Crime levels reset?

I've done a lot of crimes, but my levels are at 1 for everything. I've got over 100 runs at Crackimg, for example, but I'm still at 1. Same with Searchimg for Cash. What's going on? 

Your progress is being reset by failing crimes

Start at the first crime and work your way down

Each crime has an associated skill level, which goes up the more you do a crime and goes down when you keep failing.

Your ability to complete a crime depends on your (hidden) crime experience which builds up the more crimes you do. More diverse crime experience also helps. There are a fair few hidden calculations.

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Exactly what Hamr said, though there're a few small details I'd like to add. 

Firstly, not all fails will decrease your crime level. Only critical fails do. The critical fails will also decrease your overall crime experience, while the regular fails don't affect it. The critical fails notifications are red and give you punishments like reduction in life, loss of certain tools or jail time, while regular fails are kinda yellowish and won't do anything (other than waste your nerves and sometimes materials). 

Also, getting a critical fail doesn't immediately reset your crime level. It decreases it by a certain amount, though since your crime level is so low it'll basically have the same effect as resetting it. 

Additionally, there's a thing called crime chain that affects your success rate in crimes. If I remember correctly, it increases when you commit a successful crime, halves when you fail a crime, and resets when you get a critical fail. 

I also heard that happiness affects your success rate in crimes too but I'm not sure to what extent. Seeing that not a lot of people talk about it though, it's likely not that big of a factor. 

So I should be doing Searching for Cash until I max it, then move on to Bootlegging? Then Graffiti? 

It's a solid plan. Doing them in order will unlock some expensive items that you'll need for later crimes.

Yes.

Guess we should create a script to copy/paste respond to these since staff are holding firm on not creating a more clear new user experience.

I'll work on something soon.

did you login to the wrong account?

Why Your Crime Spree Is Failing

• Crimes are ordered by difficulty. Top left to bottom right (like reading a book)
• It's okay to start with the first 3 rather than one at a time, as you finish one, add a new one on top and continuing is a good way to keep it interesting.

• After finishing 5 or so (untested I'm not new) you'll want to start "Cracking" and get to 25 so you can get a "rig" and make it as powerful as possible so 1 click=overheat and slowly do it over a long period.
  • Cracking rig setup by: Reshula HERE
• Similarly with scamming once you finish the two educations for automated scrapers, you'll want to click "Farm" on them until they're running, and repeat each time they expire while working on other crimes. 

• [Crimes 2.0] A Criminal Primer
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Search For Cash: An In-Depth Guide
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Bootlegging: An In-Depth Guide
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Graffiti: An In-Depth Guide
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Shoplifting: An In-Depth Guide
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Pickpocketing: An In-Depth Guide
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Card Skimming: An In-Depth Guide
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Burglary: An In-Depth Guide
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Hustling: An In-Depth Guide
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Disposal: An In-Depth Guide
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Cracking: An In-Depth Guide
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Forgery: An In-Depth Guide
  
• [Crimes 2.0] Arson: An In-Depth Guide

For anyone that wants to use the above on Firefox (similar on other browsers)

Right click -> Inspect

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Right click->Edit as HTML

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-> Copy the entire block of text.

-> Click "Source Code" brackets so there's a checkbox there.

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-> Paste block of text -> Untick "Source Code" for preview to make sure you did it right and click "Post"

No need to credit me, go forth and farm upvotes.