Where you live in Override decides what your working day costs. Work near home is free to get to. Work anywhere else means a trip, and every trip costs energy and creds. That's the whole reason homes matter, and the reason players pay rent to other players.
It starts with the map, because everything else follows from it.
How the city is laid out
The city sits on a hex map. At its heart is a cluster of seven hexes: a centre and six working hexes around it. Each working hex has one resource to extract: a grain field, a forest, a stone quarry, an ore mine, a coal mine or a chemical spring. The centre has no resource. It's where homes, parks and services go.
You earn creds (the city's currency) by working shifts: in your own company, or for someone who hires you. Every shift happens on a particular hex, and you live on a particular hex. The distance between the two is what the rest of this guide is about.
Outside the cluster is the newcomers' camp, where every player starts.
Your home's area
Every home comes with an area: a few hexes around it where getting to work costs nothing. You choose those hexes yourself. They have to touch your home's hex, or another hex you've already picked, so the area is one connected patch.
How big the area is depends on the home:
| Home | Hexes in its area |
|---|---|
| Camp shack | One working hex of your choice |
| House, or a rented apartment | Two |
| Estate | Three |
| Manor | Four |
You can change which hexes are in your area for free. There's a cooldown between changes, so an area can't be re-pointed at every new job within minutes.
What a commute costs
A shift on a hex outside your area is a trip from home to work and back. The fare is charged per hex of distance, in two currencies:
| Where the shift is | Energy | Creds |
|---|---|---|
| The hex you live on | Free | Free |
| A hex in your area | Free | Free |
| Any other hex | A fare per hex of distance | A fare per hex of distance |
Energy for the trip is taken when the shift starts. The creds add up during the day and are charged once a day. The fare isn't paid to anyone: it leaves the economy, like a bus ticket.
You can't dodge it either. If you don't have the creds, the fare becomes a debt, and the debt is paid first out of the next creds you receive, whatever they come from: wages, a sale, a refund. It never blocks you from working, but it never goes away on its own.
That's why the centre is the most expensive place to buy land. It's one hex from every working hex, so commutes from there are as short as they get.
Settle near your work, or pay to get there.
The air where you live
Buildings change the hexes they stand on. Industry pollutes: mines, quarries and factories lower the comfort of their hex, and part of the smog drifts into the hexes next door. Parks and gardens do the opposite. A well-kept home adds a little comfort too, more for bigger homes.
Comfort matters because of health, a separate stat from energy. Live on a smoggy hex and your health slowly drains, every day. Live on a clean one and it slowly recovers. Only the hex you live on counts. You can work next to a coal mine all day and stay healthy, as long as you go home to clean air.
Low health doesn't stop you from working, and it never kills you. It makes your work pay less: below a threshold, your shifts produce and earn less until you recover. First aid kits, bought on the player market, restore health straight away.
You can do something about a dirty district. Anyone can build a park on their own plot, and factory owners can buy filters that cut their building's pollution. A building's effect on comfort is shown before it's built, so nobody gets surprised by a new neighbour.
What else a home gives you
- Storage. Your personal store, where you keep goods outside a company. A camp shack holds little. A house or a rented apartment holds more, and the bigger owned homes more again.
- A starting point for hauling. Delivering goods to the port costs energy for every hex they travel, and goods in your personal store travel from your home.
- A status badge on your profile.
A home gives no power: no extra energy, no bigger output, no discount on production. What it gives you is cheaper days, better health and room for your things.
Three ways to live
| Camp shack | Rented apartment | Your own home | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Nothing, ever | Daily rent to a landlord | A plot, the building, then daily upkeep |
| Area | One working hex | Two hexes | Two to four, by size |
| Storage | Small | Same as a house | Grows with size |
| What can go wrong | Nothing | Unpaid rent ends in eviction | Unpaid upkeep puts it to sleep |
The camp shack is free, never goes away and has no upkeep. Nobody in the city is ever homeless: whatever happens with rent, the shack is still there.
