace jumps ONLY when entering a new non-interstellar system

This has been the case since 1.76 (and possibly in some of the 1.75 versions)

and have that done during the this.shipExitedWitchspace = function()

It currently takes place just before the shipWillExitWitchspace handler is called - what's the exploit if it's not moved later?

[Disembodied]

C - a police ship accepts a distress call from a ship targeting you (bitwise OR with 8.)

This might need refining. Once a pirate has scooped its fill it then trundles off to the station, with (I assume) a trader AI. It's still an Offender, but if the player shoots it, it behaves like a trader, squawking for help and begging for mercy, and even dumping some cargo in an effort to save its own life.

Does GalCop accept distress calls from Offender NPCs when they're attacked by Clean players? Given that players, Clean or otherwise, can't make distress calls, that seems a bit unfair. It also seem a bit odd for the cops to blame a Clean bounty hunter for attacking an Offender, just because the pirate boo-hoos about it. And it seems odder still for a successful (and presumably ferocious) pirate to beg for mercy and run when attacked, instead of being a bit more proactive in their own defence ...

Earlier today, I pursued an Offender Gecko that was begging for mercy and dropping cargo ... not once did it turn round and even try to return fire. Being in a Cobra 1 I couldn't quite catch up with it and finish it off: instead it just kept running until it dived into the planet. If it had headed for the station aegis, it might have got some help, or at least found a wormhole if it couldn't make one of its own: a suicidal plunge into the planet though was probably the worst option.

Maybe there needs to be a new AI? A "fullPirate" or something? Flies like a trader, responds to attack like a pirate?

[Cody]

... that would require GalCop to be sending regular ships from galaxy to galaxy containing database updates...

Which is what I'd expect them to be doing - GalCop do 'control' all eight octants, after all.
Why should the player be the only one allowed to travel between them?

[cim]

C - a police ship accepts a distress call from a ship targeting you (bitwise OR with 8.)

Does GalCop accept distress calls from Offender NPCs when they're attacked by Clean players?

No. Only distress calls from Clean ships are actually accepted by the police, so this bit works as you expect already.

[Cody]

Maybe there needs to be a new AI? A "fullPirate" or something? Flies like a trader, responds to attack like a pirate?

Second that!