City cabs

The cab company sends a real cab to wherever you are standing outdoors. You hear it coming from far off, it pulls up beside you, you get in, and the driver takes you where you say: a place from a list, a place you type, or simply the way you tell them to drive. You pay the meter in points when you get out.

Calling a cab

Type /cab, or open the village menu, More to do, City cabs. Choose one of three:

City cab: you choose the car and the gearbox (see below). 30 points to get in and 2 points a step in the economy car.

Shared cab: 60 percent of the city cab fare. It is a little slower, and the driver may stop on a long ride to let another passenger in and out.

Limousine: three times the city cab fare, at least 150 points. A chauffeur, a different engine, and the fastest ride.

You need at least the fare to get in. Cab control tells you which driver is coming and roughly how long it will take.

Choosing the car

A city cab is one of the game's own cars, with that car's top speed and its own engine sound:

Larkspur Estate, economy: top speed 38 steps a second automatic, 30 manual. Normal fare.

Aurora Saloon, comfort: 45 automatic, 36 manual. 30 percent more.

Falcon GT, sport: 56 automatic, 44 manual. 70 percent more.

Meridian Veloce, luxury: 68 automatic, 54 manual. 120 percent more.

Kestrel Motorcycle, you ride pillion: 72 automatic, 57 manual. 10 percent more.

Then choose the gearbox. Automatic: six gears and smooth shifts you hardly hear. Manual: five gears, and you hear every gear change as the engine note drops and climbs again.

The shared cab is always the Larkspur with a manual gearbox; the limousine is automatic.

Chat: /cab call falcon manual, /cab call meridian automatic, /cab call shared, /cab call limo.

How the cab drives

The cab speeds up on straight roads, slows down before corners, junctions and the end of the ride, brakes before it stops (you hear the tyres), and goes more slowly off the road. The top speeds above are the most it ever does; in town it is much slower.

Driving style: calm, normal or sporty, from the cab menu or /cab calm, /cab normal, /cab sporty (faster and slower also step through them). Calm means gentle starts and slow corners, sporty means hard acceleration and quick corners.

The cab arrives

After a short wait you hear the engine in the distance. It drives over the ground towards you, sounds its horn when it is close, brakes, and stops right next to you; the door opens and the driver greets you. The cab menu opens by itself.

If you walk away, the driver follows you to where you are now. If you do not get in within about a minute and a half, the cab leaves. You can ask the driver to wait a little longer once, and you can cancel at any time before you get in, free of charge.

Getting in

Stand next to the cab and press shift and enter, or choose Get in. The door shuts, the seat belt clicks and the meter starts. While you ride you cannot walk: the cab carries you step by step, and you face the way the cab is driving. Press shift and enter in the cab, or type /cab, to open the cab menu at any time.

Telling the driver where to go

Choose a place to go: the named places around you, the entrances of buildings, your own home or villa, the coach stops, and the next areas over the border with their places. Each one says its direction, a price guess and how long it takes.

Type where you want to go: write a place name. Spelling mistakes and parts of words are fine. Start with the word nearest to go to the closest match, for example nearest shop.

Take me to the nearest: shop, coach stop, building entrance or your home.

Give directions: choose Just drive, then Drive straight on, Turn left at the next turning, Turn right at the next turning, Turn around, Faster, Slower or Stop here. The driver tells you about turnings and crossroads on the road, and asks you which way when the road ends. These choices keep the menu open, so you can press them one after another.

Where are we: your place, the direction you are heading, your speed and gear, and the meter.

Choose an area to drive to: this area, the areas next door and the ones further away, each with how many borders, the price and the time.

Chat commands

/cab opens the cab menu.

/cab call, /cab call shared, /cab call limo: call a cab.

/cab cancel: cancel a cab that is on its way.

/cab go followed by a place: tell the driver where to go.

/cab straight, /cab left, /cab right, /cab around, /cab faster, /cab slower, /cab calm, /cab normal, /cab sporty, /cab stop, /cab info.

/cab rides: your last rides and receipts.

Every command is also in the cab menu.

Crossing into another area

Type or choose an area by name, for example main, middle valley, village or south camp (spelling mistakes, spaces or underscores do not matter). The cab drives there over every border on the way; it never jumps. You hear it cross each border. If there is water on the way, the cab rolls onto the car ferry: the ferry crossing takes half a minute or more and each stretch of water counts as a border. If a road turns out to be blocked, or a ferry quay has no road on from it, the driver tries another way (several times if need be); if there is truly no way through he tells you so honestly, drops you as close as he could get, and a crossing that led nowhere is not charged. If a place can only be reached by air or has no road at all, the driver says so and offers the nearest place he can reach, for example the Skyport shuttle stop or the entrance of a building.

The cab can also drive over the border into the next outdoor area and on to a place there. Each border adds 100 points to a city cab fare. The motorway between the village and Palmera Bay takes about a minute and adds 250 points.

Paying

When the cab stops at your place, the payment menu opens. Pay the meter, or pay and add a tip of up to 500 points. If you do not choose within 45 seconds, the meter is paid for you when you step out. You can also choose to stay in the cab and go somewhere else.

If the meter reaches all the points you have, the driver pulls over, takes what you have and lets you out. A city cab or shared cab never costs more than 5000 points, a limousine never more than 15000.

Standing still and waiting cost nothing. Every ride is written in your money book and in your cab rides list (/cab rides).

Rewards

Ten paid rides of at least 30 steps earn the title Regular Fare, fifty earn The Golden Meter for your trophy cabinet, and five limousine rides earn the title Chauffeured.

If you leave the game

If you leave, lose the connection or the server restarts during a ride, you are back in your seat when you come back, and the driver carries on to where you were going. A cab that was only on its way to you is cancelled, free of charge.

If you watch another player during a ride, the cab waits for you and you are back in your seat when you stop watching.

Where cabs do not go

Indoors or under a roof, into arenas or the jail, onto the water, on a plane or the coach. You cannot call a cab while you are in a car, on a bike, with PK on, or while you are watching someone. A cab never drives into a building or through a doorway: it stops outside, and it takes you as close as the road goes when a place has no road up to it.