Bukkit

Introduction

Postal 3.0 features a Minecraft, economy implementation. It is designed to reflect the realities of running a profit center, and providing a desired service. Of which may be bought into, used, and/or profited from. The details are kept simple, and hopefully, straight forward.

Each Postal post office is also a bank, facilitated by the chosen plugin economy. There is also a central bank defined by the Postmaster’s, Central bank. This is a server bank.

Players

This page describes the technical handling of currency. Players need not be concerned with this. Players only need to be aware of the cost of postage, and the availability of personal addresses and post offices with the accompanying benefits of ownership.

Vault

Vault is used to facilitate the economy. The economy must have bank support. There is a new economy section in config.yml, and it must be opted-in to use. It defaults to 'false'.

Address and PO Availability

Server owned addresses and post offices are available to any player with the means to pay for it. There is no permission prerequisite, there is a financial prerequisite. They are available on a first come, first served basis. A player may not purchase an owned address or PO. It must be first relinquished by the owner before it may be transferred There is no penalty for releasing property as full defined value and any remaining balances are returned to the former owner when released. PO holdings will probably change hands a lot as they represent safe places to keep balances, and they most probably will turn a profit. Most importantly, they are useable (liquid).

Postage

Postage is collected at the time a letter is addressed, or a shipping label is created. This is facilitated by the /addr and /package commands. Rates are defined for letter or package, and local and out of town.

C.O.D. Shipping

COD is short for 'Cash On Delivery'. Players may ship items to another player and have Postal collect a player-specified amount for the shipment. This cost is separate from the shipping cost and is transferred directly to the sender if the recipient '/accept's the shipment. The recipient always has the option of '/refuse'ing the shipment. A COD surcharge will be added to the normal price of shipping to cover the added cost of billing and collections Postal must do in addition to transport.

This is implemented with a new command '/cod <price>' Create a shipping label the normal way, then with the label in your hand, invoke the /cod command; ie: /cod 500. This example will turn the shipment into a COD shipment where the recipient must pay 500 dollars to /accept the shipment. There is a new economy setting in the configuration file that may be used to define the COD surcharge, added to the shipping charge.

<Currently in pre-release 3.15 on Citizens site.....>

Purchased Address

The cost of an address is defined. Private address ownership is available to anyone with the means to pay for it. Address owners enjoy pickup and delivery at their own mailbox, located where they put it. Owner's mail is secured and they get personal notifications of new mail, either online, or upon joining. Owners show up in the /plist address book.

Towny plot owners automatically receive this if the purchase price is successfully withdrawn. Postal address owners pay for their address when the /owneraddr command is successfully applied with their name.

The proceeds of the address payment are divided equally between the post office the address is serviced by, and the central post office. Note that the post office may be owned, which means the owner has access to the funds, otherwise, the intrinsic value of a server-owned PO/bank appreciates. The owner of the address may sell it back to the Central PO anytime it has the funds to refund the defined value of the address. Addresses retain their value and may be relocated without penalty.

Purchased Post Office

The cost of a post office is defined. A server owned post office is available for ownership to anyone with the means to buy it. Like an address, it may be sold back to the central post office anytime it has the balance to carry it. Upon purchase, any existing balance is returned to the former owner along with the full purchase amount. Server owned post offices purchased for the first time send any existing balance to the central PO before transferring to private ownership.

Towny mayors automatically become the post office owners if the funds are successfully withdrawn from their town. Note that they can always transfer the funds back to the town after the ownership change takes place. Postal PO owners become such with the successful completion of the /ownerlocal command.

Income

Postage for letters and shipments is divided equally between the parties involved in the pickup and final delivery of the letter or shipment. The local PO and postmaster are always involved. It could be a local correspondence with the local postman doing both the pickup and delivery. The postmaster is involved because he does the dispatching ensuring the efficient movement of the mail. So, it will be at least a 2 way split. Out of town postage involves another post office, thus making it a 3 way spit. The price of postage should reflect this.

The price of postage may be collected from anyone with the means to pay for it. An addressed letter or shipping label may be mailed at any post office or any Postal mailbox. This includes owned mailboxes if they are accessible. An enterprising post office owner may decide to locate server based mail boxes in convenient locations for the general delivery customers. Such mail boxes may be used as a destination address as well as a drop off point.

Note that a server owned PO/bank actively servicing addresses will build an unused balance. This balance becomes part of the price to own it. The more popular server PO/banks will build balances faster, reflecting the real value.

The price of mass mailings is defined. The proceeds are divided up the same way postage is. Bukkit admins and post office owners, including Towny mayors, have access to distributions. The qualified player is charged when using the /distr command.

Motivation

This postage revenue is the basis for post office ownership. Post office owners have a profit center that is capable of more than offsetting the purchase price. The purchase of a post office is an investment with all the normal concerns about return-on-investment. The profitability of a post office is based on how much it gets used. The popularity of a post office is under the owner’s control. A strategic location as well as promotion will have a lot to do with its success.

Central Post Office

The central post office is like a federal reserve. Balances here are available for general infrastructure improvements and for NPC training. It is a server bank. Any balance accumulated during the day is evenly divided among all the post offices at the end of the day. The defined cost of a post office is removed from this profit split to keep the central PO reasonably fluid.