Hollowgate Riot System – Full Design Document (v1.0)
Category: Core Gameplay
Status: Draft
RFC ID: RFC-003
Related: Suspicion System, Player Needs, Cell Block Residency, Job Board, Custody, Player Core Systems
1. Overview
The Riot System defines how unrest is detected, escalated, and suppressed. It separates regional lockdowns from full-facility lockdowns, scales guard response (gear, count, difficulty) to severity, and enforces anti-exploit rules (no profit from riots).
2. Core Concepts
2.1 Riot Definition
- A riot is sustained violent/non-compliant activity that overwhelms routine guard presence in a region.
- Riots convert normal scheduling into suppression mode and suspend progression/economic benefits.
2.2 Regional Lockdown
- Scope: single area (Yard, specific cell block).
- Purpose: contain and suppress localized unrest without freezing the whole prison.
2.3 Full Lockdown
- Scope: entire prison.
- Purpose: stop cascading multi-region failures or failed regional suppression with maximum force.
3. Detection & Triggers
- Inputs: guard assault events, clustered violence, repeated non-compliance with orders, incident density per area, sabotage of doors/utilities, high suspicion clusters.
- Thresholds:
- Regional: regional incident density and non-compliance exceed safety bands.
- Full: multiple regions in riot, or regional suppression fails, or critical systems are compromised.
4. Lockdown Modes (Regional)
- Soft Lockdown: roll call for affected block(s); players must report; doors restricted but not sealed; non-compliance adds suspicion and detain; counts toward escalation.
- Hard Lockdown: all players in affected region must be in cells or compliant locations; non-compliance leads to immediate detain/suppress and accelerates riot escalation.
- Escalation: ignoring soft/hard directives while incidents continue converts the region into active riot mode with suppression tactics.
5. Full Lockdown
- Activation: triggered when regional control fails or multi-region unrest is detected.
- Response: all guards deploy in riot gear; dogs and drones are called for pursuit and area control.
- Effects: transport/utilities heavily restricted; jobs and non-essential services paused; movement tightly controlled until stability is restored.
6. Guard Response & Scaling
- Scaling Factors: severity score per region (incident rate, guard casualties, non-compliance count).
- Deployment:
- Regional: additional guards redeploy to the region; gear and difficulty scale with severity.
- Full: whole-prison posture; riot gear standard; dogs/drones active.
- Behaviors: suppression-first, non-lethal priority; detain/segregate; confiscation of contraband carried.
7. Player Compliance & Consequences
- Orders: roll call, return-to-cell, disperse, drop weapons/contraband, halt movement.
- Compliance Effects: faster de-escalation, lower suspicion accumulation, earlier restoration of services.
- Non-Compliance: rapid suspicion gain, detain/suppress actions, contribution to riot severity; repeat offenders flagged for stricter future responses.
8. State Flow
- Normal → Soft Lockdown (regional) → Hard Lockdown (regional) → Riot (regional) → Recover
- Normal → Full Lockdown (if multiple regions or failure to contain) → Recover
- Recovery: decrement severity by time+compliance; restore services gradually; clear heightened patrol after cooldown.
9. Integration
- Suspicion System: non-compliance and violence spike suspicion; post-riot suspicion decay is slower for flagged players.
- Player Needs: hunger and sleep decay slowdown during lockdown/riot (v2 from Needs); restricted facilities may increase hygiene decay; non-compliance incidents logged.
- Cell Block Residency: regional lockdowns target specific blocks; overcrowd/instability contribute to triggers; non-residents auto-ejected during soft/hard lockdowns.
- Job Board: jobs paused during hard/full lockdowns; regional jobs halted in affected areas; cooldowns unaffected.
- Economy/Progression: loot from guards disabled; rewards paused; privileges frozen until recovery.
10. Telemetry & Tuning Notes
- Track incident density per region, compliance rates, time-to-contain, guard casualty counts, player detention counts, and false-positive frequency.
- Tune severity thresholds to prevent trivial triggering while ensuring rapid response to genuine clustering.
11. Open Questions
- Should drones have limited taser charges or continuous deterrence?
- How long should post-riot heightened patrols persist per region?
- Do repeat regional offenders receive automatic hard-lockdown on sight?
- Are there grace windows for players caught between regions when lockdown flips to hard?
12. Summary
- Regional lockdowns contain local unrest with graded soft/hard modes and scalable guard presence.
- Full lockdown is whole-prison suppression with riot gear, dogs, and drones when regional control fails.
- Anti-exploit: no profit from riots; services and rewards pause; suspicion and enforcement escalate for non-compliance until recovery.