Your own home starts with a plot. You buy one from the city, or from another player, and pay a small daily land tax on it. A house costs creds and building materials. It can be upgraded later into an estate and then a manor, paying only the difference each time. Every home except the shack burns coal for heating, and estates and manors also wear out furniture, so the bigger the home, the higher the upkeep.
Renting gets you a house-sized area and a house-sized store without buying a plot, materials or a building. That's on purpose: a tenant isn't a second-class resident.
Renting a home
Only apartment buildings are rented out. A house, an estate or a manor is for its owner to live in, and can't be sublet. An apartment building has several units, and each one goes to a different tenant.
When you sign for a unit, it becomes your main home. Your area now spreads from that building's hex, and your commutes are counted from there.
Who sets the rent
The landlord sets a daily price for each unit, and tenants pick from every unit listed in the city. There's a ceiling so nobody can list a flat at an absurd price, and there's no floor: a landlord can let a newcomer live for free.
Both sides get help pricing it. The landlord sees a suggested rent, higher for a cleaner, more comfortable hex. The tenant sees what the rent comes to as a share of a full day's earnings, before signing.
What keeps rents honest is the camp shack. Every tenant can walk away and live for free, with one working hex in reach. A landlord who asks too much ends up with empty units.
What everyone pays
| Who pays | What | To whom | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tenant | The rent on their contract | The landlord | Every day, automatically |
| Landlord | A share of that rent, if the mayor sets a rent tax | The city treasury | Out of each day's rent |
| Landlord | Upkeep: creds and coal | Creds to the treasury, coal is burned | Every day, automatically |
| Plot owner | Land tax | The city treasury | Every day, automatically |
The tenant always pays exactly the price on the contract. A rent tax, if the mayor sets one, comes out of what the landlord receives.
How a contract runs
The price on a contract is frozen for a fixed term. When the term ends, the landlord can't evict a tenant who pays. They can only propose a new price for the next term, and the tenant either accepts it or moves out, with a grace period to pack. If the landlord proposes nothing, the contract renews at the old price.
If nobody answers, the contract renews at the old price. Silence protects the tenant.
When a tenant can't pay
Rent is charged once a day. If the tenant doesn't have the creds, the contract goes overdue and they get a warning, with a grace period to settle it. Paying clears the whole debt.
If the grace period runs out, the tenant is evicted and goes back to their camp shack. Their goods aren't confiscated: they move to the shack, up to what it can hold. Whatever doesn't fit is left on the street by the old building for a few days. Collect it in time, or it disappears.
An eviction never touches the landlord's plot. The building stays theirs and the unit is free to list again.
Becoming a landlord, step by step
- Own a plot. Buy an empty one from the city or from another player. The centre costs more, but its tenants have the shortest commutes.
- Build an apartment building. It costs creds and building materials, which you can buy on the player market.
- List the units. Set a daily price for each empty one. A listed unit shows up for every player in the city.
- Wait for tenants. A player picks your unit and signs. The contract starts the same day.
- Collect, and keep the building running. Rent arrives every day, and upkeep leaves every day.
Keeping the building awake
Upkeep is paid every day, whether the units are full or not. If it stays unpaid for too long, the building falls asleep: no rent comes in, and the tenants get a grace period before they're moved back to their shacks. That counts as the landlord's failure, not theirs, so it leaves no mark on them. Paying what's owed wakes the building up.
The plot has its own bill. If the land tax goes unpaid for long enough, the plot is mothballed too, and if it stays unpaid after that, the city auctions it, building and all.
A full building at a fair price is the goal. An empty building at a greedy price is a slow leak.
Why rent is worth it
For a landlord, rent is income that doesn't need you online. Override is a PBBG: contracts renew on their own and rent is charged on its own while you're away. It pays less than working, but it takes far fewer clicks.
For a tenant, renting is the quick way out of the camp: a real area and a real store without buying land, and the freedom to move closer to a new job when the old one ends.
If you'd like to be there when the city opens, join the waitlist.
