UK Criminal Investigations (CID) - Community Research

Whitchit as a preface im in US, and i understand this is UK, but ill add my thoughts, just incase its developed, and US could be in line after .... I do like the total idea - instead of serious sxual offences - id say use a more general - Special victims, with extension and training( special victims unit) the forensics department and unit as an extension - with lab tech training ( not other extension specific - but needed across the board)( and one lab unit needed for any call unless its really huge ie mass shooter). please keeep up the good work, you and all the advisors do try hard. thanks

I think the first important starting question is actually how it will mechanically intergrate into the existing gameplay.

Would it simply be a new set of units and missions and you just need to attach said new units to both a set of existing and new calls (like we have had for the railway policing addition) or would it actually add a new layer to the game?

Id personally prefer the latter. Where its not just one call, but a chain, a narrative almost, being played out.

So something like:

Standard call (insert basically any here, like a basic stop and search) requiring existing units.

This could then either lead to a follow on call that needs CID or it could be something akin to a "patient" (not actually a patient, but visually represented in a similar way, X thing to investigate, such as evidence, with an independent progress bar) spawning after the fact that then requires a CID to "deal with"

This should then lead onto another call like a wanted vehicle or police raid. This could then have the same "evidence" mechanic too.

Then this in turn could do the same.

Whether this is the extent of it, or they add something entirely new and different like a sequence of jobs that upon completion of the set, give a bonus, is something the devs would have to decide if at all possible. But having "investigations" then where multiple, inter-linked calls, that each need to be completed to progress would be very cool mechanic to have.

So I think the key to making CID not just another set of units to dispatch to a handful of new calls, is to actually make it meaningful in some way. From that then, it would be clear what kind of calls would work, and what kind of units or extensions would be needed, (like evidence storage capacity could be a thing)

I do think though that there should be 2 halves to it, rural and urban, not just different calls, but maybe also different extensions? But that would add to the immersion quite nicely I think.

I think Morvran's idea about mission chains/mission expansions is a good one - it would be nice for these missions to 'emerge' from selected existing policing missions.

I would just like to chip in that I would want such chains not to count under mission expansion for the purposes of the settings option to disable expansion. I regularly turn expansion off so that I can play when I am time-limited and don't want to come back to an expanded mission held up for missing units.

In addition to these chains, I feel some CID missions should be their own thing, and spawn independently rather than emerge from other missions.

I like Morvran's idea about investigations being a more involved thing than just missions, although I feel practically that may be quite ambitious due to the necessity for new game code in those circumstances, where a new extension/training etc is a much more minor code change or may even be done entirely in the database depending how they have things set up. I've limited my suggestions below to being more 'traditional' for missionchief, but I just want to be clear that Morvran's more in-depth suggestion is cooler than what I've brought to the table, and if the devs were up for a more code-intensive pack then I think a proper investigation system would be excellent. That said...

Quote

1. Gameplay:

• How would you expect / envisage CID to exist in-game?
• What training and vehicles would you expect?
• What extensions?
• How would you price it all?
• What would the requirements be at missions?

CID could exist in a few different ways, but I think being realistic about the amount of dev time that will be reasonably spent, I'll tailor my views towards something more in line with how other content packs/extensions have worked.

I would expect CID to be an extension of a police station, requiring staff trained in Criminal Investigations (or whatever course title). I feel there should be one extension for CID, but possibly a couple of different advanced additional trainings on top of Criminal Investigations: Financial Investigation, Public Protection Investigation (or Missing Person Investigations), Intelligence Gathering, and possibly Vehicle Crime and/or Cyber Crime Investigations depending how wide the scope of the pack will be. These would be courses and would match with mission requirements for X personnel trained in Y, rather than to man specific vehicles (eg., no 'fraud squad car' etc), and generally not '3 detective cars' or whatever.

Vehicles-wise, I would think about an unmarked car to represent unmarked pool cars to transport detective personnel to missions, and a covert car for surveillance missions. I'm a bit stumped about what other vehicles I'd expect from a CID pack, given that we're not including forensics which I think would otherwise be a good fit (but I understand why it may not be going into this pack).

In terms of pricing, I wouldn't mind if the extensions were a touch on the more expensive side (as many more specialist things seem to be).

Quote

2. Mission Content:

• What crime types do you want to see?
• What types of missions would you be comfortable with?
• What types of missions would you be uncomfortable with?

