An energy system is necessary. There needs to be jobs that collect an energy source from somewhere arbitrary (things like coal and gas), managers of the energy production, and people who fix power lines. This must include random generation problems, random power line issues, and devices that use energy so as to be as realistic as possible. A low amount of electricity should be constantly drawn (such as alarms, heating/cooling in RL) on top of the power to run all the other lights on the lot. Players will be billed. Even government buildings will draw electricity. Most importantly, electricity only works when people are working, as the idea here is to make there be limited resources. During different times of the year and depending on a sensible temperature of the day, energy needs may grow and shrink even depending on the time of day.
That's just one of the large resource production and distribution models that should be implemented; there may be many more that imitate their real-life counterparts. There can be farming, processing and food selling/delivery, and also other industries such as water, metals for buildings and vehicles, wood for builds and power poles,
M's fundamental flaw with lawyers paying for a criminal to avoid jail is that it does not take witnesses or evidence into account. Crimes with many witnesses should be extremely hard to get away with. I won't discuss how crime clues/evidence should work but the concept of it should be easy. Iban plans on something similar and may start hosting his new mod this month. It may be a good idea to check out how he will do it.
Do not make it so easy to get out of jail with little money. This is exactly how everyone who made a remix of CityRP/G has failed. Jasa's CityRPG had people that killed others, banked it, than either paid demerits or went to jail. Most people decided to go to jail because they could both make money in jail and still keep stolen money, even criminally obtained money that the bank and witnesses have records of being stolen.
An economy is important; everyone should be effected by the health of the economy. Cops can only get paid so much and be only so many in number, taxes may vary, perhaps even prices have to be changed due to inflation. The city must have a source of revenue of which it can only spend so much. I'd exclude beginner-level expenses (roads, building costs) from the limited budget.
Do not forget up a great idea with plenty of potential like Jasa did. Do not make a "food" job where people just pull food out of their asses and sell it. Make it a requirement for people to produce the food for a low-cost, then for them to sell it themselves or sell it to food sellers. Think outside the box and enlarge the production and employment chain as much as possible. The gamemode may need "gods" that change the functioning of the economy and prices of computer-generated resources. For example, miners that have their metals transported may find more or less metals at different times, and how this effects people buying metals at the distribution-level. A few more examples involve how energy-drawing devices such as cooling, heating, lighting, and other equipment use less and less energy over the years.
Summary of concepts:
- large production and distribution chain of food, material and energy production
- limited resources including government and materials
- changing variables such as temperature and weather that both affect energy usage of certain equipment and player health
- fair criminal justice that does weaken but not completely destroy the existence of crime
- deterrents from crime
- taxes that actually contribute to a real entity's budget
- money that is neither destroyed nor created
I'm a proponent of game systems that work similarly to the way they do in real life. Ask me for more ideas, I'm pretty good at coming up with things as you can see above.
Pacnet, you seem to be taking this very seriously and I hope you do this.
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