[Prof_Farnsworth]

Farnsworth's Business Mod Complete v2

Farnsworth's Business Mod

Allows Niko to purchase, own, collect income, and hire and fire staff from locations around Liberty City. Also has additional features related to the businesses.

Oct. 21 HOTFIX - Deliveries not possible unless you owned the business - FIXED

Please read ReadMe!!!!

Complete version 2 changes:

-Robberies added to certain purchasable businesses. Details in ReadMe
-Ability to hire/fire employees added to all businesses. Some locations will have extra peds, vehicles, etc spawn when employees are hired. Hiring employees also gives a chance to increase income. Details in ReadMe.
-Lunatics added: Certain businesses now have a chance of a lunatic spawning and killing patrons of your business. Details in ReadMe.
-Jobs added: There are now various jobs you can perform around Liberty City, including (paramedic (ambulance driver), food delivery driver, and fuel recovery. Details in ReadMe.


Previous Changes are as follows:

-businesses still appear as "destination" blips on the map, but are now named (each business is named on the map when moused over)
-when a business is purchased, the blip will change into a tie, signifying ownership of the business
-when the income reaches a certain amount (varies for each property but is usually near the property income cap) the blip will change into a dollar sign. This signifies a high income at that property that should be collected soon.
-most businesses are enterable to allow future updates to add employees and scenarios (different for each type of business)
-SAVING THE GAME will now save all businesses owned and statistics of each property (time owned, current income, etc)
-you can now change which keys are used for purchasing and collecting income in the ini. Change "RControlKey" and/or "RShiftKey" to whichever key you prefer to use (i.e. "O" or "J") and save the ini.

NOTE: The script runs once every 6 seconds, and it is big. If no prompt appears while Niko is under a marker, please wait a few seconds before reporting it as a bug.


PRECAUTIONS: Due to the mod running on play time, I recommend SAVING in a safehouse before quitting the game, as the "Properties owned" file will be written on each save (time,income,owned status). (i.e. If you own a property, play for an hour, then reload without saving, the total play time will not be updated, as well as income, time, and owned status)


INSTALLATION: Place the "businesses.net" and "businesses.ini" files into the "scripts" folder of your root GTA IV directory. DELETE the business.net.dll and business.ini files from the first version of this mod, as they will not overwrite.

Tested on GTA IV V1.0.4 and v1.0.7 using scripthook.net 1.7.1.7, scripthook 0.4 and 0.51, and latest xliveless 0.997.



COPYRIGHT: Please do not upload this mod anywhere else, reuse, or modify it in any way. Please respect others work.

Hope it is fun, keep an eye for future updates.

Enjoy

Prof. Farnsworth

This post has been edited by Prof_Farnsworth on Monday, May 6 2013, 19:28

This mod is hosted at GTAGarage.com

Screenshots:

Click here to view the mod at GTAGarage

[icelaglace]

FINALLY! WELL DONE MATE ! <3
I'll try that ASAP.

[AngryAmoeba]

QUOTE (Prof_Farnsworth @ Jun 3 2011, 13:46)

BUGS: "System.IO.Exception" errors appear occasionally. I believe this is due to the native function calls being used, but it does not seem to affect the mod.

Since the exception is in System.IO, it's probably related to reading and writing files. Perhaps the script is trying to read and write to the same file at the same time?

[Prof_Farnsworth]

QUOTE (AngryAmoeba @ Jun 3 2011, 20:08)

QUOTE (Prof_Farnsworth @ Jun 3 2011, 13:46) BUGS: "System.IO.Exception" errors appear occasionally. I believe this is due to the native function calls being used, but it does not seem to affect the mod. Since the exception is in System.IO, it's probably related to reading and writing files. Perhaps the script is trying to read and write to the same file at the same time?

That is what I thought initially, but I have seen this error in other scripts that use native function calls with no reading/writing to files. So I am not sure.

[AngryAmoeba]

Hmm, bizarre.

Well anyway, I just finished testing this native function: "DID_SAVE_COMPLETE_SUCCESSFULLY". It actually works, so you might want to use this to determine when to save business data.

I'll PM you with how I used it in my code, so I don't clutter up this thread too much.

[Prof_Farnsworth]

QUOTE (AngryAmoeba @ Jun 3 2011, 20:34)

Hmm, bizarre. Well anyway, I just finished testing this native function: "DID_SAVE_COMPLETE_SUCCESSFULLY". It actually works, so you might want to use this to determine when to save business data. I'll PM you with how I used it in my code, so I don't clutter up this thread too much.

