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HELP FARMING
The Weekly Cap and Muggings

I am obviously a newer player and was not around before the anti-farming rules were enacted, so I am lacking some context.

The general nature of what I am trying to better understand is why mugging NPCs is specifically given an "extra level" of protection that other, somewhat similar automated income generation mechanisms do not have.

The high level economy limiter is the weekly earnings cap.

Chyen obtained from mugging NPCs counts against the cap.

Mugging is the only "automated" chyen earning mechanism that has additional limitations (HELP FARMING) put in place.

For example, there is no requirement to sell (drugs, gear, etc) to PCs at an equal rate as NPCs.

There is no requirement to run crates to PCs equal to the amount of crates run to NPCs.

There is no requirement to earn a paycheck / do jobs for PCs equal to the amount earned from a terminal job.

In the example of selling gear, my experience is that there are fewer opportunities to sell gear than there are to mug people.

On the flip side, mugging people has more risk to it than selling gear or running crates. That serves as another limiting mechanism on it.

Mugging people is also themely. Red sector is dangerous. People get beat up for their chyen, gear and lives all the time.

With all of that in mind; there is already a limit on the amount of chyen a character can earn in a week, mugging is subject to the limit, other automated systems do not have the limit.

Why the limit on mugging?

I get the limit on farming gear and limiting ourselves to "one big ticket item per week".

My understanding is that mugging is viewed as not having any risk / having low risk. But when I think about that, selling gear and running crates is even lower risk.

On this subject, will staff please consider removing "significantly" from the following paragraph. Also, rewording it a bit.

First, the ratio at which you target NPCs vs PCs. In general, you should not be targeting NPCs for dipping/mugging/stealing/killing/whatever significantly more often than PCs. If we look at the source of your character's wealth and it mostly comes from your character taking things from NPCs, it's a problem.

The "problem" with significant is that it is ambiguous. Different people might interpret it differently.

The other issue with the paragraph is that the last sentence doesn't align with the first two. The first two mention NPCs vs PCs, and dipping / mugging / etc.

The last paragraph talks about wealth in general and if

"...it mostly comes from your character taking things from NPCs, it's a problem."

Again, "mostly" is subjective and should be refined if possible.

More importantly, the way I read it is if a character makes ~70% of their income from crates, selling stuff to NPCs and ~20-30% of their income from mugging, they are within the spirit of the rules. Their income is not "mostly" (I interpret mostly as > 50%) taking things from NPCs.

To wrap this up, I am not asking for the rule to be abolished or significantly modified. I am just looking for some clarity and consistency.

To add to these questions, who defines what's a "big ticket item"? Is there a list of these items somewhere? Item prices fluctuate frequently and I no longer know what's "big ticket" in the grand scheme of things.
"there is already a limit on the amount of chyen a character can earn in a week, mugging is subject to the limit, other automated systems do not have the limit."

From my understanding, almost all automated money-making is subject to the weekly limit.

The overall reason that exists is so that majority of income, RP, and similar is pushed toward PC interactions instead of avoiding RP to fighting NPCs for quick money. Its why limits and Help farming are in place, as it used to be a problem.

You want to mug a PC x amount of times a week to make money because you know they do certain things that make it profitable? Go for it - because that not only is that PC's problem, it stimulates RP

You mug NPC's all week, that doesn't stimulate RP. That requires a GM to become involved, which takes around puppet requests and similar, and ontop of that, is generally less risky than attacking PC's due to a lack of factors revolving around PC's and factions, allies, etc.

In essence, the rule is there to push RP instead of individual play.

A reasonable definition to me of "a big-ticket item" would be something which would let you exceed the cap in one transaction.
> A reasonable definition to me of "a big-ticket item" would be something which would let you exceed the cap in one transaction.

I've been told it's less substantial than that, but it's really vague.

It's to prevent small worlding and murderhoboing/dip rampaging NPCs without targeting PCs, as well. In my experience, if you target one NPC, you should target a PC prior to you targeting another. Staff generally uses that ratio to see if someone is 'farming', in addition to the additional qualifiers listed in the rule.
The weekly automated chyen limit only applies to the final transaction (giving something to and NPC). Items obtained via knocking over NPCs may have value to other people, before that transaction. This presents a farming risk; someone could really target NPCs instead of PCs, aiming to get lots of those valuable items, and then sell them to other players.

