Private labs being completely murdered.

[alexalex303]

2 hours ago, xMysticZx said:

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Literally every way of making money criminally has been buffed substantially; even doing ATMs is worth it, maybe not for someone with millions from cooking, but for a new player? definitively.

I do think that sometimes new players will run into heavy opposition at labs, and that is fairly good, but there's also times when I've seen newer players cook solo at Chilli and no one shows up for hours, and even then, they can drive off on a BF400 which is a cheap bike.

I don't think it's as bleak as you paint it, on the contrary, there's so much money on the map, it's hard to stop people from making it.

[AtlasOLimbo]

I agree a lot with the above. The criminal buff has made just about every activity actually worth it, and I'm glad that marked money is more so a bonus rather than detracting from the actual value, so it doesn't really force you to go and contest laundromats.

Robbing just about anyone who breathes in a public lab is an issue that will always perpetuate the server I think. 

[Requiem]

5 hours ago, xMysticZx said:

I just don’t think this is entirely fair on the newer players of the server cause when they try go labs to cook.. they’ll get smoked. No one will bring them into a good gang cause they are new and they won’t have money to buy assets such as cars, gun stashes which is what gangs look out for when recruiting. This will just create a huge empty gap in the new batch of actual decent ‘upcoming’ criminals of the server which is bad.

the gang I’m currently in I’m already seeing people have to graft freelance such as trucker or garbage job just to be able to be 5 .50s if this is how y’all want crim money making rp to be like crack on.

Not everyone cooks in labs cause of the ‘clappers’ who rotate them daily and do nothing but rotate labs.. banks are 50/50 chance of making a 30k cut which is fuck all for the risk + risk of getting caught and paying 20-30k in fines, no one does house robberies or atm robberies so there’s not just a blank hole in the crim world for making money 

Then there’s the players who’s grafted cooking the last year+ and have absolutely millions and is set for life on the server and just don’t care cause this won’t affect them
 

I personally don’t agree with the change but I also don’t really mind as I am one of those who had cooked for ages.. all I’m saying is this won’t be fair for new players 

I believe you are thinking about this the wrong way. Holding a massive public lab, or even doing a bank for that matter, should be "end game" crim content. A bank would RPly be difficult to rob and would take a crew and time and planning. I think it makes a lot of sense for newer crims to do small scale crime such as car chops, picking weed, ATMs. Maybe they find a friend or two or join a smaller gang and start doing stores. Then they work their way up to the larger things such as the labs and the banks with a bigger gang. 

As far as the comments for the "clappers" rolling around...yes it's a problem now. But think about the long term IC effects. If a single gang wants to be clappers and roll around the labs and dominate them all and fight everyone off, they will create enemies out of all other gangs. Eventually that will catch up to them cuz not only will all other gangs be out to get them draining their time, money and resources fighting everyone, but probably end up on LEO gang units radar cuz they are making a bunch of "noise" within the gangs, so they will have them against them as well. I think it just takes time for everyone to adapt to the changes and adapt to the culture change that needs to happen. 

[babx]

I will put a couple of bulletins that you can consider why private lab nerf is a good thing for the RP server and what opportunities it brings to actually RP and not be focused on money. (I know that money is really important how on the RP server and in real life as well)


- There are more people on the streets, meaning there is more interaction (whether it be shootouts, robberies, friendly chit-chat, or car crashes...)

-  Gangs can consider diplomacy and figure out the turfs. There are 6 labs, 4 of them where you can cook. If you want to earn money, figure it out. Let's say there are 12 gangs willing to talk about this. 3 allied gangs share one lab, the other 3 gangs share the other one, etc.
If you have a command meeting every 4 weeks and set up a rotation, there should not be any issues.
Some public labs require mining to cook drugs - well, rotate the labs weekly. Some gangs will have to mine materials for a week or two, but next two weeks, they don't have to bother with it.
If there are gangs not willing to do this, they will have issues being taken out of the rotation - giving other gangs opportunities to have the labs for more time and bringing problems to themselves by themselves, eventually making it not functional.

