Under New Management

Every diner, café and bar in the city has a name over the door and somebody counting the takings. Now that somebody can be you. Buy a business from its owner, keep the staff on, and make your money from the real citizens who walk in and order.

This is the first release. It covers the places citizens go to eat and drink, which are the businesses they visit often enough to run. More kinds of business are planned (see What's next).

Buying a business

Talk to the owner of a diner, café, restaurant or bar and choose "I'd like to buy your business." The asking price is shown on the option, and it's greyed out if you can't afford it. If the owner isn't around, any staff member on shift can phone them for you.

The price depends on:

• Regular customers. These are the citizens whose favourite place it is for a meal, a snack, coffee or a drink. A busy place costs more than a quiet one.
• The neighbourhood. The same diner costs more uptown than in the slums.
• The menu. Places with pricier menus cost more, and earn more.

The owner stays on as your manager, and the staff keep their jobs. Nothing about the place changes except who gets the money. You also get:

• Keys to every door.
• The owner's login for the office cruncher.
• The run of the place. No trespassing, no "buy something or leave", and no muggers bothering you inside.

Running it

Every sale is real. When a citizen orders a burger at your diner, the money goes into the till and a burger comes out of your stock.

• Stock. You start with 20 of each menu item. When something runs out, customers can't order it, and when nothing they want is left, they walk out. Those are counted as turned away.
• Orders. Restock on the cruncher, 10 at a time. You pay up front (30% of the menu price, from the till first, then your wallet), and the delivery arrives in 2 to 6 days.
• Wages. At midnight your staff are paid out of the till. If the till is short, the rest comes from your wallet.
• Selling. Changed your mind? Tell the manager, or staff on shift, that you want to sell. You get back 60% of what you paid, plus whatever's in the till.

The Business Ledger

A new program on the cruncher, in two places:

At your business: log in on the office cruncher (your login fills itself in) and open Business Ledger.

• The till: takings, customers in the last 24 hours, customers turned away, and the wage bill. COLLECT puts the whole till in your wallet.
• Every menu item: stock, price, what it costs you, and orders on the way. ORDER 10 restocks it.
• Recent sales: every customer by name, with what they bought and when.

At home: put a cruncher in your apartment (Apartment Decor › Furnishings) and the ledger opens on My Businesses, a list of everything you own with tills, sales, low-stock warnings and orders due.

• OPEN a business to manage it remotely: check stock, place orders, read the sales.
• TRANSFER sends the till home by courier. It arrives at 8 the next morning, less a 10% fee. Collecting in person gets you the full amount, so a visit still pays.

What's next

This release is the foundation. Planned:

• Shops. Pawn shops, hardware stores and other retail. The game has no errand that sends citizens shopping there, so they need new shoppers first.
• Supermarkets. Grocery runs are rare in the game, so they need a different kind of deal to be worth owning.
• Deliveries you can see arriving at the door.
• A full till as a target. Leave too much cash in the register and someone may come for it.

Bugs and feedback

Tell us what you think! Found a bug, a business that's priced wrong, or a place that never gets customers? Want a certain kind of business next? Leave a comment on this page or reply to our Discord post. Feedback decides what gets built next. For bugs, it helps to include your BepInEx/LogOutput.log.

Configuration

After the first launch, edit BepInEx/config/sodmods.proprietor.cfg (or use r2modman's config editor). Highlights:

Safe to remove?

Yes. What you own is kept in a small file next to each save, not in the save itself. Without the mod your businesses simply go back to their owners. Money earned or spent stays, and the keys you were given stay on your keyring.

Compatibility

• Built for the main (IL2CPP) branch of the game. Requires SOD.Common.
• Works alongside The Protectorate's other mods (Detective License, Sanitation Department, Margin City and the rest).