Claim system

[HunterAlpha1]

[quote=“jcd, post:11, topic:7579”]IRL the claim would be as good as the one who makes it ->
i.e. how well someone can protect his claim ->
i.e. how well known + intimidating is someone + things that convey that he is living here currently (fresh organic junk, less dust in his house etc.)

The problem is that in cata we don’t have these things that indicate when someone is currently living here, so the idea is (and i partly support it) that the “fade-over-time” system simulates all those things.
Its not magical, it just abstractly simulates some things we don’t have (or need to have) in cata.
What i mean is that if you come to a house 2 days after a previous occupant left, you’d surmise he is still living here, but if it was 2 years ago, you’d think the place abandoned.

The time varies of course with the factors i named at the top of my post, (not everyone would take stuff from the pile of a well-known vengeful bandit, at least not too quickly in case he came back)
Also a faction may protect its member’s property, even when they are away, and up to the point they think the person is dead…[/quote]^This.

[kevin.granade]

We’re conflating two things here.
One is marking individual items as owned, in which case there are no tells to indicate that time has passed since the claim was made. This is what I’m referring to as “magical game crap”. Just picking something up shouldn’t persistently mark something as “claimed”, because there’s no mechanism where NPCs or the player would know about the claim, unless they saw the other player drop it, and even then if the ‘owner’ walked away, that’s a strong indication that it’s now abandoned. It would be reasonable to drop a stash of stuff, then tell a friendly NPC, “don’t mess with my stuff”, which marks it as yours, but only to the NPC you told about it.

The other is posting a physical claim marker in the game, which claims an area. I agree it’s reasonable to infer that a claim is abandoned based on lack of signs of habitation, so aging these claims away would work. Side note, the clearest sign that a claim is dangerous to mess with would be corpses around it, which has been brought up before.

EDIT: We’re also discussing this on a github issue: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/9555

[Bonevomit]

The only thing I can think up right now is having an option for the NPCs you are leading saying “Don’t pick up these things” and then getting a list of things you don’t want the NPC to pick up.

For each option you have to pass a speech check to convince the NPC not to pick up that kind of item. Their difficulty based on the type of object. If you fail the NPC calls you a greedy asshole and likes you less. If you succeed they respect your authority and don’t pick up those items anymore(unless you tell them to or you leave them).

[HunterAlpha1]

Lol whatever you guys come up with I’m sure it’ll work fine, my original suggestions was mostly a placeholder so that NPC companions are actually workable.

[VonParre]

what if (note i know absolutely nothing how this game works on mechanical level) instead of any magical knowledge about who owns what there were somekind claim for small areas? use for signs and paints and markers and such? Like “Shoo, owned by Angry Gunman with Big Dog” text on wall or sign which maybe rebels good npcs and lures lootters/baddies. Dunno if this would end up just being dozen npcs dancing dance of pathfinding around your base but atleast it would lessen the amount of ex allies splattered to base walls:D

[jcd]

this is about how we are thinking of implementing in on the in-game level afaiu

you construct a sign then write on it something about its !my! claim, to do the actual claiming.

what happens thereafter should vary depending on lots of things.

[vultures]

Oh, the everquest… ownership and property. Let’s give it a go:

• create an item filter stack;
• make it double sided, so (a) objects are the Player/Monster class, and (b) are Items class;
• define time-dependent rules.

Let’s say you’re wearing your kevlar vest for some time, only to replace it with some survivor armor. We can now think of it in terms of Skill Rust, perhaps; when the “ownership” degrades, party members can pick it up. Wielding and wearing items have higher stack priority and you should own them longer than, for example, tools that you use occasionaly. This way, if you’ve been using your wrench and welder to repair/upgrade your vehicle and dropped those tools afterwards others (NPCs) can pick 'em up after a fairly short period of time. Your bow/arrows can’t be picked for much longer, because you were both wielding and using them to your own benefit.

A note – few items (of great value to the survivor) should ommit this rule; bullets, ID cards, cash cards and (perhaps) peculiar drugs may be good examples.

[HunterAlpha1]

Personally I like the idea of having the ability to designate an area as off limits to NPCs.

[Bumpkin]

Wouldn’t the zones feature that’s already in game (but doesn’t seem to do anything yet) be perfect for this? Designate a zone as “Personal Property” and your NPC followers won’t touch anything in it. Designate a zone as “Communal Property” and they’ll take what they want and dump unwanted crap there.

[KA101]

Wouldn’t the zones feature that’s already in game (but doesn’t seem to do anything yet) be perfect for this? Designate a zone as “Personal Property” and your NPC followers won’t touch anything in it. Designate a zone as “Communal Property” and they’ll take what they want and dump unwanted crap there.

I’d be glad to mergetest such a PR. (Zones are currently handy for telling autopickup “not here plz”.)

[SilverDragon]

Well say we do manage to claim a house (however we manage to get it done) rather then marking the whole area as (Do not touch!!) zone would it not be better if we could mark or lock any constructable storage units inside said claim be it a fridge/cupboard or RV fridge, maby doors as long as its in your claimed area, these objects could probably still be broken into by hostile NPCs but at least your allies/friendly’s wont touch it, also speaking of which if a hostile NPC enters your claim killing them should count as self defense and not take a massive hit to moral

[HunterAlpha1]

[quote=“SilverDragon, post:22, topic:7579”]Well say we do manage to claim a house (however we manage to get it done) rather then marking the whole area as (Do not touch!!) zone would it not be better if we could mark or lock any constructable storage units inside said claim be it a fridge/cupboard or RV fridge, maby doors as long as its in your claimed area, these objects could probably still be broken into by hostile NPCs but at least your allies/friendly’s wont touch it, also speaking of which if a hostile NPC enters your claim killing them should count as self defense and not take a massive hit to moral :P[/quote]+9001!!!

