slick's Civil Protection Reform Idea

[NIXeighteen]

I believe wholeheartedly that many Civil Protection characters are held back by their full anonymity, which disallows them from building relationships with citizenry and resistance members as they cannot ICly be distinguished from any other officer, promoting Robocops in the faction.

The whole point for Civil Protection is to be anonymous. This way, their operation can not be disturbed in any form or way. If a member of the resistance, e.g., knows an officer, he can easily make the decision to either make him "disappear" or he should be able to ask a trusted officer about the upcoming operations. The whole idea of their anonymity is to secure every possible mission/operation. Either as a sweep or just patrolling on the streets.

promoting Robocops in the faction.

This depends on how the player itself roleplays. Even though we all look the same, you can still be a nice cop. Chat with some citizens, as long as Dispatch doesn't catch you. A friend of mine (@Vinyl ) even walks into the Pint every now and then. Having a small chat and ordering a coffee in between the shifts. Even though he looks the same as everyone else, his personality is far from a Robocop. TL: DR; uniforms don't make the Robocop. Players do.

Instead of 1984 Thought Police, lets get 1990 Colombian Policemen, rife with corruption and a knack towards looting gear that's supposed to be headed towards an evidence locker.

City 24 is one of the biggest cities. It also looks like it has the funds to make sure everyone is well equipped. Even though it might be close to a big slum area, the Civil Protection should be far from corrupt. Especially if it's near a big slum area. The last thing the Combine wants is corrupted officers near a big slum area, perhaps filled with rebels that want to overthrow the Combine. Of course, it is still allowed to go rogue in-game, yet this has to be done through IC means. Not OOC enforced.

As it stands, any member of the Civil Protection faction can spawn in, head to a vendor, spawn themselves X amount of guns with infinite boxes of ammo, and go out and die with it, then respawn and do it again. They get an endless supply of food and water from their ration machine and other sources. They're supplied enough credits. They don't need anything, and there's a problem that stems with that: corruption roleplay is non-existant, making bribery impossible. No Civil Protection officer will turn a blind eye on a minor crime for a few credits. There's not the strive to survive that comes with any other type of roleplay that comes on the server, no progression outside of which gun you get to shoot, etc.

I somewhat agree with this. Back on Lancer Networks, we had a vendor that only handed out an item every hour or so. This made sure that you need to be careful with your equipment. We also had to import and export stuff. All the weapons and ammo, etc, were imported into the city. Giving everyone a limited amount of guns and ammo to use. If we can make sure that some sort of system like that gets implemented into Willard, people would need to be more careful. Maybe even use SC to re-buy any equipment?

In general, promote the same sense of gear-fear that the resistance have to even the playing field between the two while still having a clear advantage over their opponent in numbers and logistical power while promoting the roleplay of a corrupt, underfunded, unorganized HUMAN police force that'll steal from citizens, take bribes, etc. Give opportunities for new events and interactions with citizens. I'm rambling, at this rate.

Practically what I said above, so yeah, I agree.

To further impact the opportunities for roleplay to be had amongst CPs for corruption or otherwise, shift the system to rely more on RLs and the Captain for command, rather than Dispatch. Bring Dispatch down to be active in more high tense scenarios, such as sweeps to enforce that sense of "you have no other choice but to go and fight", and leave it to RLs to command units during regular patrols in the City.

This is "technically" what we've got right now. Dispatch is only online to have an overview of the city. It isn't allowed to give orders that much. This is something that I personally don't like. Dispatch should be the leader of the officers on the field. Such a request was already made by me so I won't go further on this.

My belief is that tags should be loosened, and killing should be a final resort. Ending a character's story because they had one too many pieces of trash or a radio on them is the antithesis of roleplay, making it incredibly undesirable to simply surrender. Running away from Civil Protection should simply be a re-education, rather than a crime punishable by death. In a world where the population is limited, killing people for petty crime isn't the way to extract all of the resources out of a planet. Make it make some shred of sense and do away with the age old traditions of everyone must die for doing XYZ.

I agree! We can instead give citizens a memory replacement of some sort. Maybe do some manual harbor. Killing a character because of a small transgression should be avoided at all times. I'd rather do a roleplay situation that makes their life hard than roleplaying throwing them in a pit.

 

[slick]

The whole point for Civil Protection is to be anonymous. This way, their operation can not be disturbed in any form or way. If a member of the resistance, e.g., knows an officer, he can easily make the decision to either make him "disappear" or he should be able to ask a trusted officer about the upcoming operations. The whole idea of their anonymity is to secure every possible mission/operation. Either as a sweep or just patrolling on the streets.

