Car parks and parking fines
Warning: parking fines
A car or motorcycle left anywhere that is not a marked car park bay, with the engine off and nobody in it, costs its owner 5000 points for every hour it stands there after the first 15 minutes. At a fuel pump or the mechanic you get 30 minutes. This goes on while you are offline too.
Packing the car into your bag from the car menu is always free and stops it at once.
The fines start one day after this update goes live, so you have time to move your car.
Where to leave your car
Every town and most outdoor places now have their own car park. It is a separate yard of 100 by 100 squares, reached through an entrance near the middle of the place, the same way you go into the governor's mansion. Drive or walk into the entrance and you are in the car park.
Press K near the town centre to hear where the car park entrance is.
Inside, the entrance lane runs north from the way in. Keep it clear: cars come in from outside straight through it, so you cannot get out of a car there.
North of the lane are eight rows of bays, A to H, with 22 bays in each row: 176 bays in every car park. Each bay is two squares wide and two deep. Press K to hear the bays near you, which are free and which are taken, and the way out.
Stop on a bay, turn the engine off and get out. Your car is now parked legally and costs nothing, for as long as you like.
To leave, drive south out of the way out at the bottom of the lane.
When there is no fine
Your car stands in a car park bay.
Somebody is sitting in it, or its engine is running.
It stands on your own land, or on your husband's or wife's land.
It is working as a taxi and its owner is in the game.
It is a police car.
It is packed in your bag.
Only the time the server is really running counts. A restart or a crash never costs you anything.
What you are told
When you start the engine for the first time in a session, you hear the parking rules and where the nearest car park is.
When you turn the engine off outside a bay, you get a clear warning.
When you get out and leave your car outside a bay, you are reminded.
After the first 15 minutes, you are told that the meter has started.
Every fine is told to you at once if you are in the game, written in My parking fines and in your money book.
When you come in, you hear which fines were issued while you were away.
If you are offline
The fine is written down and taken from your bag when you next come in.
Your bag never goes below zero. If it cannot pay a whole fine, what is there is taken and the rest is not charged.
A car whose owner cannot pay a whole fine is towed: it goes back into your bag, exactly as if you had packed it. Nothing is lost and the hire keeps running. Set it down again in a car park bay.
Menus and commands
Car menu, Parking: is my car parked legally and how long until the next fine, the nearest car park and the way there, My parking fines, the rules in full, and a list of all car parks.
The same menu is in More to do, Workshop and road life, Car parks and parking fines.
/parking opens the menu. /parkingfines reads your list of fines.
Staff: /parkingadmin name, or Staff in the parking menu, shows a player's fines. Staff can waive a fine that has not been taken yet, or refund one that was taken.
Half of every fine goes to the governor's purse; the other half leaves the game.
The car parks
Village, Main, Palmera Bay, South Camp, Frontier Town, Copper Hills Mine Town, Carnival Bay, Lantern Bay, Skyrail City, Fishing Village, Crystal Lake Resort, Mountain, South Hill, Bear Forest, Shadowswamp, Abandoned Mine Road, Belgrade Forest, Juniper Forest, Iceland, Hot Desert, Far Hot Desert, Arid Grassland, Beautiful Forest, The Green Divide, Pineapple Forest, Orchard, Large Lake, Dominican Forest, Northern Snow Plains, Rain Forest, Sunflower Valley, Sunshine Forest, Vineyard, Whispering Marsh, Willow Creek, Tea Highlands, Vinecrest Hills, Snowy Desert, Amber Steppe, Moorland Circle, Aurora Isles, Port Solenne, Sakura Valley, Fjordheim, Glacier Station, Snowcrest Resort, Marrakai Medina, Pyramid Valley, Caravan Crossroads, Emerald Basin, Savanna Reserve, Redstone Canyon, Misty Highlands, Bayou Town, Neon Harbour, Ember Isle, Starlight Observatory Hill, Shipwreck Coast, Old Lighthouse Cape, Coral Reef Island.