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Author Topic: So many suggestions lately  (Read 3000 times)

FinetalPies

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Re: So many suggestions lately
« Reply #15 on: September 14, 2013, 01:02:18 am »

Actually I always thought that having any kind of sleeper on site at the Courthouse making you automatically pass the metal detector with fake ID badges was a little overpowered. You can do it in like three days.

Having additional sleeper actions including "Help the LCS infiltrate" could make it more difficult to suddenly have maps and full access, give new ways for sleepers to get juice, and additional effects like having a random chance to have a door not need to be lockpicked based on the sleepers effectiveness and skills.
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Liberal Elitist

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Re: So many suggestions lately
« Reply #16 on: September 14, 2013, 11:29:04 am »

I don't see any reason to have doors that don't need to be lockpicked, based on Sleepers. Lockpicking doors is really easy once you have Security skill, so that would be a fairly useless bonus to most players, especially since lockpicking doors doesn't even get you in trouble unless someone not in the LCS is watching you when you do it. And most doors are fairly easy to lockpick, the Security skill checks aren't as difficult as the ones for Bank Vaults, CEO Safes, Armories at Army Bases, and cars that you attempt to steal. And if your Sleepers went around leaving doors unlocked at a secure facility, their co-workers would probably get suspicious after awhile.

Having worked at a secure facility in the past, that required you to show ID badges to the security guards at the front to get in (although it didn't have metal detectors, but DID have cameras everywhere that the security guards would constantly monitor), well I can tell you that leaving doors unlocked would get you in trouble, plus a lot of the doors don't have standard locks, but instead have electronic locks that let you through after you swipe your ID card through the ID card reader on the door. Just like at lots of hotels and motels nowadays, where you get a card to swipe through electronic locks, rather than standard keys. Those are my own real-life experiences with working at a secure facility. Well I also worked at a slightly less secure facility too. It likewise had you swipe an ID card to get in the main entrance, and of course you had to have the ID card hanging from your neck at all times and non-employees were not permitted inside the premises unless they were being escorted (for instance, potential future employees from a temp agency who haven't been hired yet, and are being escorted around). That other place had some doors that had regular, physical locks that require keys. Well actually both places did. But the less secure one didn't have security guards (too expensive, and it's a lower budget operation that tries to avoid such costs), although it did have cameras everywhere (although nobody ever actually looked at the camera feeds unless something illegal or suspicious happened and they wanted to go back and look at the tapes, they were just there as a precaution mainly and didn't have anyone monitoring them live, since, again, that place tried to avoid having too many employees that would do skilled labor that would require high salaries, which is why they didn't employ security guards). And of course another reason they didn't employ security guards is they happen to be downtown and it's very very easy for cops to get there on a moment's notice, and the small city where I live has one of the highest cop:civilian ratios out there, in fact it's bankrupting the city to pay for all the police pensions because we simply have way too many cops employed here and it causes huge budget problems and very high local taxes, plus the crime rate is very low so most of the cops have nothing to do most of the time. And because of the very high local taxes we don't have a lot of businesses here... all because we have too many cops. And downsizing the police force is difficult because residents always complain, along with the police officers and the police union. Same thing with the fire department, can't downsize it either without everyone complaining, so it's also way too big and bankrupting the city and causing local taxes to be so high that hardly any businesses are willing to locate here. Another annoying side effect of having such a huge cop:citizen ratio and such a low crime rate where I live is, there are cops everywhere and if you do anything even remotely illegal (I am mostly talking about minor traffic violations) you get in trouble. Part of how they subsidize the massive police department here is by giving people lots of huge fines for minor traffic offenses. I mean, if you ever visit my town, don't even think about violating any traffic laws... or any other laws for that matter, we have so many cops in this town it's ridiculous and the city's constantly on the verge of bankruptcy because of them. Although I suppose the police force here are some of the few good jobs in this area, since most of the other good jobs are gone now, so cutting back on police might actually hurt the local economy since a significant percentage of customers at most businesses around here are cops. And out in the more rural areas of the county, a significant percentage of people are from the likewise overstaffed county sheriff's office or New York State Police. I guess we have so many cops because this area used to be prosperous several decades ago, with lots of great-paying jobs, so there was no trouble funding the police through taxes back then, and back then the more prosperous citizens of this area, who were mostly upper middle class, wanted to be safe and could afford the local taxes for such a big, well-trained police force. But now that most major employers have left the area, most of the upper middle class people lost their jobs, retired, or moved elsewhere along with the companies, and we've had an influx of poor people from New York City moving upstate for the lower cost of living and cheap housing, well now there's no tax base anymore, and the crime rate HAS gone up due to the demographic changes, although it's still quite low compared to most parts of the United States.