So long as their face is covered, I do not think it is a detriment to allow them to be recognizable. I understand from an established lore and HL2RP formula perspective that Civil Protection are meant to be this uniform, unempathetic force without much life to it, but you're missing the entire point of the suggestion if you believe I'm trying to stay within the bounds of the norms of HL2RP. The entire goal is to get a different type of roleplay to be had with Willard's Civil Protection, to create something unique that a player won't see on any other server, and I feel these three pieces are the first steps into doing such. Acting as individuals, they'll still be able to sweep, patrol and kill in the same way.

This depends on how the player itself roleplays. Even though we all look the same, you can still be a nice cop. Chat with some citizens, as long as Dispatch doesn't catch you. A friend of mine (@@Vinyl ) even walks into the Pint every now and then. Having a small chat and ordering a coffee in between the shifts. Even though he looks the same as everyone else, his personality is far from a Robocop. TL: DR; uniforms don't make the Robocop. Players do.

Of course, I understand this concept well, that characters are still allowed and actively promoted in the faction, but this is still not a very prevalent thing. Nine times out of ten you'll have poor interactions with Civil Protection, and the faction has a stigma of being unapproachable when it comes to Passive RP. Uniforms are a small piece of the suggestion, if you look at the bigger picture with each piece of the reform, it is meant to craft the means provided to each and every other faction to craft a character (Customization, relative freedom (in the form of a disconnected dispatch until shit hits the fan with RLs leading regularly), and a fight for survival). Each three sections provide a new dynamic to CP players and the intended effect is to weed out the current formula of a Civil Protection faction.

City 24 is one of the biggest cities. It also looks like it has the funds to make sure everyone is well equipped. Even though it might be close to a big slum area, the Civil Protection should be far from corrupt. Especially if it's near a big slum area. The last thing the Combine wants is corrupted officers near a big slum area, perhaps filled with rebels that want to overthrow the Combine. Of course, it is still allowed to go rogue in-game, yet this has to be done through IC means. Not OOC enforced.

Have you read the lore section for the industrial sector of C24? I'll post it here for you to read.

Spoiler: INDUSTRIAL 24

When one considers the general amenities of the most loyal city on earth, they often do not consider the pounding machinery of factories, the smog covered skies of production or the endless shifts of poorly rewarded work. Or at least, not nearly as much.

Industrial Twenty-four is a production center built specifically for those who do not match the standards of its nearby mother city. Built with production in mind, and little else, it makes up for the production lost due to the comparatively limited workload managed by denizens of City 24. Those who arrive at this location are low-level criminals who have offended the Combines rule in ways that are less severe, but still noteworthy. Loyalists are also common sights in this area, specifically those who have fallen astray from their duties, and let the instinct of corruption corrode their values.

Such individuals will find themselves corrected via the inferno of industry in back-breaking shifts and thoughtless Civil Protection Units that care not for the suffering of locals. Rations are all low quality, and typical boons residents may be used to will be nowhere to be found. Though at its core it is a productive center, this location is a reminder of just how good these delinquents have in the heartland of Geneva. An open invitation that they should remain in the good graces of the Combine - lest they be shipped off to a City far less kindly than Twenty-four. Permanently.

It's already established in our lore that bad officers get bad assignments as a punishment, and a bad assignment in our current state of affairs is most certainly on the front lines between the residential sectors and the slums rife with resistance activity. Going rogue and being corrupt are two very very different things. Rogues actively give up their duty as Civil Protection officers to defect and join the other side. Corrupt officers, on the other hand, are just dirty cops. In no way is it OOC enforced, it is just encouraged, as in the past it was actively dissuaded by other communities, and is not roleplay you will often see.

I somewhat agree with this. Back on Lancer Networks, we had a vendor that only handed out an item every hour or so. This made sure that you need to be careful with your equipment. We also had to import and export stuff. All the weapons and ammo, etc, were imported into the city. Giving everyone a limited amount of guns and ammo to use. If we can make sure that some sort of system like that gets implemented into Willard, people would need to be more careful. Maybe even use SC to re-buy any equipment?

Every hour or so is still too often to limit the amount consumed and wasted by the faction. Currently, CPs are walking supply boxes of extra ammo and weapons. This is meant to actively combat that by making squad leaders dish out their allotted equipment to their units. It's meant to create some more thought being put into how you use your character and how often you'll stick your neck out to try and kill other's characters.

 

[Rabid]

I've never understood the drive to "stand out" at a glance as a cop when you are literally a collaborator of the worst kind and hated by absolutely everyone that isn't a cop. You'd have to be suicidal to want to easily picked out from an IC perspective. If this becomes an IC thing it can and will blow back massively on the faction when cops start getting picked off over their unique models.

Robocops will blame everything under the sun for their "inability" to develop a character when the truth is they just don't want to put the effort in. If you confronted these same people six months from now and cops had loads of customization I can guarantee you there'd be some new excuse as to why they're still doing what they do. The goalposts will keep moving forever.

