Updating Mr. Bruce

Twice in the last week, the NPC shop clerks who are meant to receive deliveries from Mr. Bruce have been killed.
My first reaction to this was, "Shit.  How am I ever gonna earn anything if some dickhead keeps killing off the NPCs?"  But when I settled down, I realized that (especially down in the Red Zone) human life is cheap and people will be killed for no good reason.
So I tried to analyze the thing more rationally.
When Sally at the Dark Shop in Bansupuro Park was killed, I reported it to a Street Judge and then headed back to Mr. Bruce.  Of course, the crate I was delivering decided I was tired of carrying it before I could get back.  But when I did get back, I at least roleplayed telling Mr. Bruce that Sally was dead.  (Silly, I know.)  Then I asked him for any other jobs, and he gave me another crate for Sally.  "You don't hear so good, Mr. B, she's a croaker, eh?"
Suggestion:  don't automatically recycle those delivery crates or at least extend the life of them long enough to allow them to be 'returned' to Mr. Bruce.
Have the NPC shop clerks pay to the deliverer the entire price of the delivery, including Mr. Bruce's profits.  Have Mr. Bruce require that either the crate or the payment received for the crate be brought back to him, and /then/ Mr. Bruce will pay you your share.  And any person who doesn't reurn the crate or the right payment is put on Mr. Bruce's shit list so e doesn't get any more jobs.  Perhaps someone could redeem himself if he managed to scratch together what he owed Mr. Bruce; then he could get jobs again.
Too complex?  I know it's always a balancing act between comlicating the code and making the play more realistic.  Ah well, just an idea.

Right now, if there is an issue with Bruce, xhelp it. If I'm around I'll RP ya out of it.

Never actually thought of that, but yea, I always found it kinda odd that the shopkeeper paid the delivery guy who was working for the supplier…

Things I've thought about pertaining to the overhaul:

Couriers will have to register with Bruce, putting them on his books as employees. This will be handled by code and there'll be pretty much no restriction, so -everyone- will still be able to do Bruce runs but they won't just be given to any anonymous Joe who walks in off the street. Known criminals or previously unreliable couriers will lose their registration with Bruce and not be able to renew it until certain criteria are met that satisfy him.

Possible idea: Instead of going to Bruce and asking for a job, job's will become available every so often and Bruce will broadcast the job details over SIC to all registered couriers. First courier to get to the warehouse will pick up the job. Yes, this will mean you need a SIC to do Bruce runs, but since Bruce is a legit business and the SIC is your social security/ID/citizenship/legal documents, Bruce is -very- unlikely to hire you if you don't have a SIC implant.

Crates won't contain 1 single object and jobs won't only be available when there's space in the stores. It's fair to assume the stores sell -far- more than the few coded objects the player base takes, so the crates will actually contain a whole load of stuff the store might normally sell. This 'stuff' won't be converted into objects since it's all basically just 'fluff'. Some deliveries will contain 'useful' objects that will be stocked to the shelves, but many deliveries will contain nothing of use to the players (tampons, newspapers and the million other things the stores can be assumed to be stocking.)

I intend to add code that will allow you to simply not bother delivering the crate and open it, taking the contents (if anything useful) for yourself. This will, of course, lose you favor with Bruce and possibly result in you losing your courier job. Enterprising criminals may also make a living of mugging Bruce's couriers and stealing the crates. Pilfer through the contents and steal anything 'good' you find. Alternatively, you could deliver them yourself to a 'fence' NPC who will pay for intercepted crates.

I pondered varying the weights of crates, rendering some only deliverable by people with vehicles or stupendously high strength. Maybe, maybe not.

The change to jobs becoming available every so often will also remove the limitation that currently means only one Bruce run can be in existence at any given time, killing the occasional bug where a crate gets lost in space and Bruce refuses to hand out any more jobs because of the 'in transit' crate.

Based off Jadael's idea about payment... yea, perhaps a receipt system so Bruce pays you when you return or maybe I'll have Bruce keep a tally and pay his workers at the end of each week or day or something.

Oh, and players with 'other jobs' will no longer be able to do Bruce runs. Bruce and SHI are meant as stop-gaps for characters without proper jobs. It gets pretty tiresome to see the few characters with paying jobs collecting their weekly salary for doing alot of dick all then doing Bruce runs and sitting in SHI all day/week/month. Bruce can actually be a -very- lucrative career choice, it's going to be severly unbalancing in the long run for salaried characters to bolster their bank balances with Bruce work.

Of course, don't expect all this to happen in the near future...