Jump to content

Breakins and property alarms


big city blues

Recommended Posts

So I've recently committed several property breakins with a crew of people as part of a faction, and I'm curious to get other people's opinions/personal experiences in the matter. This thread is completely irrelevant to the fact most properties that shouldn't have alarms do actually have alarms. There was one building we were targeting and had keys to the building. After waiting about two and a half hours to finally have the request accepted, we were told that despite having keys to unlock the property, the alarm would go off no matter what. This didn't make much sense to me, but not wanting to argue with an admin, we did it anyway. We used the keys for a quick and clean entry, and the property alarm still went off. Later, when discussing with the admin about the what and the why with the alarm and some other things, I was told that apparently if a property has an alarm, it will go off 100% of the time no matter what roleplay is done. According to them, even if the property was left unlocked, "[the alarm] will need to" go off, and it's "what the admins discussed". This has almost completely killed my interest in trying to roleplay a proper break in crew, and makes absolutely zero sense. Have other people had similar experiences when the alarm went off when it shouldn't have during a breakin? Was the administrator I spoke to wrong about the matter? I have no reason to believe they are, but I would like to know what other people have experienced and think about the matter. I could understand an NPCed 911 call if people sit around in a property all day, but if there's a group of people who have the upper hand prior to committing a robbery, it makes zero sense to treat the RP the same as violently smashing into a persons house. 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
16 minutes ago, big city blues said:

we were told that despite having keys to unlock the property, the alarm would go off no matter what. This didn't make much sense to me

 

Security person here, this is actually a thing. Most alarms aren't disabled by the key, but rather they are actually legit triggered (after a delay) ANY time the door is opened during designated 'armed' periods. 

 

Ask a local store manager about it, they usually have to make a beeline for the lobby alarm panel and enter the disarm code, even despite having the keys. This is because people can steal keys, whereas memorized codes are a little harder to yoink.

 

If you have the keys but not the code, the alarm will always go off no matter what. In fact, the door opening is usually considered 'suspicious activity's, and will usually set off the alarm if the code isn't entered after a short ten to twenty second delay period (time given to enter the code).

Edited by DasFroggy
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
6 minutes ago, big city blues said:

So I've recently committed several property breakins with a crew of people as part of a faction, and I'm curious to get other people's opinions/personal experiences in the matter. This thread is completely irrelevant to the fact most properties that shouldn't have alarms do actually have alarms. There was one building we were targeting and had keys to the building. After waiting about two and a half hours to finally have the request accepted, we were told that despite having keys to unlock the property, the alarm would go off no matter what. This didn't make much sense to me, but not wanting to argue with an admin, we did it anyway. We used the keys for a quick and clean entry, and the property alarm still went off.

 

... I mean, I don't understand the complaint here. As long as I'm not mistaken, a burglar alarm IRL is activated via a code, it has nothing to do with who has a key to the door, but rather imputing the password on the console to deactivate the alarm. Even the owner of a house can trip their own alarm (and often do IRL by accident). Having the key grants you easy access to the property, but you have in no way dealt with the alarm at that stage. It going off is natural.

 

As to alarms, there should be ways to disable them, but these involve complicated moves like capitalizing on a power outage (even then, alarms often have backup batteries so it would have to be a power outage over 24-48 hours) or quite literally the safest way is by finding out the code, or in the case of Wi-Fi alarms by hacking through it in some complex way. This is why in real life statistics show that a majority of burglars will choose another target if they see signs of a house having an alarm, or will abort their robbery if they see an alarm as they enter the property.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment

As a legal rper my response to people having alarms where normally irl they wouldn't is simple. It's an IC reaction to living in the most crime riddled city in the history of the world.

 

No, as for the alarms going off 100% of the time, I do agree that if the proper development of the skills required to disarm the alarm is proven, and the alarm is disabled with proper roleplay, then yeah, I agree it should be possible to conduct a break in without the alarm going off.

Link to comment
3 minutes ago, Koko said:

As to alarms, there should be ways to disable them

 

Organize with an administrator beforehand, let them know that you're going to perform a break-in and a holdup at so and so property, and then per the timetable, secure the homeowner and force them to enter the disarm code. 

 

Not that I can speak from experience with that... My market is stolen vehicles. House break-ins are not my forte.

Link to comment
2 minutes ago, Koko said:

Even the owner of a house can trip their own alarm (and often do IRL by accident). Having the key grants you easy access to the property, but you have in no way dealt with the alarm at that stage. It going off is natural.

..

This is why in real life statistics show that a majority of burglars will choose another target if they see signs of a house having an alarm, or will abort their robbery if they see an alarm as they enter the property.

This is fair enough. My one complaint would be that I guarantee 99% of house owners who have an alarm don't actually engage in this kind of RP though. I'm willing to bet most houses don't even have a mapped alarm box to disable the alarms. I can't recall once that I've seen it mapped in at any of the properties that I've entered. How would one even be able know the property is alarmed upon entering when there isn't even a mapped in box?  I can acknowledge that the owner may be expected to enter in a code as they enter the property, but it seems unfair to expect that level of detail from a person breaking in when the owner of the house doesn't also roleplay that level of detail.