If you want to test out how to ruin a city the same way the place I live got ruined, try playing ANY version of the game SimCity, and building way too many Police Stations and Fire Stations, funding them at 100%, having taxes ALMOST high enough to pay for everything but not quite, issuing large amounts of municipal bonds to fund local government operations, and then seeing how the local economy collapses and then the city goes bankrupt and you lose your job as Mayor of SimCity. Honestly, if all the local politicians around here had to play the game SimCity and learn to get good at the game before managing a REAL city, we'd have a MUCH more prosperous local economy. Maybe I should run for mayor, I'm quite skilled at running simulation cities in video games, I'd probably do a better job at running a REAL city too. Then again, I'd probably downsize the police department so much it would piss EVERYBODY off... but sometimes you have to do stuff like that when you're the mayor, since the huge police department is the reason for the high taxes and the reason for the lack of any decent jobs or major employers in this area. But given the decline in local incomes, the city's near-bankruptcy, and the high unemployment rate, along with all the poor people moving here from NYC for cheap housing and cost of living while all the middle class and well-off people continue to move out of the area, any downsizing of the massive police department could lead to a huge surge in the crime rate because so many people around here are economically disadvantaged and would be likely to commit crime if we stopped having such huge numbers of police... this local area's really in a continuous downward death spiral and there isn't any easy option for fixing it. The biggest local employer used to be IBM, which paid people VERY high salaries and had VAST numbers of employees here, and IBM was actually founded here. But they're gone now. The easiest solution would be to get an employer like that to come back to this area, but that's not gonna happen in a million years.

The only reason this local area hasn't gone COMPLETELY down the toilet is, there are still plenty of local residents who used to have high-paying jobs, are retired now, and haven't bothered to move out of the area. Like my dad. But he's a mad scientist (no really, he is, I am serious, he fits the stereotype of mad scientist PERFECTLY) and mad scientists aren't exactly the most sane type of individual. Moving out of an area because the local economy gets really bad? Mad scientists don't do that, they're insane. I do think there might be some other mad scientists in this local area too, especially among former IBM engineers that retired, who are probably now conducting strange experiments in laboratories in their basements just like my dad does all the time. Maybe if we got them together, they might actually invent something USEFUL for a change and we could start a local company based on it that would revive the local economy. But mad scientists never invent anything useful, they are too nuts... oy vey... like my dad. And since my dad's a former physics professor, most of the things he invents or builds are things that relate to things you teach someone in a freshman-level college physics course, i.e. they are very primitive, not very advanced technology at all, and don't have any practical or real-world use at all. Maybe if my dad had taught Ph.D level physics students at an expensive university instead of teaching freshman-level physics to community college students, he might be inventing and building more advanced things. The only people who are actually interested in my dad's work are other physics teachers, who tend to be a rather nutty bunch... it's because the useless contraptions he builds in the basement all demonstrate simple laws of physics so perhaps they might be useful in teaching students physics, although even that is doubtful. Oh, and I haven't even mentioned all the "joys" of being the son of a mad scientist who is routinely used as a test subject in experiments... usually very BORING experiments that are utterly pointless, the kind of experiments that Bill Nye the Science Guy or Mr. Wizard would do on TV back in the day, except not as interesting. I suppose the most interesting experiments my dad has done would be his many experiments on Marshmallow Peeps. I almost feel sorry for them, even though they're just sugary snacks and not actually living creatures. He certainly enjoys making them explode... Anyway, the Eminent Scientists in this game remind me a lot of my dad, pretty similar. Oh, and my dad cooks dinner for everyone most nights, and often the food is experimental and it is questionable whether or not it's edible. And like all mad scientists, he routinely performs experiments on himself. He often goes into the forest and picks random unidentified berries and eats them to see what happens, for instance. Not very safe. At least he doesn't experiment with wild mushrooms and serving them in meals for the whole family... my MOM is the one who does that, but that's another story. Although I will mention that one time my mom found one giant mushroom in the forest, it was like several pounds, we were eating pieces from that one giant mushroom in every meal for about a month before it was finally finished. With parents like that, no wonder I turned out the way I did, even crazier than them.

Sorry for getting so far off topic there, especially with all that text...
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FinetalPies

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Re: So many suggestions lately
« Reply #17 on: September 16, 2013, 05:36:45 am »

Well, snooping around for secrets can get you in trouble too, and that's still possible. But I wasn't too enthusiastic aboot just having doors be left unlocked, that's kind of not a big deal. Especially if it gave you that many less chances to train your security skill, I'd start to hate it. But there are probably other ways having a sleeper help in your infiltration efforts would be useful.

As for your cities policies...lots of cops, low crime rates, coincidence? And as for "There are so many cops you can't even commit crimes!" I'm not sure that that is a valid complaint. I don't drive so my opinion on being able to speed without consequence is purely negative. But still. Your other complaints however, over the economy in general and stuff, yeah, that's legit. Mayors should have to play Sim City, they make pilots do simulations before they're allowed to crash million dollar aircrafts.

Your parents sound awesome. Not that my parents are boring or anything. But going into a forest and eating random shit (Not literally) just to see what happens is exactly something that I would do. And have done.

And don't worry aboot the wall of text, hahaha. I had this tab open for days and finally found a good time to read it. (I'm aboot to play a game with a friend but the game has to update first)
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