- Random people want to cook - you are holding the lab, tax them or rob them. If you have 10 people cooking in your lab and you tax them, you are making passive money instead of robbing every random that is "on your turf". Use those guys that you tax to sell drugs to you - you sell it to them, and you satisfy the dealers. Labs are open 24/7. In one lab, you can cook at least 2000 products a day if it is active without people being afraid - meaning you can satisfy your dealers daily.

- Gangs do have turfs and have rules about people coming on their turfs - figure it out, talk and work with other gangs, even if you are at war with them. After all, you definitely need to satisfy the cartel and the dealers so you can have your imports.

- You don't want to use public labs - you want to use a private lab. Sure! That means that you now need more people to operate and handle it. It will take more time for you but there is almost no risk. As stated before - crim life is a HIGH RISK with a HIGH REWARD. You can still work with satisfying the dealers. Sure, it takes longer with less payment, but again - there is no risk involved in it.


TLDR;
Figure out how to adapt to the situation - there are plenty of opportunities with this update to upgrade the actual RP within the gangs and still earn money. You don't have to earn X amount per hour. You can earn X/3 per hour but have fun.
If you have taken the role of being in command of the gang - work it out and put your people in line if they are stepping over it.

[Fancyme]

I've cooked at labs solo or with another person most days and I can cook just as much if I was in a private lab. The difference is I have to bring better weaponry and risk more to be able to make as much money as I do which is how it should be. I see a lot of new players/solos chopping, cooking etc, making more money than they could before. The house robberies are heavily underrated due to the addition of the guns that can be found which I think people don't realise what guns are actually in houses. Since the private lab change there has been more interaction around the map, the server feels more full and actually have had an increase in players overall. The update to private labs was a huge step in the right direction for the criminal side of the server along with the buff to other criminal activities.

[TheOwl]

Cooking is trash and I refused to do it anymore. But I can see why some players would rather drop a bunch of lysergic and sit in their property for 6 hours cooking. It cuts the grind down or at least allows you to get it over and done with in one shot and gives you the time/money to go and do what you want to do. The only people that were able to sit and "print money" are gang leaders that can drop their own lysergic.

 

All of the buffs to crim activities are small and often include some form of chance. Ie. Randomized items appearing or what time zone you're playing in and how many people are online. The small buffs to crim activities does not make up for gutting the best means of making money crims have.

 

Is this good for getting players out of properties and into the open? Absolutely.

...providing they stick around.

Edited March 31, 2023 by TheOwl
Addition

[Herbo]

I’ve been playing a lot recently actually going to labs and cooking and I can now say that I don’t mind the update, I actually like it for a lot of reasons.

1. It’s given way better interaction & connections - Throughout the time at the update I have been able to drastically increase connections with multiple gangs from just seeing them at labs often and chilling talking to them. It’s made the server way more fun having interaction and building connections with people.

2. Actual reason to pull guns out - Before the update the only time I was ever really pulling heavies out, was for major shootouts that were about to happen. Now with the update I have an actual reason to go pull out an SMG or a Pump. It’s a lot more fun with actual reasons to use guns other then shootouts.

3. The grind is fun - I have made more money in the last few weeks of the update then I ever did with cooking. I have had an actual reason to talk to people and make friends so I can hold labs with them. I actually utilize all the labs and go farm marijuana to go hold somewhere to make money.

Overall, the update has been a big change but it’s overall a lot more fun and I encourage people to keep more of an open mind about it.

[Cyrus Raven]

For the people concerned about new players interacting with large groups. Perhaps this could be something that can be looked at by LFM in the same spirit as Bakmeel's thread

Groups found to be actively providing RP to include other smaller groups or individuals at labs and other public criminal locations could get a Tier reward (what that is I have no clue).

Example: Group A charging entry fee for a lab while providing security.

This isn't to say that Groups are forced to do these types of RP to progress, but those who do should be rewarded.

[Bala]

55 minutes ago, Cyrus Raven said:

For the people concerned about new players interacting with large groups. Perhaps this could be something that can be looked at by LFM in the same spirit as Bakmeel's thread.

