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.

Right now 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. A new business comes with a couple of orders' worth 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. Order sizes follow how busy the place is (a few days of that item's expected sales). You pay up front (30% of the menu price, from the till first, then your wallet), and the delivery arrives in 1 to 3 days. Press ORDER again for more.
• Wages. At midnight the staff are paid out of the till (vacant positions cost nothing). If the till is short, the rest comes from your wallet.
• A manager who restocks. Tell the manager (or have staff on shift call them) "I'll give you a raise if you handle the restocking." The raise is paid with the wages, and an hour before closing (11pm for places that never close) the manager tops up anything running low, by what it actually sold lately, paid from the day's takings. They never spend the money set aside for wages. Changed your mind? Tell them they can go back to their old pay.
• The manager's report. Every morning at 7, each manager vmails you: last night's wages, deliveries, what they ordered, what's running low or out, and anything they've noticed about the customers. Read it on your home cruncher. One message lets you know the reports are in.
• Regulars. Every citizen has a favourite place for a meal, a snack, coffee and a drink. Turn a regular away with empty shelves and they may start going somewhere else; keep the place stocked and newcomers may make it their favourite. Nobody announces it, but a good manager notices.
• Business doesn't stop when you leave. The game simulates citizens across town less than the ones around you, so a business you're far from would sell a fraction of what it sells with you nearby. The mod makes up the difference from the business's own regulars (using its real stock), so your businesses earn the same wherever you are.
• Opening hours. Businesses keep their own hours; a late-night bar or eatery may not open until midday. The ledger tells you whether a place is open and who's in.
• After hours. You can stay inside your own business at closing time: the staff lock up and go home around you (and if they've already left, the place is closed up for them). Waiting with your watch isn't interrupted.
• 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.

Making it yours

• Decorate. Inside a business you own, the Edit Decor button works just like at home (sandbox games, or the story once you have your apartment). Repaint walls, floors and ceilings room by room, and buy and place your own furniture.
• The fittings stay. Counters, registers, tables, seats, menu boards and the rest are what your staff and customers use, so they can't be moved, stored or sold. Litter, junk and cardboard boxes can be cleared out.
• Lit ceilings. Some places, like diners, have glowing ceiling panels. Paint one and it glows in the Multiply colour you choose; pick black to switch the glow off.
• The staff know who you are. Waiters, bar staff and counter staff greet you as their boss. Not enthusiastically.

Shared spaces next door, like a building's public bathrooms, aren't part of your business and can't be decorated.

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: whether the place is open and how many staff are in, the last 24 hours' sales, customers turned away, and the wage bill. COLLECT puts the till in your wallet, leaving a day's wages behind so the business keeps paying its staff.
• Put money in: DEPOSIT moves cash from your wallet into the till, ¢100 a press, to carry a business through a slow patch.
• Every menu item: stock, price, what it costs you, and orders on the way. ORDER 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, put money in, read the sales.
• TRANSFER sends the till (less a day's wages) 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

Planned for future versions:

• 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: crates turning up in the stockroom or back room.
• 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 small files next to each save, not in the save itself. Without the mod your businesses simply go back to their owners, citizens go back to their original favourite places, and the managers' reports disappear from your vmail (they're never written into the save). Money earned or spent stays, and the keys you were given stay on your keyring. Decorating you've done stays too (the game saves it with the rooms), and lit ceilings you painted go back to glowing white.

Compatibility

• Built for the main (IL2CPP) branch of the game. Requires SOD.Common.
• Designed to sit alongside other cruncher-app mods such as Stock Market, and to follow Life and Living's economy changes (checked against their code, not yet played together).
• Works alongside The Protectorate's other mods (Detective License, Sanitation Department, Margin City and the rest).

Made with the help of AI (Claude, by Anthropic). Designed, play-tested and released by The Protectorate.

