Economy & Money Model
Money in BBox: Kingpin is not one number. It is dirty or clean, and it is held by different parties. Getting this model right is the difference between a growing empire and a seized one. This page is the authoritative reference for where cash lives and how it moves.
Money lives in separate pots: your dirty cash, your laundered clean cash, and cash fronted to crew. Laundering moves dirty to clean; the pots below spell out who holds what.
The three pots of money
| Pot | Whose | State | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Player dirty cash | Player | Dirty | Spendable on the business (property, loans, operations), but it is proceeds of crime. Laundering turns it into clean cash. |
| Player clean cash | Player | Clean | Fully legitimate money you can use freely and safely. |
| Member fronted cash | A crew member, given by you | Dirty | Dirty cash you handed a member; recovered via stash / collect / launder orders. |
| Member wallet | A crew member, their own | Theirs | The member's personal money. The player can never touch it. |
IMPORTANT
A crew member's wallet is their personal money. You never take from it. When you "collect" from a member you are pulling back the dirty cash you fronted them, not their wages. Confusing the two is the most common misunderstanding of the economy.
Laundering
Laundering converts a member's dirty fronted cash into player clean cash. It is conserved: every dollar removed is accounted for across four buckets, nothing vanishes into thin air.
When you launder an amount of dirty cash from a member:
member cut = amount x memberCutRate (goes to the member's wallet) player clean cash += (amount - member cut) x launderEfficiencyburned fee = the remainder (the cost of washing it) street heat += a heat exposure amount (laundering is still a crime)
| Bucket | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Member cut | 5% of amount | The member's skim, lands in their wallet |
| Launder efficiency | 80% of the rest | Share that survives as clean cash |
| Burned fee | remainder | Lost to the laundering process |
| Street heat | heat exposure | Added to the section, see Heat |
The four knobs (cut rate, efficiency, fee, heat exposure) are config values. The "Launder" button is a soft nudge, not a guaranteed instant conversion.
Where money is lost
Different bad endings hit different pots. This is the full loss matrix:
| Event | What happens to the member's cash |
|---|---|
| Member killed | Fronted dirty cash is lost (you are notified) |
| Member arrested | Fronted dirty cash is frozen while they are inside |
| Member defects | They take the fronted cash with them |
| Member flees combat | They keep the cash, you keep the member |
| Building raided | Only stored cash in that building is seized |
The takeaway: cash sitting on a person is exposed. Cash you have laundered into clean player funds is safe. Moving money from dirty to clean, and off people into fronts, is risk management.
The drug trade
The core earner. Product flows from a supplier down to the street, and the margin depends on how you sell it.
NOTE
The trade currently centers on cocaine, cut to crack for retail. Product types are data, not hard-wired. Adding a new drug is a new field plus its prices and a place to make or buy it, not a new system. See the worked example in adding content.
Supply chain
| Tier | Transaction | Amount | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supplier to crew | Buy cocaine | 200g | $1000 |
| Crew to addict (retail) | Sell crack | 50g | $500 |
| Crew to distributor (wholesale) | Sell cocaine | 200g | $1400 |
The margin choice
Buy 200g for $1000, then choose how to move it:
| Strategy | How | Revenue | Profit | Margin | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail | Sell 4 x 50g at $500 | $2000 | $1000 | 100% | Fattest margin, most heat |
| Wholesale | Sell 1 x 200g at $1400 | $1400 | $400 | 40% | Thinner margin, smaller footprint |
Street dealing pays double but lights up the block. Wholesale is quiet money. Your crew's traits push them toward one or the other: a ruthless, greedy member wants the corner; a cautious one prefers moving weight quietly.
Dynamic supply
Suppliers scale their stock to your crew automatically, so adding members does not starve the supply:
restock amount = gang member count x purchase sizemax inventory = gang member count x purchase size x buffer multiplier
Change how much each member buys (the purchase-size goal value) and suppliers adjust with no manual retuning. Full config in Modding: economy config.
Other income
| Source | Nature | Heat profile |
|---|---|---|
| Protection rackets | Steady recurring income | Keeps your name on the street |
| Debt collection | Lump sums from debtors | Intimidation raises heat |
| Extortion | One-off shakedowns | High heat, fast cash |
| Legit fronts | Slow, safe, and the cover that makes laundering work | Lowest heat |
Crew commands are nudges
Order buttons like "launder," "collect," or "send crew" are soft priority nudges, not hard commands. They bump a goal's priority for one member; they do not force an instant, guaranteed, targeted action. This is deliberate: you do not directly control your crew, you influence them. See GOAP for why.
Modding
Prices, restock rates, caps, the laundering knobs, and income rates are all config values. See Modding: economy config.