Cargo overhaul
Introducing cargo wars

Here are some ideas that when all applied together will lead to a much more dangerous but also more profitable cargo system promoting RP and incentivizing hiring bodyguards, promoting vehicle combat, and setting up crews to run the cutthroat logistics business.

Anyone can get a cargo license but there is no conflict or competition between cargo drivers.

Remove on-demand cargo runs

First, we should remove the ability for cargo drivers to go to a pickup location and just ask for a gig. Instead, the cargo should be available on intervals and should be given on first-come, first-serve basis.

On random events, high value cargo such as gems or sensitive electronics can appear and offer much higher payouts than regular runs and are available at certain times and in limited quantities, which creates urgency and competition between organizations to secure them.

Trucker radio signal

Let's make a constant radio signal where a "dispatcher" of the cargo organizations will announce when there is a new run available. Much like real life trucker radio chatter, we can introduce random chatter (GPT-powered?) from random truckers talking about truck life (prevent small worlding and better immersion) with the odd announcement from a dispatcher about a new run available at X location, let's say once every few hours. All PCs would then compete for that run. This could introduce random events or obstacles that occur during the cargo runs, led by other players, such as ambushes by rival groups or law enforcement, that would require the groups to strategically plan and prepare for their deliveries.

Reputation system

All successful runs should increase a reputation level for the player's faction. If a player is associated to a faction (PRI, syndicates, or a business) that faction's reputation should go up and as a reward they will receive better runs with better payouts. If you fail a run your reputation goes down and your payouts go down, until it hits a minimum and your license is subjected to audit by the WJF.

Cargo theft

If you disable a vehicle, or intercept a cargo run, there should be a mechanism to steal the cargo. Let's say you can remove the cargo from the back of a van, which becomes a carryable object which then you can put back into another cargo vehicle or sell it to a NPC. Stolen cargo can be sold off to a random NPC (let's think about someone who already buys stolen crates, for example) for extra profit, damaging the reputation level of whoever you stole it from and earning a quick profit, much like MacGuffins.

Make the trucker radio on a frequency that is only accessible on stationary (not in a vehicle) radios. The benefit of that is to create public RP in establishments that have radios.

Imagine if there were multiple similar stations that broadcast similar paydata about available work. People who "touch the radio dial" might risk harm for doing so. And specific bars, clubs or other public radios would eventually gain reputation for catering to customers who rely on that particular radio frequency for paydata.

Someone mentioned that having to follow radio chatter would be disruptive to RP. I suggest that it IS RP. "Sorry babe. Can't go to the cat party with you. I really need listen to the radio so I pick up another load and buy some of that new, low cost cyber."

PUBSIC - Can you imagine missing the cat party because you want to haul cargo? Sounds like thr kind of stupid thing a Mixer would do.

A little James Bondy, but good for the game IMO.

So instead of it being a fun conflict loop, it becomes a thing where you're essentially turning off someone's coded job pretty much for good. It'd be nice if there was some kind of "expected inventory loss" each week so that maybe even the drivers themselves can hustle some extra out of facilitating the "unexpected loss" of their cargo, or maintain the opposite if they're after promotions.

I don't think it still works if you can invest say 2,000,000c and still have it be worthwhile because at that point you're beginning to get out of the order of magnitude of everyone else.

I do think it's good to reward activity and investment and good play (however we might define that) but just with a mind that players playing an hour a day and those playing four hours a day (or more) are all still somewhat on an even playing field.

I do think things like widespread vehicle combat and piracy mechanics would have balanced out the old system when it originally launched because it would have filtered out characters who were just doing their usual archetype and income plus freight in favour of characters who were built for the purpose. The highest fringes of freight income weren't so great that a character who had dedicated millions and most of their UE towards it would be over-rewarded compared to others, especially once elite vehicle combatants started to mean characters who could no longer also be good at character-to-character combat.

