PEPPERBALL LAUNCHERS

Why: Pepperball launchers would give LEO ingame more tools for dealing with dynamic situations without or without line of sight where firing live rounds into an area is either a poor course of action or outright unlawful. Real life LEO have begun adopting them in the past few years. Use cases most obviously include barricaded suspects, unlawful gatherings that cause a threat of safety without rising to violent behavior, riots in jail areas, and more.

How: Pepperball launchers come in many shapes and sizes, although the most common I've personally seen in bodycam videos are carbine/rifle variants, rather than 40MM type single shot launchers. I have seen handgun type models but by far the most common appears to be carbine or rifle types. Byrna, for example, is a company that makes these handgun and carbine type pepperball launchers. Inspiration may be drawn from their products.

Function: This is what makes it better than the tasers, beanbags, and 40mikes already in the game. Functionally, pepperball rifles, when fired, hit a hard or semi-hard surface and "pop" into a cloud of OC-type powder which floats through the air for a few seconds but stays in the air in a smaller volume for a longer period of time. This would excel in, for example, barricaded suspect situations. The range gives safety to the LEOs and force the suspect(s) to relocate or surrender. This could be achieved by using the same effect OC spray does, temporarily moderate blindness and taking the ability to hold items such as firearms, however slowly parting damage upon the suspect(s) if they stay in the effected area for an extended period. The damage aspect would give it a more real-world effect, in real life suspects either get away or surrender, this would force the same decision upon the player or they would become downed. To make clear, I do not suggest the damage be able to kill the suspect, but only down them but without a bleed out timer. The downing mechanic could be justified under real world passing out. A wake up timer could be implimented similar to the bleed out timer.

Thank you.