Taking Prisoners

[chimpdroid]

With some combination of tazers, batons, shackles, chains, rope, etc., being able to capture NPCs.

Having finally settled down in a police station, I found myself wishing I could stock the jail area.
Should be able to capture hostile and non-hostile NPCs, both with a chance to fight back and escape, depending on their STR/DEX.

Hypothetically being able to sell them to slavers in future updates would totally rule.
Implanting control chips, etc.

Simple thought, may be difficult to implement, but it’d be nice to have a reason to use non-lethal weaponry.

edit:

I don’t see myself taking slaves on any of my serious characters, as I usually try to play with my own morals.
That, in fact, is a reason I’d love the option of taking prisoners.
I feel so guilty whenever some doofus with a nailboard tries to rob my power-armored ass, and I have to put them down.
The option to bring them back to my base and keep them locked up until they decide to play nice would be much appreciated.

[Flashlight_Hoarder]

Or attachable Raw Meat for Zombie Pit Fights!

[KA101]

So lemme check whether I understand this.

You set up in a PD and decided that your cells needed to be full, so you want to be able to take prisoners, so you can put them in cells, for the sake of having people in the cells. You’d also like to sell 'em as slaves and/or implant control chips.

If that’s the case, you’ve hit one of the very few hard lines we have for DDA content: no specifically abusing folks, nor folks being abused, for amusement value. Caging folks for decorative purposes seems pretty abusive to me; slavery might be marginally better (person is doing useful work) but I’ve no desire to implement or merge it, and chipping people is likewise a gateway for abuses.

[i2amroy]

I think you’ve got this a bit backwards. I could see adding the ability to capture people and sell them to slavers, since at that point it’s something you are doing to profit your character, and not just for shits and giggles. I could also totally see slaving beginning to happen in a post-cataclysmic world, and I could see adding something like becoming one yourself into the game, though it would almost certainly have serious repercussions on your relations with all of the non-slaver factions out there.

That said the progression here, if something like taking prisoners goes in, is going to be NPC slavers -> becoming a slaver yourself. Not adding the ability for you to take NPC slaves yourself and then adding NPC slavers into the game. And I’d also definitely like to see some meaningful NPC benefits/relations going on first as well, that way the fact that you are essentially declaring yourself scum to the majority of NPC’s has an actual game impact.

So I could see you having the option to become a slaver going in in the far flung future, but it’s a long way off, and we’ve definitely got some other things to go in first.

All that said I’d like to reiterate KA101’s statement that abusing slaves won’t be going in, even in this hypothetical future option your interactions would be largely limited to capturing+selling slaves. Also I don’t see control chips going in, the world of the future was definitely not one that promoted slavery, and something like that just wouldn’t be something you would realistically find in the US.

[Burnt_Earth]

I don’t see ‘slavers’ being a thing in Cata anyways. It reeks of other franchises and it doesn’t make sense given how the game takes place maybe a week after the internet goes out and everyone that survived is armed and dangerous and barely managing to stay alive. A culture and economy of slave-trading isn’t going to exist and who would be in the market for slaves anyways?

Cata really doesn’t need to be ‘Fallout 4 New England- The Rougelike’.

[chimpdroid]

As for morality and deliberate abuse, I play a couple cartoonishly evil characters, thus my interest in arbitrary horribleness.

Travelling slaver circuses, you could sell uniquely mutated people/creatures you’ve captured to add to their sideshow, and send your strong, gladiator-style slaves into the ring to win bets.
Outlandish and complex, it’s at least a newish spin on the whole slaver thing.

I think, in an apocalypse scenario, slavery would definitely make a comeback. It’s a classic part of societal reconstruction, usually fairly early-on as an emerging society gets organized.
I love Cataclysm for its physical realism, but it would be way cool to have more personal realism.

edit:

After a a hundredish days in game, it starts to feel weirder to not have pseudo-society stuff goin on

[KA101]

One thing I’d point out is that having lost 99%+ of the human population to the Cataclysm, live, healthy, and combat-capable humans will be at a premium and should not be risked fighting each other as a spectator sport. (Sparring is another matter.) Gladiatorial fighting would imply a generation or two of societal rebuilding.