[FunsizeNinja123]

Or put locks on lockers, doors, dressers (?), etc.

[HunterAlpha1]

[quote=“FunsizeNinja123, post:24, topic:7579”]Or put locks on lockers, doors, dressers (?), etc.[/quote]and introduce a new skill, lockpicking!

[SilverDragon]

[quote=“FunsizeNinja123, post:24, topic:7579”]Or put locks on lockers, doors, dressers (?), etc.[/quote]and introduce a new skill, lockpicking!

with something like that though much would have to be edited, as long as only hostile NPCs would try to open them its fine if they need to bash/wrench it open with a tool, if you can lock/reinforce doors you could slow them down when they try to break in, we really don’t need a complicated system with many additions, just a few simple functions should suffice

[Valiant]

Let’s think about all this thing in realistic way, sort of.

When you’re strolling around some zombie-and-NPC-infested area and see some house/shop/etc you want to breach into for scavenging, how do you decide, whether it’s somebody’s place or nobody’s? Most likely by external features of this place. Some of them are:

• boarded, taped and - especially - reinforced windows;
• traps all around the place;
• sometimes lots of slain Zeds and monsters around the place;
• maybe some other.

Can’t say for everyone, but IRL in my usual searching for loot in dead people’s houses (he-he) I’d think twice before entering building with aforementioned features.

Maybe we need some overlay on main game screen like footsteps sign? I mean, let’s say you approached some suspicious building and saw some reinforced windows and - lucky! - spotted some traps underneath these windows. So game draws some sort of a overlay sign (with question mark, for example) on top of this building. This means that you presume that this building is MAYBE claimed by somebody.

If you dared to enter this building (most likely by prying door or window) nevertheless and saw an angry NPC-owner, the overlay sign will change for exclamation mark meaning that this building IS claimed. Everything in it is owned by this NPC. So taking any item from this building will be considered as thieving (only if witnessed, of course).

[StopSignal]

I am going to back from dead just to say this.

Let’s consider these things:

1-A person won’t know what is yours until you tell them.
2-A person that does not know you won’t care, because looting.
3-A friendly person won’t know what is yours until you tell them, like #1.
4-A system that could work would be to command the NPC to not grab any thing from an area. The map pops up, and you will choose wich areas are your territory. Do this with every NPC that you want to be with.
5-In this case, hostile NPCs can still loot because looting, and friendly ones (that know about your territory) no.
6-This makes defending your base from looters possible and fun.
7-Killing hostile NPCs in your territory should not hit morale that badly.
8-There is no “magical cr**” here. It’s basically how it would work in real life.

This is also, in a vague idea of me, easier than other ideas and also does not need to have a claimed tag for ALL the things, just for the area.

Also, other suggestions:
9-NPCs can and will claim a territory (or at least to have them pre-generated), but it should have the following things (if possible)
-It’s a safeplace, wich means no zombies near it.
-It has got loot. NPC territories could have also a boost for the apparition of items, this including guns and food, survival stuff.
-The NPC could either be kind and do nothing to you, or attack if in the territory.
-Stealing from the territory can be done, but after stealing, if the NPC sees you with one of his items in your inventory, it turns hostile.
-To know about territories from NPCs, you could ask other NPCs or chat to the owner of the territory (and he could tell you about the place)
10-This system can also make having bands of NPCs easier, because they could spawn all allied to each other and all could use the things in the territory. (If possible)
11-Hostile bands could be possible too, like the bandit camps. (if possible)
12-Can NPCs target each other as enemies? I have never seen them do so. If possible, this has to be boosted, making them friendly or hostile, wich could make the game far more interesting. As stated before, friendly NPCs let you be in their territory.
13-Killing the NPC owning the territory deletes it and you can grab everything freely. Same if he dies naturally.
14-If you die, NPCs that you told about your territory can take your stuff freely.
15-NPCs that kill you in your territory will claim it (This could make a lot of fun revenges, huh?)

That other things, even if a lot harder and needing a little too much NPC work, i think could be AWESOME and INMERSION GIVING for the game.

[ramesesniblet]

I would like a system that stops NPC followers from pocketing all the loot you’ve stashed away at your shelter, that’s for sure. I was thinking the other day that the zones system which is currently only used for autopickup could be used, but that would be very exploitable. I also thought of having a speech check for “Everything in this building is mine, don’t touch it” dialogue option, which I think would work just fine (and make the speech skill a bit more useful).

[kevin.granade]

The designation menu is a terrible match for this, how exactly are you going to explain to keep away from an arbitrary series of shapes, but everything else is fine?
The front-runner for this kind of thing IMO is building a sign of some kind that stakes a claim on everything in a certain area.
For short term stuff like item’s you’re adjacent to, a chat command should probably suffice.

Again, what I could really use is scenarios where this kind of thing happens, which can act as a way to compare the various approaches.

[StopSignal]

The designation menu is a terrible match for this, how exactly are you going to explain to keep away from an arbitrary series of shapes, but everything else is fine?

Well, in this case you just tell them your area. The game does not tell you it’s an square, and you don’t need to know. I bet it could be foreshadowed by the fact that some place is yours (ie: a house) so they will avoid the entire territory.

Also, you could only tell some zones for them. If your zone is too big, it will lose priority and they could steal if they want.

The thing about the sign is that when i get a friend in my house i don’t need a sign for them to tell them it’s mine. I just tell them.