So, Ca's are a cracking feature. Last time out as a CL I had a district bank to offer people interest free loans for CA's; they're pretty pricey for a junior player who potentially struggles financially; price of tips because they have no CA, donation and tax obligations, credit purchases for other things, and so on. The fact is, a CA is prohibitively expensive for a lot of new players/young characters and for many CL's a long term investment isn't their most pressing concerns. I suggest multiple tiers of CA available:

Tier One - Uniformed Cop

- Automatic attainment of units (no tips necessary)
- They can only get you off the hook for 50% of jailings
- They have limited clout to make evidence 'disappear' so their cocaine production is very small
- Their corruption is discovered by the force before you can do anything, you don't get the kill

Tier Two - Detective

-Automatic attainment of units
-They can get you off the hook for 75% of jailings
-Their clout is increased, and so cocaine production goes up accordingly
- You get wind of their corruption being discovered before the force can react; you get the kill
 

(Between tier 2 and 3 would be where the 'officer' of today sits)

Tier 3 - Lieutenant 
-Automatic attainment of units
-They get you off the hook for all jailings; and family members in the same district for 50% of theirs
-Their clout is increased, cocaine production is higher again
- Their increased profile in other cities means you can request them to visit somewhere to collect locals for you. However, you can only do this X times a month because their legit job requires them to be discreet.
- You get the kill

Tier 4 - The Commissioner
-Automatic units
- All jailings you suffer, and all jailings family members in the same district as the CA suffer, are taken care of
- Further cocaine increases
- Local requests are again possible, this time to a slightly higher extent as the commissioner has more of a free reign in his day to day activities
- The Commissioner is a highly public political figure, your known connection with him gives your posts 1.5x the VIP value (if you have that perk)
- At the end of the lifespan he retires, no kill for you. (I thought this was a fair trade off given the other advantages)

In Sum:

None of the specifics have to remain, I was just writing up ideas/perks of CA's as they occurred to me. The central idea is that CA's should have multiple tiers in order to not price out the lower tiers of the game. The only negative I can think of is that the higher tiers are unfairly productive in terms of cost/benefit; but that can be easily altered by simply changing the output

As someone who recently acquired a CA entirely because of a friend's generosity, I agree with the central idea of this suggestion for a few reasons.

One, this no longer prices out lower-ranked players from taking advantage of the benefits of a CA. This means that a hard-working player can get a hold of a CA much earlier in their career, OR it can be provided by a crewleader or mentor at a much reduced cost. A lot of CLs are hesitant to provide CAs to members because the investment could have minimal returns. This allows the return to fit the investment at any level: poor to rich.

Two, this really puts into context the two reasons CAs are bought. We buy them for their help keeping us out of jail and getting units (which tend to help quite a lot at lower levels), and they provide an economic return later as they mature (which tends to help much more as we rank up). This allows us to modulate the benefits a player gets based on how much they're willing to invest. It reminds me of a cable service; many players just want to pay for a few channels they want (the get-out-of-jail free cards and drug units), rather than the whole package (drug profits and kills).

Three, I think this provides a very fluid progression for players. As they gain credits and money from achievements and drug deals, they can either get immediate gains (training ranges, MIAs, BGs, etc.) or lasting gains (a low-tier CA). It, to some degree, allows for variations in play style that is currently unavailable at the lower levels.

I will include a bit of caution to this suggestion, however. There aren't enough credits to go around. This would increase the demand for credits without any real means of increasing the supply to match it. The marketplace is already pushed to its cap, and I fear this would only make credits more scarce. This brushes up against the real economic issues of the game; we need more credits in the game but the owners are concerned that providing more ways of earning credits would reduce the money generated by the game. Because of this, I would even go so far as to say that low-tier CAs could be purchased with in-game money (like MIAs), as a means of avoiding this problem.

In addition to this suggestion, I would like to suggest one of three options: removing the CA limit, reducing it to one CA per player, or end CA employment with death.

CAs provide a safe means of profiting from credits. As long as it is safe (which is, in some degree, in the hands of the players as far as account age goes), people will opt for it over the credit marketplace. If the employment ended with death, that would introduce risk to the investment decision. Additionally, if players were limited to only one CA, that would force them to find other means of converting credits into money (the marketplace).

I suggest removing the CA limit as an option because I think it would do a few things:

• It would encourage people to purchase credits with real money, since the increased demand for credits would dry up the marketplace.
• It would allow power to be based on wealth rather than numbers. Smaller crews with more money could compete with larger crews because they have the capacity to buy more CAs. The limit would be earning potential rather than just the number of trustworthy members.
• This lifts a restriction on play style. Presently, most crews have a similar number of CAs because they can, and they've invested in the people they trust enough to hold them. So as a whole, the CA feature doesn't really benefit any one district more than another. If you remove the restriction, you allow crews to invest heavily into long-term economic power. This allows more courageous crews to take advantage of the CAs to a greater degree, and lets other crews punish them for their boldness.
• It puts pressure on the players; the compound gains of CAs stacking would force players' hands to deal with increasing economic influences.
• At the end of the day, you'd still have to wait at least 20-25 days for the investment to return just the money you spent on it.

This needs more support.

There's part of me that thinks this is a really awesome idea, but also a pRt of me that doesn't like it at all. I've always seen CAs as a perm for the long term player rather than the new or casual player. It's something that is attained over several plays until you get to the point where every character after can get a CA. Anyone playing who lasts a 100 days shod be able to buy one. Whilst I freely admit that most new players probably won't last that long, it is something to strive for. You can gather a few credits every character, so eventually with dedicated playing you'll get your CA.

Lets face it, MR is a business and Squishy and the guys make more money from long term players than the guy who plays for a couple of characters then goes back to MoH or GTA