TheLadder/content/corporateladder/events/hard-times.js

// Running out of money.
//
// There is no game over here and no separate failure mode in the engine — this
// is an ordinary event whose conditions happen to be "your money is negative",
// carrying enough weight to crowd out an ordinary day. Every route out costs
// something other than money, and every one of them leaves you still playing.
//
// Both events always offer at least one ungated option, so a player with no
// skills and no friends is never stuck.

export const hardTimes = [
  {
    id: 'rent_bounced',
    // No stage: rent is due wherever you work, and the branch has to follow
    // the player up rather than vanishing on promotion.
    //
    // Weighted heavily but not overwhelmingly, and on a cooldown: being broke
    // should colour a run, not replace it. At weight 5000 with no cooldown a
    // player who could not climb out saw this and almost nothing else, 45
    // times in one session.
    weight: 900,
    cooldown: 3,
    requires: [{ path: 'money', op: '<', value: 0 }],
    description:
      'Rent came out and did not clear. The letter uses the word ' +
      '"unfortunately" four times and encloses a form.',
    options: [
      {
        id: 'take_loan',
        label: 'Take the loan the letter suggests.',
        // They stop lending eventually, which is when the spiral gets real:
        // past this, the only ways out cost standing rather than interest.
        requires: [{ path: 'debt', op: '<', value: 2000 }],
        result:
          'The money arrives the same afternoon, which tells you something about ' +
          'the rate.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 500 },
          { path: 'debt', op: 'add', value: 500 },
          { path: 'flags.took_loan', op: 'set', value: true },
          { path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -2 },
          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Took the loan.' },
        ],
      },
      {
        id: 'ask_trevor',
        label: 'Ask Trevor for a float.',
        requires: [{ path: 'relationships.trevor.likes_you', op: '>=', value: 40 }],
        result:
          'He lends it without making a thing of it, and from then on he is a ' +
          'man who lent you money.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 150 },
          { path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -3 },
          { path: 'relationships.trevor.fears_you', op: 'add', value: -8 },
          { path: 'relationships.trevor.wants_to_help_you', op: 'add', value: -5 },
          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Borrowed money from Trevor.' },
        ],
      },
      {
        id: 'ask_marlene',
        label: 'Ask Marlene for an advance.',
        requires: [{ path: 'relationships.marlene.wants_to_help_you', op: '>=', value: 55 }],
        result:
          'She processes it herself and does not put it through the system. ' +
          'Neither of you mentions it again.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 200 },
          { path: 'relationships.marlene.wants_to_help_you', op: 'add', value: -10 },
          { path: 'relationships.marlene.likes_you', op: 'add', value: -3 },
        ],
      },
      {
        id: 'extra_shifts',
        label: 'Take every shift going.',
        result:
          'You do eleven days without one off. The bins stop being individual ' +
          'bins after a while.',
        // Has to be worth more than a week of rent, or it is not a way out of
        // the hole — it is the hole with extra steps.
        effects: [
          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 220 },
          { path: 'skills.logistics', op: 'add', value: 2 },
          { path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -1 },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },

  {
    id: 'debt_collector',
    // The chance to pay down has to come round often enough to matter; at
    // weight 25 it appeared six times in 262 turns and debt became a ratchet.
    weight: 45,
    cooldown: 4,
    requires: [{ path: 'debt', op: '>', value: 0 }],
    description:
      'A man from the lender calls the mailroom phone. Marlene answers it. She ' +
      'hands it to you without expression and then, notably, without leaving.',
    options: [
      // Both take what is owed up to their size, never more — the same defect
      // a real Frontier session found at the store, present here unplayed.
      // Money first, because both effects read `debt` before it moves. See #38.
      {
        id: 'pay_chunk',
        label: 'Pay a real chunk of it down, up to $350.',
        requires: [{ path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 350 }],
        result: 'He is audibly disappointed.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: { from: 'debt', times: -1, cap: 350 } },
          { path: 'debt', op: 'add', value: { from: 'debt', times: -1, cap: 350 } },
          { path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: 1 },
        ],
      },
      {
        id: 'pay_minimum',
        label: 'Pay what you can.',
        requires: [{ path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 60 }],
        result: 'Up to fifty against the loan, and ten for the privilege of the call.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -10 },
          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: { from: 'debt', times: -1, cap: 50 } },
          { path: 'debt', op: 'add', value: { from: 'debt', times: -1, cap: 50 } },
        ],
      },
      {
        id: 'stall',
        label: 'Tell him next month.',
        result: 'He says next month. Marlene goes back to her desk.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'debt', op: 'add', value: 25 },
          { path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -3 },
          { path: 'relationships.marlene.likes_you', op: 'add', value: -4 },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
];

export default hardTimes;