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.