Comments - deliberative

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Thanks for your support!

By the way, missed a couple of your first points in my last reply, so I wanted to also say:
-- Hiring: Agreed about candidates. We want players to feel they've invested a lot in their officers (so God forbid something bad happen to them), so most will indeed start junior and take time and investment to grow.
-- Tooltips: Definite yes! This'll be a complex game, so we'll try to do everything possible from a UI standpoint to make it easy and intuitive to interact with.
-- Pathfinding: Lane-keeping and traffic hasn't been implemented at all yet, but is on the roadmap for sure.
-- Vehicle pursuits: Agreed on all those points. You'll have to make difficult decisions about what's the best tactic based on things like...how dangerously the suspect is driving, where you are (populated/not), whether they're armed, whether you have any other alternatives, etc. The availability of some tactics (like firing at the vehicle) may depend on what policies you've established, or what equipment you have (e.g. deploying spike strips).

Thanks again!

Thanks @ozzyr! Though we still have a long way to go, we're extremely excited that this is resonating with folks! Your support really means a lot!

Thanks thekillergreece! Absolutely love the detailed feedback and I'm excited to say I think we're on the same wavelength in many respects!

Regarding promotions, that's largely what we're thinking too. The type of promotions that happen relatively frequently will be somewhat automatic, but as they get higher, you have to make difficult decisions about who to promote and who not to promote, based on the department's needs and which officers are most appropriate. And due to resources and other variables, you'll be limited in who and how many people you can promote.

On the bureaucracy side - love all of that. There'll be a couple different angles. On one hand you'll be able to invest in new "capabilities" -- such as setting up a motor pool which lets you support new types of vehicles, and improves operating costs. On another hand you'll be able to implement various "programs" -- like an FTO program -- which will grant various bonuses or unlocks. On another hand you can launch "initiatives" -- like a buy-bust program, or other forms of proactive policing. And finally, set "policies" -- e.g. for use of force.

While still making for good game mechanics, we'll try to make these as realistic as possible, so that players don't feel like they're being prevented from doing what they want because of arbitrary barriers (after all, it's a sandbox!). This'll take testing and feedback from the community for sure.

As for costs: agreed. There will be a few types of "resources" in the game, including money, government influence, and community influence, and these things could cost any of them. Also, choices can have an effect on other variables too, like morale, perceived security in the community, fear of police, etc.

Love all the ideas around organized crime, and excited to chat more about that going forward! There's a lot of opportunity there, and for traditional strategy gamers that are used to having a defined "enemy" and controlling "territory", organized crime would actually make the game seem more familiar for them.

Salaries, indeed, and we're also thinking about how incorporating union relations could affect this as well.

I like the idea about immediate on-scene civilian complaints. A complaint/inquiry system is definitely planned, but complaints coming in the form of an additional call for service (from a supervisor) could make the impact of officer misconduct even more immediate.

Internal Affairs can be an interesting dynamic too, almost like counterespionage in a game of Civilization.

Thanks again for all the feedback and for your support! If the upcoming Kickstarter goes well (fingers crossed!) looking forward to being able to build on these discussions in the future!

Thanks DaEricPink, I think you've hit the nail on the head with regard to the balance we're trying to achieve. You shouldn't have to micromanage every action of your officers -- if you've hired smart ones, they can handle themselves. At the same time, you should be able to make big tactical and strategic decisions that could dramatically change the outcome of an incident. And every single incident you're faced with should be different enough that those decisions are never obvious -- you have to look at the nuances of each situation to determine what's the "right" course of action.

I won't lie, we're early in development. The purpose of the upcoming Kickstarter (later this month!) is to fund expanding the team so we can make the game right, with the level of quality it deserves. But the game's quality will also depend on extensive testing from players like you, so I will want to get alpha/beta versions into the hands of people ASAP. The Kickstarter will be one way to get on the alpha/beta lists.

Pricing is TBD, but the Kickstarter reward tiers will be discounted versus what we expect to charge upon release, and will have a bunch of extra goodies (like opportunities to play the game earlier in Alpha).

Thank you so much for your support!

Thanks for your comment liamdawe, and that's the plan. I'll definitely reach out!

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