Groups found to be actively providing RP to include other smaller groups or individuals at labs and other public criminal locations could get a Tier reward (what that is I have no clue).

Example: Group A charging entry fee for a lab while providing security.

This isn't to say that Groups are forced to do these types of RP to progress, but those who do should be rewarded.

I can understand why people may be concerned about big groups but in all honesty, big fish eat little fish. You become a big faction, a powerful faction, a main player faction over time by building your faction roster and gathering your resources.

Some factions will want to do business with people, in part because they're more socially inclined, both IC and OOC or because it's in their financial interest to do it. But at the same time, there are going to be factions that don't want to interact with smaller crims and don't want anyone using what they think is their lab.

For me, it depends on what sort of faction you are. The street gang mentality is "us above all others" and it's that constant competition to be number one, the alpha faction. Where as your more-business orientated groups or the mafia mentality is that they want to control the business but if it's worthwhile, they'll cut you in.

I feel like if you start rewarding factions for behaving a certain way, you are kind of forcing them to behave that way to get the rewards, not necessarily because it's something they want to do. We've seen that with banks sometimes. For some factions, it don't make much sense for them to be turning banks over but they have to do it because of the system.

I think also, people need to get treatment their main character syndrome and realise that after 2-3 years of walking around in a bubble, if they engage in these activities, they are doing so at their own risk and they may get robbed doing it. If you at a lab, you're outside the law and whatever happens happens.

As long as the reward is worth the risk, then there's no issue taking the chance.

[TheOwl]

25 minutes ago, Bala said:

... if they engage in these activities, they are doing so at their own risk and they may get robbed doing it. If you at a lab, you're outside the law and whatever happens happens.

Can't enter the drug trade without catching a hot one.

[Mikazuki Ueno]

1 hour ago, Bala said:

Some factions will want to do business with people, in part because they're more socially inclined, both IC and OOC or because it's in their financial interest to do it.

Yes.

[KrisBoyd]

Good fucking riddance. Theres nothing good about people afking in their houses cooking all day. The only thing good about it was when people blew their shit up

[eco376]

1 hour ago, KrisBoyd said:

 The only thing good about it was when people blew their shit up

Yes I agree bro

[Praetorian]

On 3/15/2023 at 1:07 PM, alexalex303 said:

Yes, I agree, the setup is involved, but once its setup and you have the ingredients? You're effectively cut off from everyone, for hours, just spawning money. It's not good. 

I am in favor of having materials spawn at the public labs, this isn't about introducing more risk or making crim harder, it's about promoting interactions. I believe 2019 public labs were some of the best vehicles for criminal interaction, and they should come back.

You make a good point, but those of us who have invested 3+ mil into labs deserve to have fair compensation. We're talking about months and months of time. 

[Clank]

17 hours ago, TheOwl said:

Cooking is trash and I refused to do it anymore. But I can see why some players would rather drop a bunch of lysergic and sit in their property for 6 hours cooking. It cuts the grind down or at least allows you to get it over and done with in one shot and gives you the time/money to go and do what you want to do. The only people that were able to sit and "print money" are gang leaders that can drop their own lysergic.

 

All of the buffs to crim activities are small and often include some form of chance. Ie. Randomized items appearing or what time zone you're playing in and how many people are online. The small buffs to crim activities does not make up for gutting the best means of making money crims have.

 

Is this good for getting players out of properties and into the open? Absolutely.

...providing they stick around.

 

The fastest and biggest money makers /SHOULD/ be locked behind experience and risk. Why should every player have the same opportunity to make the same amount of money in the same fashion?

 

How are you going to compare one persons character that leads an organization of 40 as opposed to a random solo grinder? Do you honestly believe a single person should have the same level of ease-of-access as more established groups? Did a random Colombian drug dealer make the same amount of money as Pablo Escobar?

 

More money to be made = More risks to be had. Simple as that. The most lucrative source of money should not be easy and without risk. This is an RP server not an MMORPG where people should be min/maxing their profit margins. 