Thanks very much for your help.

@icelaglace - hope you enjoy it.

[odiomoratti]

QUOTE (Prof_Farnsworth @ Jun 3 2011, 19:46)

The text "destination" appears over all of them, this will be changed if method is discovered

Probably I'm misunderstanding the problem....but have you tried somthing like this?

CODE

Blip BlipBusiness; BlipBusiness.Name = "Whatever Business";

or maybe you can create a blip array and then for each blip in array assign the name "Unpurchased business"....

This post has been edited by odiomoratti on Saturday, Jun 4 2011, 01:43

[Prof_Farnsworth]

QUOTE (odiomoratti @ Jun 4 2011, 01:39)

QUOTE (Prof_Farnsworth @ Jun 3 2011, 19:46) The text "destination" appears over all of them, this will be changed if method is discovered Probably I'm misunderstanding the problem....but have you tried somthing like this? CODE Blip BlipBusiness; BlipBusiness.Name = "Whatever Business"; or maybe you can create a blip array and then for each blip in array assign the name "Unpurchased business"....

I'll have to give it a try. To be honest, I didn't try too many ideas for the text, as personally, it matters not, but I thought it would be a nice touch. I think I tried using a native call like change name/descriptor or something like that. This is the first time I have really used blips other than for testing, so I am still learning. (i.e. Some blips don't let you change their color, so I assumed it was the same with text)

Thanks for the idea, I'll see how it works.

TO ALL: Please do not hesitate to post bugs, suggestions or criticisms, as this is only v1.0.

[manu90mala]

amazing mod, finally! it has a lot of potential, there are many possible features to be added...selling the business at a higher price after a period of profits, adding business related side-missions, buiyng stuff from other businessess to upgrade your own (with a sort of business level system) and many more....as a v 1.0 we already have a great solid base!

[gorgonut]

Very good mod! It gives you motivation to earn money with other mods like HippieCommunist's mods or BR_Goianiense's Kidnapping mod! Would it be possible in a next version not require xliveless in order to work? Since I have both GTA IV and EFLC I use xliveless in only one of them in order to store the saves file in a different location, otherwise the saves are mixed up. But this is a mod I d like to have in both games. Thanks.

[Neova]

Very cool mod, just like the older GTAs.

Is it possible to have this mod automatically deposit money into the bank account and then have it retrievable from the bank/atm mod? I mean, if you own a business, you would figure whoever was running it for you would make daily deposits. Or set up a period of when money is made and deposited automatically like money is made Monday to Saturday and deposited by noon and 6 pm or whatever time it closes.

If the money has not been deposited, AI robbers can come it. Next, you will be given revenge missions to re-collect that money and be justified for causing mayhem.

[KaLaC]

cool, the VC feature is finally brought back to IV!!

[Prof_Farnsworth]

QUOTE

amazing mod, finally! it has a lot of potential, there are many possible features to be added...selling the business at a higher price after a period of profits, adding business related side-missions, buiyng stuff from other businessess to upgrade your own (with a sort of business level system) and many more....as a v 1.0 we already have a great solid base!

QUOTE

If the money has not been deposited, AI robbers can come it. Next, you will be given revenge missions to re-collect that money and be justified for causing mayhem.

You are way ahead of me(still need to add properties to the other 2 islands), but good ideas nonetheless. As for the bank account, I have no idea how to make them work together, but maybe in the future?

QUOTE

Very good mod! It gives you motivation to earn money with other mods like HippieCommunist's mods or BR_Goianiense's Kidnapping mod! Would it be possible in a next version not require xliveless in order to work? Since I have both GTA IV and EFLC I use xliveless in only one of them in order to store the saves file in a different location, otherwise the saves are mixed up. But this is a mod I d like to have in both games. Thanks.

This should work with any loader. The only requirement is scripthook.net, however, the only one I have tested this with is xliveless.

Glad everyone enjoys it!

[AngryAmoeba]

QUOTE (Prof_Farnsworth @ Jun 4 2011, 16:01)

As for the bank account, I have no idea how to make them work together, but maybe in the future?

Since the Bank Account code is uncompiled, it would be possible to incorporate it into your mod if necessary.

Edit: The .NET scripthook has an example of how to communicate between separate scripts. I don't quite understand it, but we could try it sometime.

