Sunday, December 9th, 2007
Issue: 52   Editor: Nyxxiekins


Use of Changing Plates? MikaVerLeth
After stealing a car the most logical thing to do would be to change the plate. A car with a red 'heat level' will change into yellow in almost all cases. When the plate has been changed and the car is shipped the 'heat level' will most likely change into green so that your car will remain safe for quite a while.

Yet, changing plates will cost you around $100. Result of this is that cars such as a Starpegasus become quite useless as they are only worth $100 at 0% damage. How often do you steal a car that is free of damage? Hardly ever.
Even with cars that are worth over $100 when they are free of damage it is possible to lose money as most cars are damaged, some quite a lot, and need to be shipped after changing the plates. This even creates a higher price for getting the car out of the state and will probably result in a player selling the car without gaining any profit. In fact the player might even lose money as the costs for changing plates and shipping were higher then the actual value of the car itself.

This rose the question: Is it actually necessary to change plates before shipping a car?

The answer to this question is really simple: No. It is not necessary to change plates of a car before shipping it. In all my tests; the cars I shipped weren't found by the police and simply got shipped to the desired state. The only thing that turned out different was the 'heat level' which did't turn green but jumped from red to yellow. Meaning that the cars will be found within a shorter amount of time. However, if it concerns Duesenbergs, putting them in a garage will suffice to keep your beloved car(s) out of the police their greedy hands. In all other cases you will just have to travel more often so that you can sell your cars.

Overall conclusion? It might be better to safe the money of changing plates so that you can make more profit over your cars. Face it, earning money is hard enough. Why not add something to your profit?