How much does a runner get paid per run?, Not where one would look in SR4A index :( Options

[Cardul]

OK, so I am seeing quoting numbers, and saying stealing cars makes more then Shadowrunning.

I am still, however, not seeing, as I asked, page references from the SR4A, or any corebook, that state how
much a run is supposed to pay. Page numbers for this, please, preferably from something in-print. Or else it is just your baseless opinion.

[Karoline]

No one can give you that page number because it doesn't exist.

Edit: Closest you can get is looking at the payout for the various published missions, but those of course are only really valid for those particular missions, though I suppose they at least give some rough idea of what might be good.

Like I said last time though, just try whatever and then adjust as you find you need it.

[Cardul]

Edit: Closest you can get is looking at the payout for the various published missions, but those of course are only really valid for those particular missions, though I suppose they at least give some rough idea of what might be good.

Like I said last time though, just try whatever and then adjust as you find you need it.

See, there has to be a page number for the rules, since people keep saying that stealing cars pays more per
the rules. Thus, there must be published rules.

[underaneonhalo]

See, there has to be a page number for the rules, since people keep saying that stealing cars pays more per
the rules. Thus, there must be published rules.

See that's the thing, there is a smattering here and there but nothing solid. I believe the GM book from the Denver box set (2nd ed) mentioned average payment for runs. The Contacts and Adventures book that came with the 4th ed GM screen lists "pay offered" on the random run generator (pg 24) but the options are "A bit lower than standard.", "A bit higher than standard.", "Standard rate for the team's abilities.", et cetera. Where you actually find the aforementioned "standard rate" I have no idea! I think the run generator was yanked straight from Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book (3rd ed) so try checking that out, it's probably your best bet.

The nature of payment in SR has always been abstract; you could get paid in creds, gear, info, favors, or even your life. Pay your players what you think they need to cover their expenses, and still be able to buy a couple of neat-o toys every now and then.

Sorry if that doesn't help.


EDIT:
Mr Johnson's Little Black Book PDF preview shows "getting paid" on the table of contents, I'll check the book tomorrow and see if that's what you're looking for.

[Cardul]

Mr Johnson's Little Black Book PDF preview shows "getting paid" on the table of contents, I'll check the book tomorrow and see if that's what you're looking for.

Since it is not in a 4th Edition book, though, it is not likely to answer the statement that in 4th Edition,
it is cheaper to steal cars then to do runs. I want hard, current numbers to show that that is either
right or wrong.

[underaneonhalo]

Since it is not in a 4th Edition book, though, it is not likely to answer the statement that in 4th Edition,
it is cheaper to steal cars then to do runs. I want hard, current numbers to show that that is either
right or wrong.

SR4A pg 312 "Street Costs"
Item Used -20%
Item Stolen - 20%
Total = -40%

As per SR4A pg 351 a Honda Spirit costs 10K
On average the cheapest available car in the core book will fetch 6K on the black market.

Now if you have a good fence contact you can expect to get requests for specific models of cars, and since these cars are being requested specifically that means there is a demand which lets us apply the black market modifier "Market Dry +20%".

As for concrete SR4A payment rules you aren't going to find them. The GM pays what he thinks is fair to his players and what fits his campaign, and for most street level runners their cut of the run is going to be a little better than going out and stealing a nice sedan. I think that's the sentiment being expressed by many on here.

[Blade]

Aren't there also rules for fencing gear that lower the selling price?

[StealthSigma]

Since it is not in a 4th Edition book, though, it is not likely to answer the statement that in 4th Edition,
it is cheaper to steal cars then to do runs. I want hard, current numbers to show that that is either
right or wrong.

I highly doubt you will find any rules that can prove this.

What you can find is the minimum amount a runner can earn from stealing a car excluding any outside influences such as law enforcement snags and pissing off the local syndicates that require the GM to place them. You can calculate this as the rules for selling goods is listed in the book. Fenced goods go for 30% of their book value, but you can subtract 5% to add a die to your extended test (Charisma + Negotiation [10, 6hr]) to find a fence as well as adding the item's availability to the pool as a bonus. Most of the cars listed in the BBB have no availability.

So let's make some assumptions.

#1 - The runner's face will be handling the fencing and he has 5 charisma and 4 negotiation with no further augments to his dice pool.

