Summary
The post-raid intake beat. Turns “inventory the loot” from a bucket-sorting chore into a routing decision + a two-part appraisal gamble. Built on top of the Station Operation Model — the Loot Sorting Station works at baseline without a raccoon and scales with an assigned Sorter’s Cunning.
MVP scope: Valuables auto-convert to currency at a flat base rate at Online Sales. The Keep/Scrap routing decision, appraisal hints (Sorter), and the full two-part gamble (Fence execution) are post-MVP. Food routing (Pantry/Sell) is MVP.
The Flow
- Raid returns. The crew comes home. Loot arrives as grouped stacks at the Loot Sorting Station:
- 1 trash pile (e.g. 150 trash)
- 1 currency pile (e.g. $3)
- 1 scrap pile (e.g. 4 scrap)
- 1 watch (individual valuable — needs a decision)
- Volume scales over the game — 3–5 stacks at the start, 8–15 by endgame.
- The station has a capped raid pile (per Station Operation Model). If the player ignores intake for too long, the cap fills and no new raid returns can unload until they process what’s there. Cap upgradeable via the Upgrade Desk.
Resource Class Behavior
Global counters — zero friction
Trash · Currency · Scrap are global resource counters. The player clicks the stack, the counter ticks up, the stack disappears. No decision, no UI friction. Raw scrap drops (wire, metal, bolts) go straight to the counter on click — they do not need to be processed by the Scrapping Station.
Routing decisions — the friction lives here
Valuables and food require the player to pick a destination.
Valuable → choose one of:
- Keep — routes to Online Sales storage to be listed by a Fence. High ceiling, delayed payout, takes up a limited slot.
- Scrap — routes to the Scrapping Station where a Scrapper breaks it down into a guaranteed scrap payout into the global counter. Lower ceiling, instant-ish payout, no Online Sales pressure.
Food → choose one of:
- Pantry — stashed at the Pantry for daily crew upkeep.
- Sell — routed to Online Sales storage alongside valuables, sold by the Fence. Shares the Online Sales capacity cap with valuables.
The Two-Part Appraisal Gamble
Each valuable has a hidden ceiling — the maximum currency it can sell for, never shown to the player. The real sale value is the product of two stages, each driven by a different raccoon’s Cunning:
Stage 1 — Sorter Read (at intake)
The raccoon assigned to the Loot Sorting Station gives a Cunning-scaled hint about what the item could be worth. The hint is the player’s primary input for the Keep-vs-Scrap call.
Rough hint tiers by effective station Cunning (baseline + assigned raccoon), tuning pass later:
- Cunning 1 (baseline, player-operated): “Huh. Shiny?”
- Cunning 10–25: “Could be something. Could be nothing.”
- Cunning 25–50: “Looks real. Maybe $20–40?”
- Cunning 50–75: “Gold, pretty sure. Forty, fifty bucks.”
- Cunning 75+: “Rolex. Mid-range model. Seventy on the right buyer.”
The hint is a read, not a reveal — it can be wrong at low Cunning. A low-skill Sorter might shrug at a Rolex and the player scraps it.
Stage 2 — Fence Execution (at sale)
When the item eventually sells through Online Sales, the Fence’s Cunning determines how close to the item’s hidden ceiling the final sale price actually lands. A great Fence lifts borderline items toward their ceiling; a poor Fence leaves value on the table.
The full sale price formula is (roughly):
final_price = item_ceiling * f(fence_cunning) * g(luck_roll)
Where f is a monotonic function that caps around 1.0 at high Fence Cunning, and g is a small luck-driven jitter per sale.
Why Two Stages
- Two raccoons matter for every big score. Training a Sorter improves your reads; training a Fence improves your execution. Both feed the same dopamine loop.
- The “oh that was a Rolex” sting survives. If you scrap a top-end item because your low-Cunning Sorter misread it, you feel it when the same item type sells elsewhere for real money.
- Delegation curve is preserved. Baseline player-operated intake is functional but dumb. Every Sorter and Fence upgrade takes a chore-feeling moment and turns it into a confident call.
Staffing Behavior
- No Sorter assigned: The player operates the station at Cunning 1. Routing still works — hints are just useless (the player is squinting at watches themselves).
- No Scrapper assigned: The player scraps at Strength 1 / Speed 1. Slow but functional. Scrap routing is always available.
- No Fence assigned: Online Sales still lists items at Cunning 1 — slowly, and at terrible execution. You can survive without a Fence; you won’t thrive.
See Station Operation Model for the universal rule.
Storage Table
| Class | Storage |
|---|---|
| Trash / Currency / Scrap | Global counters (no cap) |
| Valuables (Keep) | Online Sales storage, capped, Upgrade Desk scales |
| Items routed to Scrap | Scrapping Station queue, capped |
| Food (Pantry) | Pantry, capped |
| Food (Sell) | Online Sales storage (shares cap with valuables) |
| Raid pile waiting to be processed | Loot Sorting Station queue, capped |
Links
- Core Loop
- Economy
- Station Operation Model
- Loot Sorting Station
- Scrapping Station
- Online Sales
- Sorter
- Scrapper
- Fence
Open Questions
- Exact hint copy per Cunning tier (current draft is placeholder).
- Scrap yield formula:
yield = strength * base_item_yieldis the tentative model. - Does the watch example animate dumping onto the table, or just pop into a grid UI? (Visual/juice decision, not mechanical.)
- Can a player pre-assign default routing rules (e.g., “always scrap items worth < $10 according to the Sorter”)? This would be a mid-game QOL upgrade consistent with Pillar #5.