Jacking a Load

Beside Rob, Attack and Sabotage there is a fourth thing you can do to somebody standing next to you: take the drugs they are carrying.

Why it is not just another rob

A rob takes cash — and cash can be put in the Safe, where nobody can reach it. Anyone who banks properly has empty pockets, and robbing them pays nothing.

Drugs cannot be banked. There is nowhere to put them: product sits on you from the moment you buy or make it until the moment you sell it. So this is the one thing in the game a wealthy, careful player cannot opt out of by being organised.

That cuts both ways. Anyone standing around with a full boot is worth robbing, and so are you.

What it takes

A share of what they are carrying, spread across everything in the boot — not all of it. The Street page tells you how many units are on somebody before you commit, the same way it tells you what is in their pockets.

You can only take what you can carry. If your own boot is nearly full, you will come away with whatever fits and nothing more, so cargo capacity is now worth something defensively as well as offensively.

Stolen product keeps the city it came from. Taking it does not launder where it was made, and it still cannot be sold there.

What it will not touch

A load somebody is carrying for someone else on a consignment is safe. That product has already been paid for by the person who posted the job, and the mule cannot sell it either — letting a third party walk off with it would make the whole board unusable. Nobody can take it, and it does not show in the count.

The cost of missing

Higher than a failed rob. You are not reaching into a pocket; you are trying to take a load off somebody who is carrying it because they intend to sell it. Expect a cell more often than you would from the other three.