If we had had common and widespread and affordable vehicle combat in the city before freight had launched, so that freight would have been competitive for specialists, and there was a strong financial incentive to compete with (ie. explode) vehicles carrying freight, I believe it would have reached an equilibrium with other activities eventually. But I'm really not sure we'll ever get there now because I've just found there is a lot of philosophical hangups among players and staff about having vehicle combat become more unchecked in the city.

Basically: Wherever the freight money is being made, you need all the vehicle weapons and vehicle combatants to be there also. Putting freight in the city and locking the combat outside to a greater degree could not possibly work. If the vehicle combat is really only meant to be truly unchecked outside the city, then that is where the freight money has to come from also.

Here's the thing though, vehicle combat already exists to the extent that cargo allows already. As I said if gangers decide to blockade the entrance to the 100 Rads parking lot with a dune buggy, they can literally trap a Deliverator full of cargo with nowhere to go. Doubtful that a Deliverator can actually outmaneuver that buggy to get around it.

This doesn't require vehicle ammo or a chain gun. You can get out of the buggy with a long arm and then fill the Deliverator cabin full of bullet holes.

Also, the weapons and ammuniton and equipment has ALWAYS been in the game. It is right now. There is nothing stopping Mr. Syndicate from requisitioning combat armor plating and mounted weaponry for his delivery vehicle. Nothing at all. He can wait patiently and blow up other delivery cars to smithereens, stealing all their cargo and pocketing all that money.

I think that's what the game was trying to encourage with that one news article from the WJF. Megacorporation vehicles don't require licensing for weaponry. And the Yakuza is a Megacorporation. Hence, a delivery van registered to the Yakuza corporation doesn't need to worry about pesky things like what the Judges have to say about those 20mm Autocannons.

Why don't they? Because I think you hit the nail right on the head. You can't be top PVP in the car and top PVP OUT of the car at the same time.

Nobody actually had the skills the car combat required for this system to work because the UE cap had crystalized PVP into such a fine tuned meta that anyone wanting to lean into the car combat would mean going from contention of 2nd best PVP blade to maybe 5th, which could mean being permed.

So everyone played nice because everyone so solidified in their build post respec couldn't even begin to start training vehicle PVP. Hell right now the only way to really engage in car PVP is to come in with a character dead set on engaging in car PVP, build from there, and even then they're probably not going to see a pay-off to that character concept for a bit of time, if at all.

And I think that those philosophical hang ups about combat in general are what is holding Sindome back. I've definitely noticed any attempt at introducing mechanics that might upset the crystalized S-Tier PVP that controls the top is quickly shot down, and mechanics that would help to swing up against that S-Tier are suspiciously left broken.

For example, a top tier solo can deflect a bullet with his blade. He will never have to deflect a Buick as long as the staff never update the ram command to function as intended. And munitions will never be improved because of boogeymen fears it could provide an unfair advantage to firearms players, but at the same time it will never be removed because the UE refund would go straight into combat stats and firearm skills, which would require more rebalancing of melee fighting and buffing of long blades to make sure it was more "fair" for the shroud and their dual ceramic katanas. But addressing this explicit catering to a certain play style is a different bridge to burn completely.

But if the problem is vehicle combat in the Dome, that's fine. Lock licensing to type of vehicle. Keep the PRI logistics driving around in their glorified golf cart inside the Dome and move the Cargo Van depots to outside the Dome where large scale car combat is encouraged. Then have the only IC organizations capable of granting cargo licenses be PRI's small scale Deliverators for store restocking and the Syndicate's heavily armored vans for Badlands combat.

Also having access to this lucrative money making opportunity would additional responsibilities. If the Syndies are backing you on your license to drive their trucks, then they're going to definitely want their money out of you. And having a weekly income expectation would be just the thing to help motivate people to get out there and earn.

This wouldn't be a system you could just casually moonlight for a few extra bucks, but for those who like the idea of actually working working to feel a sense of accomplishment in their gaming experience and are willing to turn a niche concept (OTR Trucker) into a character with services in demand.

