Bandits and Balance

[Arakasi]

I'm relatively new to this game, but I do have a few suggestions.

1. If a guard, empire solider or group of traders kill a group of bandits, I suggest that they then loot the ones they killed for all their valuable items (i.e. weapons) either after the battle so you may be able to scavenge some if you're quick, or as they kill the bandit. And also have them loot the items from their fallen dead comrades. Because it seems to me that trading is rather redundant when you can continually lure bandit groups in the early game into a group of guards and get immensely rich scavenging and selling the items. Perhaps it could be made so they will sell the gathered items in the next town and won't carry above a certain weight, so there may still be something left to scavenge.

2. I also think that the bandits should be intelligent enough not to follow you into the vicinity of a settlement that will be easily able to dispatch them. I think that only certain, more powerful groups of bandits (possibly specialised) should try to attack settlements, and only those that have a small chance of success.

Oh, and I put a poll on it because I like polls.

[Clawdius Talonious]

This poll is rather unnecessary, as both will be functions of a more advanced AI which is already planned.

[Arakasi]

This poll is rather unnecessary, as both will be functions of a more advanced AI which is already planned.

I prefer to use polls as a means of getting the general feeling towards whatever I say, especially as the majority is probably too lazy to type out what they think of it.

On the other note, good to know that something like it is planned, I look forward to seeing it in action.

[Smiley]

i do agree on looting other peoples corpses, it would be nice to get some penalty on looting other people there spoils of war, even resulting in an attack...

Since we are in a post apocaliptic scenery, the recycling of stuff, would be fairly common and expensive stuff a reason to fight over. So taking some1s loot friend or foes will give u trouble.

[CalPal]

It wouldn't make sense for soldiers to be looting bandits. Firstly, bandits have highly inferior equipment, so there's no reason why soldiers should bother carrying around extra weapons they won't be using. Secondly, even if they do take the weapons for money, we're talking about 200 - 300 on average for each weapon. If these guys belong in a faction but have to loot to make money, they're either a very small faction that's just starting up or they're getting royally shafted by their own faction. Thirdly, as you mention, the fact that we make our money off of selling looted materials is not right. Chris will eventually fix the trading system and then, maybe then, will we finally have other means of acquiring profit.

Looting works for a wandering individual or a small group of people; it's hardly fitting for soldiers of a faction to loot for money... unless they're really, really desperate.

[Edril]

It wouldn't make sense for soldiers to be looting bandits. Firstly, bandits have highly inferior equipment, so there's no reason why soldiers should bother carrying around extra weapons they won't be using. Secondly, even if they do take the weapons for money, we're talking about 200 - 300 on average for each weapon. If these guys belong in a faction but have to loot to make money, they're either a very small faction that's just starting up or they're getting royally shafted by their own faction. Thirdly, as you mention, the fact that we make our money off of selling looted materials is not right. Chris will eventually fix the trading system and then, maybe then, will we finally have other means of acquiring profit.

Looting works for a wandering individual or a small group of people; it's hardly fitting for soldiers of a faction to loot for money... unless they're really, really desperate.

I kinda disagree with that. I can imagine that extracting iron to make weaponry could be pretty hard, so looting weapons off the corpses of people you've killed to then sell it to a tradesman, who could melt it down into iron bars to make more weapons out of it could have a certain value to it.

[Tolwrath]

Not to mention it would be kind of dumb to just leave all that equipment lying around the entrance gate to a city, or to not disarm people who just attacked you. I know if I owned a large faction, I would confiscate weapons and armor, and then sell them or use them. Every bit of profit helps. Hell real police typically auction off seized assets after the cases surrounding the items have been settled.

[Smiley]

Offc this is the difference between players and npc's.

In like every game npc's have unlimited resources: So they dont need to loot stuff while players have to if they want to earn something extra.

Well for now u cant do everything yet either: but it would be nice if we could smelt metal back to bars and reuse em (or in general salvage stuff)

In all fairness, if u got ur own outpost nicely settled in u dont need to loot the bandit swords.
But this i wouldn't really call trading either==> making the alcohol out of nothing, getting +-500c each... .

So in order to make it harder u have to make stuff hard to come by.

And how can u do this: Making resources hard to get (and limited mines) for both npc's and players.
And dont drop more stuff in the shop automaticaly but only by trade with existing items that are ingame and not magicaly pop up in the shop.
Then for the consumable goods: request vs offer ? (or however its said proper in english) with a rapid increase or decrease in price.

Offc this might be implemented later on ...

Why i also like that npc's would loot eachother would be it would add a certain difficulty in getting rich. Now i see a fight i kill the people that are left and loot everything or i wait tilll the 1s that win buzz off then loot. neither of the 2 is hard and the winnings are nice

So Big money with hardly no effort, hmm. thats not what i had in mind when i heard Chris say this game is about having to work for what u get....

[orly1861]

I guess what I envisioned when I was in real ''City''status was pretty much the same type of ''Police'' setup with several weapons racks/storage where even the rusty old horse choppers would be stored and either used as trade/iron. I would think that if anything, depending on how development of the AI attack system goes, there would be almost too much stuff lying around after futile bandit attacks against the city gates, more than you can deal with. [ I have already gotten to the point now, where I pass over alot of swag, selecting just the best of what I can find, especially if some Empire or Holy guys got themselves into a tight spot. This may change depending on how desperate the Kenshi world gets].