Chapter 8.1 Crime - General Info

Crime (Not available in PVE worlds)

Crime Basics
It is important to understand protection spells to understand how crimes work. Protection spells are the natural output when a claim and/or outpost is created. The protection spell encompases the whole radius of a claim/outpost. However, after 3 size expansions, further expansions will thin out a protection spell, making crime possible. Protection will only apply when there is enough kindling for the size of the radius. Players will need to create a law controler, then toggle crimes, for the game to allow punishment, prison, and trial systems. PVE casual worlds has crime mechanics turned off. More about PVE/Core/PVP modules in this section.

Protection Spell - Tinder Based Magic
Throughout this documentation, tinder is used to create a claim/outpost radius through player activity. When tinder is active, protections are in place. Tinder emits a protective spell will protect assets, players and NPC. But outside of their warm glow, players can freely take, place, move, and destroy assets without incurring a crime. With that said, protection is a zone based spell. For players to commit crimes, all crime skills within tinder protected areas are magic based, called riftcraft. Magic will intervene and cause criminals to fail to maintain a level of balance.

Protection Spell - Tinder Based Magic Recovery
It is said that Protection Spells have some sentience, and repairs itself strongly like a scar, when riftcraft breaks though. When a riftcraft spell is used to break through a protection spell, it requires the right proficiency. But to further eliminate entire griefing of an area, zoning rotations are used. When a zone has had a sufficient level of crime occur, a scaled cooldown timer goes into affects for that asset owner. Higher crimes allow longer cooldowns, and lower crimes have lower cooldowns, but also can lock out a building if a zone rotation is in affect. Ensuring that crime occurs mores evenly throughout properties where crime can occur.

After a 3 size expansion, the following will apply.

  • 95-100% Kindling = Max protection buff

    • All crimes fail and leave crime trails

      • Crime created controllers created will affect this to leave opening for crimes

      • All successful crime skills have long cooldowns

      • Zoning rotations in full affect

  • 50–94% = Partial Protection

    • Minor crimes with the correct riftcraft proficiency will succeed

    • Slightly shorter crime skill cooldowns

    • Zoning rotations will sometimes fail

  • 1–49% = Failing Protection

    • Crimes with the right proficiency will succeed

    • Shorter crime skill cooldowns

    • Zoning rotations will often fail

  • 0% = No Protection (Also, claim/outpost decay timer starts)

    • Crime unrecorded, no crime trails, game treats area like an unclaimed/wild zone

    • No crime skill needed, protections are not active

    • No zoning rotations

Crime Warding
Players who are worried about a claim/outpost losing global protections can create warding tools at any time. Crime warding tools and actions aid in warding crime away. These function separate from a claim/outpost's crime level, it takes higher proficiency in crime skills for a crime to be successful, even when a claim/outpost has less tinder.

Warding Examples:

  • Carrying charms

  • Protection wreaths on buildings, vehicles, and livestock

  • Churches

  • Buildings with shrines/altars

  • Buildings with protection control links to churches

Warding Limitations
Some controls can edit warding effectiveness. Such as...

  • Active brutal culture skills

  • Crime controller influences

  • PVP worlds can still make players who carrying these wards, vulnerable

    • A player's combat spirit needs to exceed the total of applicable ward's strength, minus the attacker's warding breaking skills/tools

Game Crime Limitations
Consider that the game will not consider 'allowed role(s)' abuse as a crime, and must be handled separately by players via custom bounty hunting features.

Crime in Unclaimed and No Outpost Areas
The game will not consider crime at all in areas or assets where there are no claims, or outposts. The game considers these areas as the "wild." Consider reviewing the PVE/Core/PVP differences to know if the wild is considered safe by default.

Immunity Crime with Unique Items and Equipment
Unique owned items, livestock, and pets on a property/claim/outpost, and assigned equipment and loadouts are immune to crime mechanics. This ensures that unique items are not lost, and that player's cannot have their equipment ripped off their character's body. However, non-equipped assets fall into wild rules in open areas based on the world settings.

Crime Controller Mechanics - Unlocking Crime Skill
Players can unlock blueprint to create crime controllers. Players will also start earning crime legend. The first crime unlock is stealing. The context to start unlocking crime skills and controllers are the following:

  • An outpost has hired a criminal NPC (would be a hidden trait)

    • Criminal NPC often have a need to walk around at night, in areas where crime is not allowed, and will attempt to steal or destroy assets depending on proficiency and if crime is possible

    • Players talk to NPC at night and humor their jokes about crime

    • If player is not disfavored by NPC, NPC will ask if they want to steal, say yes to get a stealing skill unlock

    • NPC will task the player to steal an item for them, which will boost the player's crime legend.

  • In a claim/outpost/someone else's (NPC/Player) owned property

    • Use the "take" interaction

      • If crime allowed/or in wild, get a stealing skill unlock

      • If crime is not allowed, do 3 more times within a few minutes

    • Use an alias to (automatically unlock stealing):

      • Hide an outpost action

      • Join a party, or other membership

    • Create or find, and use a lockpick on an unprotected property with a lock

    • When done successfully, player now be able to steal while unlock is active, slot to permanently keep this ability


It Was An Accident, I Swear!
If a player feels like they accidentally unlocked stealing, they will not gain crime legend until they reactivate the needed steps for a crime unlock. They will also not gain crime legend until they actively slot stealing, or perform a "steal" which will now appear under "take" in red. After enough crime legend is built up, a player will be able to start making stealing tools starting with a riftmist inventory control to help negate protection spells, over time, able to construct assets to place in the world for larger affects.

