Crime

Reporting

If an NPC can report a crime, they try to run to a the closest guard in the settlement. Once they reach it, they report everything they remember.

There are 2 ways to remember a criminal activity:

• Short term - NPCs can remember witnessing a crime. E.g. Player attacking them, seeing theft, etc. In this case, only the NPC knows about it. Killing the NPC kills the potential report with them.
• Long term - The crime got reported to a guard. In this situation, every guard in the settlement knows about it and will try to pursue the player if they're 12 tiles or closer to these guards.

There are also some exceptions:

• If the crime is witnessed by a guard, it is reported to the settlement instantly
• If there are no guards in this settlement (witness not belonging to any reputation, E.g. someone living alone in the middle of the forest or all guards are already dead), the NPC will not bother reporting and will always attack.

Witnessing a crime

Some crimes (E.g. murder) require a witness. Witness can be any NPC that sees the crime happening.

The witness must be closer than 10 tiles from the crime (E.g. under 10 tiles from murdered NPC) and its view must not be blocked by an obstacle (anything you cannot walk through).

Only one witness reports a crime even when more of them see it.

Murder that nobody saw because of obstacles

Murder that could be seen by NPC as one is already running away to report it

Crimes

Crime categories	Crimes
Petty crime	Trespassing
Non violent crime	Avoiding punishmentVoluntary custodyLockpicking
Violent crime	AssaultAssaulting guardMurder

Crime cooldown

All crimes have a certain cooldown, during which, they cannot be reported again. These are remembered in the long term memory of NPCs.

• Multiple NPCs can report the same crime at once
• One NPC can report multiple different crimes at once
• NPCs cannot report the same crime if it's on cooldown. If they witness such crime, they start attacking instead - you can be attacking the same NPC over and over but they count it as 1 case of assault

Infamy points

All crimes give a certain amount of infamy points (only, if they are successfully reported). There are only 2 ways to lose them:

• Successfully bribed/convinced a guard or be taken to a jail
• Infamy points naturally decay over a long period of time

Infamy points portray the severity of crimes commited. E.g. one crime gives 1000 infamy points. If you do this crime once and then commit it again it's reported by an NPC who doesn't have reporting said crime on cooldown, you gain 1000 infamy points again.

When entering a settlement where you have infamy points, you can see all of them upon entering, including the worst crime committed

Infamy points increase the severity of punishment. With more infamy points, you:

• Have it harder to convince/bribe guards
• Get a worse punishment

Worst crime committed

Is the most serious crime type you have committed in that settlement (determined by infamy points for committing it once, committing the same crime multiple times has no effect). Worst crime is important for punishments.

Arrest

After a report, guards run to the exact point where you were standing at the moment they receive the report. If you leave, they simply return back to what were they doing. Guards start pursuing you only if you appear closer than 12 tiles away from them.

Guards will always try to arrest you first with some exceptions:

• You're already in combat - In this case, they start attacking right away
• You hit a guard twice or more. They will try to arrest you if you hit them once, if you hit them again before they can do so, they will try to kill you right away.

If it's the first time a guard talks to you about a crime, there's also an option to bribe/convince them.

Negotiation

All crimes can be negotiated at a risk.

• If successful, it can wipe all crimes committed in the settlement, along with the report cooldowns of all NPCs in said settlement
• If failed, it causes the guard to attack. It also worsens your punishment by adding one case of avoiding punishment

There are 2 negotiation options. Both using the same formula for a success chance based on your Social level and Thievery level against the guard's level, multiplied by your current reputation in the place you committ a crime in (increases by 0 - 25% based on how close you are to reaching maximum reputation there -

• +25% at maximum reputation
• +10% at 40% of maximum reputation
• +0% at 0% of maximum reputation)

Using the following formula:

$(((Social\;level*0.66)+(Thievery\;level*0.34)+60)-Guard's\;level)*(1+(Current\;reputation/Maximum\;reputation*0.25))*Crime\;severity$

Crime severity is based on total infamy points

• Less than 200 is crime severity 1.5
• 200 - 1000 scales linearly between 1.5 to 1
• 1000 - 10000 scales lineraly between 1 to 0.3
• More than 10000 is crime severity 0.3

Chance calculation example

Social	Thievery	Base chance	Guard's level	Final chance
Level 10	Level 40	80.2%	20	60.2%
Level 30	Level 30	90%	60	30%
Level 60	Level 60	120%	1	Varies on crime's upper cap
Level 15	Level 5	11.6%	60	Bottom cap

Bribing

Successful bribing takes the amount of Gold you agreed on paying. You do not pay anything if failed.

• Bribing cannot have a lower chance than 10%
• Failed bribing attempt adds avoiding punishment to your list of crimes

Convincing

Convincing does not cost cost anything in return for a much lower success chance (and generally much lower upper cap)

• Convincing uses the exact same formula as bribing but divided by 2
• Convincing cannot have a lower chance than 5%
• Failed convincing attempt adds avoiding punishment to your list of crimes

Punishments

You can choose to take a punishment based on your worst committed crime. Doing so resets all crime cooldowns and all crimes you've committed in this settlement. There are 3 types of punishments:

Apologize

Available for the least serious crimes. If you accept this punishment:

• You lose 5 reputation
• NPCs lose 30 opinion on you, spread equally among all NPCs in the settlement

Pay a fine

More serious, non violent crimes can require you to pay a fine. All values depend on the worst crime committed and your total infamy points

• You lose Gold to pay the fine
• You lose 1 - 100 reputation
• NPCs lose 1 - 200 opinion on you, spread equally among all NPCs in the settlement

Go to jail

Violent crimes are punished by going to jail, in this case you are moved to the closest jail. While it might be in another settlement, all other punishments affect the location where you committed the crimes. All values depend on the worst crime committed and your total infamy points

• You gain 10% Vulnerability and 10% Weaken for 30 - 300 seconds
• You lose 1 - 400 reputation
• NPCs lose up to unlimited amount of opinion on you, spread equally among all NPCs in the settlement
• If you go to jail during the day, you leave it at night and vice versa. This doesn't pass in game time at all but it resets all cooldowns
• You also lose any other status effects, including long term ones from consumables