Congruent with the above:

• General crime/district crime: stuff like burglaries, robberies, arson, etc. These are the types of non-specialist crime covered by the generic Criminal Investigations training, and the default missions granted by the CID expansion on its own. Could cover some rural crime stuff too.
• Financial crime: fraud, money laundering, seizures of proceeds of crime, identity theft, etc.
• Public protection: a little limited due to sensitivity questions on some of the stuff, but I think missing persons stuff is fine, modern slavery (might need to workshop the titles of missions there to get the devs to go with it, I reckon), kidnapping (refactor the existing Kidnapping mission here, or add a similar one).
• Intelligence gathering: surveillance, interviews at stations or at random addresses, managing/meeting/rescuing CHIS.
• Vehicle crime: county lines (given we probably won't get specialised drugs stuff), plate cloning operation, chop shops, high value vehicle theft ring, etc. Crime occurring thanks to the roads, or directed towards vehicles.
• Cyber crime: computer misuse, hacking, ransomware, etc. I feel this could be a little thin on its own, but then we do have some extensions and/or training with basically only one or two missions, so maybe we don't need to overthink how many missions we can get into this category.

Personally I am comfortable with any kind of mission. I recognise that the developers want to steer clear of some types of mission. I do think it would be a shame not to be able to include some of the HMET and/or organised crime stuff, I think it's possible to be vague enough on some stuff, and justify others with what's permitted in other game versions. For example, the US version has more variations on kidnappings and similar serious crime, so I do think if possible some kind of major enquiries training/extension would be welcome by most players, even if it rolled some non-sensitive organised crime in there. This could allow for content covering things like armed robbery, smuggling, serious assaults, major manhunts, etc.

In terms of what I think ought be avoided, obviously no death/terror, and I think anything that touches on sexual offences is asking for trouble. I also get the sense that - given we've previously had missions with a named illegal drug in their title subsequently renamed a few days after being published - being specific about drugs might not be wise; I assumed there might be some app store-related issue there.

One additional thing I'd like to highlight is that the pack should maximise cross-operation with other content packs. Let's see a mission or two that ties into airport policing and railway policing (smuggling investigations, serious assaults); tie some misper missions into search and rescue; require some regular traffic cars and recovery vehicles in the vehicle crime missions. Include some armed police requirements on some missions. Also look at which POIs that are either unused or under-used might be included. I know for example banks are totally unused and are a good opportunity for a robbery/armed robbery CID mission to include. Basically look to use this CP to add incidentally to other CPs which are less feature heavy - the railway CP did this really well.

Apologies this is late - have been fighting to find the time to it and organise my thoughts on this. Likely incoherent as I'm tired, but I think a CID pack is a great call and has strong opportunities to be interesting.

Quote from omnishambles

I think Morvran's idea about mission chains/mission expansions is a good one - it would be nice for these missions to 'emerge' from selected existing policing missions.

I would just like to chip in that I would want such chains not to count under mission expansion for the purposes of the settings option to disable expansion. I regularly turn expansion off so that I can play when I am time-limited and don't want to come back to an expanded mission held up for missing units.

In addition to these chains, I feel some CID missions should be their own thing, and spawn independently rather than emerge from other missions.

I like Morvran's idea about investigations being a more involved thing than just missions, although I feel practically that may be quite ambitious due to the necessity for new game code in those circumstances, where a new extension/training etc is a much more minor code change or may even be done entirely in the database depending how they have things set up. I've limited my suggestions below to being more 'traditional' for missionchief, but I just want to be clear that Morvran's more in-depth suggestion is cooler than what I've brought to the table, and if the devs were up for a more code-intensive pack then I think a proper investigation system would be excellent. That said...

CID could exist in a few different ways, but I think being realistic about the amount of dev time that will be reasonably spent, I'll tailor my views towards something more in line with how other content packs/extensions have worked.

I would expect CID to be an extension of a police station, requiring staff trained in Criminal Investigations (or whatever course title). I feel there should be one extension for CID, but possibly a couple of different advanced additional trainings on top of Criminal Investigations: Financial Investigation, Public Protection Investigation (or Missing Person Investigations), Intelligence Gathering, and possibly Vehicle Crime and/or Cyber Crime Investigations depending how wide the scope of the pack will be. These would be courses and would match with mission requirements for X personnel trained in Y, rather than to man specific vehicles (eg., no 'fraud squad car' etc), and generally not '3 detective cars' or whatever.

Vehicles-wise, I would think about an unmarked car to represent unmarked pool cars to transport detective personnel to missions, and a covert car for surveillance missions. I'm a bit stumped about what other vehicles I'd expect from a CID pack, given that we're not including forensics which I think would otherwise be a good fit (but I understand why it may not be going into this pack).

In terms of pricing, I wouldn't mind if the extensions were a touch on the more expensive side (as many more specialist things seem to be).

