Actions & Planning

Overview

Every day you plan your runners’ actions. You have until 11:00 PM MET – after that, nothing is accepted. Anything you haven’t entered by then simply doesn’t happen.

Your goal: use every available unit effectively. An idle runner is wasted potential.

Currently 71 actions are active (as of server v1.80+). This page documents each one in detail. The full machine-readable list lives in data/actions.json; the triage history is in docs/ACTIONS_TRIAGE.md.

Action Reference: All 71 Active Actions

Street Hustle

Low-barrier crimes for quick cash. Ideal for getting started and as baseline income.

PICKPOCKET

Quick money on the streets. Your safest income for STL runners. Barely any heat, barely any risk. On critical failure: light HP loss.

MUG

Rob passersby or couriers. Pays better than pickpocketing but more heat. Solid side income for STR/CON runners. On failure: hood heat penalty. On critical failure: HP loss.

EXTORT – Protection Racket

Run a protection racket: your runner automatically visits all buildings in the target sector. One skill check per building. Establishes sector control – prerequisite for COLLECT. High STR + CHA = more money per stop.

COLLECT

Collect revenue from controlled sectors. Minimal heat, solid income. Only works in sectors you’ve established control over via EXTORT. The ideal daily job for CHA runners.

VANDALIZE

Damage enemy buildings. Reduces their defense value and income. Cheap preparation for future raids.

Violence

Serious crimes: high heat but high reward and strategic value.

RAID

The bread-and-butter action for aggressors. Attack, loot, and damage an enemy business. Good payout for STR/CON runners, but you need many hoods for consistent income. On failure: HP loss and heavy heat penalty. On critical failure: severe injury.

Example (STR 45, CON 40): $700 + 225 + 80 = $1,005 at 7 hood heat.

DRIVE_BY

Quick attack from a moving vehicle. Deals HP damage to rival hoods in the same sector.

ASSASSINATE

Targeted killing – bypasses medic protection (permadeath). The highest single heat cost, but the most final action in the game.

KIDNAP

Kidnap a rival hood for 3 days (treated like arrest) and reduce their loyalty by 20. Prerequisite for INTERROGATE and TORTURE.

INTERROGATE

Question a prisoner – delivers detailed intel about the rival organization (sectors, net worth, hoods, heat). On critical failure: prisoner escapes.

TORTURE

Extreme interrogation – forces high-quality intel AND reduces the victim’s loyalty by 30. Adds +5 federal heat. On critical failure: prisoner dies or escapes.

AMBUSH

Position your hood hidden at a node. The first enemy hood passing through gets attacked with initiative bonus. Damage: $25 + STL x 2.

Destruction

Heavy attacks on buildings. Extremely expensive in terms of heat but devastating.

ARSON

Burn down a building – takes it temporarily out of operation. High defense damage (5 points) plus “on_fire” status.

BOMB

Massive explosion – destroys buildings (10 defense points damage) and kills present hoods. The most destructive action in the game. Extreme heat.

Stealth

Quiet but lucrative. Ideal for STL and TCH runners.

BURGLE – Burglary

Crack safes or loot a building’s storage. Excellent income-to-heat ratio. Fail Forward: Even a botched burglary brings some loot – the skill check only determines how much you find.

SABOTAGE

Sabotage a building – reduces defense and productivity. The 50/50 weighting means both stealth runners and bruisers can reliably execute this action.

Social & Business

Manipulation, diplomacy, and personnel management. CHA and INT heavy.

RECRUIT

Recruit new runners in bars and on the streets. Recruits come from a generic street-level pool – you find random people, not elite operatives. What you find is what you get. Selective recruiting (keep the good ones, fire the weak) is a core part of the game.

Fail Forward: You ALWAYS get a hood – the skill check determines quality:

Tip: You start with 6 weak hoods (attributes 20-40). Recruiting is not a side job but essential – you need to actively search for better people and replace the weak ones later.

BRIBE

Buy cops, judges, or officials. Reduces hood heat AND sector heat. Lowers federal heat by 5. Expensive but essential for heat management.

SLANDER

Spread propaganda – increases target’s federal heat (+3) and average hood heat (+5). Cheap way to pressure rivals.

