Actual crime system?

[Fagahajakal]

Out of curiosity, I've been wondering how a crime system such as the ones in The Elder Scrolls series could be modded into New Vegas, instead of the instant fight reaction/reputation.

Now I'm not talking about actually making a mod that makes a guard faction for every major faction in the game that keeps account of the player's crime and calculates an amount of fine, but, and it's all hypothetical, if you were to make a mod with a new worldspace, let's say a town inside the NCR, where law enforcement is presumably much more peaceful than in the Mojave, how would you make a crime system that works like the one in TES games (when someone sees you commit a crime, they report you rather than fight, and npcs of a guard faction chase you and try to put you in jail and/or fine you, or with high enough bounty, kill you)?

I'm not asking for the exact lines of script that you would use, of course, I'm just simply curious about how you'd approach doing it, or if it's even possible.

[trashgarbage666]

This is such a fun idea! And extremely befitting of a western.

 

I feel like a great crime system for New Vegas would make full use of faction disguises. Maybe even expand the disguise mechanics so that wearing faction armor associates you with a particular faction, while non-faction armor + face covering headgear makes you anonymous / neutral to all factions.

 

Maybe having a high bounty would cause bounty hunters to come looking for you, similar to the NCR / Legion hit squads that track you down when you have an extremely negative rep with either faction. A higher bounty could attract more dangerous bounty hunters. Some bounty hunters might be hoping to bring you in alive for an extra reward, while others try to kill you on sight.

 

While you're serving your time in jail, having a high reputation with one of the major factions could increase the odds of someone paying your bail.

 

Each major settlement could have its own, separate bounty on the player. Meaning you could be wanted in one town and not the other. Maybe towns that have a bounty out on you could put wanted posters up throughout the town, which would increase the likelihood of a person from that town identifying you and turning hostile, or running to tell the guards. Obviously, the wanted posters would get taken down once you've paid your fines or served jail time. Maybe you could even take the posters down yourself while you're anonymous. I imagine being caught taking down wanted posters would only add to your fines.

 

These are just some of the thing that jumped out at me right away. I really like this idea, and feel like there's a lot you could do with it.

Edited July 26, 2018 by punchbattle

[Radioactivelad]

Hmm.

 

How about jury-rigging the reputation system?

 

Say there is a Criminal Reputation. It's not actually visible to the player as a normal Reputation, but the player's Rank in that reputation affects how specific npcs respond to them. Normal citizens could make various remarks or even call Guards over, while Guards themselves could attempt to initiate an Arrest dialogue a'la TES via a script.

 

Once the player serves their sentence (Which could be variable depending on the exact Reputation the player has upon imprisonment), their Criminal Reputation is set to Neutral, so that guards treat them as a normal citizen again. (This could even open the possibility to "fortify" your criminal reputation to prevent smaller crimes from immediately triggering the Arrestable level of Criminal Reputation.)

 

 

Another possibility is perhaps equipping the Guard Force with scripted weapons that can "knock out" the player, afterwhich they awaken in the Jail area. That way you can more or less just use normal crime behavior, but prevent it from being an onsite execution.

Edited July 28, 2018 by Radioactivelad