“Personal realism” means very different things to different segments of the playerbase. We had a moderate dust-up over enslaving zeds (who aren’t human anymore, just goo-animated human bodies) already.

[Coolthulhu]

The only really good reason for taking prisoners I see would be slave work - working on farms, manufacturing items etc.

I have a pretty good idea on how would I implement those, except more as in NPC commanding than slave labor. A bit of a mini-strategy game inside DDA, where you designate an area for upturning, planting seeds, building (and maintaining) walls and the like, then NPCs search in designated storage areas for tools they need, do work and put stuff down back in storage.

Though that’s only tangentially related to taking prisoners.

[KA101]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:8, topic:8929”]The only really good reason for taking prisoners I see would be slave work - working on farms, manufacturing items etc.

I have a pretty good idea on how would I implement those, except more as in NPC commanding than slave labor. A bit of a mini-strategy game inside DDA, where you designate an area for upturning, planting seeds, building (and maintaining) walls and the like, then NPCs search in designated storage areas for tools they need, do work and put stuff down back in storage.

Though that’s only tangentially related to taking prisoners.[/quote]

Interrogation, prisoner-exchange with an opposing faction, less-lethal measure against someone you want to make non-hostile (best example I’ve got is communication barrier(s) leading to violence, such as escaped mutants, potentially a non-English speaker, etc).

[Coolthulhu]

Interrogation, prisoner-exchange with an opposing faction, less-lethal measure against someone you want to make non-hostile (best example I’ve got is communication barrier(s) leading to violence, such as escaped mutants, potentially a non-English speaker, etc).

Having mutants require other mutants to get convinced sounds cool. Maybe even enslaved Mycys convincing fungal forest not to attack his current owners or something like that?

[KA101]

[quote=“KA101, post:9, topic:8929”]Interrogation, prisoner-exchange with an opposing faction, less-lethal measure against someone you want to make non-hostile (best example I’ve got is communication barrier(s) leading to violence, such as escaped mutants, potentially a non-English speaker, etc).

Having mutants require other mutants to get convinced sounds cool. Maybe even enslaved Mycys convincing fungal forest not to attack his current owners or something like that?[/quote]

Not even needing other mutants, just convincing the Skybreaker to not attack me just because I’m tall, wearing a lab coat, and haven’t had a haircut. (OK, fails because I’ve a beard and the creepy researcher did not, but you get the idea.) Less-lethal force to get to the point where I can get the “I want to be on your side, dammit, stop attacking me!” message through.

Asking a Mycus Guide to turn off the fungal blossoms, etc seems extremely risky. Xe can just turn 'em back on when you’re sufficiently in the danger zone, and I’m sure all fungal folks in the area would move to assist the Mycus Guide.

[Valpo]

People are super easily offended by certain things.

Theres a lot of other stuff that the devs can throw theire time at instead of things that are likely to cause an angry mob with pitch forks and torches storming your thread.

• I don t see why it would be beficial to add features to our unrealistic and buggy npcs. Wouldn t it be easier to wait till they are fix which might even involve a change of how they work entirely and add on that when its done?

[Coolthulhu]

Xe can just turn 'em back on when you’re sufficiently in the danger zone, and I’m sure all fungal folks in the area would move to assist the Mycus Guide.

That’s why you’d only do it while keeping a (burst-capable) gun pointed at all times at the shroomhead’s head.
Risking losing a fully transformed willing host just to infect (without mindcontrol) a bunch of nobodies doesn’t sound like a good exchange, even if you’re guaranteed to infect them.

No prisoner system would be complete without prisoners trying to break out once in a while.

