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Maglev Fee Increase
150c from 45c

Hey folks -

Over the years we have refactored and rebalanced many a thing. One thing that hasn't changed is the dirt cheap price of the maglev @ 45c. That's... really cheap. You probably realize this. It's so cheap that anyone with any means of income probably doesn't even notice. One problem with it being so cheap is that it makes it difficult to justify taking a taxi, even a cheap player run taxi. We want to make it a liiiitle bit easier for taxi's to justify their prices.

Thus, mag-levs are now 150c.

We will monitor the situation and make sure it's balanced with crate running payments so that you aren't losing money or anything like that.

We welcome feedback here. Also, just for the record, I wanted to make them 300c but compromised at 150c. Actually, I wanted to make it cost more depending on what station you got on-- but we figured that might make RP a bit harder.

So-- yes, this is a change that effects just about everyone, but hopefully it also serves to generate some RP for those of you that operate or hope to operate a business where you drive people around!

I begrudgingly admit that this is a good change to encourage my cheap corpie ass to actually use my vehicle instead of taking the Lev to save the flash on ethicol. *grumbles anyway*
145 chy sounds fair.

I did like your idea of different ticket prices for different stations though.

Time to look into buying a vehicle, it seems.
I like that this could also increase profit margins for other types of characters as well. Need a runner? Well, now they can charge 150 additional to their usual charge if it is across level, and if they only have to go a bit, they come out 150 chy richer. It made more sense in my head.
Good change. Public transport is the cheap option, but in a dystopian thunderdome it probably shouldn't be near-free.
Can we price hike motorcycles while we're at it? Those things are crazy cheap for traffic-skipping vehicles, if I'm getting my info right.
Bikes are supposed to be cheap transportation at the low end. Definitely better than over priced mass transit.

They skip traffic because all but one of them are one seaters, and a Cricket or Grasshopper is supposed to be baby's first vehicle for people who want to drive.
Not just that but their lower price point makes them more attractive to Mixers, and Mixers riding around on motorcycles seems pretty themely, to me.
A bunch of shitheels riding around on dirtbikes isn't exactly supposed to be an attractive look, either. It's expected of mixers, but you should be doing a doubletake at the corpie riding the cheapest thing on the market.
How much money will this pull out of the player economy? Money that can't be spent to further plots, hire other players, or develop your character with?
Probably not much. The primary commuters group is already among the many players who ignore lev fare anyways.

If you want to spend money and don't want it being threshed out of the economy, spend it on player-run transport. If your character is heavily impacted by this fare hike, do something about it in-character. Don't know how? There's some roleplay.

How much money will this pull out of the player economy? Money that can't be spent to further plots, hire other players, or develop your character with?

Oh boy, is that ever the exact backwards question to ask.

More like:

How much will this drive me to up my game, to develop my character so that my capers and rackets will pay off more?

@Meoris This change was made to push people toward player run transportation. So I think it will have a positive effect on the amount of money spent to further plots, hire other players, and develop all characters.
Yeah, crate payments with the maglev costs simply aren't balanced. I went from Red (where I live), to Gold, to Green, then back to Red in the course of doing some deliveries and returning home. 3 tickets, that's 450 chyen. I got paid 123 chy for one delivery and 149 for another. 272 chy. In the time spent doing those deliveries, I could've made more money at SHI, so why do them at all? :/
I think the payout for crate running across levels will probably be rejiggered.
Remember that this is intended as a negative event. Characters are supposed to get screwed by this.
There's a line between 'screwing characters for RP purposes' and 'screwing newbies who might not want to continue playing'.
It does, though, give Mixers more of a reason to find biz in the Mix and stay out of the topside levels. If you don't want to pay the lev fees, stay in the Mix and make flash without catering to topside crate running companies.

With that in mind, maybe immies while in their 2 week probation period get a pass of some kind to keep the cheap ticket prices? Just to not discourage new players. I remember thinking the lev was super cool when I first started but NO WAY I could have afforded the new pricing haha.

Many topsiders aren't able to run topside crates. It's a job intended for mixers and pseudo-corpies, and if they're forced to do it at a loss then they simply aren't going to bother.

