Running a Player-Owned Yard

A Player Staffed or Auto Staffed lot is a business players own and operate. Creating one in the Creator gives it its own framework job. From there it runs in-game: employees clock in, take trucks out, answer the dispatch board, book cars in, and serve owners at the counter, while the boss runs the money, the fleet, and the staff.

The job and its grades

The job is named after the lot (a short slug of its name) and carries the ladder from Config.JobGrades:

• Staff (any grade) can:
  • use the staff terminal and the store room;
  • sign trucks out;
  • book cars in;
  • answer police tow jobs and assistance calls.
• The boss can do all of that, plus the boss terminal: the money, prices, fleet, accreditation, and staff.

Yard Clerk and Tow Driver have the same rights and differ only in pay.

How the job is created depends on the framework:

• ESX: rows are written to jobs and job_grades.
• QBCore and Qbox: the job is registered with the core each time the resource starts.

Switching the lot to NPC Staffed or Public Job, or deleting it, removes the job and makes everyone who held it unemployed.

Appointing the first boss

Hiring always starts a player at grade 0, and only an admin can promote somebody to Boss.

1. As an admin, stand at the lot's boss terminal with the future owner nearby.
2. On Staff, use Hire nearby.
3. Promote them up to Boss.

Alternatively, set the job with your framework's own command. The job name is shown on the lot's Setup tab in the Creator.

Staff management

On the boss terminal's Staff page the boss can:

• Hire nearby: takes the closest player standing beside you. There is no acceptance prompt, so ask first.
• Promote and demote with + and −. Nobody can change their own grade, and only an admin can make someone a Boss or change another boss.
• Fire. You cannot fire yourself, and only an admin can fire a boss.

Offline employees can be fired or re-graded on ESX and Qbox. On QBCore, an employee must be online to be fired or re-graded.

Duty

Staff go on and off duty at the clock-in point ("lot — clock in"). When a lot has a clock-in point:

• staff must be clocked in to use the staff terminal and the store room, sign a truck out, book a car in, or answer the dispatch board;
• police tows are only offered to the lot while someone is clocked in;
• at an Auto Staffed lot, the NPC tow truck stands down while anyone is clocked in.

The boss terminal never needs duty. Disconnecting clocks you off.

The staff terminal

The front desk computer at the Staff terminal point. Use it within 6 m, clocked in. It has two groups.

Counter

• Vehicles held. Every car in the yard, searchable by plate.
• Raise an invoice. Lists the people standing at the desk, each with their own held cars and the fee broken down (base plus any late days). See below.

Dispatch

• Assistance calls. The dispatch board, holding assistance calls and police tow jobs. See Towing: the dispatch board.

Serving an owner

1. The owner stands at the desk.
2. On Raise an invoice, pick them and click Invoice $X on their car.
3. They get a prompt: Pay cash, Pay by card, or Not now. It expires after 2 minutes.
4. Once paid, the money goes into the lot account. If they are still within 30 m of the terminal and the handover bay is clear, the car is brought out for them at the bay.
5. If the bay was blocked or they walked off, the car stays paid and shows Paid — hand over under their name. Click it when they are back at the desk to bring it out.

A car with no fee shows Free — hand over and is brought out directly. A car the owner already paid for at the receptionist (at an Auto Staffed lot) shows Paid — hand over too.

Another charge on the same page sends any other invoice to the person at the desk: an amount and up to 48 characters of reason, such as "Recovery call-out". Nothing is charged until they accept it. The money goes into the lot account.

Taking a truck out

The fleet attendant signs the lot's own trucks out to employees.

1. Talk to him: Sign out a vehicle.
2. Pick a truck. The list shows each truck's condition and who has it out. A truck below the Roadworthy above setting (15% by default) must be repaired before it can go out.
3. The truck appears on the tow-truck spawn, which must be clear.

