features planned

FEATURES.md

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+# Feature Comparison: Torn & OmertaMafia vs The Crime Syndicate
+
+## What Torn & OmertaMafia Have That We Don't
+
+### Combat & PvP
+- **Attacking other players** — Mug, hospitalize, or kill other characters. Torn has full attack mechanics with hit/miss/critical rolls factoring in strength, speed, dexterity. OmertaMafia has gang warfare and hit contracts.
+- **Mugging** — Steal a percentage of a player's on-hand cash without hospitalizing them.
+- **Bounties / Hit contracts** — Pay to put a bounty on another player; anyone can claim it by attacking them.
+- **Revenge attacks** — Dedicated UI showing who attacked you recently so you can retaliate.
+- **War mode / Gang wars** — Organized PvP between gangs/families with territory control.
+- **Escape from jail** — Active mechanic to bust yourself or another player out of jail (costs nerve/energy, has success rate).
+
+### Economy & Business
+- **Item market / Player-to-player trading** — Buy and sell items directly between players (Torn has a robust bazaar and player shops).
+- **Stock market** — Invest cash in fictional companies that fluctuate in value (Torn).
+- **Businesses** — Own and manage a business (restaurant, law firm, etc.) that generates passive income and provides job slots for other players (Torn).
+- **Drug mechanics** — Use drugs for temporary stat boosts with addiction and overdose penalties (Torn: cannabis, ecstasy, LSD, etc.).
+- **Loan sharks / Money lending** — Borrow cash at interest or lend to other players.
+- **Casino / Gambling** — Slots, poker, blackjack, lottery, number games in-game (both games have this).
+- **Points / Premium currency market** — Tradeable premium currency with a player-driven exchange rate.
+
+### Social & Factions
+- **Gangs / Factions / Families** — Join or create an organized group with a shared bank, territory, ranking system, and gang-specific crimes.
+- **Gang crimes** — Organized crimes requiring multiple gang members to coordinate (Torn: faction organized crimes with planning timers).
+- **Messaging system** — In-game mailbox for player-to-player messages (both games).
+- **Forums / Bulletin boards** — In-game community boards, faction-specific boards.
+- **Friends list & enemy list** — Track specific players with notes.
+- **Profile pages** — Public character profiles showing stats, achievements, faction, recent activity.
+- **Marriage / Partnerships** — Pair two characters for in-game bonuses (Torn).
+
+### Progression & Stats
+- **Nerve / Action points** — A separate resource from energy that gates crime attempts and resets on a timer (Torn uses nerve for crimes; energy for gym/training).
+- **Gym / Training** — Spend energy to train specific stats (strength, speed, dexterity, defense) at a gym with diminishing returns.
+- **Education system** — Enroll in courses that take real time to complete and permanently boost stats or unlock new crime types (Torn).
+- **Job / Working** — Apply for jobs at companies that provide daily pay and skill XP in a specific field (Torn: company specials).
+- **Merit badges / Achievements** — Unlock permanent stat bonuses for hitting milestones (e.g., "commit 100 crimes", "win 50 fights").
+- **Rank / Prestige system** — Named rank tiers (e.g., Torn's "Civilian → Vigilante → … → Legend") unlocked by total stat points.
+- **Happy stat** — A fluctuating "happiness" resource that multiplies stat gains from the gym.
+- **Travel / City system** — Fly to other in-game cities to access unique items, crimes, or drug suppliers (Torn has 10+ cities; OmertaMafia has district control).
+
+### Items & Equipment
+- **Item categories beyond weapon/armor** — Flowers, plushies, books, medical items, car parts, drug ingredients, collectables.
+- **Item crafting / Synthesis** — Combine ingredients to craft drugs, explosives, or equipment.
+- **Temporary consumables with cooldowns** — Medical kits that restore health on a timer, energy drinks, Xanax.
+- **Weapon/armor enhancement** — Upgrade or modify equipment (Torn: weapon mods like barrels, stocks).
