Bullets & Ammunition
Guns need feeding. Knives don't.
That's the whole rule, and everything below is a consequence of it.
What needs ammunition
Only firearms — pistols, shotguns, SMGs and rifles. Melee and non-lethal weapons never use a round: a baseball bat, a machete, a stun gun and the Chainsaw all cost exactly nothing to swing, forever.
Roughly half the weapon catalog is firearms. That was true before bullets existed; the split is just worth something now.
What it costs you
Rounds come off your stock every time you throw a punch that involves a trigger:
- an attack, a rob, a jack or a sabotage
- calling a hit, and finishing one — the finish costs double
- signing onto a heist, charged when you join rather than when the job goes
How many depends on the gun. A rifle takes one shot and burns one round. Pistols and shotguns burn two. An SMG burns four — it sprays, and now you pay for the spraying.
That gives two weapons at the same price a second thing to argue about. The SMG and the Hunting Rifle both cost $18,000; the SMG hits harder, the rifle aims better, and now the rifle is also four times cheaper to run. Neither is the right answer.
Carrying more than one firearm costs more than one firearm's worth. Four guns, four guns' worth of ammunition.
Running dry
If you don't have the rounds, that gun doesn't fire — the button says so, and it says which gun and how many you're short.
You are never stuck. Bench the firearm, pick up something that doesn't need feeding, and every action is available again. You'll be trading damage or accuracy for it, which is the point: a bat always works, and a bat was never going to be the best thing you could be holding.
Buying and carrying
Ammunition is sold at the Supplier, for Dirty Cash, at a flat price per round — and like anything bought with dirty money, it draws a little Heat.
There's a limit to how much you can carry. Buy past it and you'll be sold what fits rather than turned away.
Losing it
If someone kills you, the rounds on you go the same way as the cash in your pocket and the drugs in your bag. You were carrying them.
Crew factories
Crews can build a line of their own on the Infrastructure track, and sell rounds to whoever walks up.
- Anyone can buy from anyone. You do not have to be in the crew, or friendly with it. The price is public and the same for everybody.
- Nobody can charge more than the Supplier. That is a hard ceiling. The worst a crew can do is price themselves out and be ignored — the Supplier never runs out.
- Nobody can charge less than it costs to make. That part of every sale is burned, whoever the buyer is. A crew selling at cost is running the line for nothing, including for its own members, so a factory is not a way to hand your crew free ammunition.
What is left between those two numbers is the crew's margin, and it is the entire business. Undercutting a rival works right up until you are selling at cost, and then it stops working.
A line refills on its own and stops when it is full. Rounds you did not sell are production you did not do.