Give those stats we can safely assume, by the law of averages, that the face will be able to fence a stolen car after 24 hours of leg work, so he will be able to fence a stolen car about every 1.25 days (including rest).

#2 - The face is not required to be present during the car hijack allowing him to spend his time fencing cars.

In order to maintain a constant flow of cash, the runners must have another car hijacked by the time the face has sold the first one, so they only need to jack a car once a day.

So with a car sold every 1.25 days, that means in 30 calendar days a crew can potentially sell off 24 stolen vehicles. If they do this non-stop, over 365 calendar days they will have stolen 292 vehicles.

#3 - Most vehicles stolen will be Subcompacts and Sedans.

Sure there will be the occasional limousine or sports car stolen, but those would be out of the ordinary and considered a bonus. It's better to use the subcompact and sedan as a baseline.

#4 - Theft rate will be about 60% Subcompacts and 40% Sedans.

Sedans cost more (not much) and will likely be less prolific. This means the average book value for each car stolen will be 11,600 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) (Fenced for 3,480 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) )

#5 - The crew's actions are unhindered by law enforcement and crime syndicates.



So what we know is that in a year the crew will be able to hijack enough cars to have a total value of 3,387,200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) which they will sell for 30% of it's value which happens to be 1,016,160 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) split among the members.

If runners complete 2 to 3 runs a month for about 30 runs in a year then they would need to be earning more than 33,873 (as a group) on average for each mission they take on for it to be more profitable than stealing cars.

[StealthSigma]

SR4A pg 312 "Street Costs"
Item Used -20%
Item Stolen - 20%
Total = -40%

As per SR4A pg 351 a Honda Spirit costs 10K
On average the cheapest available car in the core book will fetch 6K on the black market.

Now if you have a good fence contact you can expect to get requests for specific models of cars, and since these cars are being requested specifically that means there is a demand which lets us apply the black market modifier "Market Dry +20%".

As for concrete SR4A payment rules you aren't going to find them. The GM pays what he thinks is fair to his players and what fits his campaign, and for most street level runners their cut of the run is going to be a little better than going out and stealing a nice sedan. I think that's the sentiment being expressed by many on here.

Those rules won't apply to fencing gear. You're already starting at a 70% reduction in price, which exceeds the 40% price reduction you gain from the item being stolen/used.

You can argue that the modifiers are multiplicative rather than additive (which would yield a 110% price reduction) meaning you would sell it for 12% of book value rather than 30% but I don't think the rules back that up. However my scenario is far less profitable than the one you proposed and I would still consider it profitable enough for a 3 man team to pursue stealing cars over running the shadows. 28,226 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) a month isn't bad pay for an individual.

[Nixda]

Car thieves could probably break the cars down into parts, and sell those over the matrix, retaining the -20% used penalty but possibly avoiding the fencing/-20% stolen rules if their buyer is unaware the parts are stolen.
With the amount of security a capable Hacker or Technomancer can provide I doubt KE will spend enough resources to track them down for something as low-priority as stolen car parts.

[StealthSigma]

So what we know is that in a year the crew will be able to hijack enough cars to have a total value of 3,387,200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) which they will sell for 30% of it's value which happens to be 1,016,160 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) split among the members.

If runners complete 2 to 3 runs a month for about 30 runs in a year then they would need to be earning more than 33,873 (as a group) on average for each mission they take on for it to be more profitable than stealing cars.

I don't think it will generate more revenue by taking a reduction on the asking price, but I'm going to see.

By going with a 25% asking price instead of 30%, then on average you will take 82.5hrs (66 hours + 16.5 hours rest) to sell three cars instead of 90 (72 hours + 18 hours rest).
By going with a 20% asking price instead of 30%, then on average you will take 76hrs (60 hours + 15 hours rest) to sell three cars.
By going with a 15% asking price instead of 30%, then on average you will take 67.5hrs (54 hours + 13.5 hours rest) to sell three cars.
By going with a 10% asking price instead of 30%, then on average you will take 60hrs (48 hours + 12 hours rest) to sell three cars.
By going with a 5% asking prices instead of 30%, then on average you will take 52.5hrs (42 hours + 10.5 hours rest) to sell three cars.

