I aggree with CrashBlizz. I found myself in a similar situation: I had to many chars to look after them with equal attention. I've chosen some boring but longlasting tasks for those which I found less attractive to me in the momment. So it can be done without any interface or mechanics upgrade, you just simply have to want to do it.

On the other side I think we miss one thing: lockpicking is not breaking the lock with a crowbar... When someone (skilled) wants to pick the lock you have small chance to hear it, even if you are inside the room/building/vehicle. But in Cantr we break the locks with brute force. And it comes to 'how good Cantr should reflect reality?' question...


Imho if we want to make any kind of upgrade in discussed matter I would support SumBums idea with 50% chances of hearing in one of the inside rooms. But I still think it's unneeded, and do not agree with arguments promoting laziness - like with one man crews or players with too many chars.

What do you say to people whose "laziness" is caused by having a life outside of checking Cantr?
I thought we loved those kinds of players. It even says in our frontpage "constitution" that Cantr's slow placed, you can check it as little or as much as you want and still be able to play your characters convincingly.

Well, if you have to pop onto your ship's deck every Cantrian tick, just to check if there's anyone breaking in yet, then I guess we're adamantly not giving anything to the casual players, and every advantage to the "hardworking" 13 year-old clickfester.

That's kind of argument that I fully understand. But breaking a lock takes 8 ticks, with 2 characters - 4 ticks. It's still 12 real hours. I assume that you can check your lock twice a real day?

I'm not talking about no-life people playing Cantr round the clock. I, myself, often forget to check some characters if there are no new events on the characters page. But I do am lazy as hell...

Yeah, that would make sense. I think I remember an incident of suddenly noticing there were people in a docked boat that had docked to my ship while I wasn't watching and I was like holy crap, how did they get here? Or maybe there was only one person, I can't even remember for sure which of my characters experienced this.

I'm in favor of this, for buildings AND boats. Not because I don't want to go outside and check, but for compensation of realism.
Think about it like this: when someone breaks into your house and robs you, you're going to hear them rifling through things, or even walking around. You can also have open doors and see them. In Cantr, you can't have this. So maybe you should at least be able to hear them breaking in. Maybe your character's in a building (and I do agree only one room back--any farther than that, and even IRL you're probably not going to hear them) working on a project, or a note, or something involving (yes, sex too) and they don't want to leave the room. Maybe it's a barracks, and it's their room but the common room is still supposed to be locked. So they don't have a reason to be constantly checking the locks. It's simply OOC. In your house, right now, how often do you check the locks? Unless you have obsessive compulsive disorder or HAVE been broken into recently, I'm thinking at most, you check it before bed, sex, and when you get up and get home.
Bottom line, yes, it's game formula behavior, but it's not what your character would realistically do.
Boats are hazardous enough. Months spent out at sea, maybe lost, or running out of food. All your time needs to be spend conserving and doing practical things like building. Unless you're following the shore, there's no way to get help quick if you need it. And unless you've memorized the general timings of the ticks (the timing system still mystifies me, and if it weren't for CantrSpy I wouldn't even know how long the ticks were) you're not going take the chance of leaving only to have the tick turn over and you lose those hours of work. It's irritating.
In any case, 12 hours to pick a lock is nothing. Let's say I have to work two days in a row. I work 7 hours, come home exhausted, and fall right asleep. If I have to work the next day, I don't get to play Cantr at all that day because I get home at 1:00am at the earliest, sleep heavy and long till around 2 or 3 pm, then get up and go to work at 5. It takes me about an hour to get ready (4:00) and I have to walk (leave at 4:30) or bike (leave at 4:45) which only leaves me 30 to 45 minutes to socialize with my boyfriend.
And I am NOT a busy person. All I do is sleep and work and hang out around the house with my boyfriend.