Nobody actually had the skills the car combat required for this system to work because the UE cap had crystalized PVP into such a fine tuned meta that anyone wanting to lean into the car combat would mean going from contention of 2nd best PVP blade to maybe 5th, which could mean being permed.

So everyone played nice because everyone so solidified in their build post respec couldn't even begin to start training vehicle PVP. Hell right now the only way to really engage in car PVP is to come in with a character dead set on engaging in car PVP, build from there, and even then they're probably not going to see a pay-off to that character concept for a bit of time, if at all.

It had solid purpose as a scorched earth conflict tool but there wasn't really any middle ground between 'ignore players' and 'delete them completely'.

I definitely think that the all-or-nothing mechanism of cargo transfer will probably need to be rethought for something like light or moderate piracy to exist, something like attacks peeling cargo off so damaged vehicles can limp off and not have to be wiped out.

What you see as double speak is in fact people who do not know much about the system being led to believe this or that over what they've heard IC before running with it and telling their friends about it. That's fine, that's the way the game works. But it's important that it isn't taken as OOC truth much like how people will tell immigrants to avoid the park.

What you see as double speak is in fact people who do not know much about the system being led to believe this or that over what they've heard IC before running with it and telling their friends about it. That's fine, that's the way the game works.

I'm not repeating second-hand rumours, I don't know if I was the first player to use the licenses but I was among them, I had them before the two revisions, I was part of the discussions about implementing them and bug fixing and everything else. I knew there was staff anxiety about the system taking over the whole game and why it got so tightly controlled but I also know there was a major IC incentive for the players benefiting from the licensing to run interference of it OOC in support of keeping it. I'm pretty sure I've run more freight than any other player ever did. I have some idea what I'm talking about when it comes to the deficiencies of the implementation.

There is zero evidence that licenses in any system in the game have ever improved the game overall.They didn't benefit firearms use, or robotics, or security gear, or freight. They just, predictably, limited engagement with the systems they rolled out with, and where the value of engagement overrided the annoyance of dealing with licenses, they just created resentment among players about favouritism and unequal access to rewards.

It's a major blind spot that this kind of stuff doesn't generate suspicions of collusion and staff favouritism and cheating between players and staff. Just the appearance of someone having bulletproof income access and others being under the axe will undermine confidence. Where major income sources are concerned there cannot be even the impression of subjectivity and vibes-based enforcement, regardless of the secret reality.

The two keywords for cargo licenses are could and complicit. And I won't say anymore about licenses except only staff have the final say on denying, freezing or removing licenses.

The real questions are: how many people have ever tried to steal their own cargo, had their cargo stolen and how many people have ever had their cargo license lost or even just back to stage two as a result of the first actions?

At the time I thought villa's idea of concealed weapons ( I think it was him I'm on my phone and don't want to exit and scroll out again) was a great idea and still do. Maybe not all weapons but some weapons doing thay would be great. I also like the reputation system.

But I don't think a trucker dispatch type system should exist right now. Unless it was on a significant delay. Maybe a radio traffic broadcast channel that has real and ambient mentions of cargo hauls traffic increasing. But not that specific hauls are out or available.

Kinda like the idea of being able to take some small cargo from a vehicle into your hands directly.

Allow me to put on the official Pot Calling Kettle Club hat on for a sec.

I encourage you to read what I said and digest things a bit before commenting. I know I myself am accused of having this problem, but you happen to be speaking out about things I have already addressed.

First off, in regards to the pay rate of my proposed cargo changes, if you re-read it I said that the payouts should be multiplied by a factor of 75%. Not increased. My system would actually make it HARDER to accumulate wealth so quickly driving around the city. This would place the payrate of the Deliverator at approximately 25% more than running crates and have the benefit of never stopping.