30% Book Value - 292 cars sold @ 3,480 = 1,016,160 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) revenue
25% Book Value - 318 cars sold @ 2,900 = 922,200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) revenue
20% Book Value - 345 cars sold @ 2,320 = 800,400 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) revenue
15% Book Value - 389 cars sold @ 1,740 = 676,860 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) revenue
10% Book Value - 438 cars sold @ 1,160 = 508,080 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) revenue
5% Book Value - 500 cars sold @ 580 = 290,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) revenue

This assumes that the face is only capable of fencing one stolen car at a time and they're probably pseudo-rough figure using 6hrs of rest for every 24 hours of being awake.

Just to clarify a few things. Fencing items basically will have about 3 steps to get a product from the runners to an end consumer. The runners sell to a fence, the fence. The fence, who should have a superior setup for laundering stolen property will do what he needs to do and probably sell to a black marketeer who then sells to the end consumer. If a runner could sell direct to the end consumer, then a 60% book cost would apply rather than a 30% book cost base. This model really does fall in line with basic economics. If we assume that -most- goods sold on the black market will go for 60% of their book value (used/stolen) then we would be having each individual in the chain getting a cut. The fence pays 50% of the final sell value to the player, the black marketeer pays 75% of the final sell price to the fence, and the end consumer pays the final sell price to the black marketeer.

The players would earn 1,016,160 minus to opportunity costs and direct costs of obtaining the goods to achieve final profit.
The fence would earn 1,524,240 minus 1,016,160 for buying the vehicles, for a profit of 508,080 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)
The black marketeer would earn 2,032,320 minus the 1,524,240 for buying the vehicle, also yielding a profit of 508,080.

Don't let those numbers fool you though, the fence is the most profitable of the bunch and the players are the least profitable.

[Karoline]

Since it is not in a 4th Edition book, though, it is not likely to answer the statement that in 4th Edition,
it is cheaper to steal cars then to do runs. I want hard, current numbers to show that that is either
right or wrong.

People aren't saying that it is necessarily more profitable to steal cars than do runs, but that you need to make sure that the runs offer more than stealing cars. Since there are no figures given for runs by the actual books, stealing cars has become a bit of a baseline because it is so much lower risk than running, and so shouldn't be more profitable.

[StealthSigma]

People aren't saying that it is necessarily more profitable to steal cars than do runs, but that you need to make sure that the runs offer more than stealing cars. Since there are no figures given for runs by the actual books, stealing cars has become a bit of a baseline because it is so much lower risk than running, and so shouldn't be more profitable.

Exactly, the books don't list run payouts. The runs do list all the rules for fencing and the book price of cars. From there you can reverse engineer based on the highest Negotiation dice pool of your players the maximum they can extract from stealing cars if they spend all their time doing that with no recreation for the person selling the stolen cars. Do a quick mashup of the average car cost based on the ration of Sedans to Subcompacts and you're good.

I would say that as long as the pay for your runs averages out to be that value or even less than that value, then you're good. After all, runs don't consume 100% of the time of runners so they will be getting free time for their characters.

After all, my number of 1,016,160 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) revenue was based on 7,008 hours of work for just the face. If it's three people running the op, the share is 338,720 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for a face and a wage of essentially 48.3 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per hour.

Let's say that you earn 1,016,160 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) from runs. You go on 30 runs in a year, with each run averaging 4 hours of executing and 48 hours of planning. You spend 1,560 hours in a year running and that same million turns into a wage of 217/hr. To achieve the same profitability as stealing cars... that three man team would need to be paid about 7,500 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per run (for the team).

However, I suspect that 5,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per run (for the team) would be sufficient to keep runners doing runs instead of stealing cars. Like I said, stealing would require devoting the entirety of one's time to that task. The free time offered by running does have a value that I suspect exceed 2,500 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . You can see the behavior modeled in real life with any sort of welfare or entitlement. If you're earning $10,000 in entitlements, you aren't going to go work for $12,500 a year. Chances are you will need to be earning $15,000 a year or more before the added pay from the job outstrips the intrinsic value of free time.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

SR4A pg 312 "Street Costs"
Item Used -20%
Item Stolen - 20%
Total = -40%

As per SR4A pg 351 a Honda Spirit costs 10K
On average the cheapest available car in the core book will fetch 6K on the black market.

Now if you have a good fence contact you can expect to get requests for specific models of cars, and since these cars are being requested specifically that means there is a demand which lets us apply the black market modifier "Market Dry +20%".

