Unfortunately "carbon copying a historically shit concept (Avalon) and merging it with another equally as shit concept (USCM's idea of border control)" is not against server rules, so a private report would not do anything. It would also not be as entertaining as this.
I'm liking that some of the criticisms are getting constructive here and some of you are seeing our points. Hell, the electric barriers aren't invincible either. When the guy shot out the scanner and busted his way through, I let him shoot them out with a regular assault rifle. They can be easily broken with most guns, just shoot the metal thingy that projects them. Anyways, I kind of agree with the post saying funding limits us a lot. I realize having reasons for things to exist like this is important, and a big factor in believability but it really kind of puts a wrench in the creative building of colonies. By now could we maybe explain it by the initial funding being some sort of grant payed back by the business and tourism the place has attracted? Because there was one Saturday a while back where the servers 50 people limit was reached, and the majority of them were on gum. Even if it is empty sometimes now, it was booming back when it first started. Or if that's not good enough, maybe say it's still being payed back by funds the colony earns. The scanners aren't really metal detectors though, they are X-Rays like the ones that scan luggage in airports. But they wouldn't be able to do anything if you used a loophole. For example: beaming down somewhere else, if the weapon was concealed/apart of you or your armor, like a boba fett wrist mounted flame thrower, a mega-buster if you want to be retro, or maybe if you had a gun or weapon that at first glance fit qualifications, but could maybe extend blades to become a sword if It was a knife, or if you brought a machine pistol that looks like a regular pistol. You could sneak a bomb or grenades in if you hid it inside you (( gross, but yeah it doesn't scan you or your bones, it could work)), if you beamed down and left the weapon somewhere else secretly, then came back regularly to avoid suspicion, or if you go full Rambo and shoot out the barrier and scanners. But also you could maybe snatch an officer's gun, or have a large gun with several parts, and put it together when past the scanner. Getting caught wouldn't land you that much of a punishment, officers would just tell you to head back up unless you chose the Rambo approach or snatched their guns. You could get guns while on the planet if you raided the police station and took spare guns or weapons from the storage. If you succeeded at doing this, it would also give you a set of police armor if you took it that could make a useful disguise. This would be tricky to do, but also tricky for the police to stop, because one of the ways to do this requires blowing up the elevator shaft to skip having an access card, or pick pocketing the card from a cop. There are at least a million loopholes to them, if you want to bring a gun in, the scanners are literally optional. One other thing, Gum becoming a military faction is pretty dumb. We have a police team with less than ten members, usually only about two or three of them get on frequently, and their jurisdiction stays in Gum. They've never done a single militaristic thing outside of Gum aside from tracking people or looking for leads on crimes committed inside of Gum. Really they're just the equivalent of a City's PD in gum. One of the proposed names was even GPD, though we landed on GSF.
I'd suggest finding out the exact amount of money you have right now, and how much money you'd need to pay back. Talk with the people running the business on how much you'd guys get in taxes, etc etc.
Alright, fine. Maybe it's time I post something. So yeah, lets go over the major concerns for Gum: Isn't likely to have enough funds for the whole place. How is a teenage mutant ninja hylotl able to govern the place? It just sprung up, out of no where. Things that AREN'T a major concern: (Meaning I won't discuss this) The place looks UGLY! The whole idea is just STUPID. I HATE it! Its a COPY of <Insert Colony Here>! I dislike that they have <Insert Technology That's Available Today Here>, because it stops me from letting me raid and do whatever I want to the colony! These are opinions, and are in no way a compelling argument. Lets keep them out of the thread. So, as far as funding goes. I'll admit it. I never really did have a great source of income that did not involve money from her back story. However, I do feel, as others have suggested, that the whole "IC funding" and "Server economy" really limits players in their creativity. Gum was mostly a place I could have for my own creativity as a builder, but it became a more fully fledged colony as it went by. What would be my solution to the unintentional suppression to our creativity? Allow players to bring in more funds from their IC background. Am I asking to allow players to join as fully decked-out trillionaires? No. What I'm saying is to give them more of a choice so that they don't have to choose between starting out with a moderate amount of money, or just being plain broke. I just admitted to having no funds IC beside from back story. What now? Lets discuss IC funding. If you think about it, the server has no real economy. Players join with said limited budget. If you think about it, everyone pulled out money from somewhere, including their IC background. Why? Because it's impossible to really get a large amount of money to build up a decent (In modernness or size) colony. So whats the end result? Players are forced to, for lack of a better term, pull out the money from their ass. The community likes to pile onto people for this, when really, I'm sure that in many situations, people have wanted to start a colony, or a faction, or a something, but couldn't. Why? Simply because of the limit on what we can have ICly. Furthermore, lets talk about what really separates Gum from the rest of the colonies (Besides appearance or governing, because this varies throughout all colonies): It has a scanner. Were you expecting a longer list? This is what makes Gum different at first glance. Its technology. Which is routed directly back to funds. "Oh, but this kinda technology is expensive and fake and I don't like it." Let me tell you what Gum's scanners really are. They are basically large versions on the x-ray scanners you would find in schools or airports. Obviously, they are not that expensive if a school can afford multiple of them. Also, seeing how there is a abundance of materials literally everywhere on every planet, I would expect the price for one to go down, and we only have two. This goes for also everything else you can find on the planet. Does it really cost billions and billions of dollars to create such a place? Maybe in our time and society. However, do remember that ICly, we live 400 years in the future, where you can find practically anything on any planet. I'm not one to really justify the whole "It's in the future" thing for my possessions ICly, but it feels like if there isn't some kind of essay backing up how and why your said belonging works, then it's suddenly frowned upon, and sometimes it's not even the players fault. Perhaps they aren't able to explain it. Does