Second, when you speak of robberies currently not being worth it, I addressed that in the idea that the payout for most STOLEN cargo be multiplied by a factor of 5. Meaning that while the driver who is puttering around in essentially an unarmored golf cart is being paid jack shit for what they're doing, the concept of robbing that Deliverator suddenly became a VERY lucrative proposal. 36K payout for application of violence against the Corps? Fuck yeah! Have these things be barges of gold to the right people.

Except don't touch the price of stolen garbage. Let it still be absolutely worthless in terms of hauling. Would totally fit in theme too with risking it all and losing big. British Crime classic Snatch has an entire subplot based around this. A bunch of idiots decide to rob from some people they really shouldn't be robbing. And everything goes tits up when the service mixer bookie looks at them and says "There's no money. Sorry."

Imagine robbing the PRI shipment, thinking you'll make 15K+ for making a mean face and waving a shotgun around. Things go tits up and you kill the driver causing you to have PRI blood on your hands. They got out a scream over SIC and now the gangs are showing up because protection money shockingly means protection and now you're robbing a ganger protected trade route. You jump in the back of the truck to find... literally rotting garbage. You put it all on the line and you lost big. Welcome to Sindome. You can call the backlash from three separate factions coming for you to be character growth.

And in regards to the brutality of losing your license, even if it were true, it is something I FULLY support. In fact, on top of license loss, I'd be more in favor of absolutely brutal fines being auto-slapped on you at the Hall of Justice for Grand Theft in case you do get robbed. Yes, you heard me right. Punish the driver even more for being robbed and murdered. They probably set the heist up themselves. The goal is to make the PRI logistics job as not worth it as possible while simultaneously being totally worth it if you keep at it long enough to develop it into being your own thing.

And remember the great counter balance to this auto-guilt concept would inevitably be the idea of Withmore Justice. Yes you are guilty until proven innocent, but you can still be found innocent which would just make the fine and punishment go away. If you claim you didn't steal those 40K worth of electronics, then... who did? Give a name and your 40K fine disappears. All you have to do is... snitch. PRI will probably be fine with helping you pay off your debt and reinstitute your license. Even smooth things over with the Hall for you provided you do things like provide a Corp-Sec report. You being robbed is ultimately just a margin in their ledgers they can magic away if you just tell them what ganger is about to have to pay in teeth what the PRI mechanic assesses as the damages.

All you have to do is snitch.

Now imagine a Syndicate handler looking at the bill for a fully kitted out combat delivery van that you lost, plus the fine for losing that much cargo at once. Now imagine them smiling, patting you on the back and telling you not to worry because you were in good hands. You'd be in a pocket so deep you'll never see sunlight. Remember that sister you wrote into your background and immediately forgot about?

Pepperidge Farms remembers.

Still want to play at the unlimited chyen table?

@0x1mm

I agree with you completely on the failure of the licensing system in regards to cargo. It does absolutely nothing but hinder it, as how the system currently functions acquiring a refrigerated cargo license results in statistically less chy/hour than if you hadn't purchased one. For zero other benefit. Which is why I recommended the licensing system be changed to essentially what "weight class" you wanted to play at. Standard would be for motorcycles and deliverators and scarabs within the Dome transporting things to and from the shops of the Dome. Then there would be a Cargo Van class, which would be where the big money car combat would be (mostly) confined to outside in the Badlands.

Also your Xo5 robbing crates comment is exactly why I say jack the payout for theft through the roof to make them essentially heavily armed barges of gold worth the risk of knocking over. However, in terms of cargo theft, I don't like the idea of knocking things off the truck to have them just lie around on the street. While thematic, it would make it an absolute bitch to collect. Instead I propose that damages to the vehicle would deduct from the cargo inside. This would mean that rockets and other explosives wouldn't be advised (unless against plot level convoys) else you damage your payout. But that doesn't mean a vehicle can't be disabled with a lucky shot or two to the van's tires or the driver's skull.

