ifm Car Theft/Vandalism & You

[GambloTwitch]

As a leader of a group being a part of a Chop Shop business I realized my RP has improved so much when I joined it.

Before I joined this business, I found the vehicle theft something impossible to handle(actually a little bit useless) based on actual server rules.

In fact, I've made a server suggestion back in the days.

 

 

Edited September 19, 2021 by GambloTwitch

[hipsxn]

1 hour ago, JackieH said:

To get vandalism out of the way, the ones I've seen myself have been good, always leaving a /cim behind and in most cases, they were detailed enough - however I can't say much about the roleplay behind those /cim's since that's something I haven't witnessed.  The last one I saw was, unfortunately, on my character's car, and it was very detailed and at the end of the day, provided more RP for me as well.

As for the car scrapping, the quality on the RP is good in most cases too. The times I've been involved in it, it developed from petty car thefts for parts to more organized teams ressembling more of a car chopping ring rather than just a bunch of unorganized criminals, which is good. That eventually leads to a chain of "production" where parts get passed around or made into items, and eventually feeds factions, groups, pawnshops and the playerbase in general.

The way the script works, inherently promotes stealing cars "en-masse" - either you hit a few good ones and get a bunch of parts, or you settle for "lesser" ones and steal more but with less reward. As it stands right now, it's a very high risk job with a small reward, it has been for a while - which could see as a demotivation factor for some people, since, if you don't have access to a chop-shop but rather a garage, you risk way more than just a jail sentence for your character.

 

 

This is also a REALLY BIG playing factor in the car chopping scene. As I mention below, there's no way to counter the tracking/anti-theft systems, so more than often, you end up chopping the car as fast as possible to reduce your chances of being caught, unless you have a team to do it with you, and each person dedicates themselves to one part of the vehicle (engine, tires, doors and body, interior, etc). 

On the other hand, as Viscaria mentions, alarms are quite bugged. I had, more times than I'd like to admit, very uncomfortable situations where the alarm went off, but not for me or whoever was chopping the car, thus being caught in the act and having to run away to avoid further consequences.

The way anti-theft works. as mentioned,  is also a factor at play in here, since you don't have any tools to counter it, which makes the owner (If they end up being aware of it) find the car in mere seconds, or even turning the engine off mid-drive after you stole the car. There's a recent suggestion about signal jammers made by @hipsxn which can balance this out, so I encourage people to check it out.

 

As for IFM providing other means to acquire metal/car parts without the need of chopping cars, or having access to a garage/chop shop - I'd be all up for it. I'd like to see it in the same fashion as other schemes IFM handles, through the IFM request board. Say you RP picking up scrap from the streets (or in Sandy, for example, where there's rusted out scrap laying all over the place) or you just decide to, let's say, rob a cars radio, or the wheels, or specific parts RP wise without actually chopping the car itself. I think IFM could handle this and provide the player/players who've done the RP properly with parts, and depending on what they've done, calculate the amount they'll get.

 

 

This basically.

 

I would personally prefer it if it was encouraged for players to steal parts from cars (e.g. door(s), tire, radio and etc), rather than the script falling into a certain meta; which it is in now.

[Illusory]

As someone who leaves their character's car parked in their driveway in Mirror Park I average 3-5 car break-in attempts per night so I'd say currently it's pretty high. 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by Sush

[Thirteen]

9 minutes ago, Sush said:

As someone who leaves their character's car parked in their driveway in Mirror Park I average 3-5 car break-in attempts per night so I'd say currently it's pretty high. 

This.

But hey, I feel that we have moved past mechanic garage owners snatching up cars with a tow truck, at least!

[Triple Seven]

I understand the choice of car parts becoming ingredients for things like knives, but at the same time it makes no sense. The old mining system was better for that matter I guess (but worse for many others). Other than that, I think the "popularity" of a car in terms of it being stolen shouldn't depend on some list but on factors around: age of the vehicle, tech that can be stolen from it, and stuff like that. Having a shitbox of a car that isn't all too popular around the city, should naturally result in it not even being looked at to be stolen for chop shop use. And of course, buying a popular, more expensive or even regular vehicle, should result in more theft of those. The, basically OOC, list causes shitboxes to still get stolen besides crimes of opportunity however.

 

Other than that, the times I encountered vehicles getting stolen the command to chop them was clearly used before any RP (likely because of fear of getting caught due to being unable to disable a tracker, however, that's still powergaming), considering the time away from the vehicle and it being chopped. It's so long ago by now, at least a few months that I can't comment regarding that for the current state of affairs. I've not experienced any vandalism to a personal vehicle of any of my characters. Only evidence I've seen of it was a /cim without a car (kind of immersion breaking, would be nice if there could be deviced something to mirror a vehicle in those cases) in a remote location.