[TheOwl]

what are you on about?
I'm talking about having cartel connections and being able to have lysergic readily available instead of needing to pay someone and wait to have it dropped for you.

You are not the main character. Everyone will have an opportunity to do the same things everyone else does.

This isn't real life.
It's a video game.

[Mortem]

Make it so that public labs drop 3 drugs instead of one for the same amount of ingredients, then you'll have further incentive for official factions to hold drug labs as well as make it plausible to keep up with the demand of dealers. 

[Waryerz]

The public labs already go 5x faster and are extremely profitable, dropping 3x sounds a bit ridiculous 

[Victor Einhart]

The problem isn't the public labs, it's the "hands up or die" bozos. If people move away from that mentality and it's no longer tolerated, things will be better. Everyone seems to complain about being robbed or shot at... but the proposed solution isn't to work on getting rid of the robbing/shooting mentality, it's to go back to sitting alone playing inventory management.

There's more than 1 table at these labs... it's entirely possible to share the toys.

[Payn]

11 minutes ago, Victor Einhart said:

The problem isn't the public labs, it's the "hands up or die" bozos. If people move away from that mentality and it's no longer tolerated, things will be better. Everyone seems to complain about being robbed or shot at... but the proposed solution isn't to work on getting rid of the robbing/shooting mentality, it's to go back to sitting alone playing inventory management.

There's more than 1 table at these labs... it's entirely possible to share the toys.

Issue is how do you move away from that mentality? The rules are not preventing such a way of playing and so thats what people result to doing. It would be great if you could go to a lab with the oppurtunity of working alongside people, yet whenever the thought of going to a public lab comes to mind, its just "ah theres no point theres probs some big gang holding it" No matter if you want to go in, work along side the gang and essentially be taxed as some have said, more often than not youre told to stick your hands up empty your pockets, they rob your car and your gutted of everything. 

I myself am not sure what could be implemented to stop this, possibly something just or even the smallest bit less profitable than cooking drugs as since drugs are really the only main focus, and chop shops are in labs there needs to be alternative methods of income even the smallest bit lower which would even out where players are. Its all going to get boring after a while of no one being able to survive a lab without being robbed.

With private labs now, i think it has just got to a point where they cannot be saved. I think just finish off whats been started, remove private labs, implement a /refundequipment command to refund your equipment, get import price for your equipment and carry on with life.

[Mortem]

First of all, public drug labs are not profitable ENOUGH.

If I am not with atleast 10 people I will not risk holding a drug lab for over 30 minutes, 100k an hour is worse then what private labs made, they should make it like 200k an hour so that even just by being there for 10 minutes you can make a cheeky 30k, making it good for new players as it doesn't require a long time to hold down. 

You're also forgetting that this 100k per hour is only for ONE person, where as private labs could make 100k an hour for 40 people at the same time with seperate labs.

3x drops isn't just about money, you can lower the price. Previously you could have like 10 people cooking every day for a gang which would be enough to make sure dealers are satisfied, where as now  the production from these drug labs per hour is the same as 1 private lab with 24 tables, meaning that there isn't enough to go around. Either increase the amount of influence drugs give you or increase the output.

[alexalex303]

55 minutes ago, Mortem said:

First of all, public drug labs are not profitable ENOUGH.

The fact that they're being used almost non-stop seems to be evidence to the contrary. If public labs were not profitable enough, no one would use them.

They might not be as good as private labs, but nothing will ever be as good as printing money with zero risk in a private interior. 

[Antonio_Colombo]

Not sure if mentioned or not, but there is this annoying anim bug upon finishing water bottle refill. Please fix that. 

[Payn]

1 hour ago, alexalex303 said:

zero risk

Not asking for private labs back but fr man there is risk lol. Its not just you spawn tables and get to work. You have to risk a lot of money for it stop acting like private labs were no risk whatsoever because they werent

 

[DoubleA]

If we do have public labs can we at least make all of the tables work? A couple of them at the island don’t work last time I checked