Chapter 8.3 Smuggling

Smuggling, Sleuthing, and Identify Crime
Part of smuggling is understanding sleuthing mechanics and identifying cime skill. Sleuthing will allow a player to look at another player's equipment and inventory items. Players will not see a stolen tag immediately unless it is specifically stolen from you. To identify a stolen item, you must use the identify crime skill on an item. These will indicate a stolen tag. A regular player will not be able to look through inventory without being a lawmen or a criminal.

Inspection before Entry and Gate Controls
Part of handling law and order in an outpost, may come with inspections. Inspections are often handled at outpost entrance gates, if the outpost has a wall around the parameter. But where, if, or why this occurs is up to the players. Players can check everyone entering, or just wagons, or just instances that seem suspicious. Or not. Or perhaps if there is a temporary lock-in due to a person of interest players are searching for.

Law Strategy at Gates
Players can also have a separate entrance made for players intending to seek membership. Outpost gate controls have a special radius that extends the settlement's laws past the gate, so players can have crimes and contraband flagged before entry. This will not cause them to be able to be imprisoned, unless after they enter the regular outpost radius. This allows players to determine if they want criminals to not enter at all, or if they want to imprison them immediately upon discovery.

Criminals vs Lawmen Using Riftcraft
Lawmen also utilize riftcrafts the same as criminals, but their role legalizes their usage based on the founder's laws, or community rules. Criminals are able to slueth player's inventory to start pickpocketing mechanics. In this chapter, sleuthers will be described as lawmen using the same mechanics, but for inspection purposes. Lawmen during an inspection will be able to select any bag from the player inspection screen. For this, the player being checked has to hold still, but can move away to cancel the check, but this will increase suspicion.

Riftcraft Lawmen Crimes
Being a lawmen in a claim/outpost gives you the ability to perform actions that invade privacy. Using your riftcraft skills outside of an outpost that has given you that role will treat you as a criminal automatically. You will need to ensure proper permissions, memberships, and community allowances to practice law outside of your original outpost.

Crafting for Smuggling
Players can craft more inventory slots in many types of inventory packs, like backpacks or hidden inventory slots. This can just increase inventory slots. Players can also create new inventory tabs. Generally this helps with organizing items. Players can create hidden inventory slot expansions and hidden tabs.

Finding Hidden Compartments
Finding hidden compartments and bags in of itself is not a crime. It is the discovery of illegal contraband or stolen items within any inventory space.

Sleuthing Mechanics
Sleuthing is time limited, even at max proficiency. Lower sleuthing skills will have shorter sleuthing times. Once a bag is selected to be uncovered, the items will appear, but not hidden slots or tabs. Items that are revealed, and are contraband, will be highlighted red. Players have limited checks they can do, based on their sleuthing proficiency. Players can check 6 times at start, riftcraft proficiency, or culture skills can increase this amount. When a lawman inspects a bag, the player will see the icon of which bag they are looking through, over the lawman's head.

Inspection Usages and Limitations:

• Items are grid-based, and can be rotated in your inventory

• Usages

  • Check if stolen (If has inspection skill)

  • Check if hidden slot or tab (one usage per type, can repeat for a reroll on finding chance)

  • If lawmen find a hidden contraband item in a slot, they don't lose a check causing lawmen to find more and more in a chain

  • If lawmen find a hidden item that is not immediately identified as contraband, they lose a check

  • If lawmen find a piece of a multi-slot item, they can reveal it for free (handle of a sword, the tip of an ax, etc.)

    • Partial fake items can be crafted, making lawmen waste a check, but does make you look suspicious (might result in further inspections if the players want to)

  • Incorrect choices reveal nothing, the same as failing a hidden check, so lawmen can waste checks, or try again without knowing if there are hidden sections or not

*Buying, selling, and trading bags will retain their any crafted extended slots, including hidden ones.

Item Placements are Scrambled for Sleuthers
Items placed in hidden slots retain their actual location, but sleuthers see shuffled item placements. So one lawman can't check the first row of a small bag, and another lawman checks the 2nd row of a small bag. Thus, the hidden slots are randomly placed each check.

Visual for Hidden Slots
All the slots and items in the inventory go gray, to visualize that they aren't looking at those items anymore. And then they click on the slots to inspect for hidden storage. Revealed items were in hidden slots, revealed bags will now open a 2nd inventory screen. For inventory tabs, there will be a tab that says, "search for hidden inventory tabs" that can be selected. A countdown timer, and a "tries remaining" counter appears on the sleuther's screen.

Presenting Findings
Lawmen for a short time, can take an item out of a bag to present it, and inspect it, and show other guards that an item in question does exist. This shows with an ethereal chain attached to the player's bag that it came from, they cannot keep it, and in time will return to the player when the timer runs out, or is returned by the guard, or if the player moves. If it is contraband, or stolen, the lawmen can break that ethereal chain. A guard who breaks a non illegal item, will leave a riftmist crime trail as an illegal action.

Animating Sleuthing
Sleuthing at gate controls will show a clear sleuthing animation for inspections. In other areas, the animation scales down with higher proficiency, hiding a player's ability to pickpocket. The pickpocketing animation shows when a player is pocketing an item, breaking the ethereal connection chain. High enough riftcraft proficiency won't show a player animation for small items, but larger items will produce a quick animation to put it in their bag, with higher proficiencies speeding this up. These will leave crime trails in scale to the item's tinder value. Reminder that unique inventory items cannot be stolen.

Container Access and Hidden Slots
Containers without wreath protections are treated like public inventory (chests, barrels, etc.) No crime to check or look into them, unless they are physically locked. At which they need a lockpick to be attempted to be opened without a copy of the key. Containers also can also craft hidden slots and tabs same as inventories. This allows the opportunity for lawmen to inspect wagon and ship cargo. Same sleuthing mechanics apply here.

Sleuthing Cooldowns
Sleuthings have long cooldowns per player. But just like riftcraft skills, even lawmen can't tell if they failed an inspection, they will just find empty hidden slots. Additionally, criminals may have skills and controllers that make lawmen have longer cooldowns for retries, or make some checks fail. Lawmen can combat this by having a higher law proficiency level, and skills that negate criminal affects.

NPC as Lawmen
Outposts that want law systems, but don't want have players who want to manage it, can hire and train NPC for these roles, using NPC law controllers.

Smuggling via Drop Off and Pick Up Points
Areas in the wild are not subject to laws. A container can be locked or open, placed in the wild, outside of a claim/outpost, or in a public outpost with no protection wreaths. Players can pick up and transport these containers.

Stolen Item Possession
Possessing stolen items is not a crime, unless another player sleuth's it, and successfully reveals the originally hidden stolen tag. A player will be tasked with a quest to hand it over within an allotted time limit by the sleuther. Once the timer runs out, a possession crime will be applied to the player/building.

Removal of Stolen/Possession Tags
The possession and stolen tag will continue to linger until it is returned like any other stolen item. It will be removed if the stolen tag is removed, such as it being returned, or the user goes inactive, deletes their character, dies, or removes the stolen quest from their core menu.