And dead on about the appearance of favoritism in terms of major sources of income. Unfortunately it looks like this is a path that staff is wanting to set with the various comments pointing to just filling out an expense report for reimbursement of plot. As long as you play by what they believe is the way you should play, you can be reimbursed. AKA break even. This is why I suggested an overall improvement to lease income would be to just give them more income instead of making them fill out forms in triplicate detailing every action they took to appease the chyen gods.

It really does weird me out how for as much as the game claims to be all about player empowerment how little freedom we as players actually have in terms of making money. Once you have your crates plus time clock pay, you have no other income for the week. The only ways to make money from there is to engage in robbing other players, trading with other players, or to ask the staff to be able to engage in some system to earn more than your allotted amount for the week. Even crime has to go through staff if it involves making money like knocking over an NPC.

This also gets really into some shady areas of potential favoritism when I'm required to XHelp to get permission to engage in PVP with some players. And by that I mean shoplifting from player owned businesses. Or even businesses in general. Why? Snatch and run out the door and I'm gone. I shouldn't have to set up a reservation for five seconds in and out. Because the clerk might notice a shroud stealing? You think it sucks people small world you, imagine if the small worlding was because you were required to XHELP before engaging in PVP against the SSC owner. That kind of thing reeks of favoritism, and we haven't even touched how staff's promise to work with fixers revolved around paying the store merchants hand over fist for the stuff that had been on the shelves for 6+ months, but independent fixers were reimbursed for their past 30 days of purchases, and even then only to the extent of staff felt it was appropriate. That's blatant favoritism towards shop keepers for engaging in hoarding and price fixing to arbitrarily keep the price of armors and goods inflated. But instead of punishing the players of the Gulag, Dark Shop, and SSC for fucking over everyone by charging so much, they cut out the legs from the independents and drive a dump truck of cash up to the shop keepers as a way of saying sorry for having to disrupt THEIR gameplay.

Also raises the question when they realize that the anti-consumer practices they're gleefully looking forward to are fucking the game even more, which practice is going to be labeled as "anti-player" and against the @rules and which ones are going to be allowed to continue?

But given how I was nailed to the wall for saying the vote for Syndicate status turned it into the "verified liked by staff club" alongside a guarantee of massive income along with bulletproof protection, I just don't have the energy to argue anymore. This game has started to suck so much fun out of me that I've legitimately stopped logging in due to having to conserve my energy to argue on the boards as part of the Sindome Max UE End Game against people who idolize the "drive and ambition" of players caught flagrantly breaking the @rules. Seriously that lost players post almost carries a vibe of "but everyone is doing it..." in terms of defense of sharing of IC info.

Welcome to Sindome, where everyone is expected to break the @rules, but nobody will use a firearm because that's against the law.

Game has just gotten to the point that writing dissertations is more rewarding to me as a player than actually playing the game.

So I contribute ideas of things that can be added to the game to make it better.

Isn't that the point of these boards?

And my commentary wasn't about specific breaking of rules, but how much the feeling permeates the game that it IS happening. I'm not the only one to comment about OOC collusion, nor the only one to be told to xhelp if I have proof as a way of shutting down the conversation.

And do I believe that staff and players are actively colluding to cheat? No. Absolutely not. I respect staff and the conversations I have had with them, and though I admit to being a bit bull-headed some (most) of the time they have treated me with respect 95% of the time, and those few times I've had bad experiences with staff Slither was very understanding of my issues.

But the community does feel very quiet on some of these subjects that they really should be a bit louder about on. I'm from the camp that any appearance of favoritism should be avoided, and preferably automated. Unfortunately as I've pointed out, there is no way to inject any amount of chyen into the overall game economy without the direct supervision of staff, which should be raising flags with the community but isn't. Instead, they do seem very OK with just allowing staff to give out money as they see fit, ranging from deciding whether you deserve your reimbursements or not, as well as judging your parties to be a 7.5 as opposed to an 8 for how much it actually earned.