Congruent with the above:

• General crime/district crime: stuff like burglaries, robberies, arson, etc. These are the types of non-specialist crime covered by the generic Criminal Investigations training, and the default missions granted by the CID expansion on its own. Could cover some rural crime stuff too.
• Financial crime: fraud, money laundering, seizures of proceeds of crime, identity theft, etc.
• Public protection: a little limited due to sensitivity questions on some of the stuff, but I think missing persons stuff is fine, modern slavery (might need to workshop the titles of missions there to get the devs to go with it, I reckon), kidnapping (refactor the existing Kidnapping mission here, or add a similar one).
• Intelligence gathering: surveillance, interviews at stations or at random addresses, managing/meeting/rescuing CHIS.
• Vehicle crime: county lines (given we probably won't get specialised drugs stuff), plate cloning operation, chop shops, high value vehicle theft ring, etc. Crime occurring thanks to the roads, or directed towards vehicles.
• Cyber crime: computer misuse, hacking, ransomware, etc. I feel this could be a little thin on its own, but then we do have some extensions and/or training with basically only one or two missions, so maybe we don't need to overthink how many missions we can get into this category.

Personally I am comfortable with any kind of mission. I recognise that the developers want to steer clear of some types of mission. I do think it would be a shame not to be able to include some of the HMET and/or organised crime stuff, I think it's possible to be vague enough on some stuff, and justify others with what's permitted in other game versions. For example, the US version has more variations on kidnappings and similar serious crime, so I do think if possible some kind of major enquiries training/extension would be welcome by most players, even if it rolled some non-sensitive organised crime in there. This could allow for content covering things like armed robbery, smuggling, serious assaults, major manhunts, etc.

In terms of what I think ought be avoided, obviously no death/terror, and I think anything that touches on sexual offences is asking for trouble. I also get the sense that - given we've previously had missions with a named illegal drug in their title subsequently renamed a few days after being published - being specific about drugs might not be wise; I assumed there might be some app store-related issue there.

One additional thing I'd like to highlight is that the pack should maximise cross-operation with other content packs. Let's see a mission or two that ties into airport policing and railway policing (smuggling investigations, serious assaults); tie some misper missions into search and rescue; require some regular traffic cars and recovery vehicles in the vehicle crime missions. Include some armed police requirements on some missions. Also look at which POIs that are either unused or under-used might be included. I know for example banks are totally unused and are a good opportunity for a robbery/armed robbery CID mission to include. Basically look to use this CP to add incidentally to other CPs which are less feature heavy - the railway CP did this really well.

Apologies this is late - have been fighting to find the time to it and organise my thoughts on this. Likely incoherent as I'm tired, but I think a CID pack is a great call and has strong opportunities to be interesting.

Display More

Maybe collision investigation and serious collision investigation as well?

Quote from Whitchit

I have deliberately missed out:

• Collision investigation
• Forensics
• Serious and organised crime
• Counter-terrorism

These are not expected to feature in an initial investigations content pack due to the level of detail I am hoping can be put into it.

Hmcqueen04 whitchit has already brought up collision investigation not being in the first pack.

Personally i’d love to see everything aforementioned by others however id like to see other areas some may may stray away from.

Personally id love to see Drug Related Crime - The US version has a “Drug Deal”, several calls relating to “Drug Labs”, “Drug Smuggling” as-well as “Drug Warrants” so its not totally out the question. Perhaps doing it Class A / Class B / Class C instead of specific names like “Cannabis” “Heroine” would help? Id love to see drug manufactoring, selling etc. This would tie in nicely with other areas id like to see expanded such as inclusion of Traffic Cars for these crimes, aswell as roads policing and firearms being used in the enforcement of this. Such as within County-Lines enforcement As mentioned before I want this to tie into existing content, not standalone. Railway Policing did this VERY well, please continue in this route!

Please do not shy away from more “Violent” crime such as Armed Robberies, Muggings, Robbery, GBHs, Firearms etc. However Sexual Assault and Counter Terrorist a complete no go imo. (As a side note id like to see missions covered by CID that aren't available for response/frontline units added, so if we can investigate armed robberies, muggings let me respond to an ongoing one)

Interms of pricing & and units id like to see CID be relatively expensive with an extension at 150-200k (with parking spaces please!) Then just a standard “Unmarked Police Car” (which counts as an irv aswell) where all mission requirements are done through staff, not vehicles. I specifically do not want to see “Financial Crime Detetetive Vehicle”, “Burgulary Detective Vehicle” etc

Gooochy I know but I meant as a future pack. Sorry I didn’t make it clear