Company directors should be able to mouse over employees effectiveness and see a list of modifiers like:
Job stats +100%
Drug addiction -10%
Inactive for 30hours - 10%
ect ect
This would help directors make real informed decisions regarding their staff. Implementing this would also help achieve the developers long-term agenda to nerf company multis.
Drug addiction should not be a penalty for employees / or at least not active employees / or at the very least not add up as quickly as it currently does.
The current company staff modifiers for drug addiction greatly favors old accounts who are playing less actively, while penalising active and competitive players of all ages. It really makes no sense at all.
Why change how drug addiction affects employee efficiency?
Active players are encouraged by the game mechanics to use drugs (as much as possible).
As such, the current system hurts both inactive staff AND active staff (given that 99% of the active players = drug users).
Most accounts with high work stats are old. Rehab for old accounts with high drug use is very expensive. Thus, most oldtimers tend to rehab infrequently or at least not before the brain symbol appears (-20 pts penalty or more).
Even SSL players take drugs regularly (LSD, mostly) and are thus affected by drug addiction.
Players are encouraged to take 3 Xanax/day. If you use that many drugs it will remove 10-15 efficiency points very quickly even if you're lucky enough to play in a faction with addiction supressing faction specials.
"But there is no need to boost companies further."
When staff efficiency modifiers were initially coded, inactivity penalties were capped at -50%. This did not change for a decade and was removed as recently as ~2 years ago. Now each day of inactivity removes 10% efficiency, with no cap.
A recent change from last month introduced over night 100% penalties to semi-active players. They can now go from >100 to 0 efficiency without any warning, even if they login daily. This change was put in motion as a means to limit company multis.
These two changes sent a clear signal to directors that the developers wants them to hire active players. But only active players who never use drugs or active players who flies to Switzerland for rehab every 36 hours.
Two counter suggestions for the skeptics:
1) If drugs are still considered a valid reason to give penalties to company staff, it would be preferable to boost the low percentage of players who never take drugs rather than enforcing penalties on 99% of the active player base for doing what the game expects them to do.
2) If the developers decides to keep the current modifier system, they could introduce features for directors to compensate for (slight/moderate) drug addiction among the staff. This could be handled either by adding drug addiction supressing functions to specific company roles (Managers, Cleaners, or even a new role etc) or via a system similar to how training points work. F.ex: each company gets X rehab points per day to compensate for drug addiction (without removing the actual addiction of the affected employees, just rendering it void from a staff efficiency standpoint).
My view on the current system is that anything (save from another nerf) would be preferable, given the mixed messages it sends out to both directors and employees.
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DISCLAIMER: This suggestion is not made out of ignorace; I am well aware that drug addiction has always been a factor, and how severe of a factor that is. Commenters should refrain from stating the obvious ("It has always worked this way") and focus on reading the entire OP before commenting.
On May 9th, 2026, our friend, pig-in-arms, and fellow Buttgrass faction member, Piglet [2772854], passed away.
For the past three years, Piglet fought a battle against a brain tumour that subjected him to multiple high-risk surgeries, endless medication, and pain most of us can't even begin to imagine. Yet through all of it, he never complained. Not once. Somehow, even in the middle of that fight, he still found joy in logging into this ridiculous game and spending time with us.
That was Piglet.
Every recovery gave us hope that somehow he would beat the odds. We wanted so badly for the miracle to come. But life can be unbearably cruel, and here we are, mourning the loss of a dear friend.
We sincerely hope Torn staff will one day grant him Fallen Angel status, but we also want his closed ones to mourn in peace. So, until then, he remains with us. He will stay under our protection for as long as this faction stands. I would sooner quit this game myself than remove him from the family he helped build in Torn.
And let this be understood clearly:
Piglet is off limits.
This should not need to be said. Common decency alone should be enough. Anyone who understands what he endured, and what those inactive days now mean to the people mourning him, would leave him in peace.
But if anyone chooses otherwise, whether during wars or for personal gain, understand this: I will remember it. And I will answer it in every event from this day forward. It is the last thing I can still do for my friend, and I will do it without hesitation.
It is finally time for you to rest now, Lewis.
You fought harder than anyone should ever have to, and faced it all with more courage and grace than I ever could.
You made us all proud, and you will always be one of us.
Directors sell their TVs to the system since there are no buyers for 30b priced companies. Hence, the number of TVs and the total income generated by all TV companies decreases at a steady pace. This results in the total number of 10* TVs shrinking fast and the revenues of those that are left decreases. During the last 10 months the number of 10 star TVs went down from 45 to 31. If we go back two years, it’s down >50%. The total number of TVs is down by three figures in a similar time frame.
Meanwhile, the top side of the income bracket (mainly being composed by inexperienced directors) have continued to expect their high ranked TVs to make 1b weekly income, pushing ads and wages to the max in ever more desperate attempts to reach that goal instead of adapting to the new reality.
I have directed several companies in many different fields with 5 of them being TVs. It took me 6 months to take a brand new LM from 0 to 10 stars and >35m daily profits (net). ROI was reached in less than 2 months. In terms of making the most of your $, it makes absolutely no sense to run a TV network instead of one (or more) LMs. This has been the case ever since LMs were first introduced in 2019.
The facts that…
- LMs cost 20% of the price of a TV - are easier to recruit to - are much smaller (12 man needed for 10 stars vs 20 being the new standard for TVs) - have much better specials below 10 stars and - make ROI blazingly fast
… all contribute to the current meta. And it’s all according to plan. This is by design; TVs used to be overpowered and now they are not.
However, all things considered, rigs should definitely be decreased from 30 size to 20 size or at the very least 25. Makes no sense at all to have such huge companies in the game now that employees are required to be active.
First of all, I don’t mind updating the rules to make it less lucrative to run casinos on the side. But you need to look at the root cause of why these casinos started popping up in the first place.
Sure, vibe coding has made it a lot easier, but we’ve always had a plethora of competent coders making third-party tools for this game. So why didn’t they code these casinos 10 years ago? Why has this become a problem now?
Because the Torn casino itself f*#ked up the economy.
In a game that used to be promoted as a crime-based game, with a focus on conflicts, wars, crimes, and grinding your way to the top, it sure is starting to feel more and more like I'm playing an online casino game with a crime theme. And I'm not particularly fond of online casino games.
1. First, you have the casino junkies buying DPs to funnel their gambling obsession. If you’re at all worried about compliance issues, start by looking at your own casino first. I assume that’s a much bigger issue in terms of exploiting gambling addicts than the external sites, simply because of the massive revenue it generates.
2. Secondly, the RR module has always been shady. I’m sure you’ll say that all RR cheaters and RMT transactions are caught by your anti-cheating bot. And who knows, maybe that’s true, but I digress. RR should simply be removed from the game, period. Or, better yet, make casino $ a play-money currency that you can’t use to buy anything in the actual game. I understand that it can’t be reversed now, since the massive profits you make from running a casino within the game (or a game on top of the casino, depending on your perspective) are very hard to give up.
3. Last but not least, if you’re a half-decent online poker player, you’re basically guaranteed to win in Torn. It has reached a point where you barely ever have to bother excelling in any other areas of the game, as long as you keep winning at the poker tables. Because the money you make from hustling poker noobs and whale addicts for an hour or more each day will allow you to buy the best gear in the game, expensive boosters, SEs, and anything else you fancy.
But let’s not be negative here. It sure is nice that you’re addressing one of the symptoms of the root problem. I doubt it will make much of a difference in the end, but why not give it a try and see how it goes?
![[image: i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/cEwezFJ.png){kind=link}