Dude, if you pull this off, and finish it, you will be thanked by so many!
This is a really cool and interesting and refreshing take on the CityRPG genre, and I like what you have come up with/have already done.
Though you briefly mentioned it above, I want to expand on the "Crime Punishment" thing.
-Note: Cause it was the most recent I, and I have personal experience from it, I will be using Caviks CityRPG for my examples.-
CRIMINAL EMPIRES:
As people who played the most recent CityRPG (Caviks, RIP) may know, the crime section was "heavily flawed" so to speak. The main reason for this was that the only punishment was a "time out in the corner" (well actually it was a German island but I digress), yes it limited you from certain jobs but no one cared as long as they had money, an impenetrable hideout and a drug empire.
Speaking of which (what an ironic segway) -
There where many problems with this which I hope you somehow remedy, but not by removing them, as they did add another level (although broken) to the game.
(I also have some thoughts on this, which where kinda added to Caviks CityRPG, though I didn't see it personally)
One of my biggest complaints was that they where to easy to farm, wait time was 3mins between harvests, there was no way to tell if someone had it on them (unless you saw them harvest) and you got way to much cash from it.
They where also incredible easy to get to as people cheated by either:
1. (Server thing) Saving the map and finding out how to access the drugs
2. Making it impossible to get to them
3. Exploits and cheats
4. (Server thing) being forced to make them easy to get to >:(
JOBS
This is a bit more interesting, and again some stuff may just be Cavik CityRPG stuff only but I might as well include them.
Once a crim hit a certain Edu, he can get a job which allows him to sell things, which ment if they had an impenetrable hideout, he or she (or it, not assuming genders here) could buy weapons, ammo, food and healing supplies when ever they wanted, needed to or died, and get some of the cash back! And if they set up a public store, then boom more money.
So if a crim had a drug Empire, had a successful shop and was a successful crim, he was unstoppable.
A way to counteract this, was to use exploits, cheats and land mines to either crack door codes, find the secret switches some had, or blow up thin walls and break in.
After a lengthy discussion on Discord a bunch of us came up with a list of things which might fix most issues listed above, and maybe start a gang/mafia/drug war.
As far as I know Cavik only did one, which was add the SWAT team. These guys (or gals, or it's) had breaching charges and so could destroy doors and bust in. The design was to make it so they only had one charge which ment you had to have squads of them. I don't know how this turned out, but it was good in theory.
(I will get the list of things we wanted changed at some point, there was like 17 - 19 things)
So these where just my concerns about the criminal under world of a typical CityRPG which I hope you fix/change, and an idea about a new job, so to get you thinking more about those good ol' cops. (Cause seriously they are way underpowered compared to the crimes). There will definatly be things I missed, so to those who read this bit PLEASE mention it if I did.
Anyway, nice job keep it up it looks promising! :)