As for concrete SR4A payment rules you aren't going to find them. The GM pays what he thinks is fair to his players and what fits his campaign, and for most street level runners their cut of the run is going to be a little better than going out and stealing a nice sedan. I think that's the sentiment being expressed by many on here.

Lets not forget...

Market Flooded -10%
Price War between Rival Dealers -20% (after all, if there are that many cars being stolen daily, price wars are a given)

So now you are at -70% of the 30% of the base asking Price... so that becomes, for a 100,000 Nuyen car... lets see, add together, carry the two... Hmmmmm....... 9,000 Nuyen, and probably a day or three for fencing the equipment... of which you really need to worry about reprisals, storage, etc. Now, instead of the ultra high end cars, lets look at something more practical... Base 17000 for the Shin Hyung... again, add together, subtract the one, and carry the 2... wow, your base take home for that will be a whopping 1530 Nuyen... yeah, that is a lot of money... it just might pay for one of my meals at a high end restaurant where I meet my Contacts... I would need to do at least ten just to pay the high lifestyle that I am currently living (15,000 Nuyen/Month), not to mentiomn anything else that I may want to do... the fact is, if I was stealing cars, I would probably not be living that high lifestyle at all...

Stealing Cars is nowhere as lucrative as it is made out to be... not to mention that you are going to need facilities to store all these cars you are stealing until they can be stripped and shipped... just ain't worth it...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

[Nixda]

After all, my number of 1,016,160 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) revenue was based on 7,008 hours of work for just the face. If it's three people running the op, the share is 338,720 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for a face and a wage of essentially 48.3 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per hour.

Let's say that you earn 1,016,160 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) from runs. You go on 30 runs in a year, with each run averaging 4 hours of executing and 48 hours of planning. You spend 1,560 hours in a year running and that same million turns into a wage of 217/hr. To achieve the same profitability as stealing cars... that three man team would need to be paid about 7,500 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per run (for the team).

30 runs * 7.500 Nuyen = 225.000 Nuyen for the team or 75.000 per runner. I do not understand how this equals 1.1016.160 (team) or 338.720 (runner) from your example above. Did I miss something ?

[StealthSigma]

Lets not forget...

Market Flooded -10%
Price War between Rival Dealers -20% (after all, if there are that many cars being stolen daily, price wars are a given)

So now you are at -70% of the 30% of the base asking Price...

You're incorrectly combining the rules from black market street price and fencing gears. They are two separate cost structures. When fencing the asking price is 30% of the original price (book value). Street Cost modifiers do NOT apply. When dealing with the black market the asking price is the book value modified by the street cost modifiers which also modify the original price.

By the book, fencing a car is 30% of it's book value losing 5% for each extra die on the negotiation check. Any other modifiers are GM discretion and mostly going to be attributable to those street price modifiers causing the black market price to dip below 30% of the book value.

[StealthSigma]

30 runs * 7.500 Nuyen = 225.000 Nuyen for the team or 75.000 per runner. I do not understand how this equals 1.1016.160 (team) or 338.720 (runner) from your example above. Did I miss something ?

For the Face:
Stealing Cars: 338,720 per runner for 7,008 hours of effort. 338,720 / 7,008 = 48.3/hr
Running: 225,000 per runner for 1,508 hours of effort. 225,000 / 1,508 = 149.2/hr

For the other two:
Stealing Cars: 338,720 per runner for about (5hrs per car) 1,460 hrs of effort. 338,720 / 1,460 = 232/hr
Running: 225,000 per runner for 1,508 hours of effort. 225,000 / 1,508 = 149.2/hr

I will note, and admit that it is the face that gets 48.3/hr in the stealing cars scenario. The other two likely do not expend 7,008 hours of effort so their profitability would probably be slightly higher than committing runs, however that profitability is entirely based on the face being will to take such a lower profitability. Stealing Cars requires the face to accept a lower profitability than he would normally get by running. In other words, the problem to stealing cars not being as profitable to running rests solely on the willingness of the person handling moving the stolen goods and how much they're willing to accept a lower profitability for higher profits.

TL;DR- Stealing cars is more profitable for runners when the face is a schmuck and has no financial acumen.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I highly doubt you will find any rules that can prove this.

What you can find is the minimum amount a runner can earn from stealing a car excluding any outside influences such as law enforcement snags and pissing off the local syndicates that require the GM to place them. You can calculate this as the rules for selling goods is listed in the book. Fenced goods go for 30% of their book value, but you can subtract 5% to add a die to your extended test (Charisma + Negotiation [10, 6hr]) to find a fence as well as adding the item's availability to the pool as a bonus. Most of the cars listed in the BBB have no availability.

