Evidence and forensics.

[Drael]

A great deal of trouble in cantr occurs because one can only rely on the word of invididuals regarding crimes, one cant investigate it and find proof. Its unnessasary trouble, and interferes with the society simulator aspect of the game. I know its a pain to code, but seriously the game needs it.

I propose several forms of evidence collection:

Fingerprints, on bodies, on items and rooms.
Death wounds being matchable to the weapon that caused the wound.
Tracks from vehicles being uniquely identifiable, and which road they took.
Blood, hair or DNA samples (thats a bit techy, so maybe not, but would be random for certain actions)

Etc.

Anyway the specifics arent that important, the general idea is, objective ways to determine the truth of crimes, so that people cant just lie about it, or use some flaw in cantr to destroy stable societies.

At the moment it only takes one teenage pent-up idiot to destroy a beautiful coherent role-playing group. Sure risk and trust should play a part in societies, but nothing like this degree.

Please fix this unbalance in cantr reality! (Also I think perhaps dragging is far too easy for murderers to use, but thats another topic)

[Dudel]

Holy over complication with little to zero pay off Batman! O.O

[Drael]

Well its obvious you wouldnt like either of these ideas dudel, given the characters you play, psychopaths and all

But think about it. A person kills someone. Steals a vehicle and leaves. The people chasing them dont have any way to figure where they went, which weapon killed whom, or what vehicle was stolen. Nothing. It totally favours the criminal, not good in a society simulator. And it turns reality into a bunch of faked event logs and stories. Sad and hard to immerse yourself in and beleive.

I can just run around saying "person x commited crime b" and there is NO way to verify anything. That favours the lier.

Of course I dont expect you to agree, but regardless of difficulty coding, this is an important unbalance in the game, which should be designed not for psychopaths and criminals, but for roleplayers and societies.

If real society, the real world favoured liers and criminals so much, there wouldnt be a real world society. And hence why cantr society is so at risk and unstable.

[Dudel]

You've no idea the characters I play, this is obvious.

It's simply to much work for very little pay off. Still requires chasing the "bad guy" down... and now you get to listen to "but my finger prints aren't on the murder weapon" (Cause they switched battle axes or something else)

Cantr is a game if identicals. All battle axes look alike and all staioncars look alike (with the exception of their names) so chasing tracks would only mean your character was chasing that particular type of vehicle... and the "this character was killed by" is your wound matching, already.

[theguy]

Not knowing who to trust is also part of the fun, if we could find out who did the crime instantly then it would not be as fun

[Piscator]

The problem is, if we implement an objective way to find out the truth, then anybody could do it. That could very well tip the balance in a way that crimes suddenly become impossible.

I also can't even imagine how such things would be implemented.

[Drael]

^ well my thought was that forensics would be a skill, with skill level, an occupation, such that not everyone could do it. It would be much like any other profession (investigator/police/private eye. Add to that court rooms and such. RP fun!). Also youd still need to add it all up, or follow a trail of evidence.

At the moment crime is both hard, for simple thefts like in RL, and easy for game mechanic abusers.

Im interested in anything that balances that out a bit. (I mean, I have a theif character, for awhile I thought it was next to impossible to do, until I figured out the mechanics and then its like yeah, you just waste your whole life following me, turn, turn, take different path, move on ticks, dock onto things they cant, etc, vehicles with more speed, towns with multiple exits. Actually its easy as f**k to steal and commit crimes right now, if you know the mechanics)

Sure, the mechanics of this might seem overly complex. But maybe thats because im not getting the solution properly, and someone else has a better simpler solution....

It does though, seem very weird to rely, totally on peoples word, and having nothing resembling facts in game.

[Doug R.]

This is really far too advanced for Cantr, IMO.

[catpurr]

I don't think it ever gets implemented considering what much more trivial things don't get implemented cause coders have no time. Otherwise I kind of like the idea.

However just for the sake of it to make in concrete.

* New Object, Magnifying Glasses, requires iron and glass to build.
* Magnifying Glasses gets a use button, when used you get tired.
* When used it is checked against your forensic skill.
* If lucky you get a random action message of message log (as far its still in the server, but you where not here).
* "You see evidence of a person (its always a person, never a name) hitting (a person) with an axe making a damage of X points."
* You see evidence of a person entering a vehicle.

Okay this way its hardly a usefull skill to actually identify a murderer, but be a nice useless addition.

[Snake_byte]

The problem is, if we implement an objective way to find out the truth, then anybody could do it. That could very well tip the balance in a way that crimes suddenly become impossible.

I also can't even imagine how such things would be implemented.

What if the corpse recorded the size of it's killer and skill used as well? Ends there...

"It is a body of a man in his twenties. He seems to have been killed efficiently, with a steel longsword by someone of average strength."

Is that possible? That could help with investigation but still leave a fair vagueness...

[returner]

SIMPLE VERSION:

OBTAINING OF EVIDENCE:
Build a 'forensic analyser', which:
Obtains a sample of fingerprints (you can build some forensic device to get fingerprints from the past 5 years on a vehicle, building or object.. this gives you a unique number printed out as a special object called Fingerprint #10955)


CATCHING CRIMINAL:
Build another forensic device by which you can 'use' and it gives you a unique number. Make the suspect submit one fingerprint test, and if his Fingerprint object is Fingerprint #10955, then he is the criminal or at least was involved.



This way, it's not DEFINITE, but it gives some clues as to the fact that hte criminal HAD entered the vehicle in the past, or HAD touched the object in the past.

Also gives some uniqueness, especially for stolen vehicles (names on stolen vehicles can just be changed so easily)

[FiziKx]

Well- straight out, there is the torture/interrogation method like in the good 'ol days of medieval Europe.

And... well, one of my characters got a pirate taken down by telling the authorities. They checked the ship and found a dead body; that was good enough for them. The pirate died and I got the ship.

[Drael]

I like the simplification ideas, that really makes it only a matter of adding a few feilds and such. Much easier than my original complexity

[guilletierno]

[quote=Doug R.]This is really far too advanced for Cantr, IMO.[/quote]


What about Blood stains?

*You see a man in his twenties arriving in main square, coming from any building. He got a blood stain.

a character is stained by killing another. These stain are cleaned automatically 8 hours after the "crime".

[Piscator]

There's a dirtyness bar that could be used for this. Of course you wouldn't be able to tell different kinds of dirt apart.

The real problem with fingerprints is that the program would have to keep track of which character has been where over the last few years.