The Castle Doctrine Forums

SomeGuyNamedDavid

Member

From: near Atlantic City, New Jersey

Registered: 2014-01-25

Posts: 33

Broken Vaults

Why is it that you have to make your way back out of the house yourself when you arrive at a broken vault, when you don't have to when you arrive at an intact vault? I can see that having led to some unfair deaths.

jasonrohrer

Administrator

Registered: 2013-04-01

Posts: 1,235

Re: Broken Vaults

For the drama!  It's empty.  Empty?  Empty!  EMMMPPPTTTYYYY!

I thought about forcing people to make their way back out after reaching a full vault (you have to make it in and out), but that would make self-test less intuitive, and it wouldn't actually add anything to the game, because you can already build "in-and-out" security with what is there currently (like, you have to make it in to a deep button before coming back out to where a door opens to the vault).

Also, if a vault has been breached already, there are generally other signs around (like cut walls and such).

SomeGuyNamedDavid

Member

From: near Atlantic City, New Jersey

Registered: 2014-01-25

Posts: 33

Re: Broken Vaults

. . . if a vault has been breached already, there are generally other signs around (like cut walls and such).

While that is generally true, there is the possibility of a player reaching the vault without damaging the house, as well as the possibility of a player damaging the house and then killing some family members, but never reaching the vault. So cut walls don't always mean an empty vault, and an empty vault doesn't always mean cut walls. Plus, it can be interesting to enter a damaged house and walk the destroyed path of a previous robber, possibly even picking up some indirect robbery advice in the process. However, this usually isn't possible because robbers have to make a round trip if the vault is already broken-into, as if every vault contains a teleporter that brings self-testers and robbers safely out of the house. Discovering an empty vault is dramatic enough without robbers then being subjected to an extra walk of shame, or often a walk down death row instead. Plus, if robbers can still exit a house by reaching an empty vault, then its emptiness can be presented to them in the post-robbery text, in whatever way you feel is best. This even opens the possibility of vaults not being visibly empty, so that robbers don't know how much is in it unless they actually reach it. After all, if you've infiltrated a house to the point where you can finally see the vault, you're not going to turn and leave right then just because you can see that the lock looks a bit broken. After all the work it took to get that far, you're going to take those last few steps, check it, and see for yourself what's inside it.

jasonrohrer

Administrator

Registered: 2013-04-01

Posts: 1,235

Re: Broken Vaults

It used to work that way.

The main reason it was changed was that damage is saved on a vault reach, and allowing people to reach empty vaults allowed robbers to vandalize a house just to be mean OR dig their way toward the wife across multiple visits.

Yes, yes, damage could NOT be saved when you reach an empty vault as another way to fix it, but I liked the "unreachable empty vault" as a nice inversion of expectations.

It also prevents robbers from blindly heading toward the vault with no possible exit path... there's always a chance that it's empty.

I do get that it doesn't make logical sense that a vault acts like a teleporter, generally.  It just feels like the best end point for the robbery "story."

SomeGuyNamedDavid

Member

From: near Atlantic City, New Jersey

Registered: 2014-01-25

Posts: 33

Re: Broken Vaults

It also prevents robbers from blindly heading toward the vault with no possible exit path... there's always a chance that it's empty.

I do get that it doesn't make logical sense that a vault acts like a teleporter, generally.  It just feels like the best end point for the robbery "story."

Most of the time, though, there is no possible exit path, because people don't have to build with an exit path in mind. They can make exiting as difficult as they want because it will never matter to them. The problem isn't that it doesn't make logical sense, the problem is that it isn't consistent. Not being able to exit at an empty vault seems like a missed opportunity for a lot of things, and it really adds injury to insult for those robbers unlucky enough to meet their death because there wasn't any money for them to take out of the vaults they reached. I feel like empty vaults not saving damage is a much better solution to the problem.