I've just fixed up the lockpick, so when servers restart it can be used to steal from vehicles again. You can steal from all police vehicles now (with the exception of the undercover dodge charger), but not from ambulances or fire trucks, or any other vehicle.
Should this remain the case for now or should we change this? We had issues before where paramedics and firemen couldn't do their jobs due to players stealing from their vehicles all the time, which is why it's disabled. Should it remain disabled, or is there another solution?
What about stealing from non-government vehicles? Is it worth adding it? What would you be able to steal?
My opinions on the matter:
1. The police pursuit dodge charger (both undercover and non-undercover) cannot be resupplied from and thus should give no loot to thieves, it only makes sense. Its in-game description literally says it carries no police equipment in it.
2. The paramedic/fireman thing was really an issue because if they start stealing from the vehicle, you can't stop them in any way as a paramedic/fireman. Criminals would come and hostage entire fire departments just to steal from the fire engines. There were also scenarios where vehicles would be hidden intentionally just so they could be lockpicked over and over "on cooldown". It is extremely disruptive and should only be re-enabled if there are rules set in place to prevent such things from happening.
3. I don't think you should be able to steal from non-government vehicles because it will probably end up being either completely not worth it or too easily abused. I can already see a gang of 5+ people parking their cars in the same place and stealing from each other. Would also encourage the "steal car and hide it forever" behaviour.
If people are now able to steal from the Pursuit Dodge Charger, then we should be able to resupply from it; if people are able to steal gear from it, it only makes sense that it carries the gear that police use in the performance of their duties, and hence we should be able to rearm and resupply out of our own equipment.
Personally, it seems like the option to steal from any vehicle is promoting more negative actions then positive. As mentioned above, there has been too many cases where people would target the vehicles for theft.
It is unrealistic for a police car to be knocked off the road and the driver killed just so they could take a medkit or something. But it happened a lot. Government became a target, not a force. And as stated also above, the same force ended up on foot as all their vehicles were stolen in a private hidden spot to be used as a vehicle stealing farm.
So, overall, I feel vehicle theft should be disabled altogether.
Gotta say, I agree with SirWulf. Stealing from non-gov and Ambulances/Fire shouldn't have a part in CityRP, they just promote people hoarding a vehicle and disrupting RP for others.
The same could be said for police, the cooldown is still short enough to encourage people to hoard from a vehicle, especially those that end up crashing around the villas and lake where people will base, could be made so that a vehicle on 0% isn't stolen from, as realistically that car should have been totalled in a crash, rather than easy to loot from by opening doors/trunk.
Though the theft system does promote some stupid behaviour with criminals attempting to loot a parked police vehicle in the middle of Main Street.
What if I make it take longer and it'll always set off the alarm? Then it's actually something more for dangerous, low end criminal opportunists, gangsters with nothing to lose and the like.
(Apr 4, 2016, 12:36 AM)Faustie Wrote: [ -> ]What if I make it take longer and it'll always set off the alarm? Then it's actually something more for dangerous, low end criminal opportunists, gangsters with nothing to lose and the like.
That is a good start, yes. More risk. One thought that might have combat vehicle theft farming... most government vehicles these days have GPS systems that monitor where vehicles are at all times. What if when a vehicle is broken into, it triggers the alarm and sends an alert out with the vehicle's location.
Now, to keep things level, if there would be a craftable tool that professional thieves could use to disable the GPS device, that would help to ensure that a proper RP theft ring would still be possible.
Sounds like it's time to give the ECM Jammer some more love!