Heists 2.0

[medieval_knievel]

(Note: this started with a clear idea I wanted to get across. By the end I started rambling. Sorry)

So, lets talk about heists (and somewhat about robberies) today in BLRP. As of now, you grab a safe cracking kit and nab yourself a hostage (or don’t) and if you need a car make sure you pick-up a lockpick and find a parked car and nab it. Then head over to the store.

Initiate the robbery, wait a bit, RP with the police (go full confrontational or hey maybe you’re part of the electrical company hired to run new wiring in the back room and this is all a misunderstanding, or maybe you’ve got your hostage singing twinkle twinkle little star to drown out PD) and at the end of it out pops some cash, or some handcuffs. Or maybe PD doesn’t honor the deal you make to trade the hostage for safe passage to your car and you catch a taser in the mouth.

But now, we’re talking about BLRP 2.0 the skies the limit. So, let’s turn heists into 2.0 as well. Some of these will be smaller suggestions, and some “grand plan” ideas I have. Now overall, I don’t know whats in the realm of possibility as it relates to APIs and what’s available for you guys to hook into but I’ll throw it all out there.

Let’s start with getting a car. Why can’t we hold up a local, have a percentage chance they get out of their car. Then we forego the need for a lockpick. But to make it interesting, let’s say there’s a chance the local “calls” PD. Like drug rejection alerts PD gets now they also get an alert of a stolen car. And if we wanted there’s a small percentage chance the report includes info of the vehicle, maybe vehicle make and color, and in lower chances the license plate as well because how many people know their license plate by heart? Now as the thief of the vehicle, do I go and pay a fee to respray the car? Do I hope that the local didn’t call PD? Do I yolo it?

Now let’s turn to robberies. ATMs are littered about the city. Those puppies hold a good amount of cash in them. Why can’t I take a bat, a safe cracking kit, or hell tow the thing right out of the wall and try and open it later. The robbery itself should take a bit, not super long as you’re exposed and the idea when robbing ATMs is to get the cash quick or the whole thing and open it later. If you’re pulling an ATM out of the wall, better pray it doesn’t have a GPS in it and alert PD of it’s location. And the cash out of it will probably be dirty, but dirty money can still be used in ways.

But that’s small-time stuff. ATMs, 10-20k, robbing cars..psh, that’s not the work a highly organized group pulls off. Highly organized groups want the big fish, the big score. And there’s an amazing opportunity right in downtown Vinewood, right on Vinewood Blvd. I’m talking about the bank. So there’s a few different way’s to hitting the bank, with some planning, and a little bit of luck, there’s a lot to be earned from the bank. And coordinating all this over TokoVOIP makes this easier. So let’s walk through them.

First, we need to consider the banks security systems. There are cameras, locked doors, and the vault itself.

Let’s focus on the cameras. We have two options when it comes to the cameras. We can cut power to the bank, which has impacts on the rest of the robbery, or we can clear the local servers of the video before we leave (in this bank the IT department sucks, so video stays on premise).

So, let’s talk about cutting power. Palmer-Taylor Power Station just so happens to provide power to the Vinewood area. Now there are four smokestacks, each providing power to a different region of Vinewood. In-order to cut power to the bank you need to craft some explosive, or buy some, plant it on the machinery at the base of the stack, defend it until the timer runs out, and hope you picked the right stack. The only issue is that the stack providing power to the bank rotates depending on city grid needs. Thankfully, the foreman will leave the plant from time to time and if you can get it off him he carries documentation that outlines which generators are powering what regions of Vinewood for the day (server cycle).

So you can either blow all stacks or go for a more surgical approach. Regardless the method, the best idea is to send one person from the crew to do this solo as the bank has backup generators. Once the power goes out you only have a small window to pull this off.

One final thing to keep in mind, the city has recently hired highly trained local guards to defend the plant. So you can go in loud and fight to pull it off, or dress as one of them, blend in, and hope no one catches you before the bomb goes off. Regardless the method, PD isn’t usually called in as these guys are trained and aren’t worried about trading fire.

If cutting the power sounds like too much work, or you don’t wanna risk being a man down, you can clear the server at the bank. In one of the upstairs offices you’ll find the IT rooms, you can access the computer that controls the cameras, some door locks, and SOME of the vault security measures. You’ll need to know how to “hack” your way into these systems and it will take a little time but not as nosiy as blowing up things at the power station. On the topic of hacking, its a process that requires some interaction from your team member so you better hope their skills are up to par.

If you manage to hack into the systems, you can unlock the doors to the vault room (if you don’t have a keycard from a guard, which we will get into) clear the cameras and stop recording, and disengage a portion of the vaults security bolts, shortening your time to drill into the vault.

On the topic of keycards, similar to the foreman at the powerplant there are some locals at the bank during the day, when they go home they sometimes forget to turn in their keycards. If you can get a keycard off these guards you can get into the vault room without issue.

Now that the cameras and vault room access are taken care of, we need to access the vault. There’s a new item at the black market, a vault cracking kit. Different from the safe cracking kit to rob stores, the vault cracking kit is bigger, requires a strong set of arms to carry it and a bigger car to get it to the bank. Once there setting it up takes time, so does drilling. Unfortunately, this kit is from overseas and tends to overheat so someone will need to baby sit it.