POACH

Lure a rival hood into your gang. Only works on hoods with low loyalty (< 40). Expensive, but you get an already trained runner.

PLANT_STORY

Plant a manipulated story in the Gazette (SMEAR, FAKE_POLICE, FALSE_ATTRIBUTION). Increases target’s federal heat (+2) and hood heat (+3).

Logistics

Reconnaissance and defense. No income, but indispensable for planning.

SCOUT

Reveal defense values and layout of enemy buildings. Delivers intel entries. Minimal heat but requires INT.

GUARD

Station a hood at a building – increases defense value against raids. No skill check, no heat. Passive defense.

PATROL

Hood patrols along a route – increases detection chance for enemy INFILTRATE, PLACE_SPY, and SHADOW attempts. Reduces sector heat by 1.

BODYGUARD

Assign a hood as personal protection for another. When the protected hood is attacked, the bodyguard responds first. No skill check.

Administration

Daily operations: personnel, vehicles, donations. Usually no risk but important for business.

ASSIGN_MANAGER

Install a hood as manager in a building. Without a manager, a building generates $0 income. The hood leaves their team slot and becomes stationary.

RECALL_MANAGER

Recall a manager – building goes idle immediately ($0 income). No skill check.

FIRE_HOOD – Fire Runner

Remove a hood from the gang. Causes loyalty penalty for remaining hoods.

BUY_VEHICLE

Purchase a vehicle from a dealer. Vehicles are prerequisites for DRIVE_BY and speed up transports.

DONATE

Support communities and soup kitchens – builds goodwill and reduces sector heat by 3. No risk, but costs clean cash.

Real Estate

Buy, rent, sell, and develop buildings. Foundation for long-term income.

RENT_BUILDING

Sign a lease for an available building. Costs clean cash. The executing runner is automatically installed as manager.

BUY_BUILDING

Permanently acquire a building – no ongoing rent. More expensive than renting but more profitable long-term. Owned buildings get +15% income bonus.

SELL_BUILDING

Sell an owned building. Returns 60% of purchase price as clean cash.

VACATE_BUILDING – Cancel Lease

Terminate a lease early. No skill check, immediate effect.

SETUP_FRONT – Set Up Shell Company

Register a building as a shell company – enables money laundering. Tiers: Kiosk ($1,500) -> Standard ($4,000) -> Shell ($10,000). Higher tiers launder more with lower fees.

Diplomacy

Cooperation and betrayal. NAP system for temporary alliances.

DECLARE_NAP

Declare a ceasefire with a rival. Both sides must include it in their plan. Diplomat, EconHacker, and AggroDiplomat bots accept automatically.

CANCEL_NAP

End an active ceasefire. Takes effect next cycle. No skill check.

TRANSFER – Transfer Resources

Transfer dirty cash to a NAP partner. Both hoods must be at the same node.

Spionage (Spy Cluster, v1.64.0)

Information warfare. Five distinct flavours of “get eyes on a rival” — they trade duration, cost, heat, and persistence.

INFILTRATE

One-shot break-in. Gathers detailed intel on the target’s net worth and sector control. Heat from the noise of forcing entry.

SHADOW

Subtle tail. Same intel payload as INFILTRATE but no heat — pure shadowing, no contact.

BUG

Persistent listener. Passive heat trickle from the device left in place.

PLACE_SPY

Stationary observer. Hood committed to the observation post for a day after placement.

UNDERCOVER

Long-term embed. CHA-primary (cover identities lean social). The week-long cooldown + 3-day lockout means this is a high-commitment intelligence move.

Hacking

Pure-digital crime. TCH-primary across the cluster.

HACK_RECON (v1.65.0)

Passive scan. Detailed intel without paying — the price is the small attributable heat. Fizzles in EMP-disabled sectors once that mechanic lands.

HACK_AUDIT (v1.65.0)

Digital alternative to AUDIT_PRESSURE. Pushes target’s audit risk +0.08. Weaker push (0.08 vs 0.12) but no NPC-contact requirement.

DOXX (v1.65.0)

Public-leak paper trail. Adds detailed intel AND bumps the target’s federal heat — the leak is public, the feds notice.

