From IRC: Changes to police and military mechanics and lore

GlyphGryph · 2013-03-10T02:23:08.000Z

All beat patrol officers have been replaced by copbots, BUT administrators and engineers still exist.
Suited up in effective armor and possessing a valuable “Police ID”, these units are very rare and a good deal more resilient than regular zombies.
The “Police ID” means that Copbots and Eyebots will ignore you. As a law enforcement officer, you are clearly allowed to do whatever is needed in the pursuit of your duty.
Police blockades involve a single officer zombie and a number of copbots and robotic “police vehicles” blocking the road.

“Military IDs” convince turrets you are friendly… at a distance. Penetrating a military base is actually a two step procedure, though.
Once you are close enough, a “secondary check” is done to compare you to the military database.
At that point, they “yell stuff about unauthorized use of military/police identification and attack”, in the words of kevingranade, if you don’t match a database entry.
So the second part is to hack the military database to enter your information.
Lacking either piece - the id, or the database entry, means no military base access for you. If you lack the first, you’ll never get close enough to do the database check, after all.

Siferous · 2013-03-10T02:38:25.000Z

What is the Cataclysm IRC link? I tried connecting to the one I found but it wouldn’t work.

GlyphGryph · 2013-03-10T02:42:12.000Z

#Cataclysm-DDA @ darkmyst.org

Info and a webchat link is on the front page.

Siferous · 2013-03-10T02:47:21.000Z

Oh ok, I guess I didn’t look hard enough. Thanks.

Fengferth · 2013-03-10T11:31:52.000Z

i’ve always wondered why turrets would attack their own millitary personnel if they have some sort of I.D, unless these automated turrets are sabataged to the point where they don’t realize friend or foe. Either way is pretty plausible.

I quite like the change, assuming the police I.D are gonna be pretty rare.

theShaikan · 2013-03-10T17:34:49.000Z

I really wish military IDs and Science IDs protected you from their respective turrets. The zombies and animals seemed to be more than fine around those defensive installations meant to defend against Zombies or escaped lab subjects, but as soon as they spot even your pinky, they unload in your direction. Even if you carry a dozen ID cards they don’t care. So yes, please make IDs turn them somewhat approacheable so that outposts don’t rip you to shreds.

Greiger · 2013-03-10T17:44:46.000Z

Might want to make just walking up to a military base at night more difficult then. Maybe one or two advanced turrets among the regular ones, that spot by infravision so they can see you at night. I would think it would be easier to design a turret that reacts to infrared than one that reacts to visible light anyway.

GalenEvil · 2013-03-11T07:00:15.000Z

It would be kinda cool if you had to wield a card in order to not get shot up by the turrets. Then you’d at least be able to walk around with a flashlight on in labs without getting ganked by the turrets. Maybe have security go into overdrive if you fail to hack a terminal, and then make it KOS until the security has been disabled (hack a security terminal somewhere?) or until the secubots have been active but without a target for throughout a security sweep to possibly trick the system into thinking it was an error that tripped security.