Politician Archive

fatgit wrote, "Players citywarned should be able to fight back - the stronghold should give militia defensive bonuses"

Uhm... No, because that doesnt help me as a novice tailor to fight a master creature handler griefer for a couple of reasons. A) I'm the only one in town to defend the city at the time. B) you are required to have a certain level of city and the mayor a certain level of experience in order to activate the "Stronghold" function. Whithout being a stronghold, you dont have the bonuses. C) What happens when you have 30 griefers from a rougue PA and the entire city population is 15? Sounds like a recipie for a slaughter to me and not on the part of the citizenry.

I have been thinking about this... now the following is pretty much a combination of other idea.

There need to be a couple of changes to be made first.

1. POI (Point of Interest) should not be buildable. Granted this will cause some cities to become "invalid" or lose that area to built... the code exist.. they made certain planet not "housable" but still can use harvestors... so a city will lose some of their territory... but also should give warning (I think it was 7 days when it was first implemented) to move their facilities and housing before losing it.

2. City walls. Or at least boundary markers.

3. Militia should just be militia. or at least have the ability to change/give abilities as needed. Similar to PA function.. ability to send mail, add people, recruit. etc etc... this is the same way... grantzoning rights, taxes, and city warn.

the changes.

Citywarn was a very useful function. There should be couple of changes.

1. 2 minutes is plenty. Once warned you get a warning that you are warned (same as before) this time a popup will appear stating do you wish to be escort to the borders.. if you click yes.. poof.. you are at the border.. no harm done... if you click no.. then you are consenting to PVP.. (similar to duels except it is more one sided)

2. If the person chose to stay then a /cityban is automactically activate for that player... no problem

Militia should be able to protect its citizens. Currently they are just people who can grantzoningrights and nothing much use.

Kator suggested,
“So why not a /cityignore command. Basically they would have 2 mins to state their case and then *MUTE* can't hear them anymore in spatial.”

IsaacPalinander suggested,
“1) reinstate city warn with a 2+ minute timer
2) create either a 500m radius no-build zone around POIs or a 500m radius in which /citywarn does not function at all
3) reinstated player cities as "closest cloning facility" option
4) /citybanned or /citywarned players are forced to clone in the nearest NPC cloning facility
5) factional deeds (turrets, minefields, covert scanners, bases) cannot be placed with 100m of a shuttleport or a cloning facility.”

These all seem good. I’m assuming that in #2 he means “create either a 500m radius no-build zone around POIs or a 500m radius around the POI in which /citywarn does not function at all.

My suggestions work off enhancements to the Militia Skill tree.

Militia I: Formation and maintenance of Militia. Reinstate the /citywarn power (See POI below) and remove /grantzoningrights (City Council group added off of Civic Policy 1 that has this power) /citywarn should be permanent until /citypardon

Militia II: Ban Lists available off City Management Terminal. The Mayor can review who has been banned and by whom. Entire PA can be added to this list in the event there are large PA that routinely launches raids on the city. /cityban should be permanent until /citypardon

Militia III: Factional Stronghold. The Mayor can define the city as a Neutral, Rebel or Imperial Stronghold. A Neutral Stronghold would work as it does presently, a Rebel Stronghold would automatically ban all Imperials and an Imperial Stronghold would automatically ban all Rebels. Also added ability for citizens to donate FP to the city (For use of the Security Net)

Militia IV: Security Net. If a city is defined as a Factional Stronghold it can activate a Security Net (Costs FP or CR per hour of operation). While activated all covert operatives of the opposing faction would receive a TEF as if the city radius itself was all under the influence of a covert faction sensor. (See POI below)

POI Issues
/citywarn and Security Net have a major vulnerability for those cities, which have a POI in their area of influence. They are a very small minority of cities and an even smaller number totally dominate the POI. This does cause complications

The system does appear to check your position at times. When you enter a city (CityR) it tells you and when you exit it tells you. It stands to reason it could also detect when you enter and exist the radius around a POI (POIR)

If you are in the POIR you are immune to the detection of the Security Net and the effects of /citywarn (Person can be warned or banned but the warn TEF won’t come into effect until 2 minutes after entering the CityR that is outside of the POIR)

Mayor Feliz Gizmacher, Founder of Dune Retreat

Issue: /citywarn was being used to grief players and to control POIs.

