There are a number of crimes possible in Sociolotron. A crime is a description of a criminal situation with all the necessary data, which must then be investigated and brought to trial so that in the end the criminal can be send to prison. The following list contains these crimes and gives a short technical description of what the system considers a crime.
A rape is given when a character is holding another character outside of obvious situations like a customer holding a prostitute or a master holding a slave and the holding character has his Holding Is A Hostile Action flag set and the holding character engages in sex with the held character. Furthermore the victim must declare the rapist an abuser. In this case, a rape crime is created. If the victim has prostitution skill 3 or 4, the crime is not always created. This represents the usual perception of a known prostitute in a regular society where she is presumed to have it coming somehow.
This crime is created when you permakill another PC. This crime is always created
When a prostitute commits a job in the streets of a district where prostitution is forbidden. This crime is sometimes created, depending on the prostitution skill of the prostitute and the observation skill of the customer. If the customer is a PC guard the crime is always created.
When a character breaks into a house and a burglar alarm triggers. This crime is created depending on the thief's stealing skill and the victim's observation skill.
This crime is created when a prosecutor destroys a crime file that was filed with his office. This crime is created depending on the prosecutors oratory skill.
This crime is usually created when a character is KOed by another PC, it is not necessarily created for the first KO or the First attack(that is the first press of the attack button under the combat tab) in order to prevent an overload of crimes, but repeated KOs are considered a crime. If the victim was flashing or had a warrant, no crime is generated. A KO by a PC character will result in the a 2% xp loss for the character that was KOed.
This crime is created when illegal drugs change owner, for example when they are traded or stored in a characters locker. The crime is created for the receiver of the drugs in 75% of all cases and only in 25% of all cases for the dealer.
Sacrificing XP to a demon or summoning a demon is considered witchcraft. The crime is created depending on the character's intelligence and cult skill
Once a crime is created, it is contained in a Crime Scene object which basically looks like the outline of a dead person on the ground. For crimes that were committed in a private room, the device is created on the street outside the house. When you double-click it, the following dialog comes up:
The list contains all crimes that were created at this location. If the same type of crime between the same two characters is created more than once, only one crime will be entered here. When a crime is created against a character it is deactivated which means, nobody can start an investigation. This is so because sometimes a crime is created between friends accidentally and in this case there can be no investigation against the victim's will. In order to activate a crime, select it and click the Activate button. However the following crimes are activated automatically:
You can also destroy a crime case if you are the victim. To do so, select the case and click Destroy. The crime will not be destroyed immediately but rather after the second restart of the server. This is to keep characters from forcing a victim to destroy a crime case. When you select a case for destruction and come back anytime before it is destroyed and click Reset Destruction when you have it selected, the destroy order is eliminated.
A crime that is not in trial at the judge level, times out and disappears after 30 days. All files of the crime will also disappear after that time.
Once a crime is activated, it must be investigated before it can go to court. This means that a main suspect must be found. To do so, you first need a file to work on. Each character can assemble a file from a case only once, but every character can get his own copy and start independed investigations.
Once you have a file, double click it which brings up the following dialog:
Actually the dialog is a so called property sheet with different pages. The pages are shown like little tabs at the top of the dialog and there are different once depending on the crime and the state the crime is in. This start page allows you, to assemble clues from the crime scene. Consider this the initial task of a detective who examines the scene, speaks to witnesses and so on. The clues you collect go into your file. To do that, you must stand next to the crime scene and you must have at least 1 observation skill. You will then receive a number of clues in the above list. These clues are of the following type:
If there is at least one witness description, you receive a new Tab that brings up the following page:
You see a body description in the top part. Beware that some of the description sections can be altered by the criminal by using for instance a hairbrush. However skin color, height, and gender remain the same. The list under this description will be filled with characters, who fit this description. As you collect mug shots of characters of the given skin color and put them into your file by dragging them on your file while it's in your inventory you will get a growing list of suspects. Behind each suspect there is a number representing, how often this particular suspect was identified. You can think of mug shots as evidence that you gather when you go around and ask various people about the descriptions of the criminal you got from the witnesses at the crime scene. Since it is not possible to implement such a process in a multiplayer game, we have included the simplified concept of mug shots. Think of them as further statements that you get from people you question about the crime. Their information about certain suspects is then condensed into a mug shot object which you can put in your file. Over time one suspect will stand out because he is identified more than others. Once you get a significant increase in the number one suspect was identified over the others, you may suspect him to be the criminal.
Mug shots are dropped by NPCs and you find them often in player run vendors all over London.
Another sort of clues are the traces. These are evidence that is collected in a CSI like manner, and they may lead to the criminal just as his description. When you have at least one trace you get another Tab with the following content:
At the top there is the type of the trace, DNA, Fingerprint and so on and the list below will be filled with the list of suspects to whom the trace leads, just as in the description clue. You fill this clue with DNA records, Fingerprint records and so on. Consider these to be statement of experts to whom you show the clues you have collected at the crime scene. Again, to make things manageable for a multiplayer game we have simplified the process. Various crafting skills can create those records and the players can put them up for sale. You will then buy a number of records of the type of which you have clues in your file and then add them to the file by drag and drop. Again, this will fill up the list with suspects and the number of times the suspect was identified.
Making and selling trace objects pays off to. If your traces are used in a crime file that leads to a conviction, you will receive some XP.
All in all you could fill up a crimefile with just one type of clue but often you won't find enough records of just one type so you will have to combine various types. IN the end, all that counts is to find out that one suspect stands out from the others by sheer numbers. Once you feel confident enough to name a main suspect you can consider the case closed and hand it over to the prosecutor or you may wait for the next prosecutor if you think that the current one is corrupt. You may also try to blackmail the main suspect and sell your file to him. However, don't wait too long since the crime times out after 30 days if it is not prosecuted.
Once you think your crime is investigated enough, you can file it with the prosecutor from a terminal. Select the crime, then select the terminal, select the Justice page and click File With Prosecutor.
The prosecutor will now decide whether the crime was investigated enough, declare the main suspect and hand the file over to the judge or he may decide that the file needs more investigation and hand a copy to a guard. The whole prosecutor process is explained in detail in the prosecutor section.
As described in the judge section, once a crime is with the judge and he decides to open it for trial, there is no going back any more. Of course a judge can decide to let a crime rot in his archives until it times out.
(c) 2005, Sociolotronics LLC