So let's make some assumptions.

#1 - The runner's face will be handling the fencing and he has 5 charisma and 4 negotiation with no further augments to his dice pool.

Give those stats we can safely assume, by the law of averages, that the face will be able to fence a stolen car after 24 hours of leg work, so he will be able to fence a stolen car about every 1.25 days (including rest).

#2 - The face is not required to be present during the car hijack allowing him to spend his time fencing cars.

In order to maintain a constant flow of cash, the runners must have another car hijacked by the time the face has sold the first one, so they only need to jack a car once a day.

So with a car sold every 1.25 days, that means in 30 calendar days a crew can potentially sell off 24 stolen vehicles. If they do this non-stop, over 365 calendar days they will have stolen 292 vehicles.

#3 - Most vehicles stolen will be Subcompacts and Sedans.

Sure there will be the occasional limousine or sports car stolen, but those would be out of the ordinary and considered a bonus. It's better to use the subcompact and sedan as a baseline.

#4 - Theft rate will be about 60% Subcompacts and 40% Sedans.

Sedans cost more (not much) and will likely be less prolific. This means the average book value for each car stolen will be 11,600 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) (Fenced for 3,480 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) )

#5 - The crew's actions are unhindered by law enforcement and crime syndicates.


So what we know is that in a year the crew will be able to hijack enough cars to have a total value of 3,387,200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) which they will sell for 30% of it's value which happens to be 1,016,160 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) split among the members.

If runners complete 2 to 3 runs a month for about 30 runs in a year then they would need to be earning more than 33,873 (as a group) on average for each mission they take on for it to be more profitable than stealing cars.

Do you really think that you are going to steal 24 cars a month and not piss of the local syndicates? Really?

Good Luck on that... as you indicated earlier (though I think your numbers are a bit too high), you fence stolen cars at the 30%, but you also minus all the modifiers, (Do you really think that those modifiers would not apply? The Black market is getting your gear, so why would you not apply the modifiers? I would... Market Flooded is still Market Flooded, you will get less for that car than if the Market was dry)... so 1530 or so per car (on a value of base 17,000 Nuyen) and 292 vehicles per year (Damn, you were working an awful lot that year weren't you; all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy); which comes to... carry the 3, subtract the 2... 446,760 Nuyen over the course of a Year, split 3? Ways... equaling 148,920 Nuyen each... Now, a High Lifestyle (what my character maintains) costs me 180,000 Nuyen a year (15,000/Month), so I have yet to actually pay my lifestyles, not to mention anything else... Now, for the run where we extracted a Vice President of Mitsuhama (Elite Programmer on the cutting edge of Artificail Intelligence) it took our 5 man team 3 weeks, for a net pay of just over 850,000 Nuyen, after which our Fixer took his cut, reducing the team cut to 605,000 Nuyen; now we recouped 40,000 Nuyen in group expenses, so the split 5 ways... subtract 3, carry the 2... for a total payout of 113,000 Nuyen each...

Now I know what you are going to say... these runs do not come down the road every day... and you would be right, that was the best paying run we had all game year... and we made a lot of enemies pulling that run off, not the least of which was Mitsuhama itself... but when I can make a run like that, even once a year, my expenses are pretty well taken care of... My High lifestyle is covered, with room to acquire a few pieces of extra equipment that I have had my eye on, and still have money left over to have a good time on the town frequently... with your car stealing scheme, I am still short funds for lifestyle alone, and am working 365 days a year, as you indicated above...

And oh yeah, you just pissed in some syndicates wheaties (to the tune of 450,000 Nuyen on my scale, or 1.016 Million on your scale), and they are going to come looking for you eventually, so you are not consequence free either...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

[StealthSigma]

Do you really think that you are going to steal 24 cars a month and not piss of the local syndicates? Really?

