Oolite Bulletins

I was thinking about the Fugitive --> Offender --> Clean status evaporating as one jumps, and I think cop-killers would be an exception. If you shoot and destroy a GalCop vessel, every GalCop in the galaxy will be after you. It'll be personal, and unrelated to one's official Fugitive status.

So, an idea for a No Peace for Cop-Killers OXP:
The idea for this OXP is that it should be a right royal pain in the bum to kill a cop. There is no benefit for the Commander to this OXP, it makes the galaxy a tougher place to be a bad guy. Being the Cop-Killer will be worse than being a Fugitive - it is not for newbies! It would be tough and relentless and miserable yet could be exhilarating and exciting, if it works!

How it works:
+ If you destroy a GalCop Police vessel, your are your ship is tagged as a Cop-Killer.
+ Once tagged as a Cop-Killer, every cop in the system will home in on you and attack.
+ This includes the GalCop defence ships in the space station which will all launch and join in.
+ When you jump systems, you leave the GalCop ships behind, but the Cop-Killer tag comes with you, and the cops in the new system start to home in on you.
+ Every so often (e.g. one to five minutes) an off-duty GalCop vessel will jump into the system at the witchpoint from an adjoining system and join in.
+ Your bounty and legal status still degrade back to clean just as they do now. Eventually you could be a Clean Cop-Killer!
+ Your legal status is irrelevant; GalCops will hunt down and destroy the Cop-Killer regardless.

When does it end? (It should feel like 'never')
- Trading one's ship removes the Cop-Killer tag ("He got away").
- Leaving the Galaxy removes the Cop-Killer tag ("We lost him").
- Using one's escape pod removes the Cop-Killer tag ("Someone got him").

Secondary effects: (As few as possible)
= Impact on bounty hunters: none, they react just as they do now to bounties.
= Impact in Anarchies: nothing special, any Police vessels present come for you just like anywhere else.
= Impact on pirates: none. They neither know nor care about your tag.
= Impact on Navy ships: none. They don't care and don't get involved.
= Impact on NPCs: none. We see GalCops attacking pirates who may or may not be Cop-Killers, we have no way of knowing as it's private GalCop business.
= Destruction of other system vessels or installations: none. You only become a Cop-Killer by destroying a GalCop Police vessel.

Restriction:
* If the GalCops use injectors to get to you, this would create an unsurvivable scenario. Without GalCop using injectors, you could avoid them indefinitely and dock at stations normally by leaving the cops behind. You'd be on the run, one step ahead of the law, all the time.

Incomplete thoughts:
1. Are there any other end conditions (besides death!)?
2. Can you buy an end-condition? For example, when you dock at a high tech-level Anarchy, a screen pops up: "Someone in the docking bay whispers 'Psst. Cop-Killer. Need help? 100,000 credits / 25% of your bank balance / 100 Kgs of Platinum & 100 Kgs of Gold might buy you a friend with access to the GalCop computer records. Interested?' Yes/No?"
3. What about Commies.OXP security vessels? Should they join in the GalCop hunt? Does it matter either way?
4. How do the cops find you? Do they patrol sun/system/jump point then report your position when you are spotted, or just home in on you directly? (I think they should home in on you straight away.)
5. When you out-run the GalCops and dock at a space station, what happens when you launch? Will the cops be waiting, or patrolling normally or docked and ready to launch?

Would such an OXP be feasible? Desirable?

SandJ wrote:

it makes the galaxy a tougher place to be a bad guy.

<buys 32t of narcotics at 1.2, chortling merrily>

I like that

Might you call it the Ice_COob.oxp?

You could even have a tie-in with the explorer's club, where you can keep track of how many systems you've killed cops in.

Sounds good! 'Tis the reason in my head that I don't tend to kill Vipers, and this would make the immersion even more complete!

Rather than producing a blanket, galaxy-wide effect – which rather implies a high level of interaction and co-ordination among the police – maybe it could be restricted to the system where the dastardly deed was done? I don't know about cop-killing, myself, but I suspect when it happens in someone's game it's either a horrible accident, in which case a galaxy-wide Viper vendetta seems a bit harsh, or it's done by someone who really doesn't care, and who probably spends most of their time as a fugitive or offender anyway. So if the OXP is going to have a noticeable effect, it might be more interesting if it turned certain systems into no-go areas where not only is the player at risk from local police, but where docking at the main station becomes impossible too. Docking anywhere in the system could produce a chance of someone tipping off the police, so that when the player launches they might find a posse closing in on them. The game's geography would start to change, and certain routes might get a lot trickier.

Trading in your ship *might* clear your name, but using the Escape Pod wouldn't – it's too easy. The only sure-fire way is to leave the galaxy.

I'd say go ahead and do it.

Creating a mission variable which keeps track of the player's cop killing record is a piece of cake. Making police (and only police) and main stations act on this variable is not as trivial, but would certainly be a good scripting exercise. From my own, and purely subjective perspective, a JS-script approach would be preferable over a dedicated AI approach, because that would lead to immediate incompatibility with total_patrol.oxp.

But it should be rather easy to have a timer check for police ships inside the player's scanner range, and if any are found who are not busy shooting someone else, make them attack the player (the function "find idle police ships in scanner range" is even a verbatim example in the documentation).

Interesting idea.. but not something I'd put in my Ooniverse.. I don't subscribe to this American concept that killing a cop is somehow a worse offense than killing a regular citizen.. murder is murder. The victim's job should be irrelevant.