CRYPTO_STEAL (v1.65.0)

Bank-account drain. steal_cash with field: clean since v1.69.0 — pulls clean cash from the rival’s wallet, clamped to their available balance.

MALWARE (v1.65.0)

Software sabotage. Damages building DefenseValue base=30, TCH-scaled. Pairs with RAID — soften before assault.

DATA_WIPE (v1.68.0)

Police-record erase. Local heat goes down hard (-15 hood), federal heat goes up (+5) — street-cops forget you, FBI notices the intrusion. Per-player cooldown to prevent crew-rotation spam.

HACK_SIPHON (v1.69.0)

Wash-pipeline drain. Pulls clean cash from the rival AND damages the targeted laundering building (DefenseValue base=25). Slightly smaller TCH-scaling than CRYPTO_STEAL (30/20 vs 40/30) — pays for the double effect.

Note (Server v1.70.0 pause): DRONE_STRIKE + INTERCEPT_DRONE were temporarily disabled pending a proper drone-engagement subsystem. See docs/DRONE_SUBSYSTEM.md. HACK_FREEZE, HACK_REROUTE, EMP, TRACE_HACK remain gated pending hack-defense-layer design.

Violence (Wave 4, v1.65.0)

SNIPE

Precision hit. INT/STL-scaled, ignores proximity (works any sector). damage_hp base=80 + INT×2 → near-instant kill. Heat from the gunshot noise, even without witnesses.

INCITE_RIOT

AOE crowd control. damage_all_in_sector base=15 hits every hood in the sector regardless of owner. Useful as a distraction (massive sector heat draws police) or area denial.

Audit & Federal Pressure

White-collar warfare. Don’t shoot the rival — get their books seized.

BRIBE_AUDITOR

Cancels an incoming audit on the caller. Reduces own AuditRisk by 0.25. The Auditor contact is mandatory — scout one first via SCOUT_CONTACT.

COOK_BOOKS

Accounting fraud. Reduces own AuditRisk by 0.15, no NPC contact required. Smaller swing than BRIBE_AUDITOR but no prereq.

KIDNAP_AUDITOR

Nuclear option. Cancels pending audit, BUT high heat consequences. Use only when corruption channels are exhausted.

AUDIT_PRESSURE (v1.62.0)

Inverse of BRIBE_AUDITOR. Push rival INTO the audit-trigger zone. Adds +0.12 to rival’s AuditRisk. Same Auditor contact powers both directions — the contact you bribed can also be the one you pay to look the other way at your rival.

Counter-Investigation (#226-2 Layer 2)

Tools for managing active investigations against you. Reachable only when an Investigation is actively running on a Player.

WITNESS_INTIMIDATION

Suppress witness Evidence accrual. Slows the investigation’s stage-progression timer.

BRIBE_COP / BRIBE_DETECTIVE

Pay off the lead investigator. BRIBE_COP works at Beat-Cop stage; BRIBE_DETECTIVE is the Detective-stage equivalent. Successful bribery pauses Evidence accrual for the case (bribed: true).

DISCREDIT_INVESTIGATOR

Drop the investigation one stage on success. Critical reset path for cases that escalated past Beat-Cop.

ELIMINATE_INVESTIGATOR

Lethal removal. Resets the investigation but at massive federal heat cost — the FBI doesn’t ignore a dead detective.

RAID_PRECINCT

Burn the case file. Drops investigation by one stage AND clears stored Evidence. Highest-heat counter-action.

RELOCATE_OPS

Move operations away from the investigated sector. Resets the investigation’s sector lock. Player must re-establish operations in new sector.

CLEAN_UP

Sweep evidence from a crime scene. Reduces hood heat retroactively. Different from DATA_WIPE — physical cleanup, not digital.

Personnel Management

Long-term roster investments.

TRAIN_HOOD (v1.63.0)

Train your runner’s currently-highest attribute by +1 (or +2 on crit). Soft-capped at 80. Specialist arc — strong gets stronger. See Runners for the full attribute-progression note.

SEND_TO_MEDIC (v1.60.0)

Restore HP to an injured runner. There is no passive HP regen — without SEND_TO_MEDIC, damaged runners stay damaged until they die. See Runners — Healing.