This post has been edited by AngryAmoeba on Saturday, Jun 4 2011, 22:33

[Prof_Farnsworth]

QUOTE (AngryAmoeba @ Jun 4 2011, 22:30)

QUOTE (Prof_Farnsworth @ Jun 4 2011, 16:01) As for the bank account, I have no idea how to make them work together, but maybe in the future? Since the Bank Account code is uncompiled, it would be possible to incorporate it into your mod if necessary. Edit: The .NET scripthook has an example of how to communicate between separate scripts. I don't quite understand it, but we could try it sometime.

In theory, it would be quite simple to do, if the scripts could communicate.

My thinking against auto deposit was that it would seem like a money dump, with less interactivity, when we already don't have enough to spend money on. Once you own twenty or so business's, the income will really start building. At fifty or so, it would almost be a constant stream of money into the bank account. I was also aiming to make this more like the old GTA's business's, where each can max out on income if not collected. I do like the idea of implementing events and the like for certain businesses though.

That being said, if it is easy enough, there can be two versions. So Angry, I'll PM you and see what you think.

[AngryAmoeba]

QUOTE (Prof_Farnsworth @ Jun 5 2011, 09:52)

My thinking against auto deposit was that it would seem like a money dump, with less interactivity, when we already don't have enough to spend money on.

Now that I think about it, I agree with you. Maybe we should forget about it.

[luckymanhog]

Nice coding on this mod.

[Prof_Farnsworth]

QUOTE (AngryAmoeba @ Jun 5 2011, 19:43)

QUOTE (Prof_Farnsworth @ Jun 5 2011, 09:52) My thinking against auto deposit was that it would seem like a money dump, with less interactivity, when we already don't have enough to spend money on. Now that I think about it, I agree with you. Maybe we should forget about it.

Alright, but if you change your mind, it could be looked into.

[Neova]

QUOTE (AngryAmoeba @ Jun 5 2011, 19:43)

QUOTE (Prof_Farnsworth @ Jun 5 2011, 09:52) My thinking against auto deposit was that it would seem like a money dump, with less interactivity, when we already don't have enough to spend money on. Now that I think about it, I agree with you. Maybe we should forget about it.

What about designating one or more of your properties into a cash safehouse? Expanding on this idea:

Enable auto deposit to cash safehouse and not banks since you are avoiding taxes here.
Safe house deposits can be digital if you buy say computer upgrades for each of your businesses (most expensive but safe option), or
"delivered" using a courier (second most expensive but subject to possible hits from robbers) or you must collect manually (free, but has cash limits).
Safe houses may be noticed over time by rival or other gangs and they may attempt to rob them for "the big hit" in addition to your businesses thus keeping you on your toes regarding your money supply. Same for your couriers who help deliver your money.

This way, while you can accumulate a lot money, there is a way to offset it and keep you busy. Hey, you only worry about what we have and not what don't have right?

Of course you can hire body guards for your business, safe houses and couriers and it helps offsets the max amount of money you collect.

[Prof_Farnsworth]

QUOTE (Neova @ Tuesday, Jun 7 2011, 07:59)

QUOTE (AngryAmoeba @ Jun 5 2011, 19:43) QUOTE (Prof_Farnsworth @ Jun 5 2011, 09:52) My thinking against auto deposit was that it would seem like a money dump, with less interactivity, when we already don't have enough to spend money on. Now that I think about it, I agree with you. Maybe we should forget about it. What about designating one or more of your properties into a cash safehouse? Expanding on this idea: Enable auto deposit to cash safehouse and not banks since you are avoiding taxes here. Safe house deposits can be digital if you buy say computer upgrades for each of your businesses (most expensive but safe option), or "delivered" using a courier (second most expensive but subject to possible hits from robbers) or you must collect manually (free, but has cash limits). Safe houses may be noticed over time by rival or other gangs and they may attempt to rob them for "the big hit" in addition to your businesses thus keeping you on your toes regarding your money supply. Same for your couriers who help deliver your money. This way, while you can accumulate a lot money, there is a way to offset it and keep you busy. Hey, you only worry about what we have and not what don't have right? Of course you can hire body guards for your business, safe houses and couriers and it helps offsets the max amount of money you collect.

Wow, these are some great suggestions. My God, the coding though!!!

I will probably try to implement something like this with the bigger businesses (i.e. bank, stock exchange, airport?) before grouping the small ones together.

Thanks for the comments.