Mugging
What TornLife's research has established about Mugging, and the questions players asked about it.
What TornLife has verified
- The Torn Wiki (2024-11-02 capture) says the Masterful Looting merit upgrade increases money gained from mugging by 5% per upgrade level. This is consistent with up to 10 upgrades giving up to 50%. (documented; Merit › Upgrades › Miscellaneous Upgrades, )
- Buy-mugging means buying from a victim's Bazaar or Item Market listing and mugging as the payment lands in their wallet. Travelling and self-hosping are named protections. (documented; Mug › Buy-mugging, )
- Stealthing means attacking so the victim does not know who attacked them; the log shows 'Someone hospitalized you'. Stealth is checked turn by turn and only the lowest achieved stealth turn counts. Attacking 2.1 added a stealth meter showing the chance. (documented; Stealthing › Stealthing, )
- The Stealth merit upgrade raises stealth level by +0.2 per upgrade. A stealthed attacker is listed as 'Someone'. The wiki notes it is unclear how much this determines the ability to stealth. (documented; Merit › Upgrades › Miscellaneous Upgrades, )
- A developer showed a 2017 mug of $33m was consistent with a player who had deposited 556m in faction, so the mug applied to money remaining on hand, not the deposited amount. (confirmed by Torn; [RR] mugged but did not lose the money?, )
- The wiki (2021 capture) says Mug is one of three main options after winning an attack; it steals a percentage of the opponent's cash on hand. (documented; Mug, )
- Base mug percentage is 5%, modified by a multi-dice-roll RNG up to 10%, with lower values near 5% favoured and values near 10% extremely rare. (documented; Mug › Mugging Mechanics, )
- A 7* Clothing Store gives a 75% mugging reduction (max mug at $1,000,000 falls from $100,000 to $25,000 at base). (documented; Mug › Mugging Mechanics, )
- Pops (player ID 1025410) ranks #2 of 838,417 players with a non-zero value in Money mugged, with $609,865,494,680 mugged, placing him in the top 0.00024%. (confirmed by Torn; TornLife data: get player stat, )
- Pops also ranks #16 in Attacks won (75,061; top 0.0015%), #19 in Total attack damage (800,463,429; top 0.0012%), #26 in Critical hits (80,306; top 0.002%) and #34 in Attack hits (359,673; top 0.0021%), indicating an extremely high overall attack volume that underlies his mug count. (confirmed by Torn; TornLife data: get player best ranks, )
- In April 2021, forum posters accused Pops of being the most prolific user of a travel-mugging exploit that let attackers mug players the moment they landed from travel, before a change disabled buying stocks while travelling; a community official (Proxima) confirmed the method had become common and called Pops 'the most egregious utiliser' of it. (players' tests; NEWS! Pops to return all money he mugged, )
- Masterful Looting merits raise the base percentage by up to 50%, giving 7.5-15%. The Plunder weapon bonus adds 20% to 49% and is additive with merits. Combined merits and Plunder give 9.95-19.90%, or up to $199,000 at $1,000,000 on hand. (documented; Mug › Mugging Mechanics, )
- If cash on hand is negative, a successful mug yields $0. (documented; Mug › Negative Cash on Hand, )
- Merit upgrades can each be bought up to 10 times, with the price rising by 1 merit per upgrade, at 55 merits in total per upgrade. (documented; Merit › Upgrades, )
- The Hospitalizing merit increases hospital time when hospitalizing by 5%. It was changed from +10 minutes to +5% in the 2021 Medical Revamp. (documented; Merit › Upgrades › Miscellaneous Upgrades, )
- Pops is level 100, has the title Invincible Thief, signed up on 2008-12-23, and is in faction AQUA-Poseidon holding the position Captain Hook; TornLife's observations put him joining that faction around 2024-06-16 and staying 824 days as of the capture. (documented; TornLife data: get player faction, )
- A 2017 wiki guide lists tip-offs for finding cash-rich mug targets: auction house players who bid high then got outbid, or who just sold a high-priced item; bazaar sellers of high-priced items on trade forums (mug after sale, or buy it yourself then mug); and casino/gambling forum players who recently won big in Russian Roulette or high scores. (documented; Money Maker › Mugging, )
- The wiki says mugging requires finding people weaker than the mugger who also have money on hand, which it describes as not always an easy task. (documented; Money Maker › Mugging, )
- Staff confirmed that a player can have negative cash on hand (money removed for cheating, or a bookie win reversed) and that mugging such a player yields $0; this is an intended mechanic, not a bug, and staff advised the player to scout mug targets more carefully. (confirmed by Torn; Mugging negative net-worth targets., )
- The wiki documents that if a player's cash on hand is below zero, a successful mug yields $0. (documented; Mug › Negative Cash on Hand, )
- A 2014 complaint thread about a mug taking 20% of money on hand in one hit was met by the developer stating a poll was being run to determine player opinion on both sides (muggers vs. mugged), confirming 20% was a live/contested payout rate at that time rather than disputed as a bug. (confirmed by Torn; What the Mug !!! #¤%&/ ...20% in one mug, )
- Torn staff explained that bazaar, item market and company API endpoints are globally cached and this cache cannot be bypassed by timestamping requests; because of this, a mug happening the same second as an item-market sale is very unlikely to be caused by a bot relying on the item-market API alone, and staff log all API requests to verify or disprove claims of API-based mug bots. (confirmed by Torn; Finally wrangling websocket mug bots, )
- The wiki describes the fair fight (FF) multiplier, 1x-3x based on how similar attacker's and defender's total battle stats are: a target with roughly 75% or more of the attacker's total battle stats gives 3x FF, lower relative stats trend toward 1x, and hitting anyone above the top-1000th ranked battle stats always gives a full 3x FF. (documented; Chain › Gaining respect › Fair fights / Overseas attacking, )
- Attacking a target that is currently abroad (in another country) applies a separate 1.25x multiplier on top of the fair fight multiplier, per the current wiki. (documented; Chain › Gaining respect › Fair fights / Overseas attacking, )
Questions about Mugging
- How does escaping work in Torn (running away from a fight, and other things called 'escape')?
Combat ·
- What kinds of players are worth mugging for money, and how should a player choose mugging targets?
Mug targets worth your energy are players weaker than you who currently have cash on hand — classically someone who just sold a high-priced item on t…
Combat ·
- How does mugging work, what is lost when mugged, and can the victim identify the mugger?
A mug, one of the three options after winning an attack, steals a percentage of the defender's cash on hand: 5-10% at base, 7.5-15% with Masterful Lo…
Combat ·