+- **Car / Vehicle system** — Vehicles as inventory items that affect travel speed or racing.
+
+### Time-Based Mechanics
+- **Passive income timers** — Properties, investments, or businesses that pay out automatically at intervals.
+- **Daily login bonus** — Reward streak for consecutive logins.
+- **Cooldown notifications** — In-game or email alerts when your energy refills, cooldown expires, or jail time ends.
+- **Events / Seasonal content** — Limited-time crimes, items, or challenges tied to real-world calendar events.
+
+---
+
+## Quick Wins
+*Features that are relatively small to implement given the existing codebase.*
+
+- **Escape from jail mechanic** — Add a "Bust Out" button on the jail page with a success rate based on dexterity and speed. Failure adds time; success frees the character. Uses existing jail/status infrastructure.
+- **Daily login bonus** — Track `last_login_at` on the character; award cash or XP for consecutive days. One migration, one middleware check.
+- **Merit / Achievement badges** — Define milestones as config entries (e.g., 10 crimes committed). Check on action completion and award a permanent flat stat bonus. Uses activity log data already being captured.
+- **Gambling mini-game** — A simple number-pick or dice roll in the casino using existing cash deduction/addition logic. No new model needed beyond a `gambles` log.
+- **In-game messaging** — A `messages` table (sender, recipient, subject, body, read_at). Trivial CRUD with a notification dot in the sidebar.
+- **Player profile pages** — Public read-only view of another character's name, level, stats, and rank. Routes off the existing character model.
+- **Consumable items with timed effects** — Add `effect_type` (health_restore, energy_restore, stat_boost) and `effect_value` to the items table; apply on `use` and optionally track a `consumed_at` cooldown.
+- **Nerve stat** — Add `nerve` / `max_nerve` columns alongside energy. Crimes deduct nerve instead of (or in addition to) energy. Nerve recharges on its own timer.
+- **Gym / Stat training** — A training page where spending energy increases a chosen stat by a small amount. Caps per day via a `trained_today` counter that resets at midnight.
+
+---
+
+## Opportunities
+*Things neither Torn nor OmertaMafia does well — areas where The Crime Syndicate could differentiate.*
+
+- **Transparent probability system** — Both Torn and OmertaMafia obscure exact success rates and stat impact formulas, leading to years of community wiki-guessing. We already show success % on crimes. Extend this to combat (show estimated win probability before attacking), gym gains (show exact stat increase before spending energy), and item effects. Players reward honesty.
+- **Structured crime narrative / Story mode** — Torn crimes are one-line text results. OmertaMafia is similar. A short branching text narrative for each crime outcome (3–5 sentences, different per success/failure/critical) would make the core loop dramatically more engaging at almost zero mechanical cost.
+- **Mobile-first energy notifications** — Both games rely on third-party scripts/Discord bots for "your energy is full" alerts. First-party web push notifications (using the browser Push API, which Laravel can integrate via a package) would be a genuine feature advantage.
+- **Crime planning / Heist system with roles** — Neither game has a compelling cooperative crime mechanic that isn't just "everyone press go simultaneously". A heist that assigns roles (driver, hacker, muscle) with different stat checks and a shared payout — requiring 2–4 players to opt in over a time window — would be genuinely novel.
+- **Reputation system per crime type** — Instead of one generic level, track separate rep scores for e.g. "Pickpocket", "Car Theft", "White Collar Fraud". Higher rep in a category unlocks harder crimes in that tree and gives passive bonuses. This is deeper than Torn's flat crime XP and gives players meaningful specialization choices.
+- **Fully auditable gang bank** — Gang finances in both games are opaque and gang leaders absconding with the treasury is a notorious problem. A public, immutable transaction log for the gang bank (visible to all members) is a trust and retention feature neither game offers properly.
+- **Time-zone aware energy regen** — Both games use fixed server-time resets that heavily disadvantage players in non-US time zones. Allowing players to set their own "day reset" time (within a reasonable window) for daily bonuses would be a meaningful quality-of-life differentiator.