SEND_TO_SAFEHOUSE (#578)

Retreat a runner to safehouse for N days. While in safehouse: hood inactive, but heat decays at the safehouse-multiplier rate for the entry day. Last-resort heat-cooldown for hot runners. See Heat — Safehouse.

MAINTAIN_CONTACT (v1.66.0)

Bump loyalty on your lowest-loyalty NPC contact by +10 (clamped 0..100). Counters the C3 daily loyalty decay. Repeated calls cycle through the whole payroll roster automatically — Contact has no NodeID so you can’t pick one explicitly.

BLACKMAIL

Spend one piece of intel for a one-shot cash extraction. steal_cash (default dirty) from the rival’s wallet, clamped to their balance. Cycle: HACK_RECON / INFILTRATE → BLACKMAIL → repeat.

Real Estate (Upgrades)

UPGRADE_BUILDING (v1.61.0)

Lift an owned building’s tier by 1. Each tier adds +50% laundering throughput on top of the base +20% front-co bonus.

UPGRADE_FRONT (v1.64.0)

Tarnfirma tier-shift: Micro → Standard → Shell. Refreshes Cap + DailyFee from params on success. Auto-picks the lowest-tier subsidiary — repeated calls escalate the whole roster.

Fail Forward Mechanic (v0.30)

Selected core actions produce a reduced result even on failure. The skill check determines quality, not whether the result happens at all. Heat and arrest penalties still apply normally.

Why? Without fail forward, offensive and technical archetypes are punished in the early game – 2-3 failures in a row and the player has no runners, no money, and no way out.

Action Results: 4 Tiers

Every action has one of four possible outcomes:

Formula: roll = (primary_attr x weight1 + secondary_attr x weight2) x random(0.8 - 1.2)

Skill Bonus: If the runner has a matching skill (e.g. SHOOTING for RAID), the roll is multiplied by the bonus percentage.

Crit Upgrade: On success, there’s a chance to upgrade to critical success: (STR + STL) / 200. Strong, stealthy runners crit more often.

Heat Scaling

The heat cost of an action depends on the result:

Tip: Critical successes halve your heat. Invest in runner training to increase crit chance.

Failure Types

Not every failure is equal. Each action defines a type for normal and critical failure:

Multi-Target Actions

Certain actions are multi-target – the runner automatically visits all relevant buildings in the target sector.

Affected Actions: EXTORT, COLLECT, VANDALIZE, BURGLE, SCOUT, RECRUIT.

How it works:

1. The runner starts at their current position in the sector
2. The engine orders all buildings by shortest travel distance (Dijkstra)
3. Per building: travel time + action time is deducted from the time budget
4. Each building gets its own skill check
5. On failure: the runner continues (heat still applies)
6. On arrest: the entire chain is aborted
7. After 4 consecutive failures: Smart Retreat – the runner aborts

STL Bonus: Higher STL reduces travel time between buildings – up to 50% faster at STL 100. A fast runner visits more buildings per day.

Footprint Scaling: Larger buildings (2x1, 2x2) cost more time per stop.

Disabled Actions (Alpha)

The following actions are disabled for the alpha phase and will be unlocked later:

SNIPE, DRONE_STRIKE, INFILTRATE, SHADOW, BUG, SMUGGLE, PLACE_SPY, FLEE_TO, HACK_RECON, HACK_AUDIT, HACK_FREEZE, HACK_REROUTE, SKIM, EMP, DATA_WIPE, DOXX, CRYPTO_STEAL, MALWARE, TRACE_HACK, BLACKMAIL, INCITE_RIOT, UNDERCOVER, EXTORT_RIVAL, HACK_SIPHON, AUDIT_PRESSURE, INTERCEPT_DRONE, PRODUCE_DRUGS, BREW_ALCOHOL, MANUFACTURE, UPGRADE_BUILDING, UPGRADE_FRONT, TRAIN_HOOD, SEND_TO_SAFEHOUSE, MAINTAIN_CONTACT, HIRE_MEDIC, FORTIFY, INSTALL_SURVEILLANCE, CLEAN_UP, PREP_VEHICLE, TRANSPORT_GOODS, SUPPLY_ILLEGAL.