Letting people with crates in hand get free lev rides would solve the problem.

I was hoping to see how this all worked out IC regarding the impact Lev fees might have on topside crate runs. Get to hear corpies complain on SIC about how their favorite shop is out of stock. It'll get sorted eventually.
Ah, didn't realize that topsiders can't do crates. I agree with Grey0 though, let it ride!
I don't see this strongly affecting corpies money-wise, since most corpies either have free lev fare, have vehicles, or can afford the three hundred chy round trip from Green to Gold and back (or will use player run transportation instead).

Obviously without adjustment this hurts Mixers in the pocketbook. Not only will running topside crates be less lucrative (or in some cases a net loss), but there are things on Gold that Mixers need to get to on a regular basis: the bank, the Hall to pay SIC fees, Sense/Net to update.

In other words, I think this is a minor change for corpies but a significant change for Mixers. The goal is to get more players to use player-run transportation, but I suspect that many corpies won't care overly much, whereas many Mixers barely have enough to ride the lev daily, let alone hire a cab, unless the cabbie cuts them a huge deal (which is of course possible).

However, consider how the market might shift: more Mixers decide to apply for Chex, because then at least they have free transportation; more Chex drivers means more are available; increased supply leads to lower prices. It's possible that, given a bit of time, the market will self stabilize like that, leaving us with more cabbies with cheaper prices, and then it would be mission accomplished.

Making it 75 would have been good, I think. 150 with no changes to anything else, isn't. Lot less random travel now, with fewer opportunities for random RP or encounters with GM run plots.

Price increases are always intended to put more pressure on Mixers. Mission accomplished. 75 wouldn't have even been noticeable. 150 still might not be high enough.

I honestly think that anyone that believes they have less opportunity for RP or GM run plots because of a 105 chyen hike on the mag lev might not actually spend much time RPing or participating in GM plots in the first place.

Some of us aren't great roleplayers or have a damned clue about how to generate a plot to develop income for their character. I'm definitely one. So, I don't do great RP and this does reduce the random opportunities. I've seen some GM run items and appreciate the hell out of them. I had meant the chance to wander into something that was ongoing and you get caught up in it.

I won't comment further, so everyone can continue to disagree with me.

New players don't need to leave Red Sector for much at all, especially with any regularity. Red's population density and supposed adjacency between player characters should create more opportunities to roleplay. Immigrants should be stuck on Red. They should be rolling out and finding people and talking, learning about the world.

A lot of new players, myself included, have just jumped on a lev and gotten a topside job within an extremely short amount of time, almost as if it's a race. This is a terrible idea, because you just don't have any idea how the game works if you just skip straight past Red. Instead you have a lot of people complaining they have no work to do while sitting on entry-level corporate jobs, instead of flitting about Red interacting with the whole mess down there.

If this is stopping immigrants from racing up topside right away, that's a good thing! They should be learning the world in the much wider, open space of Red Sector alongside learning the game. If I had to guess, this is probably one of the big reasons why new players are forced to start in Red. As someone who skipped that important step and only came back to it much later, I direly regret missing out on what Red has to teach about the world and game at large.

For anyone who hasn't figured it out yet, if you're running a crate for delivery out of sector, you'll get a temporary Commuter Pass.
One time while running crates on Gold (the only time I did), I noticed that while having a crate did waive the initial fee, it doesn't really help you if your tip at the end location doesn't cover the return-home cost. Since tips seem random, it's possible - and happened to me - that you can lose money.

If that's working as designed, fair enough. If not, you might want to set minimum tips on Green to be above the maglev fee.

It's not random. It's based on your stats and skills. If you are charismatic and/or attractive for instance, you are likely going to get a higher tip. Just like in real life.
That's fair. Long as everything's working as designed, sounds good to me.
The fee waiver is time-based, not token-based, so you're probably finding its effects have gone away before your return trip due to the limited duration we've got it setup for. And yes, it is a little snug by design, but it should be doable.
I hated it at first, but then I sorta see their point, being a cab driver before then was only useful if people were wanting it fast, now it actually makes sense to use cabs.