R@S,
The vehicle upgrade system is done? Nice!
I too would have to agree with you about changing flat tires, refueling, and whatnot as it was implemented in HLA. That level of micromanagement is usually very tedious. As is having to stop to feed oneself and one's comrades. There are
very few games that can pull that off without it feeling like an absolute chore; STALKER being one of them. I think that one of the reasons why it works so well in STALKER is that one's traveling in an intermittent hostile environment. If a radioactive blowout occurs, and one's hungry at the time it happens, then there's a good chance that one's not going to make it in time to a sheltered area when the radiation starts really pouring out.
In terms of handling taxes:
I like that the taxes can be set at three different levels, and I appreciate the fact that different types of areas will generate different levels of revenue. Nice and sensible.
While taxes may be collected daily, I too am leaning towards the notion that the newly generated funds are only made available to be used in the economy once a week. This could be justified by the accounting that needs to be done, the transference of funds, auctioning off of repossessed property for citizens who are delinquent in their taxes, etc.
I have a mixed reaction in regards to whether or not the taxes are automatically added to the Player's own account. On one level, that would reduce micromanagement (one account versus two), but on the other, what if the Player desires to have the economies to be able to run rather autonomously, with only occasional direct interactions? In that case, having two accounts would be less micromanagement than having one.
It might be interesting to add a level of realism to the tax system in this way: corruption.
It would require the player to think through about "withdrawing" tax funds for his/her own direct personal usage. Yeah, taxpayers tend to look down on such behavior.
Perhaps a dialogue tree could be setup with the bankers that whenever the Player decides to make a transfer from the public to the personal, he then has the option of giving the banker a bribe. Successful transfers will always be equated with giving the banker enough of a bribe that he'll go out of his way to use Goldman Sachs his accounting skills to cover up the fraud he's participating in. The bigger the bribe that one gives the banker, the more effort he'll put into keeping the corruption covered up; think Goldman Sachs-level of evilness here. The more money the Player wants to be transferred to his own account, the more money the Player will need to give the banker to do a good job covering up the unethical behavior.
There should always be an element of chance of discovery whenever any portion of tax reserve is transferred to the Player's account. The more money that's pulled out of the system, the greater the odds of being discovered (remember though, that if the banker is given a large bribe that it reduces the chance of being detected by the masses because he's worked harder at hiding the corrupt act).
I'd also make the inverse of this situation true. If the Player transfers money from his personal account into the tax reserves, then the Player can
gain a higher reputation with the taxpayers. I'm assuming that a higher reputation not only results in cheaper prices from the sellers, but also in a higher morale from the security forces stationed there.
These injections of the Player's funds would also further reduce the chances of being caught with tax related corruption later. It's amazing how many crimes go unpunished simply because the investigator can't believe that a certain "hero" would be capable of doing such a crime.
Now should the Player's corruption be discovered, it would be interesting to have a consequence that's more severe than just a loss of reputation. If it's really bad, a group of rebellious civilian militia could appear that the Player would then have to contend with. As the situation worsens, the size and armament of these rebels would increase, till a tipping point is reached: not only would militia be present, but they would then invite an enemy-faction in to aide them in their open rebellion.
Ambushes on the road would become more frequent, and so on and so forth.
Couple the odds of this happening based on the tax rate in a region, and one could have a real powder keg of a situation. Getting caught in corruption's bad enough, but imagine how much worse it would be if taxes were
high preceding and at the time of being caught! Yeah, it would be easier to recruit rebels as the insult to the people is worse.
What I like about this taxation system is that it acts as more of an incentive for the Player to partake in the open sandbox elements of the game. A Player who may never have thought about conquering a region would certainly be tempted to do so now.
Thoughtful tension. I like that!
Keep up the good work. More exciting advancements are on the way, and I can't wait to get a crack at them!