I've had a few players interested in starting businesses ask me to give them a grant so they're able to get started. I think it would be neat if there were a way to make this more automatic with the already-existing businesses and a few new features:
Basically, my idea is that business owners would be able to apply for grants and mayors would be able to approve or deny them. Approved grants would have to be gradually paid off in weekly installments.
The mayor of a city would set a grant interest rate with /mayor grant setinterest #, where # is some number from 0-100. This determines the total amount a business owner must repay to the city after being given a grant! Ex: for a 50k grant with a 10% interest rate, a grant recipient would owe 55k.
Business owners would then apply for a grant with /b grant apply (amount). This would generate a grant ID and send a message to the mayor that said grant (and amount) is pending approval. The mayor would then be able to approve/deny the grant with /mayor grant approve:deny (ID). A message is sent back to the business owner saying whether the grant was approved or denied.
If the grant is approved, the funds will be deducted from the city bank and transferred to the business vault. To repay the grant, a weekly tax would be charged to the owner's business vault and would continue charging until the grant amount + interest is paid off.
If a business owner fails to pay off their grant or their business ends... well, I haven't quite thought this far yet, but here are a couple of ideas:
- The unpaid portion of the grant is automatically deducted from their bank account and goes directly to the city bank
- Wanted levels are added for missed payments unless the player does /b grant suspend, which transfers the unpaid portion of the grant from their bank account to the city bank
To recap:
/b grant apply (amount) - would allow business owners to apply for a grant
/mayor grant approve:deny (ID) - would allow mayors to approve/deny a grant application
/mayor grant setinterest # - would allow mayors to set an interest rate all for grants
/b grant suspend - (potentially) would suspend weekly business payments and immediately transfer the unpaid amount from the grant recipient's bank account to the city bank