[MeowTheEpic]

Encourage players to come up with creative/unique schemes, the more elaborate it is the more they net out of it, people shouldn't just rely on the script for everything. IFM should encourage illegal players whether members of factions or simply solo freelancers to come up with elaborate schemes that creates roleplay for everyone involved rather than pure monetary gain that serves nothing but to pad their wallets and provide like 2 or 3 individuals with passive roleplay for 15 minutes.

On another note I do hope in the near future a vehicle maintenance system is introduced, nothing too complicated just certain parts decaying over time needing repair/replacement depending on the mileage spent on them, carjacking will be more meaningful to boost parts and resell by legitimizing them in a functioning workshop, also it'll give mechanics more things to do, and in a way it's a small money sink via vehicle upkeep.

[Robyn]

The list of vehicles that comes is ridiculous and half the time has 0 part PD faction vehicles that just waste time. The list/system needs an overhaul from how it was made back in 2017/2018 to something better and more realistic.

 

Car alarms are bugged like pople have said and only sometimes show for people, the anti-theft is currently extremely overpowered and the despawn timer on cars overall makes it difficult to find cars. Honestly the list should only really show cars that appear on the streets because half the time it's cars literally nobody drives.

 

(Also add stuff that appear frequently driven by players but never on the list for some stupid ass reason like the Elegy and fix the vehicle names considering there's 8 different types of Gauntlet with barely a difference sometimes and two types of comet retros with the only different being one has bolts on the arches and the other doesn't.)

[jackyyy]

I agree that the list is what fucks you over half the time, either giving you a list of cars that nobody drives or a bunch of PD vehicles that reward 0 parts taking up over half of it. I don't know how plausible it would actually be but if there was some way you could make it so that the list would give you the cars based on who's online and what they own it would give thieves a more realistic chance of doing something with it, since there's a higher chance of them being out in the world than what we get given sometimes. We have a huge car ring with people getting out there every day, but the majority of the time there's only one day a week where you can look at the list you're given and think, 'alright, yeah, there's gonna be a bunch of these out there tonight.'

 

I think I'm in the minority that doesn't mind that it's unrealistic to be turning cars into lockpicks. It's one of the few avenues of illegal roleplay that can be profitable for those involved, and if there were more systems in place like the car theft scripts illegal roleplay would be much better off in my opinion. The opportunities for roleplay it provides can't be understated, even if the concept of it isn't true to life.

 

I also think security systems need to be looked at. Alarms shouldn't notify anybody of what's happened, it should be based on who's around at the time. It would even encourage more realistic roleplay in my opinion, since people would have to think about where they're going to park.. who can see it, who can hear it, etc. etc. Rather than sprinting out from a club, scrolling a weapon because you got a text notification that your car you left a mile away is being broken into. 

[Moss221]

Personally, the chop shop system would make more sense if you could pull out individual mod parts from vehicles, be it engine upgrades, turbos, etc. Then in turn you can put the part into another vehicle and you avoid paying for it. To combat this, every part could get serialized, just like guns are, and if the law enforcement goes through the upgrades on your vehicle after it was used for some nefarious deeds, you'll get slapped with theft or something. (That is if the owner actually reported his parts stolen)

 

Also, performance upgrades would actually have to be priced differently, instead of lvl 1 engine upgrade costing the same as lvl 4 one. (Please just fix this already, doesn't make sense to have fully converted LS engines in some shitbox just because brrrr car go faster)

 

Now, if you make it so that the player loses his modifications you'll get people who have the best alarm in their shitboxes, they're considerably overpowered, cops just converge on you when realistically, it'd be a security company that checks it out, not the law enforcement. In real life cops have far more pressing concerns (especially in L.A.) than going and checking out an unconfirmed call about a vehicle being stolen.

 

Personally, I don't know how people who steal cars get them registered, but I know that it's possible if you have the right connections, this would be incredible to see some very expensive vehicles get stolen and then registered to another person. Of course, you'd have to have a buyer lined up, rp it properly and as it stands, it fits the criteria of an IFM scheme more than anything else.

[Trupiano]

As for car thefts? As of right now the system needs some serious work. Exactly what I'll leave to the more seasoned players in this realm, I don't do much car theft but when I have it's really just felt like a placeholder system. It's not really that enjoyable and it doesn't feel like there's that much room for creativity.

 

As for car vandalism? The issue is, nothings permanent. Yeah I can put a cim and I can hope the person RP's it, but the likelihood is they won't or if they do it will only be for an extremely brief period.  Something needs to be done to make vandalism more permanent.

 

One small suggestion, I really like the current IFM requests system and I think a CK style request for burning and permanently destroying someone's car would be great. Obviously it would require proper justification but it would add an alternatives for beef escalation that doesn't immediately involve guns and would create unique events for FD.