The Civil Protection is receiving a major faction update, one that has been in the works for quite a while, and involves both roleplay systems, as well as gameplay ones. Let’s get right to it!
Ranking & Authority Changes
There are a few rank-related changes that have been made to the faction in order to improve and enhance the roleplay dynamic in various ways, and patch some gaping holes we had in terms of continuity and logic. Here are all of them:
Promotion & Demotion changes
Promotions, and by extension demotions of functionaries is now completely up to the discretion of district leadership – units no longer need to grind for Sterilized Credits to use on ranking up. We are making this change to promote a focus on roleplay and performing well on the field, and instead allow units to use Sterilized Credits for the many rewards that are available to them, such as family cohesion, extra rations, and more. We think that this change is a good balance in the system that allows for SC to be used more easily on other things, and generally stands to offer more roleplay than the alternative.
Rank Authority & Commanding
All functionaries will now have direct authority over their immediate lower rank, except for units of Integrity 5 and Recruits. This is a relatively small change, but one that we feel was required for the ranking system to make sense and work as it should.
Ministry of Civil Protection
The Ministry of Civil Protection was always a somewhat opaque question mark for us. We were never sure what to really do with it, but we now have a definitive answer. From now on, the Ministry of Civil Protection will serve as a political and propaganda puppet for the Civil Protection, representing the paramilitary organization in the interim government and carrying out its agenda. In-game, this means they may show presence in the IGA and Congress to ensure Civil Protection is not left in the dark and any passed laws or regulations are in accordance with the faction’s aims and goals.
New Ranks
We are adding three new ranks to the faction, some event-based, and others non-event based. This is done in an attempt at introducing more variety and roleplay opportunities in the faction, as well as to fix some holes in the faction’s logic when it came to upper rank authority. Below is a list of all of them:
Officers
The Officer is a new district-level rank that will handle various Civil Protection affairs on the ground. That ranges from training units, to leading operations, carrying out promotions, disciplining units, and more.
This rank is being introduced in order to fix an issue we had with the Rank Leader rank, where RLs were leaders both in the back and the front. Thus, contrary to the Officer, the Rank Leader rank will now change to be less hands-on with operations and tasks, and instead take on the more admin-related duties. This can include but is not limited to ensuring unit integrity, Stabilization Jurisdiction integrity, training, investigations, logistical issues, CP supplies, and more.
To preserve unit anonymity on the ground, the Officer will look the exact same way as other integrity-level units, but because the Rank Leader will now mainly remain within the confines if the Nexus, the rank will be receiving a trenchcoat, to display seniority.
Monitors
The Monitors are a new rank that will operate within the city and move from district to district in order to ensure integrity and cohesion within the Civil Protection precincts. It will mainly be an event role and will be played by the Faction Leaders.
The presence of a Monitor will be somewhat rare – one will only show up in order to settle disputes or handle other matters such as directly relaying commands or messages to district leadership.
To display seniority, monitors will sport the familiar city attire on their uniform, but with a different gasmask design, and also a trenchcoat, similar to Rank Leaders. As their presence will be fairly rare, and they will not be leading operations on the ground, there is no large anonymity issue with them that would matter.
Monitors are ranked about the same as the Overwatch Transhuman Arm, but they cannot issue orders to them in any capacity. They are regarded on a similar manner to the City Administrator – they can make requests, but not demands. Their safety is of upmost priority. They can, however, relay orders through dispatch, should dispatch permit it.
This rank is being introduced in order to help us fix a gaping hole when it game to our upper ranking and authority system. Before this update, the highest CP rank was the Rank Leader, which caused all sorts of issues and things that just did not make much sense that we saw unfold in the recent DOP Detachment event. With this rank, it will help things make more sense when it comes to the leadership and command structure of the faction.
Furthermore, since Monitors will be played by Faction Leaders, this enables us to be more open to the idea of assigning regular players to a leadership rank like the Rank Leader. So if you dream of climbing the ranks and running the district, make sure you perform well on the field so you can be noticed by the higher-ups.
The Auditor
The Auditor is a new Sector-Level rank that will operate within different sectors around earth – one Auditor per sector. The Auditor will be moving from city to city to ensure the effectiveness of all Civil Protection-related operations in the region, and answers directly to Dispatch.
The Auditor’s presence will be exceptionally rare, and serve as a very heavy event role. The presence of one will likely be even more rare than the presence of the Overwatch Transhuman Arm. Similar to Monitors, The Auditor is added to make the higher-ranking and upper command system make more sense. It’s the same thing, but a level higher.
Similar to Monitors, The Auditor displays seniority by having a unique mask design, but also sports a different uniform color scheme. This is because The Auditor moves from city to city, and each city has a different color scheme. Thus, the uniform is changed to a unique and distinguishable color and design that stands out from all others. Similar to Monitors, The Auditor will also don a trenchcoat.
The Auditor is ranked above the Overwatch Transhuman Arm, but cannot issue orders to them. The Auditor’s safety is regarded as number one priority and is treated very similar to the City Administrator. The Auditor can, however, relay orders through dispatch, should dispatch permit it.
Female Civil Protection models
Yes, you read it correct. We are adding a female variant of the standard Civil Protection uniform. You may look at the picture above, however, and wonder, “Wait, these look exactly the same”. Precisely.
The differences between the male and female Civil Protection are extremely subtle, and you would need to compare the two variants next to one another in various angles in order to notice a difference. This is intentional for a multitude of reasons, some Out-of-Character in nature, and others In-Character.
The In-Character reason is because of all the bulk and armor that comes with Civil Protection uniforms. They are designed with anonymity in mind, and thus would generally look nearly identical to one another.
The first Out-of-Character reason is, well, the most obvious one – standard female models look extremely goofy. They look like they do not fit in at all, and are immediately distinguishable from standard male models. This can often be immersion-breaking and just straight up look out of place. The second reason is an extension of the first: Most female models, because they are slimmed down, look very, very bad with the standard Civil Protection animations. Thus, servers often resort to using citizen animations for them, or perhaps a mix of citizen and Civil Protection animations. There was no way we would have CPs running around with citizen animations, so we made them beefy enough to the point where CP animations would look normal with them.
Another question now would be – why do this in the first place? If they’re nearly identical, what is the point? The answer to that is, to put it simply, the little things. We strive for immersion and pay attention to small details that make you look at them and appreciate them for what they are. You can notice a female model if you look hard enough, but it won’t stick out like a sore thumb from a distance.
More Animations
The animations that we added a while ago are finally fixed (hopefully) and they also come back along with an assortment of new animations, some of which you can see in the image above. These range from sitting animations, standing, leaning, laying down, and more.
We add these animations to allow players to express their character’s actions in more ways and generally improve the atmosphere surrounding Civil Protection. More variety in models, in essence.
Conclusion
This update has been in the works for a while now, and we are very excited to finally release it. It should hopefully address a few issues within the faction, and improve everything for the better. If you have any feedback or criticism regarding this update, please do not hesitate to reach out and let us know! We listen to all comments and they are invaluable to us in improving the server.
Thanks, and see you on the next one!