Good Luck on that... as you indicated earlier (though I think your numbers are a bit too high), you fence stolen cars at the 30%, but you also minus all the modifiers, as someone posited earlier... so 1530 or so per car (on a value of base 17,000 Nuyen) and 292 vehicles per year (Damn, you were working an awful lot that year weren't you; all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy); which comes to... carry the 3, subtract the 2... 446,760 Nuyen over the course of a Year, split 3? Ways... equaling 148,920 Nuyen each... Now, a High Lifestyle (what my character maintains) costs me 180,000 Nuyen a year (15,000/Month), so I have yet to actually pay my lifestyles, not to mention anything else... Now, for the run where we extracted a Vice President of Mitsuhama (Elite Programmer on the cutting edge of Artificail Intelligence) it took our 5 man team 3 weeks, for a net pay of just over 850,000 Nuyen, after which our Fixer took his cut, reducing the team cut to 605,000 Nuyen; now we recouped 40,000 Nuyen in group expenses, so the split 5 ways... subtract 3, carry the 2... for a total payout of 113,000 Nuyen each...

Now I know what you are going to say... these runs do not come down the road every day... and you would be right, that was the best paying run we had all game year... and we made a lot of enemies pulling that run off, not the least of which was Mitsuhama itself... but when I can make a run like that, even once a year, my expenses are pretty well taken care of... My High lifestyle is covered, with room to acquire a few pieces of extra equipment that I have had my eye on, and still have money left over to have a good time on the town frequently... with your car stealing scheme, I am still short funds for lifestyle alone, and am working 365 days a year, as you indicated above...

And oh yeah, you just pissed in some syndicates wheaties (to the tune of 450,000 Nuyen on my scale, or 3.4 Million on your scale), and they are going to come looking for you eventually, so you are not consequence free either...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

#1 - You're applying external influences to the situation that aren't guaranteed and are purely at GM discretion. Unless the GM has the local crime syndicates get pissed off it doesn't happen. Remove it from the equation.

#2 - You're applying street cost modifiers to the asking price when the rules don't support it. Please reread the section on fencing gear and tell me where it says to apply street cost modifiers. Best I can tell is that the GM may apply other modifiers as he sees fit. So it could be lower or higher than 30%, but it's not necessarily affected by street cost modifiers.

#3 - Your high lifestyle is utterly irrelevant to determining the profitability of the task but the profitability is used to determine whether it is good for your lifestyle. Since profitability can be expressed as a nuyen/hr figure we can know the minimum profitability for a venture given the percentage of time you're willing to work. In any given year, assuming your character needs 6hrs rest for every 24hrs of being awake, you will have 7,008 hours that can be used to earn nuyen. You have a fixed cost that must be reached (180,000 nuyen for a high lifestyle). That means at minimum you must earn 25.7 nuyen per hour if you work the full 7008 hours. Let's say you only want to spend 25% of your time working. Then you must have a profitability in the venture of 102.8 nuyen per hour in order to maintain your lifestyle (no savings).

#4 - I am arguing that running is more profitable than stealing cars.

[DireRadiant]

The "profit" numbers for stealing cars are just as made up as the shadowrun payouts. It's your game, you choose which one pays more. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) What you choose doesn't make Shadowrun itself right or wrong or broken.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

#1 - You're applying external influences to the situation that aren't guaranteed and are purely at GM discretion. Unless the GM has the local crime syndicates get pissed off it doesn't happen. Remove it from the equation.

#2 - You're applying street cost modifiers to the asking price when the rules don't support it. Please reread the section on fencing gear and tell me where it says to apply street cost modifiers. Best I can tell is that the GM may apply other modifiers as he sees fit. So it could be lower or higher than 30%, but it's not necessarily affected by street cost modifiers.

#3 - Your high lifestyle is utterly irrelevant to determining the profitability of the task but the profitability is used to determine whether it is good for your lifestyle. Since profitability can be expressed as a nuyen/hr figure we can know the minimum profitability for a venture given the percentage of time you're willing to work. In any given year, assuming your character needs 6hrs rest for every 24hrs of being awake, you will have 7,008 hours that can be used to earn nuyen. You have a fixed cost that must be reached (180,000 nuyen for a high lifestyle). That means at minimum you must earn 25.7 nuyen per hour if you work the full 7008 hours. Let's say you only want to spend 25% of your time working. Then you must have a profitability in the venture of 102.8 nuyen per hour in order to maintain your lifestyle (no savings).

#4 - I am arguing that running is more profitable than stealing cars.

1. External influences are logical and expected... they should always be taken into account... other wise the game loses verisimilitude..