I agree with the rest of the reform whole-heartedly but customization and cops never ends well.

 

[slick]

I've never understood the drive to "stand out" at a glance as a cop when you are literally a collaborator of the worst kind and hated by absolutely everyone that isn't a cop. You'd have to be suicidal to want to easily picked out from an IC perspective. If this becomes an IC thing it can and will blow back massively on the faction when cops start getting picked off over their unique models.

Robocops will blame everything under the sun for their "inability" to develop a character when the truth is they just don't want to put the effort in. If you confronted these same people six months from now and cops had loads of customization I can guarantee you there'd be some new excuse as to why they're still doing what they do. The goalposts will keep moving forever.

I agree with the rest of the reform whole-heartedly but customization and cops never ends well.

I don't agree with the idea that there'll be a spike of cops kills over them looking slightly different from one another, especially if they don't have any other identifying features outside of a slight variation of how they wear their uniform. It's been mentioned that we should stick with the same pieces of equipment, just slight variations and I'll concede on that idea and even agree. It'd still be metagame to shoot a cop with an unzipped vest because the cop that beat them up had an unzipped vest. Literally any cop can unzip their vest.

Even then, you'd still have the factor of resistance members taking the risk to kill a cop, which is not as prevalent as other communities because of how TBC works. And this is simply a minor step to promote character building through appearance, hoping that people will use this in the same way that citizens and rebels will use customization options.

 

[Raptorian]

I've never understood the drive to "stand out" at a glance as a cop when you are literally a collaborator of the worst kind and hated by absolutely everyone that isn't a cop. You'd have to be suicidal to want to easily picked out from an IC perspective. If this becomes an IC thing it can and will blow back massively on the faction when cops start getting picked off over their unique models.

Actually in Willard the Civil Protection are considered the good guys. Much more preferable to the public perception of rebels.

 

[albertossic]

Leaving aside the thing about look customisability (Plenty of CP already are recognised in-character by the citizenry because of a unique look, accent or demeanour whereas others have one-line descriptions and don't want to individualise their cop [which is fine], and I don't know if customised clothing would really fundamentally change anything). Also, rebels don't exactly have customization options, so I'm not sure what you're referring to

I think making low-ranking CP more of a thrown-together group of pigdevils extorting and plundering for their week's pay and leaning more into a Soviet "corrupt people's militia" aesthetic is very interesting. Under usual circumstances, the lore team might shoot it down, but since with the current Auspicious thing going on the server seems to have reached a point of decline in the combine's direct grip on the planet, now is a great time to try these changes out

 

[AtlasYEET]

Balaclava Beneath Standard Issue Mask

This is a good failsafe to avoid 'Anonymity Breach' incident from happening. It is also a good method of making the CPs look more human instead of them appearing as mindless cogs in the system
This is also featured in one workshop addon. I'll provide a link. I really like the addon and it looks pretty good
Balaclava CPs
Tarkov-esque CPs (Camo variations)

Raincoat

That looks fucking glorious. I like
ALSO. Structured uniform code would be pretty neat and it was somewhat present during the Snowstorm Period last year, where CPs wore trenchcoats to protect themselves from the elements. The uniform adaptations for weather events is a neat concept.

lets get 1990 Colombian Policemen

This is a corruption vibe that is being explored by only a handful of Civil Protection officers on the server
but given the current nature of our City, some CP players just RP as The Perfect Police Officer who is unable to be bribed in any way.

II. THE PEOPLE'S MILITIA

This concept is already implemented in the Russian clockwork hl2rp community Postbellum. They have the Civil Protection equipped with proper equipment and the 'Civil Militia'. Regular people with just respirators and open helmets with batons and stab vests. This is more of an auxilliary police force to support the CPs.

 

[AtlasYEET]

your CID (Major no no in the faction),

You silly, clearly you haven't participated in money laundering. This can be negated through the use of a 'decoy' CID, which is not affiliated with the CP officer in any way. It could be the officer's "offshore" bank account

 

[HOKI]

Big disagree with the appearance stuff. It would simply ruin the atmosphere, which is bad because the server is attempting to portray the dystopian world of HL2, where the baddies (CPs) are all anonymous and uniformed so they are unrecognizable to the average citizen. Also I personally think it is very cringe, no offense to you or the artist.

I agree with the ammo thing though, it's very unfair. Staff should make events where CPs need to retrieve equipment and rebels have a change to steal some of it or something like that to have X amount (in like hundreds) of ammo for the following week or two. It would be kind of cool I think.

