[Nev]

Suggestion:
Multiple changes to increase the risk and reward of growing marijuana. 

Reason:
At the current time growing marijuana is highly unprofitable and has little risk and little reward. 

Details:

[1] Make the process of growing marijuana require a higher investment to set-up


Pot ($100) > ($500)

This would mean the cost of (5) pots would increase from $500 to $2,500.


[2] Seeds are no longer sold in shipments of (5) and instead are sold as (1) and we increase the price of the seed to $2,000.

Only one seed would be required to start the grow process and after the weed is ready to be harvested, after clicking [E] on the pot the packets would drop along with a seed that would be able to be used for the following cycle. This increases the investment to $10,000 for a (5) pot grow cycle. 

[3] Weed output increases as you complete each grow cycle

When the pot is ready to be harvested and the user presses [E] on the pot they shall receive (5) packets per pot per grow cycle, which is currently the set number. After receiving their seed that dropped along with it and beginning the next cycle, they'll then receive (6) packets after harvesting and then continuing to increase an additional packet until they reach a capacity of (10) packets per pot. Once that milestone is reached then it will simply stay at (10). 

[4] Weed price increases to $500 per packet. 

This means that an investment of $2,500 for (5) pots and $10,000 for the first round of seeds to start the growth process would yield a net profit of $2,500 per pot which would mean that with (5) pots you could receive 25 packets on the first grow cycle which had a value of $12,500 which would leave you without a profit or loss. This would be ideal to increase the risk as the first grow cycle would simply be about earning enough to pay off the cost of the initial investment. The next cycle would produce (6) packets and would yield a net revenue of $3,000 per pot or $15,000 per (5) pots. The maximum number of packets (10) would yield a profit of $5,000 per pot or $25,000 per (5) pots per cycle. This seems reasonable considering the profits of lumberjacking are well within these figures and yet is completely legal and has no risk of being stopped by law enforcement and/or criminals.

[5] Marijuana becomes an item that when picked up would not be in your inventory but instead be directly on your character.

Weed when picked up would not be hidden away in an inventory but rather would be directly on your character and able to be seen when searched by police, confiscated and even stolen. This makes an additional risk when you are carrying large amounts and are in the process of making an exchange with your local BMD. You'll need to go about carefully and depending on the amount of risk you'd like to take you can either make frequent exchanges of lower amounts or meet up and sell in bulk. The more meet-ups may result in suspicion by local law enforcement detectives but taking the risk to carry a larger number to sell off would mean you run the risk of losing it all if caught. 

[6] NPC Dealer removed - Sell to player (BMD)

The NPC dealer would be removed and you would instead be selling directly to a player. This would increase interaction and role-play between players but also present new gameplay features and means of profits for players that choose to play as the BMD role. With these new features comes new risks.

Players and BMD's would need to establish a means on communication and set up trades where the BMD would be paying out of pocket cash for the marijuana. The player(s) would make the exchange and the BMD would then have the marijuana on hand and would then need to follow through with then taking the marijuana and selling it. We'll create a simple entity with the computer model that would be called Black Market Terminal or similar that would be the gateway for selling the purchased marijuana packets. They'll simply click [E] on the prop and it'll come up with the UI to sell their weed. The alternative to this would be to simply make it so that the BMD would be the only one able to sell to the NPC dealer although I believe this has possible disadvantages as criminals and/or police could camp near this position and arrest/mug the BMD before he can make his final transaction. If the BMD has a terminal entity he can make the transaction in his home and this would present less risks.

This would allow them to sell their weed from inside their own pad but again it comes with the risk of having to make transactions with players and being subject to possible sting operations, traffic stops, searches and what not that could leave them being found with illegal substances or, if legalized, simply an illegal amount on their character. 


**This isn't too advanced of a suggestion although it can be a challenge for some of our English second language community members or those native speakers who just can't follow my train of thought. It's alright. The US education system may have failed you but you are still a wonderful human being

[Dick]

+Support

[Jen]

+support

Honestly great idea, But me buying a pot for $500? I could buy a pot for $10. Drug dealers do it in big farms with cheap stuff, that works, nothing special so $500 for a pot! Thats a bit much.

[Nev]

We assign things a value based not on what it would be priced at IRL but rather the true value of the item in-game and making things balanced. In this case, the process of starting a Marijuana grow operation should be expensive and risky and therefore having the additional investment of $500 per pot not only rises the cost of a total set from $500 - $2,500 but also increases the investment you will be spending to purchase pots from additional players. They'll want to make a profit off selling their pots and thus you'll end up spending around 1.5x - 3x ($750 - $1500) per pot to take it off their hands. This means that if you established a grow operation with 25 pots and say you met them in the middle at $1000 per pot then you would be dishing out $2,500 (5) + $20,000 (20) = $22,500 which is fair considering those 25 pots would yield 10 packets at final capacity and be earning you well within $62,500 per cycle. Thus with your initial investment of the pots and seeds you'll be at an initial loss of -$10,000 though after 5 cycles and reaching the 10 packet capacity you'd be raking in $125,000. It'd take quite a while to get to that point and you'll be dealing with both criminals and the law while in the process of growing the weed and when making the transactions to your local BMD to sell it. There's no rules to stop the BMD from having a hidden agenda, such as working for the Mafia or being forced into settings up the deal by the ECPD, so there's always a risk a trade can go south. If you end up losing a batch, it can be costly and you'd make sure to know which BMD's you can trust and which to stay away from.

We could also look at increasing the grow cycle time period every time, for example increasing it +5 minutes every completed cycle until you get to that output capacity of 10 packets. Thus you would go from 20 minutes (5) / 25 minutes (6) / 30 minutes (7) / 35 minutes (8) / 40 minutes (9) / 45 minutes (10) which would prevent people from taking advantage of both the growth profits during hours and increase the amount of work needed to maintain a grow operation. $125,000 per 40 minutes would be approximately the same amount of profits earned by two individuals working together to cut wood. It's also far less than the profits possible through a meth farm but rightfully so as the meth method is far more complicated, labor intensive and can be quite noisy.

[Wesley Lawrence]

**This isn't too advanced of a suggestion although it can be a challenge for some of our English second language community members or those native speakers who just can't follow my train of thought. It's alright. The US education system may have failed you but you are still a wonderful human being

lol +support

[Cooli]

+Support

[Klinex]

+support

NPC spawns when no BMD available?

[Blazing]

+support. Not many people do weed anymore with the introduction of lumberjacking, and this would help make the risk more worth it.

[Lord Octagon]

+Support. Great way to encourage people to roleplay instead of just magically selling weed to an NPC. Also adds value to the BMD role.

[Rizion]

What happens if there is no BMD online?

[Doctor Internet]

Due to a high level of community support, this suggestion has been moved to the Popular section.

[Doctor Internet]

Pushing for Staff Review.

[Doctor Internet]

Added in Sea of Green.