Make Car Theft Attempts Cost
Costs Chy == Being More Selective

Say there are three levels of security system (this is not true, just an example). They are Basic, Mid and Hard. And there are one or two tasks in stealing a vehicle, break-in and hotwire. If this where the case it would just take a few items to be added to the game. The items don't have to do anything but have a description, have dimension and weight, and have value. Nothing fancy.

For break-in there could be something like the Blandford Break-in Kit (5000c), the Midtronic Break-In Kit (10000c) and the Helios Break-In Kit (15000c). Hotwiring could have something like the Blankline Hotwire Kit (5000c), Metrogone Hotwire Kit (10000c) and the Heavyspark Hotwire Kit (15000c). Only sold at shady places.

If you want to steal a car with a Mid Security System you need to use your one time purchase item and a Midtronic Break-In Kit (or better) to open the doors. Then you need to use your one time purchase item and a Metrogone Hotwire Kit (or better) to get it started. Then go. The kits are used up by the attempt - succeed or fail. If your Kit's not good enough for the job, it's used up and you fail.

Motorcycles would be cheaper to steal than cars and I think that's a good thing. All the skill checks can be left alone. It just goes from, "Did you roll high enough?" to "Do you have a good enough kit and did you roll high enough?". It also means that you no longer have Bob sitting at a car trying the commands 27 times until they get lucky. Unless they want to fork over a LOT of chyen that is.

The exact costs would need to be determined by people who knew the average value of cars better. But the goal here for me would to force a car thief to be more discerning about what they even try to steel. It would also allow players to better protect their vehicles as making the cost of theft prohibitive is a valid tactic. It might also push car thieves to focus on more high end targets if they really want the best cost to reward ratios and not just steal every single thing they see sitting about.

Aftermath? Sure, it'll cost. But that's only if you want the FULL PACKAGE.

You're assuming these optional items are necessary then.

Yes, UE investment is needed... But you only need one item.

What you do with it afterwards is your choice.

I feel this is partly true, some car thieves might have tools that make it more convenient to do their jobs.

You can try to protect your rides as best as you can by upgrading it, in order to try to prevent theft. But even then, you might still get your ride stolen. Maybe park it somewhere safer?

Being able to afford your own ride, feels a bit like a milestone in this game but just like any other thing, it can be stolen...you can lose it a lot faster than you got it.

I feel there is a degree of impunity and it occurs not necessarily because of something mechanical, but as something pertaining to theme and/or factions.

I don't think everyone should have infinite free cars and any kind of cost would help if we're going to carry on as we have been.

knowing how to do something well enough that it looks easy doesn't necessarily mean it is. Also, car theft RP has a huge propensity for involving literally dozens of player characters in a plot that can span a week or more. It's really good and dramatic RP opportunity.

Making it harder/more expensive to do will effectively kill off the entire process, as the profit margin on the vehicles that support a car thief's daily operations would disappear.

This, taken also in the context of permanent license plates means that this is already a very high risk endeavor, and while there is most assuredly the possibility of the 'one big score', that 'one big score' is so rare, that in the average of a year, you're managing to cover your yearly expenses.

So let's pull back the curtain a bit. Without going into specifics.

I've been dinged and dragged into hour long conversations with xhelp about casing cars wrong. These were ultimately instructional. And have helped me portray my character better.

I've seen people dinged for stealing the wrong car. Or stealing a car with the wrong methods. These were ultimately a good thing, as they helped grow and establish players and couch them on the proper ways to do things.

I've nearly died ICly several times from characters thinking I was casing their rides, or while casing rides. This was a fun thing. I like conflict, and these were some of the tenser scenes I've been in.

I've been involved now in multiple multiweek plots that emerged from car theft. Some mostly player driven, others staff and players coming together and generating consequences for a thief. A lot of it happening under the radar. This is cool, this is good. I like this. GM's are doing a good job here.

I have been involved or seen car theft's occur at every step of the way. From planning, to reset, to sale, to longer term outcomes.

I say that, because I feel like that should establish a base of experience with the matter, so that when I state this next bit, one will understand I'm not talking out my ass.

There is a significant operating cost to stealing a car. In equipment, in labor, and in other less obvious things. This ranges from the absurdly expensive and possibly life threatening if you do it wrong. Too the very rare ghost in the night making off with cars Gone in 60 Seconds style big score, again extremely extremely rarely. Those who do car theft face significant IC consequences both from players in the form of Enforcer archetypes, TERRA, Judges and from other places.

The measures currently in place are sufficient to allow response post facto. And adding additional costs(Beyond what already exist which are significant in both UE and Chyen,) would kill the archetype as a whole, or restrict it to the place of purely veteran characters. As well, the systems as they are currently in place, encourage multiple party RP and drag people into fun plots.

Finally, the characters I've seen involved in car theft currently are typically ones that have already spent 5-6 months mostly focused on this task, experimenting, and ICly discovering how to do this properly. They've spent half a year honing their craft, RPing, getting allies, fielding connections, vetting breakers, hiring security, getting things cleared with GM's and fixed in certain places, so that it can seem easy from the outside. But it is ultimately not. And new complications arise literally every theft that keep the RP interesting and fresh. And that is something that should be encouraged, and is something I feel staff are doing a wonderful job of.

TL;dr, if it looks easy, that's because the people doing it are skilled and practiced at it. It's not easy. There's a whole lot of reasons up there I'm not going to summarize down here. But it's not too easy, or too inexpensive. I'd say personally it's on the borders of not profitable in the long run.

Also ultimately and speaking a bit more technically on a game design standpoint, car theft is a transfer of wealth, not a generation of wealth, and there is a distinct degradation in value if the thieves let an alarm go off. There's also a myriad of ways to counter theft of your vehicle that you could probably find out about if you asked ICly to people who might know about securing things.

I didn't want to be the BgBB police, but I had the exact same reaction when I read it. (There was way too much IC information in it.)