2. Street Cost modifiers would have an influence on what you get for fencing, over and above the basic 30% value, it is only common sense... and I have read the rules... they do not NOT support it either... these modifiers are always in the hands of the GM, no doubt, but my point was that if you are going to play it realistically, you will get variability in return even for the same car model on two different weeks... Some weeks you will have a flooded market, maybe next month the market is dry... tehy are modifiers to control availability and cost, and that is all... Not applying them to the Fencing makes absolutely no sense... unless you are playing in a vacuum anyways...

3. Of course, I was using it as an example in comparison to your figures is all...

4. I am agreeing with that.

The problem that I see in the car example is this though... If you can steal 24 cars a month, why not 50 cars a month? or 60, or even 100... the camp that claims that Car Stealing is more profitable makes that claim, and they make it in a vacuum... there will be consequences to their actions, but they do not allow for such, because it is "GM Dickery" to assume that anyone would care, let alone pursue it... I refer you to your point 1 above... "No consequences" are completely unbelievable, and as such, you must EXPECT a reaction for your actions... The people care, the cops will care, especially if it ramps up to the levels that would make it more profitaable than Shadowrunning, and the Syndicates whose business you are cutting into will care when they see their profit margin disappearing... if you work for the syndicate, you will get a pittance, as the majority of the funds will go up the ladder; if you go independant, you may not live to see your next birthday, AND you are working like a dog most every day of every year...

Just sayin'

Thanks for the interesting diuscussion StealthSigma, I am enjoying it...

Keep the Faith

[Karoline]

it took our 5 man team 3 weeks, for a net pay of just over 850,000 Nuyen, after which our Fixer took his cut, reducing the team cut to 605,000 Nuyen

Wow, You seriously need a few fixer. Almost 30% cut when s/he doesn't do any of the actual work?

Going to open a thread so you can stop thread-jacking this thread onto a car-jacking topic.

[StealthSigma]

1. External influences are logical and expected... they should always be taken into account... other wise the game loses verisimilitude..

2. Street COpst modifiers would have an influence on what you get for fencing, over and above the basic 30% value... and I have read the rules... they do not NOT support it either... these modifiers are in teh hands of teh GM, no doubt, but my point was that if you are going to play it realistically, you will get variability in return even for the same car model on two different weeks...

Yes and no. My numbers all work from an ideal situation unfettered by external influences and assuming you can move the product constantly. In the ideal situation steal cars is still not as profitable for a face/negotiator as committing runs. Keep that in mind. Which would address some of your latter concerns. This is why I use a nuyen/hr figure instead of a raw profit figure. Obviously, you won't be able to do this 24/7 just like you won't be making runs 24/7, but it's the only way you can reasonably compare the two activities.

3. Of course, I was using it as an example in comparison to your figures is all...

4. I am agreeing with that.

The problem that I see in the car example is this though... If you can steal 24 cars a month, why not 50 cars a month? or 60, or even 100...

Simply put, it requires effort to move the product. I see nowhere that states that you can move multiple cars at once. So the limiting factor on profitability rests solely on the shoulders of the negotiator and size of his negotiation dice pool. It's a 6 hour interval with a 10 threshold. You need to bump from a 9 to 12 to guarantee you can move a car in 18 hours. To be able to move it reliably in 12 hours would require 15 dice. To move it in 6 hours would require a pool of 30. My count of 24 was not how much you can steal. I'm fairly certain a single runner could steal at least 4 cars a day if he wanted. However, even if the syndicate or law enforcement decide to crack down on you, the person at highest risk the face moving the product. He's the most visible and at the highest risk. Law enforcement could setup a sting operation to try to buy some stolen vehicles or the local syndicate could setup a meeting to six the face. Those do not change the fact that the face's profitability is still only 46.3/hr while he would have a 149/hr profitability from running.

The only advantage to stealing more cars than your negotiator can move is that you now increase the stock you have to choose from to sell. So if you only go out to steal just before you negotiator is about to close a deal you may get a series of 10,000 nuyen subcompacts. If you constantly steal you can build a higher number of sedans to sell off and eek out a little more profitability. Additionally you may get a few other nicer things if you go out and spot a sportscars rather than just looking for something to jack.

The whole scheme, as I said, boils down to having a dumb negotiator who is willing to earn such a low profitability. If I could do that, you be your butt I would steal cars instead of do runs. The risk is much higher on the product movement end than the theft end, but it's no where near as risky to steal a car as take on a run. Given that the profitability would be around 232/hr instead of 149/hr for a lower risk, I would certainly take it. As I said, it requires a dumb negotiator which may be a bit hard to find....