Solution: The problem with the initial implementation of /citywarn is that there were little in the way of consequences for using /citywarn to kill players. It could be used at will, and while a player could defend themselves from the attack, they were typically outnumbered. In other words, the mechanics of the system were easily abused and not self regulating.

I believe the solution is to allow player cities to set themselves to one of three types of status:

Neutral
Militant


Neutral cities have no /citywarn feature and no enemies.

Militant cities can set global /citywarns(and bans) based on faction, race, pa, and/or citizenship status, and can individually /citywarn players as well. /citywarn commands take 2 hours to kick in, but are permanent unless the individual or group thats warned is pardoned. Militant cities can place turrets, mines, faction bases, and covert detectors within their cities, with reduced footprints for covert detectors and turrets, and these defenses will attack any indicated enemy. However, everyone /citywarned can attack these defenses, as well as destroy civic structures (aside from city hall). To become a militant city, the city must place a Command Center within its boundaries. If the command center is destroyed, the city looses all /citywarn rights until a new building is placed.

What this system does is creates natural consequences for cities that want to self-regulate. In theory, a city could globally /citywarn everyone on their server except their own citizens. However they would be open to losing expensive civic structures and defenses in doing so. The two hour window also ensures that even someone afk would have ample time to escape once warned.

--City/warn and militia. How to get that *$%( to leave town without US being griefers.

City/warn would have a cost to the city. When issued that amount of money is taken from the city treasury and becomes half a militia mission reward. The miscreant has a set amount of time to leave (five minutes?). If he doesn't leave, a mission is established on the city mission terminal. Anynumber of militiamen may group together and accept the mission. (Wanted: Dead or Dead) After completing the mission an amount of money equal to that taken from the city treasury is taken from the miscreant's bank account for the reward (if he doesn't have it, his bank account or person is automatically debited each time he gets funds in the future until the debt is paid).

--If this miscreant ever enters the city again he has five minutes until the mission automatically returns to the mission terminal, although this time the full amount of reward comes from the miscreant's bank account. That should be enough time to run from the cloning center to the city limits.

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Militia I: Formation and maintenance of Militia. Reinstate the /citywarn power (See POI below) and remove /grantzoningrights (City Council group added off of Civic Policy 1 that has this power) /citywarn should be permanent until /citypardon

Militia II: Ban Lists available off City Management Terminal. The Mayor can review who has been banned and by whom. Entire PA can be added to this list in the event there are large PA that routinely launches raids on the city. /cityban should be permanent until /citypardon

Militia III: Factional Stronghold. The Mayor can define the city as a Neutral, Rebel or Imperial Stronghold. A Neutral Stronghold would work as it does presently, a Rebel Stronghold would automatically ban all Imperials and an Imperial Stronghold would automatically ban all Rebels. Also added ability for citizens to donate FP to the city (For use of the Security Net)

Militia IV: Security Net. If a city is defined as a Factional Stronghold it can activate a Security Net (Costs FP or CR per hour of operation). While activated all covert operatives of the opposing faction would receive a TEF as if the city radius itself was all under the influence of a covert faction sensor. (See POI below)

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A very cool list of political skills and new abilities for politicians interested in PvP and factional gameplay. I'd be happy to include these in our discussion on Wednesday of our #1 issue: Politician Skills and Gameplay.

IsaacPalinander and Mkappus have some great ideas on how to re-implement (read FIX) /citywarn. I'd just like to add points of my own.

/cityignore is a great idea! I hope this is added. The only thing I would add to this is that anyone who is city ignored will not show animations to other players within city limits.