Allowing a single player to flatline a dozen gangers a day would make some economic problems that already exist far worse.

"Big ticket" is not clearly defined, but it's generally accepted as anything that is above... I can't remember if it was 1,000c or 2,000c in value.

Basically anything that isn't trash immediately counts toward your big ticket item for the week.

As I understand it "big ticket items" are things like gear and weapons. Items that will consume a large portion or perhaps all of the weekly income cap.

@Dawnshot

Mentioned driving RP. With the way current system is setup, even mugging NPCs requires interaction with PCs. Whether to proactively avoid consequences, or attempting to dodge the consequences.

As I think about it, the ancillary benefits of mugging immigrants over NPCs becomes clear. The immigrant / PC will likely then go on to tell other PCs about what happened. They might have more powerful friends. They might band together with other immigrants. etc.

On the other hand, the NPC just despawns at some point. There is little to no additional RP created.

The only other consideration I see is that NPCs are a good, reliable source of chy to allows characters to bounce back. Gear is very hit or miss, especially towards the end of the week. Crates are capped at a certain amount per day. Paychecks are a set amount.

If a character ends up on the losing end of a fight, they could easily lose 50K+ worth of gear, augmentations, etc. That will take them literal months of "farming" automated systems to replace. In that regard, limiting or narrowing the mixture of sources people can use to get back up to speed likely ultimately reduces conflict. It probably inclines people to "play it safe" for longer than they otherwise would if they knew that they earn their way back from a loss more quickly.

The only other consideration I see is that NPCs are a good, reliable source of chy to allows characters to bounce back.

This statement right here to me is why HELP FARMING exists. This statement suggests to me that players are NOT looking at NPCs and PCs in an equal light. That they see one as a more opportune target. Despite of the fact that they really shouldn't be looked at in this manner. I don't think they were ever meant to be walking sacks of chy to be used by PCs to 'regenerate funds'. Not exclusively at least.

I honestly dislike the need for something like HELP FARMING to exist at all. But sometimes players have a hard time not gaming the system. I think we all do it to some extend, myself included. But I think it's a good thing to have reminders like this. To remind us that we shouldn't be treating NPCs and PCs differently in this way.

On the flip side, I do feel that there is less chyen being injected into the game now then there was a year or two ago. I remember how a couple times a week some tine event might happen. Like a shady NPC paying for a quick job. Or another NPC showing up and attacking a bar. Things that brought life to the world and cheyn to PC pockets. I honestly feel that there is a lot less of this now then there used to be and that can contribute to people looking at NPCs as walking money sacks.

This entire thread sounds like 'how to stay just this side of the cheese line.'
@beandip

That's an interesting perspective. Are you a rules lawyer? Maybe discussing the rules makes you uncomfortable? Maybe you're attributing negative intent where there isn't any? Maybe you're too good to interact with automated systems and have a superiority complex about it.

There are so many reasons people do things.... And even more imaginary reasons that we can conceive of as to why. Why are you so negative?

I am looking for clarity and consistency in the rules. I am also trying to understand why one automated mechanism has an extra layer of rules, while the others don't.

Just a reminder to please follow good BGBB etiquette here and avoid making comments that serve no purpose other than to inflame tensions. We want to keep our discussions productive and substantive. Thank you all for being awesome to each other and debating ideas while avoiding attacks.
To answer the primary question of why help farming exists:

Robbing NPCs doesn't count against the automated income cap. You are misinformed and hopefully this clears that up.

Players often rob a number of npcs in a spree, and completely ignore PCs because they know PCs are more likely to fight back. Thus, we have this rule.

One player robbing effectively -every spawned npc- in a certain sector is not different than one player stealing every single car in the game. It's cheese. It's poor form. Its anti-rp. It's abusing a system designed to give people the ability to do something, they COULD cheese, but that expects them to hold themselves to a higher standard. We have found a good balance for people, that doesn't break the economy, and we have also provided ways to encourage people who are dips or strongarm-ers to stay in theme and also continue making chyen. Sometimes you have to have rules, because otherwise, there is abuse. This is one of those cases.

This thread is being locked because it has devolved. Please stay on topic, and off of attacks against others. You can debate someone without breaking our etiquette rules.

(Edited by Slither at 3:34 pm on 12/9/2020)