It's not that it's happening. It's that it's some systems are so obviously ripe for abuse and favoritism that you can't help but wonder why it's NOT happening. Which is why I comment it feels that the general attitude of the community is that it's just an unspoken part of the game, something that people are weirdly complacent about.

That's what I've done when I've found systems with exploitable potential, unintended consequences and issues. I leave extensive notes and explain what's going on and why it's maybe not working as it was meant, how it can disrupt stuff. And those systems get adjusted and fixed in time.

Don't teach people how to exploit and break stuff. That's just awful.

The two keywords for cargo licenses are could and complicit. And I won't say anymore about licenses except only staff have the final say on denying, freezing or removing licenses.

True, but that was something that was kept deliberately as obscure as possible and it was intentional design that the specific boundary conditions would not be known by players.

I spent basically a wasted year turning down or having plots turned down for me because it might endanger licenses until the hat got tipped through what amounted to a bug fixing report, and I resent that obscurity to effect behaviour especially because the staff policy changed but one of them was made explicit before the system was finished and rolled out (automatic suspension with review), and the more permissive revised policy was never made public.

I do not know cargo license, but I do know the firearms side of it extremely well. Things that people say icly about it: "impossible to get one" and "do not do anything shady with it or it's instantly gone".

The reality is that I saw people with licenses that people told them are "impossible", just takes IC finessing your way into a position where you get it. And I saw people with those licenses have their weapons stolen and also saws their weapons "stolen". No licenses were lost, as effort was put into the coverup and believability of the "stolen".

Stop believing IC people, the game is not here to cancel your RP achievement of a license over doing something fun if you ICly properly cover your tracks.

I just wish the player-to-player signaling about this stuff was better. It seems very difficult to figure out the actual "walls" towards doing what you want to do. I know a lot of Sindome is kind of predicated on just doing it anyway and figuring it out as you go (even if that figuring out is being violently slapped/killed/indebted), but the sheer time commitment involved for even basic things like getting a logistics driving job in the first place (I'm not kidding when I say it took three weeks!) make it almost insurmountably oppressive to try sometimes.

Sometimes the game will support you taking a risk, sometimes it won't. Players will sometimes get rug-pulled while thinking they were doing something the game wanted them to do. This is also complicated by the fact that staffers will have different interests and preferences and storytelling priorities and some lean more chaotic and some lean more regimented and you never really know if your instigator and punisher are going to be the same or on the same page.

It's basically part of Sindome's DNA that it will say one thing, imply another, and leave it up to the Rubicon moment to decide which side to come down on being right. You can try to lean towards doing what makes for the best story (reliable option!) but sometimes the player getting completely blindsided is going to be the story that gets chosen.

I just wish the player-to-player signaling about this stuff was better. It seems very difficult to figure out the actual "walls" towards doing what you want to do.

Totally subjectively, and with the caveat that any player or staffer might have different preferences, this is more or less how I prioritize who to say yes to (which might be different from who is going to have the most correct information):

1. PC boss. It will be rare to have a true player boss, these are not the ones to disregard.

2. PC allies/superiors/ace kools. I can be right and they can be wrong, but it won't matter if I end up playing alone.

3. Puppeted NPCs who come to me in person. This is the mother of all bespoke plot hooks.

4. NPC boss/es or major faction NPCs. Aside from hiring they usually stay out of the way so if they speak it's relevant.

5. Other PCs speaking in person or private SIC. Less reliable, often no authority, but I may have to co-exist with them.

6. Other NPCs speaking in person or private SIC. More reliable, some authority, but they stop existing when the puppet closes.

7. Globe articles. Often universal plot hooks to heed and get involved with.

7. Other PCs on Public SIC. Often don't know shit about fuck, but could find me and kill me.

8. Other NPCs on Public SIC. Mostly there for general flavour unless it is mass feedback about something I did.