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[E. Albright]

Oh, I'm keenly aware of these things, Neonivek. That's one of the reasons I think it'd be good to include; it's a visible mechanic that would fairly blatantly shift in response to police regulation. The fact that it's billed as "non-lethal" means the police lack the same compunctions about using it as they do "lethal" weapons, even though it's not really non-lethal. There've been solid studies contesting the assertion often put forth by police advocates that tasers will reduce use of lethal force; I'm wanting to say there was one in Toronto where the number of times lethal force was applied per year was exactly the same before and after tasers were deployed, but after there were 300 or so tasings on top of that (can't remember if there were any taser casualties during the period the study surveyed).

(This entirely ignores the instances where police use it not to protect themselves but rather just to enforce obedience, or more or less torture people without leaving lots of bruises and such. Yet more reason it'd make a nice addition in terms of visible effects of shifts in police regulations.)

[Neonivek]

Oh, I'm keenly aware of these things, Neonivek

No accusations I just want Fox to be aware that I don't think magic tasers should be in the game.

The more frieghtening aspects of using Tasers to make people compliant is that they (the police) will repeatingly use it even past the point of safety on people who actually cannot become compliant such as people who have drug overdoses or are suffering from sevear mental distress.

Torono had a case where someone who I THINK was drunk was tasered 9 times and had to be emmited to the hospital the next day. It was only because of an investigation that he learned he was tasered so much.

[beorn080]

Officially, Tasers and other "non-lethal" weaponry is referred to as less then lethal. The non-lethal part of it is the police justifying the use of those weapons. There is no non-lethal weapon in existence right now.

[Servant Corps]

So in a L+ society, likely no tasers...meaning...er...what?

How can a L+ police officer can effectivley counter anybody, if they can't even use a taser to stop a person from running? You aren't going to tell me that the Police Officers will just have to run and scream slogans to try and convince people to surrender (unless those slogans can convert people to Conservatism)? Any good ideas...unless we really want to go follow the "Fat Police Officer" line?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

The GTA III San Andreas San Francisco police social worker approach? Lob verbal attacks at you as they whop you with their billy club to convert you to an NPC?

That always worked on me in San Andreas, I kept thinking "YES! Please! Let's stop and talk. Officer, I so have got problems. I'm a psycho criminal that kills people all the time. Oh man, I feel so beyond help, you've got to listen so I have a way to exercise all the difficulty of my situation without resorting to more violence."

[beorn080]

Yes. In a true liberal state the police should really have any power at all beyond talking a person down. That is the true liberal mindset.

[Rezan]

I seem to be having trouble upping the Disguise on the head of my Covert Operations' squad. It's stuck at 1, regardless of what I do (beyond having someone TEACH it). Am I not allowed to have a high Stealth while training Disguise? It's at 9 right now.

[Servant Corps]

The game uses whatever skill is higher. You got a high disguise, so the game uses that instead of Stealth.

EDIT: While I could see how an L+ Society might be...er...funny, it might let criminals goes free, making the LCS' job easier, making the game too easy.

Though I guess it could be countered by having all other criminals be more powerful too...

[beorn080]

If stealth is higher then disguise, then disguise will be incredibly hard to train. The only possible way I can see to train disguise would either be extremely good bluffing during raids since I don't think stealth applies there, or extremely good disguises against high perception conservatives. Or have someone with an extremely high disguise teach him until it balances out.

[E. Albright]

So in a L+ society, likely no tasers...meaning...er...what?

How can a L+ police officer can effectivley counter anybody, if they can't even use a taser to stop a person from running?

I'd say in L+ the police would only be able to chase, tackle, and bodily restrain unarmed perps. If the perp pulls improvised or small melee weapons (nightsticks, knives), or tries to attack with their bare hands, out comes the taser. If they pull any weapon heavier than that, out comes a gun.

The idea isn't that L or L+ societies want to cripple the police, it's that they don't want police to abuse their authority or use "unreasonable" force (i.e., force out of proportion with the threat facing the police; the police may not use force to eliminate vanishingly small risk to themselves by transferring that risk to citizens). Incidentally, this is related to the idea behind police elections with immediate recall; if the police DO abuse their power, they can be immediately be stripped of it. They're held accountable directly by the people they ostensibly serve rather than to the government.

[E. Albright]

It might be nice to add a "Sleepers" count to the score summary. I just finished a true pacifist game (no crimes reported or otherwise except vandalism, resisting arrest (from running), and the two computer charges you can get from harassing websites). My score listed 10 recruits and 2 martyrs, but I won with over 3 pages of sleepers. I'm pretty sure the "Recruits" count included the 4 or 5 sleepers I directly recruited, but all the rest came from extending sleeper networks and thus were unlisted.

[mainiac]

What do you need to do to extend a sleeper network?  I've never had the option available.

[E. Albright]

Your sleeper needs Leadership or 50 juice. I.e., they need to be able to recruit a Liberal.

[mainiac]

How do they gain juice?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I overlooked keeping track of sleepers recruiting sleepers for the score screen, that will be fixed for next release.

Sleepers get juice doing anything productive. That means spreading liberalism, stealing, embezzling, etc.. If you assign them to act conservative, this will strip their juice away, but not push it below zero.