I don t see why it would be beficial to add features to our unrealistic and buggy npcs. Wouldn t it be easier to wait till they are fix which might even involve a change of how they work entirely and add on that when its done?

NPC system isn’t bad enough to totally rework it without a good reason. NPCs need fixes, true, but those can be small incremental fixes, each improving simple things.
Taking prisoners isn’t even all that big and complex of an idea.

And I think as long as there is no “motivating” prisoners with whips, hoses of cold water or denying food, most people won’t see it as more “problematic” than cannibalism or mutilating temporarily dead bodies for them to rise back as walking backpacks.
Especially if the slave system would be just a natural extension of “employment” system, where you could convince people to work for you by giving them stuff.

[KA101]

Live capture of a local guide risks enslavement writ large: the Mycus has had significant amounts of its biomass under Triffid control at various points. Mycus Defender’s kill-on-sight reaction to triffids is one result.

Guides would not be sacrificed willy-nilly, but their captors would not be permitted to continue. If that means injury or death to a guide, so be it.

[Burnt_Earth]

Err, so am I following this conversation correctly and diplomacy with fungus is a planned feature or something?

So I can talk to a mushroom and exchange bags of cow shit for hallucinations or something?

[KA101]

[quote=“Burnt Earth, post:15, topic:8929”]Err, so am I following this conversation correctly and diplomacy with fungus is a planned feature or something?

So I can talk to a mushroom and exchange bags of cow shit for hallucinations or something?[/quote]

No. Coolthulhu thought taking a Mycus-mutant hostage might be a good way to get through a fungal area, and I’m sure that would backfire spectacularly. But it’s not likely to be tested anytime soon.

[Coolthulhu]

Err, so diplomacy with fungus is a planned feature or something?

Nothing really planned here.

It’s one of those threads where people bring up random ideas that sound cool (slavery, shroom slavery, prisoners etc.).

It’s just that KA101 and i2amroy are officially DDA devs and I have contributed a bunch of AI-enhancing mechanics. It’s still a thread where people bring up random ideas, just that there’s a bit higher chance that those ideas will be implemented.

Most of random idea threads end up with nothing being done, due to there being a lot of things to do everywhere else.

[Burnt_Earth]

Oh okay, sorry. I mean, all the negotiating power you’d need is a gasmask and a flamethrower, you’d have the entire fungal area held hostage anyways.

I can see maybe ransoming, though. Subdue the Old Guard captive and stuff them into your pokeball, throw it into your trunk and sell it for massive profit at he refugee center?

I’d think the problem with slave-trading and capturing is in game, the ‘emergency’ is still happening, there is nothing but anarchy and no real settlements or economy. You’d need an entire power-structure for supporting the slave trade. Otherwise a ransom or slave sold to a faction will just kill you right after trading, because why not?

[Valpo]

[quote=“Valpo, post:12, topic:8929”]I don t see why it would be beficial to add features to our unrealistic and buggy npcs. Wouldn t it be easier to wait till they are fix which might even involve a change of how they work entirely and add on that when its done?

NPC system isn’t bad enough to totally rework it without a good reason. NPCs need fixes, true, but those can be small incremental fixes, each improving simple things.
Taking prisoners isn’t even all that big and complex of an idea.

And I think as long as there is no “motivating” prisoners with whips, hoses of cold water or denying food, most people won’t see it as more “problematic” than cannibalism or mutilating temporarily dead bodies for them to rise back as walking backpacks.
Especially if the slave system would be just a natural extension of “employment” system, where you could convince people to work for you by giving them stuff.[/quote]

What you are proposing doesn t have much to do with slavery imo. It also sounds a lot of fun.

Only thing bothering me is that npcs do not need water nor food… that way they to me seem like zeropointenergyusing robots… id not feel fulfilled using them for free. if we d have to care for them with food and such it would be amazing. Can t wait to run my own little village… maybe start up some bigger projects we couldn t do alone with theire help .

[vache]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcySh35ahsY