that mean that they are wrong in bringing in such a belonging? Not necessarily. It would simply put yet another limit on their creativity. I don't think that there's a bad sense of judgement floating around, just more of a biased one, based on today's economy, and today's source of materials. Am I saying that you should suddenly be able to buy thousands and thousands of blocks for 1 pixel? No. I'm saying that the cost for a place like Gum, in the time and setting the server's environment has been placed in, is greatly overestimated. We may also overlook the fact that Gum does produce money from it's citizens from places like the apartments, and shops. What will I do now? Gum has not broken any rules of the CoC. It has simply gone against what (sometimes biased) players see as fit and unfit. Therefore, I will not do anything unless otherwise told by a moderator. If you guys feel the need to remove Gum, bring it up with them, and they will bring it up with me, and it will be removed. Simple. Let's get back to the governing part. How can someone like Yukari govern such a place like Gum? I'm not sure how many of you have actually RPed on Gum, or even seen it. However, when Yukari is around, she does very little. It's mostly her police force, the GSF that looks around the place. In fact, she mostly just strolls around. Now here's the point your just dying to post: "But the place NEEDS active governing!" Does it really? Gum doesn't have a list of rules everyone can look at, simply because it has yet to become a listed colony when I applied for it. Seems like it hasn't been accepted for the reasons I'm typing up now. Basically, the player is the one who sets the standard for them self within Gum. It's mostly a common sense thing. You beam down, you get checked out for weapons, and your let in. Yukari is usually active in Gum, so everyone can bring up their concerns directly to her. Beside that, not much is really governed by her, so it leaves Gum open, intentionally. She wouldn't be able to lead it alone, which is why the GSF was created, and why she has designated leaders to make decisions when she is not able to, and even when she is. But wait, it just sprung up out of like, thin air!... Nope. Gum has been around long before it became more active. About 1-2 months before this period, it was private, and barley no one went there. There was very little to begin with, and buildings were not constructed over night. During this rather long period of keeping it private, I had talked to a member of the community on ways to improve Gum, and one of them was to make it public, and so I did. The place did not spring out of no where. It has existed for roughly 1-2 months before going public, and roughly 1-2 months being public. The place is old, and is in no way to be considered to had just "popped up" out of no where. You can ask some of the members of the community, and they will say the same thing. Gum was NOT created in a 1-week period. It has been up and running for nearly 3-4 months now. As for my final comments, allow me to just say that the community members are not robots. Though you say it over the internet, it can still have a impact on the person in real life. Not everyone is affected by it, but some are. So, starting now, just please be weary of what your next comment is, and how it will not only affect who its going to, but everyone else, and even yourself. That is all.
Agreed. These are all the points I've been trying to make, and then some. Gum was under construction long before most people knew about it, and then there's the business it gets making it better too
Oh yeah, how could I forget such instant technological classics like the Yamaha Steel Security Door-Shock Defense Grid Combo Pack? brb gonna go to walmart real quick View attachment 2722 View attachment 2723
actually my post was what they call irony it holds a double meaning see - something meant for two audiences. the joke part being that there is in fact, no Yamaha Steel Security Door-Shock Defense Combo Pack available only at Walmart.
I don't see the issue of the security systems when it comes to a planetary invasion, in RP they could just land some ships outside of the town and march in. No one ever said anything about having to attack through the beam in area.
if that's the case, why are there defenses in the first place if they can be entirely circumvented? that's not the problem, anyhow it's the fact that these defenses and the cash used to buy it came from nowhere
Just because you've been adding buildings to the colony since a few months ago, does not mean it's not under developed. Under developed characters are an issue, let alone under developed colonies. Like, seriously, this whole confusion about the gate wouldn't have been a thing had it been clearly explained. What I've heard from you, is very different from what I've heard from one of the security guards that work on Gum, and it was probably different to what other people on this thread have heard about this security gate thing. What you REALLY need to do, is start developing the colony. I really think it's unfair that people have well developed colonies they've worked hard on developing; creating IG planets for resource gathering, managing factions, having a creative backstory ...etc. Yet their faction doesn't get enough recognition.
Just because they can be circumvented doesn't mean that it's not going to help some. That's like saying "Terrorism still happens, so why do we need the National Guard?" which also, doesn't make much sense to say. Just because he listed off all the ways you can circumvent security doesn't mean that those are all entirely obvious to most characters. If a character beams down with malicious intent, shooting the scanner might occur to them, but beaming outside of the colony and finding a way in might not. If a character simply doesn't want to deal with the system, they might just find another way in, but it's safe to say that the general populace, assuming they had no intent to shoot anything, would simply beam down, and go through security. What's specifically wrong with a security system? Not everything is going to be made on the frontier, and the things that are require people to be skilled in making them. I could say "Why don't I just waltz down to Walmart and buy an FTL drive for my ship?" Because I would imagine only a handful of characters (if even) would have the know-how to create a system to make an object move faster than light, let alone have the resources.
a security system? Nothing. A giant steel bubble that prevents antagonization however, is complete and utter crap. There was an outcast who tried to destroy this system to get through - and what happened as soon as he finished? He was gunned down. Didn't even have half a chance of making it out of that.
Well... You can't exactly expect to not be killed when you just tried to destroy security systems. I mean. People are going to notice. That's the whole point of security systems. If the Outcast person got so far to be able to destroy the security system then I believe it's not that bad. Edited.
The point is that, because of the scanner and uber doors, the entire city gets to be Happy-Happy-Fun-Time, whilst the people who try and make conflict are restricted to the beam pad. It's detrimental to interesting crime RP.