Crime Nuances
There are some nuances that make crime easier, allowing criminals will lower proficiencies to succeed more often.

  • Overly common items

  • As thieving guilds, monster cults, and other crime groups create controls, players can work together with leaders to rotate locations efficiently, leaving less chance for unforseen failure

    • Uniforms increase riftcraft skill buffs

    • Uniforms can make identification harder with wanted posters (everyone looks the same!)

  • Offerings to crime based deities can increase buffs and unlock special abilities

Riftmist

Riftmist - Crime Trails
When a crime occurs, a trail left behind to signal a crime has occurred. These are called riftmist. Riftmist is a bleed of magic as the protection spell tries to repair itself.

Finding Riftmist
Riftmist fades over time, and timing of them disappearing depends on culture skills, crime that was committed (lower crimes disappears quicker), and crime and law control affects. But these crime trails are not seen normally, they must be detected with sleuthing animals, NPC or players with riftcraft skills. When riftmist is revealed, they can be captured by that player in a bottle, for normal item interactions such as crafting tools to create bounties and obtain evidence for trials. Contained, they are now visible to all players.

Uses for Bottled Riftmist:

  • Seal the magic in a container like a bottle, to later identify the criminal

    • Successfully identifying a criminal allows you to create a wanted poster bounty

    • Allows you to place a guilty player in jail/prison and lock the door for a time scaled by the crime itself

    • Allows assignment of servitude roles in proportion to the crime's scale

    • Allows you to collect more, for trial sentencing and/or increased jail time

  • Use with a pen, and page tool, create written crime record

    • This is an item, like a journal, scroll or tablet to record the type of crime committed

    • This craft be used as evidence in a trial without losing the bottled riftmist

    • Under certain skill conditions, infuse pen with falsemana, which will result in a wanted poster, even if there were no witnesses, or the player was not identified

Crimes against NPC/Livestock/Pets

NPC/Livestock/Pets Killing
NPC/Livestock/Pets killing legality is based on outpost law control rules. It will default to "Not Allow" upon law control creation, but players are free to remove this restriction (adds to brutality culture). Before a law controller is created, NPC/Livestock/Pets are not able to be killed in claims/outposts as long as it is size 3 or less. After size 3, it takes a higher crime skill proficiency to kill/steal NPC/Livestock/Pets if they are protected/warded, and a long global cooldown. Also, you or your group have to be strong enough to take them down if killing is intended.

  • Protect NPC/Livestock/Pets

    • Crime skills are needed in order to kill NPC

  • Don't Protect NPC/Livestock/Pets

    • Crime skills are not needed to kill NPC

  • Create an NPC/Livestock/Pets Protection Controller

    • As long as any amount of tinder is active, NPC within a membership of an outpost cannot be killed, even when leaving the outpost for quests

    • The controller will notify if NPC are downed for any reason (explosives, attacked by monsters) and can be rescued

    • When NPC are downed, they will not start decaying unless the protection controller runs out of tinder

  • NPC/Livestock/Pets Age

    • NPC /Livestock/Pets will gain natural resistance to crime as they persist in the world, their age makes their magic stronger passively

      • Note that pets cannot be stolen when equipped

      • Unique pets (per species) cannot be stolen by the unique rule

        • This means if you have one pet, it cannot be stolen it is unique

        • If you have 3 pets, each different species, it cannot be stolen, they are each unique

        • If you have 20 pets of the same species they have a slight chance of being stolen, they are not unique

    • Older NPC/Livestock/Pets can eventually become nearly impossible to kill/be stolen by crime, even if their skills don't increase

NPC Disfavor
Remember that your claim/outpost can gain good or bad reputation. Killing NPC is a severe crime, despite their accumulated skills. The prison and trial punishment becomes more severe, the more proficient, and aged an NPC is.

Other Crimes

Break-Ins
Windows and doors can be snuck into using riftcraft. Doing so will leave a riftmist trail. However, this is not possible with the use of locks, charms (magic entry,) or keypads created with falsemana. Riftmist will not appear in unprotected properties, and properties built on unclaimed land.

Bans
Players who have building protections/ownerships are able to ban/kick out other players at their protection wreaths. Players that are banned from buildings via a property hub cannot enter or re-enter a building. Being banned/kicked while inside, turns the affected player into a firefly, and the game will place them in an available, but random, radius outside. If you are banned from a building, you cannot enter it even with riftcraft skills. Players cannot be banned in open areas, but can be issued a warning that can trigger lawmen to the area if not heeded. (The article about this is created, but is not posted for simplicity, but is available in the PDF version of this this website.)

Vices
Outposts can set if certain vices are illegal, such as gambling, drinking, and other drugs.

Contraband and Smuggling
Covered in the next section. Contraband and smuggling settings can be set and toggled at the law controller.

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Created by Jimmy Slaughter