Dev Diary 8: Protection Rackets and Reputation - Wide vs Tall Play news

Reputation and Protection Rackets – Wide vs Tall in Voxel Turf

I've mentioned Protection Rackets in the last article – but how does this work? And reputation was mentioned in the last video, but what is that and how does it work?

Protection Racketeering

Saving up money to buy or place new buildings costs money, and it takes time to accumulate money. You can get some money from missions but its hard to get off the ground. This is why I've added a protection racketeering mechanic.

Above: An unowned residential building. Here you can choose to either buy it or racketeer it

Racketeered lots give you a small portion of their income (15%) but you do not have to pay any of the expenses. This is a good way to make money, especially from buildings that make some money but do not turn a profit.

They lots are "weakly/illegitimately" controlled by the player. Your control over them is only valid if you can project power over the area. Losing nearby bases will cause you to lose the racket.

Owned lots are legally owned core territory – the only way you can be forced to lose owned lots is if you lose ALL of your bases in a Turf War, and even then they are only abandoned - not captured by your foe.

Reputation

The cost? Reputation. Reputation is a stat that you accumulate from doing things such as completing missions, killing bandits, winning races, placing buildings and building custom buildings.

Above: Get reputation from doing missions or placing buildings

Above: Killing bandits and participating in races also nets you rep!

Reputation ranges from -100 to +100. At max reputation you get a +25% bonus to all income. At minimum reputation (-100) you get a -25% penalty.

Missions give a fixed reputation reward. Placing buildings gives you reputation that an equivalent lot would give you if racketeered - if a house costs 1.2 Reputation to racketeer then building an identical house would give you 1.2 reputation. Killing bandits gives 0.2 reputation per bandit killed, increasing with the level of the bandit. Races give you scaling reputation based on your finish position. And finally building custom buildings block by block will give you the same reputation boost that a placed building of the same value would.

Reputation can be spent to "offer protection" (racketeer) to a lot. The cost scales with the value of the lot. Because you can get reputation faster than you can get money you can snowball in wealth relatively quickly.

Your rackets are displayed as "protected" - but other player's lots are "racketeered" ;)

Reputation can also be spent to make AI factions like you. In addition, stockpiling reputation gives you up to +20 opinion bonus at 100 reputation.

Reputation also dictates the rate at which zoned lots develop. At zero or negative reputation zoned lots never develop. At 100 reputation you get max development rate.

Watch out though - it you are killed or arrested you'll lose either 1.0 reputation or 5% of your current reputation, whichever is greater.

Wide Vs Tall Play

Racketeering is wide-play. You can get a large racketeering empire, but you'll need to control a large part of the map and you'll only get a small bit of income from each building. Buying lots is tall play – you can make a lot of money by only owning a few buildings.

Above: A comparison between a group of owned (left) vs racketeered (right) lots with enhanced shading. Both sides make the same amount of money

Risks and Downsides to Racketeering

There are some risks and downsides to racketeering:

• You do not have complete control of the lot – another player can come along and buy it, putting it under their direct control. Buying lots that are racketeered by other players is a good way to undermine them.
• If there are no Player Bases in range of the lot you lose it! Be careful when removing bases
• If you lose the Player Base that it is attached to another player or faction in a Turf War, they get all racketeered lots in range. Likewise if you abandon your bases near it you will lose it.
Fully owned lots/buildings remain under your control even if you lose the base its attached to.
• Racketeered lots do not get any of your desirability bonuses that you get from unlocking Special Buildings or desirability boosting perks

For Updates, hit Watch, or add to your Wishlist on Steam

Until next time,
Twigz.