Changelog

1.4.0

• On the house. Food and drink on the menu at a business you own is free for you (it still comes out of the stock).
• Deliveries you can see. Orders now arrive as a wooden crate in the stockroom, back room or kitchen (never out front), and the staff unpack it over a few hours of their shifts (Stock.DeliveryCrates).
• A full till is a target. Leave more than ¢4,000 in a till and it may be robbed overnight: a break-in at places that close, a hold-up at places that don't. The thief takes most of it, and your manager reports it the next morning. The risk grows the more you leave (Robbery settings; set NightlyChance to 0 to turn it off).
• Fixed: the buy, sell and manager options could disappear from conversations after loading a second save without restarting the game.

1.3.0

• Managers report by vmail. Each morning every manager vmails you a report (wages, deliveries, restocking, what's low or out, how the customers seem), replacing the pile of pop-ups at midnight and 7am. One message tells you the reports are in. The last week of reports is kept.
• Regulars come and go. A regular turned away by empty shelves may switch to a rival; new customers may become regulars at a well-stocked place. It all happens quietly, the way it would for a real owner.
• Businesses earn the same wherever you are. The game simulates distant citizens less, so businesses far from you were selling a fraction of what they sell with you nearby. The mod now makes up the difference from each business's own regulars and stock. Expect a lot more in the till.
• Restocking happens before closing, from the day's takings, instead of first thing in the morning. The manager never spends the wage money.
• COLLECT and TRANSFER leave a day's wages in the till, so a business keeps paying its staff while you take the profit (Running.KeepFloat).
• Rebalanced: the manager's raise is now ¢25 a day (was ¢50), and demand per regular is 0.45 (was 0.25), measured in play. Config files still on the old defaults are updated automatically; values you changed yourself are kept.
• Item names in reports are now plural ("out of Donuts").

1.2.0

• Give the manager a raise to handle restocking. Offer it in conversation (in person, or by phone through staff on shift). The raise is paid with the wages, and every morning at 7 the manager orders whatever is running low, paid from the till.
• Morning stock report. Each morning you're told about any business that's out of stock or running low, and what the manager ordered.
• Stock scales with the business. Order sizes and starting stock follow how many regulars a place has, so busy places order more. A manager on a raise restocks by what each item actually sold over the last few days. Deliveries now take 1 to 3 days.
• Put money into the till. A new ledger row lets you move cash from your wallet into a business, to cover wages and restocking through a slow patch.
• Open or closed at a glance. The ledger shows whether a business is open right now and how many staff are in.
• Staying in your own business after hours works properly. Your staff now lock up and go home at closing time even when you're inside (before, they waited for you to leave, so the place never properly closed and the next day started late). If the staff have already gone, the business is closed up for them: lights off, doors locked. Waiting with your watch is no longer cut short at closing time.
• Fixes: vacant jobs are no longer paid wages; wages and deliveries now run on the game clock (via SOD.Common); the Business Ledger no longer disturbs other mods' cruncher apps (such as Stock Market).

1.1.0

• Decorate your businesses. The Edit Decor button now works inside businesses you own: repaint walls, floors and ceilings, and buy and place your own furniture. The business's own fittings (counters, registers, tables, menu boards...) stay where they are, but litter, junk and cardboard boxes can be cleared out.
• Lit ceilings take your colour. Diner-style glowing ceilings now glow in the Multiply colour you paint them (black for no glow), instead of turning white again when the lights come on.
• Staff call you boss. Waiters, bar staff and counter staff at your businesses greet you as their boss ("Morning, boss.").
• Removed a research setting that was left in 1.0.

1.0.2

• Added a note that the mod is made with the help of AI. No changes to the mod itself.

1.0.1

• Added a "Safe to remove?" note to the description and a link to the source code. No changes to the mod itself.

1.0.0

First release.

• Buy diners, cafés, restaurants and bars from their owner, or through staff on shift. The price is based on regular customers, neighbourhood and menu.
• Real customers pay into the till and use up stock. Customers are turned away when the shelves are bare.
• The Business Ledger program at your business: collect the till, order stock (delivered in 2 to 6 days), and see every sale.
• The Business Ledger at home: every business you own in one list, with remote orders and courier transfers.
• Daily wages, selling back, keys and login handed over, and no trespassing, loitering or muggings in your own business.