Better-armed Enforcers

[strange island]

Something that has become pretty apparent to me is that the Enforcers are just... absolute pushovers.

I see them turn up to crime scenes, sometimes with a pistol, but often just... running around checking rooms with their fists up. I mean, they're running into fresh murder scenes, clearly with the consideration that there could still be an armed threat present (or else why would they breach and check the rooms), and half of them don't take any weapon whatsoever? The average innocent civilian is better-armed at any given time than the Enforcers are, and their armour & helmets seem to be for aesthetics only.

It really throws a wrench into the whole expectation of the player having to sneak in & out of crime scenes. The consequences for getting caught by the enforcers are pretty meagre due to their lack of equipment, as the player can often quite easily overpower them, even within the first day with the first improvised weapon found.

Why are so many of them unarmed when they literally operate out of a building that dispenses TRUNCHEONS from vending machines? Why have I literally never seen an Enforcer wield a truncheon???

[vernal patrol]

Maybe Starch Kola doesn't want to spend any money on it and they have to pay for it out of their own pocket

[strange island]

Better-armed Enforcers

[trail bear]

hm it would be cool to see them have different weapons, I could imagine a shotgun+buckshot being useful in the kind of range an enforcer works with

I'd want to see enforcers being violent and overbearing to citizens too, like obliterating a mugger that tries to mug them

not like this

[strange island]

Even then, you'd think that someone taking up the mantle of Enforcer, with the whole point of upholding the law and handling criminals, would probably make that investment if their livelihood and life depended on it, right?

As it goes currently, an average retail assistant packs more heat than an Enforcer does

Here's a table of jobs and salaries (too big to fit the whole list, so it's cropped to fit Unemployed at the top and Enforcer at the bottom).
Enforcers have a pretty much median average salary. Emphasis on median, because the salaries for company directors, site managers, and especially landlords would massively inflate a mean average.

The idea that most Enforcers are unarmed because they have to pay for their own weapons out of their own pocket still doesn't add up when citizens with half the salary - or less - are still consistently better armed almost all the time.

[jade stone]

This is meta anyways, but it could be argued that Enforcers can't bring illegally acquired weapons to their job and therefore won't be using guns and shit

But then again, if they have the money to illegally acquire firearms, why aren't they getting truncheons at least

maybe to preserve inventory space?

[vernal patrol]

would you? i mean we dont know how vulentairly starch kola put them in their jobs

in the end every enforcer also has the chance to be a killer, so that job maybe not that great

[jade stone]

Well the job may be shitty but you'd still invest in your own defense

[vernal patrol]

the main thing i want to say is that they not really have an idea of their job, so they they may not realize they needed protection
thats the reason you get arrest jobs from them, they are a bunch of incompetent corporate workers, who have no idea what they are doing

[strange island]

To be honest I think this logic is shaky at best

[jade stone]

Yeah. I think outsourced arrests may be a sign of understaffing, not incompetence

They are hugely incompetent, in terms of how their ai actually behaves in-game, but not like that's very intentional

these guys are smart enough that they do own guns and weapons, they just don't seem to bring them to their job

[strange island]

It also moves the goalposts - once the argument of providing their own weapons didn't work out, now it's that they just don't understand their own job?

Let's apply Occam's razor

Either there's an intentional but dubious in-universe reason for enforcers to be so consistently, blatantly under equipped - even though there is no hard evidence in the game that alludes to this - or it's simply another developer oversight in a game that has a lot of other existing jank with the AI already

[trail bear]

ngl I didn't think about any of those things, I just figured it would be a nice flavour to have in the game seeing enforcers be more heavily armed and itchy trigger finger blasting fathoms enjoyers trying to mug them or a high social rank echelon kinda citizen etc.

[vernal patrol]

How else do you describe enforcers who mainly shoot the roommates at a crime scene, leave footprints and fingerprints everywhere and go to the toilet at the scene?

surly totaly competent

[strange island]

I feel that you're confusing intentional incompetence as an in-universe factor, and unintentional incompetence from a meta standpoint, stemming from the AI needing to be at least somewhat simple in order for a PC to not die trying to simulate ~500 NPCs at the same time

The former being a speculation, based on observation but not backed up by any deliberate evidence - and the latter being a tangible fact that pervades throughout the core mechanics of the game

So the earlier Occam's razor example essentially still applies in much the same way here

[vernal patrol]

i more try to look at it from a lore factor, you an ex cop, replaced by that Enforcers, if they are that competent why they are allowing normal people to do their work
but maybe i see that wrong, we dont really know how enforcers come to their job, i just wanted to discuss

[trail bear]

thematically I'd like to see enforcers as sort of a force of corporate mafia/gangsters who strongarm and go blasting if the captain tells them to, but also would ignore a "fathoms zone violet 1st floor" kinda citizen getting mugged because of low social rank. I feel like in this game wealth disparity and difference in standing is a pretty prominent theme

[strange island]

The way I see it, even if there were some deliberate in-universe reason for enforcers to be so under equipped, it runs so against the expected logic and expectation of Enforcers being actually able to enforce and not being among the softest NPCs in the game, that it wouldn't make sense from a gameplay perspective even if it were intended.

I mean, they're called "Enforcers", they wear all-black uniforms and wear helmets with face shields that are frosted so it looks like their faces are censored at all times, which I suspect was the intended idea.

Their visual design and name, at least on the surface, sounds like they're supposed to be at least somewhat intimidating. However, it just doesn't gel with the fact that they're as weak as they are, to the point where if this was an intentional ironic twist (like a sort of "Blues Brothers" type scenario), I'd still consider it a questionable decision at best

[trail bear]

yea, should be armed a little better. I do feel like they have more hp than other npcs though

just a vibe

[devout moss]

Completely agree that corrupt, incompetent, even underfunded doesn't convert to being a pushover. Perhaps different levels of enforcers that you see more of as you improve your social credit or respond to crimes that are more severe or involve more privileged citizens, could resolve crime balance while keeping the lore respected.

[fiery plinth]

Every division has a captain, maybe they could function as a stronger or more competent version of the regular Enforcer

[strange island]

I like that idea actually

Give Enforcer captains shotguns, and other enforcers have a mix of pistols and truncheons, ez

I don't want to see enforcers running into crime scenes with their fists up when murders are routinely happening with guns and knives lol