Promoting police roleplay - separating Police and Military identity?

[Barrier]

I added a lot of the ideas on the first post to give people an idea of what was suggested. I feel like implementing even one of them may have a substantial impact, so let's see what devs consider sufficient I guess.

[darkwind]

I added a lot of the ideas on the first post to give people an idea of what was suggested. I feel like implementing even one of them may have a substantial impact, so let's see what devs consider sufficient I guess.

i also suggested
* Add police only high proffit commodity to trade around (it can be prisoners)
* Give all criminals high proffit selling points at their bases for this commodity

Killing few birds with one stone. Giving non hunting reason for police
Giving criminals more reasons to hunt those ships if police is PvEing

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[Barrier]

i also suggested
* Add police only high proffit commodity to trade around (it can be prisoners)
* Give all criminals high proffit selling points at their bases for this commodity

Killing few birds with one stone. Giving non hunting reason for police
Giving criminals more reasons to hunt those ships if police is PvEing

Gotcha, I just wanted to simplify these under a general heading. And yeah I forgot to include you under that one.

[Haste]

Is the goal of these changes:

• To get more players playing Discovery Freelancer, some of whom will play the new and improved Police IDs (which are already better Navy IDs for the purposes of flying anything but a Dreadnought), or,
  
• To try and encourage current (Navy? Other lawful?) players to stop playing those characters and instead to play Police IDs?
  

This is always what I feel we collectively miss while messing around with "police buffs". There's nothing wrong with the IDs. There never has been anything wrong with the IDs. The Police IDs are Navy IDs with TLAGSNET, making them objectively better. I don't know if trying to funnel some navy/military/whatever players into police factions will actually change anything about the game.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for adding little carrots to dangle in front of the playerbase to try and reward players for "playing their role", but I feel like if we're going to pay police a salary we should also pay navy ships a salary for the same activities. They're pretty interchangeable. We want navy patrols just as badly as we want police patrols. Why not spend the same dev time but give more IDs more to do? Because we want to artificially boost the police playerbase?

Also, if the main reason why players don't play police is that the power fantasy of the ID isn't to their liking, which is a pretty safe assumption (again, the IDs are universally superior to navy IDs of the same houses from what I've seen), won't trying to "force" them to play the ID just result in mediocrely roleplayed police characters?

I'd rather focus on giving all our players more stuff to do and more fun to have in the game rather than spending disproportionate dev time on fixing a problem that isn't really a problem. People who like to play police characters will play police characters regardless of the ID.

Maybe my perspective on this is biased as my very first official faction was LPI and I had an absolute blast playing it, but it just seems like we're missing the forest for the trees. Get more players playing, and being a policeman on patrol will be more fun. If we want more activities you can do that don't rely on players in your ZoI, which we definitely do, add them in such a way that the maximum number of IDs / players benefit. To be honest, salary or not, flying around a house aimlessly taking lanes just because it drip-feeds you some credits still doesn't sound super enticing to me.

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[LuckyOne]

As always, everyone commenting here is wrong (and that includes me ).

But to really fix police you need to turn the problem on its head. Why don't people play police IDs? Because there's nobody to police!

Seriously, I've been here for a while, and the situations where people were incentivised to log Police were set up to promote them to log - limited to high profile events with lots of smuggling activity.

First, you need to incentivise smuggling to happen during peak hours instead of when nobody is around. That means smuggling should be more akin to blockade running. Basically, give bonuses when there are lawfuls around in the system you sell your contraband.

Second, Police needs their own gameplay loop they could do while waiting for the smugglers to show up. Somebody suggested POB prison facilities, or just a straight up sellpoint bonus (acessible only for Police IDs) for captured pilots.

Third, I suggested several times to bring the NPC scanning patrols back, and make them "relay" info about your coordinates to all police / lawful IDs (unless you drop your cargo or bribe them - whichever is easier to code). This would make using JHs a bit harder, though still sneakier than TLs that always relay your info to everyone who's listening.

/nodock for indies could help quite a bit, but it's only a band-aid that might be more useful for trolling than true gameplay issues.

[freelancer knux]

Personally I love fly police characters but the issue I am constantly met with is players. I am being legit its either people going out of their way to avoid interacting eg flying above the plane or and tgis one is probably worse too many hostiles. I cant count how many times when I actually get some RP going with a smuggler that I get dunked on by an cruiser or BS after they fly up and drop the ol L1 L2.

Just makes it feel like every time I go to log it will be an hour or so of silence.

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[Ashyur]

a feature we all forgot, there was a command for official police factions that could play a siren in-game, should be another incentive for a normal id

[-Revenant-]

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?

Ideas people put forward (sorted by my own opinion about ease of implementation):

• Add /nodock to indie police ids @Traxit @Levenna @"Max Morse" @Antonio @Tenshi @darkwind
  
• Change House law to give police more power @rwx
  
• Combine the military and police id @"Czechmate" @"Deucalion"
  
• Create fence-like sellpoints for confiscated commodities @Stewgar @rwx @"Deucalion" @darkwind
  
• Add salary for police based on trade lane patrol time @"Saronsen" @"Czechmate"
  
• Let police disable trade lanes and gates @Traxit @"Max Morse"
  
• Add valuable unlawful NPCs along patrol routes @Stewgar @Shimamori
  
• Improve the scanners used by the police @"Max Morse"
  
• Improve the cruise disruptors used by the police @"Max Morse" @"Czechmate"
  

It seems like you have brought up some interesting points regarding the lack of dedicated police factions and players focusing on police roleplay in the game. Your idea of changing the house military id lines to differentiate between the military and police roles is an intriguing one. It would allow for more options when dealing with criminals and provide a clear distinction between the two roles.

Some other ideas that have been put forward by other players include adding the ability for indie police IDs to not dock at certain stations, changing house laws to give police more power, combining the military and police IDs, creating sellpoints for confiscated commodities, adding a salary for police based on patrol time, allowing police to disable trade lanes and gates, adding valuable unlawful NPCs along patrol routes, improving the scanners and cruise disruptors used by the police.

Each of these ideas has its own merits and would require different levels of implementation. It would be interesting to see how the community and game developers respond to these suggestions and if they can lead to more players focusing on police roleplay.

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[Arnold]

I consider myself an advocate for the merging of the 2 ID's as i felt police ID will always be inferior in a way to the military ID. If people still want to play either, they can create a player faction (or indie) and roleplay it the way they want.

[Petitioner]

[nonsensical and ai-produced garbage]

Please stop replying to threads with literal ChatGPT-written responses that don't add anything to the discussion whatsoever.

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