 

4 minutes ago, Scorch said:

As a legal rper my response to people having alarms where normally irl they wouldn't is simple. It's an IC reaction to living in the most crime riddled city in the history of the world.

 

I didn't want to get into the whole mass amount of alarms for that reason. My only complaint is putting alarms in their houses that are filled with illegal weapons. I wouldn't exactly want to risk the cops showing up to my place and finding my firearm laying around when clearing out the property. 

3 minutes ago, DasFroggy said:

 

Organize with an administrator beforehand, let them know that you're going to perform a break-in and a holdup at so and so property, and then per the timetable, secure the homeowner and force them to enter the disarm code.

According to what I was told, this isn't possible. Alarms will go off absolutely no matter what during a breakin. I would love to go into that level of detail, but it seems like it wouldn't get me anywhere. Why bother with that level of roleplay when I can kick the door in and get the same 30 seconds or so to spit out roleplay lines and then leave?

Link to comment
3 minutes ago, big city blues said:

This is fair enough. My one complaint would be that I guarantee 99% of house owners who have an alarm don't actually engage in this kind of RP though. I'm willing to bet most houses don't even have a mapped alarm box to disable the alarms. I can't recall once that I've seen it mapped in at any of the properties that I've entered. How would one even be able know the property is alarmed upon entering when there isn't even a mapped in box?  I can acknowledge that the owner may be expected to enter in a code as they enter the property, but it seems unfair to expect that level of detail from a person breaking in when the owner of the house doesn't also roleplay that level of detail.

I've seen plenty of alarm boxes near the door, they're definitely a furnishing in the game (or people use the thermostat item to represent it, idk). In the same way that you need physical cameras to be able to RP CCTV, I think it's reasonable to have an alarm box if you have an alarm system, to be fair, I don't oppose that. Normally in real life there'd be stickers announcing an alarm in the property to dissuade robbers in the first place, but I'd understand people not wanting an obnoxious questionmark forever in their house on the odd chance they're burgled. I'd agree to admins RPing a warning sticker outside a property/door, as IRL 99.9% of alarmed properties have these signs.

Link to comment
3 minutes ago, big city blues said:

Alarms will go off absolutely no matter what during a breakin. I would love to go into that level of detail, but it seems like it wouldn't get me anywhere.

 

Id be willing to support the suggestion of alarm codes being something that home invaders can learn/force from the homeowner in order to generously extend their search time. It would still need some balance, as gunfire and wall smashing would be more than easily heard by concerned neighbors. 

 

So, figure out the code and keep your look quiet? You should get more than an overabundance of time before anything gives you away.

 

5 minutes ago, big city blues said:

My only complaint is putting alarms in their houses that are filled with illegal weapons. I wouldn't exactly want to risk the cops showing up to my place and finding my firearm laying around when clearing out the property. 

 

This is a fair criticism, and I am totally going to tell you how to make it fun, since doing it myself would paint a HUGE target on my back.

 

If you find places like that, trigger the alarm intentionally and scoot as fast as you can. Smash up the place on the way out, and give the police something super neat to investigate.

 

Bonus points if you ditch some more incriminating evidence there to get the police even more suspicious. Might cost you a pistol, but it could compromise a whole organization.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
14 minutes ago, Koko said:

I've seen plenty of alarm boxes near the door, they're definitely a furnishing in the game (or people use the thermostat item to represent it, idk). In the same way that you need physical cameras to be able to RP CCTV, I think it's reasonable to have an alarm box if you have an alarm system, to be fair, I don't oppose that. Normally in real life there'd be stickers announcing an alarm in the property to dissuade robbers in the first place, but I'd understand people not wanting an obnoxious questionmark forever in their house on the odd chance they're burgled. I'd agree to admins RPing a warning sticker outside a property/door, as IRL 99.9% of alarmed properties have these signs.

Must just be my bad luck then, I'm sure there are people who do map it but I've just yet to encounter one of those properties. Admins RPing a warning sticker or something would be great if there's no visible object to symbolize an alarm, simply because otherwise there's no real way to tell otherwise until the alarms go off. 

 

14 minutes ago, DasFroggy said:

 

Id be willing to support the suggestion of alarm codes being something that home invaders can learn/force from the homeowner in order to generously extend their search time. It would still need some balance, as gunfire and wall smashing would be more than easily heard by concerned neighbors. 

 

So, figure out the code and keep your look quiet? You should get more than an overabundance of time before anything gives you away.

Something I had thought of in the shower would be an actual alarm script, as Koko stated alarms often go off on accident in real life so entering your own house but forget to enter a command with the code to disable your alarm? Here comes the cops. Maybe with the exception of if you log off between entering your house and the end of the 30 second timer, just in case someone crashes/enters their house and plans to log/some other circumstance that could very well happen. Being able to force the homeowner to give up their alarm codes would allow for way more in depth roleplay, as at the moment from what I know that would get you nowhere. And of course an admin should be able to NPC a 911 call if things get too loud or something else happens. I'm not asking for alarms to completely be useless, but from what I've gathered with the admin team's recent discussion regarding the matter, there's no beating them whatsoever.

 

And I've definitely thought about that and appreciate your advice. Just waiting for the right target that needs some extra police attention. 

Link to comment
  • Wuhtah locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...