Once in the vault you have a few options. You can snag all the money scattered about the vault and jet, or you can be a little greedy and lockpick your way through some of the safe boxes. These boxes contain gold, diamonds, money, on rarer occasions deeds to apartments, cars, or maybe even some rare weapons that will fetch a big price on the streets. You better be good with a lockpick though as this requires some interaction and isn’t set it and forget it.

If all goes well, it all goes off without a hitch and the cops are none the wiser and your team just hit the big time.

So at a high level those are some of my ideas about how you expand heists. Make them multi-stage with impacts on how the job goes. You can extend these ideas so that “hacking” terminals can impact store robberies or locking can be used on ATMs. Again, all with interaction. Nothing here is set it and forget it.

The ideas of NPCs carrying items on them to help in the robbery or heist can be expanded too. Maybe you want to get into city hall and clear your criminal history (btw, should we introduce criminal history?) and a lot of these ideas or concepts can be applied to a city hall job. Or maybe you want to insert something on a rivals record.

This might be a separate post but I think we should address the economy too. I think in general firearms are too readily available and sale of property or vehicles isn't possible. Specifically around firearms and the interactions between players. Right now, anyone wants a gun, they go buy one. Maybe look to reduce the amount available for purchase at ammunations and try and encourage player to player sales. Or maybe I have an old pistol I don't need anymore so I sell it back to ammunation. Maybe I bought a dominator I don't need anymore and the city doesn't buy back as many cars so I have to try and sell it. Or maybe an apartment or house I bought isn't cutting it for me anymore so I want to sell it to someone new to the city. 

Heist idea: armored trucks. Maybe players can “pay” a local at a local for info on armored truck runs. These runs can have money, guns, seized drugs, etc. Similar to cops paying informants these locals can feed into to players. Armored runs don’t happen all the time, but when they do they’re worth it. Any armored convoys attacked will eventually alert police. Their routes vary and the amount of units accompanying the truck vary.

 

[Sam]

Beautifully crafted ideas I love the creativity!

I like how many factors go into robbing a bank it sounds like a actual heist instead of just using a safe cracking kit and waiting for a timer.

1 hour ago, medieval_knievel said:

The only issue is that the stack providing power to the bank rotates depending on city grid needs. Thankfully, the foreman will leave the plant from time to time and if you can get it off him he carries documentation that outlines which generators are powering what regions of Vinewood for the day (server cycle).

This is my favorite part and little details like this are really what make a difference in the long run!

Edited July 23, 2019 by Isaiah Rashad

[Caralanco]

Amazing, love the amount of thought you put into this!

Amount of approaches, need for preparation, maintenance and coordination..
Few things don't make sense such as property deeds, would be obvious they were stolen and would require many things in order to claim it.
Nit picking but seriously, fantastic!

Big +1

Edited July 24, 2019 by Oscar Wilde

[Smojo]

+99

[yNot]

On ‎7‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 5:08 PM, medieval_knievel said:

1/3 Let’s focus on the cameras. We have two options when it comes to the cameras. We can cut power to the bank, which has impacts on the rest of the robbery, or we can clear the local servers of the video before we leave (in this bank the IT department sucks, so video stays on premise).

2. So, let’s talk about cutting power. Palmer-Taylor Power Station just so happens to provide power to the Vinewood area. Now there are four smokestacks, each providing power to a different region of Vinewood. In-order to cut power to the bank you need to craft some explosive, or buy some, plant it on the machinery at the base of the stack, defend it until the timer runs out, and hope you picked the right stack. The only issue is that the stack providing power to the bank rotates depending on city grid needs. Thankfully, the foreman will leave the plant from time to time and if you can get it off him he carries documentation that outlines which generators are powering what regions of Vinewood for the day (server cycle).

So you can either blow all stacks or go for a more surgical approach. Regardless the method, the best idea is to send one person from the crew to do this solo as the bank has backup generators. Once the power goes out you only have a small window to pull this off.

One final thing to keep in mind, the city has recently hired highly trained local guards to defend the plant. So you can go in loud and fight to pull it off, or dress as one of them, blend in, and hope no one catches you before the bomb goes off. Regardless the method, PD isn’t usually called in as these guys are trained and aren’t worried about trading fire.

On ‎7‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 5:08 PM, medieval_knievel said:

4. If all goes well, it all goes off without a hitch and the cops are none the wiser and your team just hit the big time.

 

1. If the bank has cameras, their only use would for the PD to see whos in there and disguises make that kinda useless.

2. As for the power plant thing, imo a better idea is for an item called an electronic kit like in nopixel (or some kind of hacking device) and use it on some structures in the said power plant by Vinewood PD. Where those things that need to be hacked are is figured by breaking in (lockpick) and looking for yourself. Police are notified when its broken into, but if youre smart enough you can RP through it and not get caught.

3. If you successfully hack the things inside the plant then instead of cameras not working, have the first 2 doors leading to the fault be opened. would make getting in and quicker since those doors would require cards or lockpicks

4. Dont think it would be anywhere near fair if there was a way to do this without any alerts

All in all there are some good ideas in your post, but some are just too detailed and too AI focused. Still bumped tho +1