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yes and no. My numbers all work from an ideal situation unfettered by external influences and assuming you can move the product constantly. In the ideal situation steal cars is still not as profitable for a face/negotiator as committing runs. Keep that in mind. Which would address some of your latter concerns. This is why I use a nuyen/hr figure instead of a raw profit figure. Obviously, you won't be able to do this 24/7 just like you won't be making runs 24/7, but it's the only way you can reasonably compare the two activities.

Simply put, it requires effort to move the product. I see nowhere that states that you can move multiple cars at once. So the limiting factor on profitability rests solely on the shoulders of the negotiator and size of his negotiation dice pool. It's a 6 hour interval with a 10 threshold. You need to bump from a 9 to 12 to guarantee you can move a car in 18 hours. To be able to move it reliably in 12 hours would require 15 dice. To move it in 6 hours would require a pool of 30. My count of 24 was not how much you can steal. I'm fairly certain a single runner could steal at least 4 cars a day if he wanted. However, even if the syndicate or law enforcement decide to crack down on you, the person at highest risk the face moving the product. He's the most visible and at the highest risk. Law enforcement could setup a sting operation to try to buy some stolen vehicles or the local syndicate could setup a meeting to six the face. Those do not change the fact that the face's profitability is still only 46.3/hr while he would have a 149/hr profitability from running.

The only advantage to stealing more cars than your negotiator can move is that you now increase the stock you have to choose from to sell. So if you only go out to steal just before you negotiator is about to close a deal you may get a series of 10,000 nuyen subcompacts. If you constantly steal you can build a higher number of sedans to sell off and eek out a little more profitability. Additionally you may get a few other nicer things if you go out and spot a sportscars rather than just looking for something to jack.

The whole scheme, as I said, boils down to having a dumb negotiator who is willing to earn such a low profitability. If I could do that, you be your butt I would steal cars instead of do runs. The risk is much higher on the product movement end than the theft end, but it's no where near as risky to steal a car as take on a run. Given that the profitability would be around 232/hr instead of 149/hr for a lower risk, I would certainly take it. As I said, it requires a dumb negotiator which may be a bit hard to find....

That makes a bit of sense I guess... Can't argue any of that really...
And yeah, I am not going to hold my breath for a Dumb Negotiator, especially one that is throwing around that many dice...

Keep the Fatih

[Teulisch]

moving that many cars could be a run in and of itself. but its an operation that has three basic parts.

part one is the actual car theft, and where most of the actual risk is. bypass security systems and grid guides, avoid detection by cops or drones or cameras, and avoid surprises in the back seat (because a homeless ghoul may live in that car, you never know).

part two is the car shop. and it does need to be at least an automotive mechanics shop for what needs to happen next- they have to break the car down, pull out a few security features, put it together again, and repaint it. this is not just a matter of security tags, but also resetting the computer that runs the car (sometimes as simple as resetting the BIOS), as well as the onboard GPS before it ever gets to your shop. you need skilled labor (hardware and auto mechanics) for each car that comes in, with the limit of cars stolen set by limits of available skilled labor and limits of available tools. This shop will probably ALSO do legit work on cars for various customers.

part three is when you sell the thing, which is a question of supply and demand for the price. you have to make enough money to pay the car thieves their percentage, plus the money to keep the shop running and labor employed. the problem here is that the more labor and tools you have, the smaller your margin is going to get as you quickly saturate the market. now some cars you sell as parts because of the risk of you sell it as a proper car. other cars you customize before you sell in order to increase the profit. but still you can only sell so many cars a month, even as spare parts shipped across the country.

In order for the operation to actually work, you would need your freelance thieves to have a list of desired models, and a limit to how many will be accepted. first delivered first paid.

street cost.. lets see, its a stolen used car from a crime (GTA) under investigation, and the market is probably flooded with a 'price war between rival dealers' ie a lotta guys trying to make a buck. -70%, for your basic 30% value. and at that price stealing one honda spirit a month will net enough for a low lifestyle with some left over.

honestly, at these prices and with the skills a team of runners have, stealing helicoptors makes a lot more sense! 30% of a GMC banshee is about (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 700,000, good pay for a team of runners who can pull it off. just be sure to find a buyer before you do you DIY shadowrun.