/citywarn

• Re-implement city warn so that it requires that a message be entered in describing the reason that they are being warned. This message will then be displayed to the offending user as well as emailed to him, the militia and the mayor.
  

  Example:
  

  You have been city warned by Reavus (Militia) for the following reason: Harrassment of citizens during a city event.
  

  A copy of this email has been sent to the mayor and city militia.

  
  
  
  
• /citywarn, when used initially on a player, will remove them from city limits but no TEF.
  
  
  
• If the player then re-enters the city and is /citywarned again they will have 2 minutes to leave the city or a TEF will be given to them lasting 24 hours and they will be attackable by city militia while in city limits.
  
  
  
• /citywarn should not work on CSRs, digiteers or any representative of SOE (this should have been obvious).
  
  
  
• /citywarn cannot be used on any player within a 1km radius of any designated POI (I'll let SOE designate the POIs). POIs should have had a no-build zone radius encircling them but that may be too late and is a debate in and of itself.
  
  
  
• Any player killed by a /citywarn TEF will not be able to clone at that city's cloning facility (if they have one) even if it was their bind spot and must chose the closest available NPC city.

/cityban also needs a bit of revision. In keeping with my suggested changes to /citywarn, /cityban should also require that a message accompany it when being issued which is also displayed to the offender, emailed to them, the militia and the mayor.

• /cityban should not be available unless at least 1 /citywarn has already been issued.
  
  
  
• /cityban when enacted should immediately remove the offender from city limits and deny them access to the city's facilities (bank, cantina, cloning facility, shuttleport) for a period of 1 week after which it will expire.
  
  
  
• A player, who has been /citybanned, may still enter the city though by doing so they immediately gain a TEF to the militia.
  
  
  
• A player, who has been /citybanned, may still enter any building they own, are admined to or are in the entry list of.

Anyone who has been /citywarned, or /citybanned will not be able to call pets or vehicles while in city limits.

Note: /citywarn, /cityban, /cityignore should only be available to militia when both they and the offender are i) within city limits, and ii) within 100m of each other

/citypardon will forgive an offender of /citywarn or /cityban.

/citymotd (City Message of the Day)

• Create a new politician command /citymotd (city Message of the Day) which allows mayor to set a greeting or warning message which is displayed to players when they enter city limits
  
• Following the greeting message a line or 2 of statistics should also be displayed detailing total # of players citywarned, citybanned, cityignored and # for TODAY, # of militia members, and mayor's name

Example:

You are have entered Death Valley (Stronghold), Mayor: PlayaKilla
MOTD: Enter at your own risk. Law breakers will be shot.
TOTAL: 100 people have been city warned, 50 city banned, 10 city ignored
TODAY: 5 people have been city warned, 1 city banned, 0 city ignored

(To ease the load on the database the totals are updated once a day and the today stats every 6 hours)

FYI: Stats on a city, such as this, was something that was originally promised us by the devs so that players could judge for themselves whether or not they should enter a city or not. By entering a city you are giving your consent to be judged by their rules whether they be fair or not. This is implied consent.

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/citymotd (City Message of the Day)

• Create a new politician command /citymotd (city Message of the Day) which allows mayor to set a greeting or warning message which is displayed to players when they enter city limits
  
• Following the greeting message a line or 2 of statistics should also be displayed detailing total # of players citywarned, citybanned, cityignored and # for TODAY, # of militia members, and mayor's name

Example:

You are have entered Death Valley (Stronghold), Mayor: PlayaKilla
MOTD: Enter at your own risk. Law breakers will be shot.
TOTAL: 100 people have been city warned, 50 city banned, 10 city ignored
TODAY: 5 people have been city warned, 1 city banned, 0 city ignored

(To ease the load on the database the totals are updated once a day and the today stats every 6 hours)

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A very cool feature that would give politicians ongoing gameplay, some new reason every day to use their politician skills, anda very useful ability. Please include this on wednesday with the politician skills/gameplay issue solutions. Great suggestion.