To return it, park it on the tow-truck spawn and choose return at the attendant. Wear is charged at that moment:

wear = 2 per shift + 1 per car booked in + 50% of the body damage it came back with

The three figures are the Wear per shift returned, and per car booked in, and and this % of the damage it took settings. A truck returned at 70% body health loses 2 + cars + 15 points. Set all three to 0 to switch wear off.

Condition and looks

• The hook trucks in the default catalogue start to rust below 60% condition and look their worst from 25% down, so a truck looks worn well before it stops being usable at 15%.
• The two Recovery Trucks share one model ladder. At 80% condition and up the clean towtruck4 is handed out, and below 80% the battered towtruck3. Repairing past 80% gives the employee the clean truck again.

The boss terminal

The owner's computer at the Boss terminal point. Use it within 6 m. It needs the boss grade, or admin.

Money and wages

The lot account holds the release fees and counter charges the business takes. It pays for trucks, repairs, stock, accreditation, and (optionally) wages. Where the balance lives is Config.LotBank, which is internal by default. See Dependencies: lot money.

Who pays the staff is an admin setting per lot (Money tab, Economy.salaryMode):

• Fixed (default). The framework pays each grade the salary in Config.JobGrades, on its own paycheck timer. The boss sees the rates and cannot change them.
• The boss. The script pays from the lot account every 15 minutes (salaryIntervalMinutes), at the rates the boss sets per grade on the Staff page. The framework job's own salaries are set to 0 so nobody is paid twice.
  • Pay goes to employees who are clocked in (or every connected employee at a lot with no clock), into their bank.
  • A payslip the account cannot cover is skipped, both sides are told, and the ledger notes it as unpaid.

Employees earn their wage. There is no per-tow payout to staff, because the business earns from releases and invoices.

The fleet shop

The boss buys trucks on Fleet → Buy a vehicle, paid from the lot account. A lot may own up to 6 trucks (Fleet.maxPerLot). The default catalogue (Config.FleetCatalogue):

• Starting truck. Every new lot is given a free towtruck2 at 40% condition so it can work from day one.

• Repair restores a truck to 100% for half its purchase price, scaled by the condition missing:

  repair = price × (100 − condition)% × 0.5
  

• Sell returns the price × Sell-back (50%) × condition.

Add or remove trucks in Config.FleetCatalogue. Any model with role = 'tow' must also be listed in Config.TowGadgetModels, or it is dropped at boot with a console warning. See Configuration.

Accreditation

A lot can only buy from a tier it is accredited for:

• Basic recovery is held by every lot from day one.
• Heavy recovery is earned by doing the work. Book in 20 vehicles, then pay a one-off $25,000 from the lot account with Apply on the Accreditation page.

Every car booked into the lot counts, however it arrived. The numbers are Money-tab settings. Switch Fleet tiers must be earned off to open the whole catalogue to every lot. The tiers themselves are defined in Config.AccreditationTiers.

Stock and the store room

The store room is an ox_inventory stash at the lot's Storage point (40 slots and 100 kg by default, both per-lot settings on the Storage tab). Only the lot's staff can open it, and they must be clocked in when the lot has a clock.

On the Stock page, the boss orders traffic cones ($25) and wheel chocks ($60), 1 to 100 at a time. They are paid from the lot account and delivered straight into the store room. Staff take them from there. A lot with no store room placed cannot order stock. Items and prices are in Config.Stock.

The changing room

An optional locker at the Changing room point. Staff choose Put the work gear on to change into the yard's uniform and Back into your own clothes to change back. Only the lot's job holders can put the uniform on.

The uniform is set per lot in the Creator: dress your character and use Save my outfit. Until one is saved, the changing room hands out a default set of work clothes.

Auto Staffed lots

An Auto Staffed lot is all of the above, plus the NPC side of an NPC Staffed lot:

• police tows go to the dispatch board while anyone is clocked in, and to the NPC tow truck while nobody is;
• the receptionist and handover clerk serve owners during opening hours either way;
• outside opening hours the lot's NPCs (including the fleet attendant and the impound clerk) go home.