I actually agree, running from CPs shouldn't be punishable by death. There used to be a charge called 505, evasion or something like that. Anyone who ran from CPs because of orange tier crimes was simply heavily re-educated, not killed like they are now.
And for amputate-able crimes (red tier), there's always Overwatch Cardinal Recusantory, which is something like Nova Prospekt but without the transhumanization and stalkerization part.
Basically a concentration camp. If the investigator has heavy suspicions that your character is a rebel, but no hard evidence, you are sent there (basically temp pk).

 

[HanSolo1519]

You silly, clearly you haven't participated in money laundering. This can be negated through the use of a 'decoy' CID, which is not affiliated with the CP officer in any way. It could be the officer's "offshore" bank account

MoC when an amputated rebel's account starts getting flooded with credits

 

[Rabid]

There used to be a charge called 505, evasion or something like that. Anyone who ran from CPs because of orange tier crimes was simply heavily re-educated, not killed like they are now.

I kinda get this though tbh.

If the worst you are going to ever get for trying to evade cops is a beating, there's literally no downsides to not running by default whenever you get stopped for something.

Either you escape from them and succeed or they catch you and beat you at worst. Those are great odds.

 

[albertossic]

I kinda get this though tbh.

If the worst you are going to ever get for trying to evade cops is a beating, there's literally no downsides to not running by default whenever you get stopped for something.

Either you escape from them and succeed or they catch you and beat you at worst. Those are great odds.

Beat you *and* charge you for the original crime at worst, so it's a Double or Nothing type bet.
But besides that this is kind of a silly objection, running *is* the default reaction criminals have to the police. It should be a viable option

 

[Maroon]

Before I get too much into this (still discussing this with RL and leads) I will say that for the longest time, we have wanted to make equipment cost money. Not only would this make the economy relevant to cops (and the CP department as a whole) it would also encourage giving out fines/taking bribes as a punishment rather than ye olde beating.

The problem is that our current currency system (everyone has credit cards rather than dollars) makes this nigh-impossible. Our developer(s) have enough on their plate and reforming the currency system is such a huge ordeal that we'd rather not add onto that right now unless it turns out the new system doesn't take as much work as I expect. Aside from that, there's also the question of whether such a change is healthy for the community as a whole.

 

[Shirumic]

I don't think there'd be any issues with implementing a CP economy with the current currency system. CPs get paid in their rations, and they often get a lot of credits over time. What if we changed the CP armory vendors to have a limited amount of "charge" of items that needs to be brought with credits, and these "charges" can only resupply the vendor with special crates that must be loaded into the nexus armory from the trainstation or other areas?

This way CPs actually care about money (which they could get more of by overseers petiting the CCA for more funding or by fining citizens credits to go to the city CP bank account that handles unit wages, instead of individual units taking fines for themselves)
And rebels have an opportunity to intercept supplies intended for Civil Protection, thus arming themselves and leaving CPs in a shortage of supplies.

 

[albertossic]

I don't think there'd be any issues with implementing a CP economy with the current currency system.

Think he meant that as of now there isn't really any way for CP to take bribes or other payments "off the book" because they're all logged and registered and to pay a CP they'd have to tell you their CID, which puts them completely at your mercy to report them at will

And while giving CP like a fine quota like meter maids *could* work the lore team might not approve it. It's a fascist dictatorship, doubt the police is funded by taxes

 

[AtlasYEET]

encourage giving out fines/taking bribes

inb4 a CP whips out a whole ass POS terminal to receive the bribe so the citizen has to pay like this:

 

[Maroon]

inb4 a CP whips out a whole ass POS terminal to receive the bribe so the citizen has to pay like this:

Yeah that's the main issue really.

 

[albertossic]

Yeah that's the main issue really.

A temporary workaround (that I actually kind of like) would be changing chips from being only nominally illegal but generally accepted, or totally legal, and just a bartering tool. That way, citizens would see themselves getting more chips even if they're not rebels, simply because they're the unofficial CP-funbucks.

Like, it could be that chips are fine to have, they're simply not (officially) useable in any store as currency.

You'd have to make chips less illegal for this though I assume, since otherwise telling a CP you have 50 chips you'd give them is just asking for them to add another charge to your list, search you and take the chips anyway

 

[slick]

slick economy update thread coming soon

 

[HOKI]

This is "technically" what we've got right now. Dispatch is only online to have an overview of the city. It isn't allowed to give orders that much. This is something that I personally don't like. Dispatch should be the leader of the officers on the field. Such a request was already made by me so I won't go further on this.

No, Dispatch has command over regular ground units during every socio-status. Rank leaders rank higher than Dispatch in the command chain until it reaches Red (Fractured) and above.
It used to be very stupid where Dispatch didn't have control over anyone unless it was Red, only being able to issue suggestions and advice. And units would tell Dispatch to practically fuck off most of the time too.