When you start a cartel, the Customise & balance tab lets you pick a preset or tune every multiplier yourself. You can save your own preset under a custom name. The multipliers scale the base numbers listed on Balance Flags (Developer Values).
Contents: Built-in presets · Settings and preset values · Day length · Things worth knowing
Built-in presets
| Preset | Description |
|---|---|
| Default DDS2 | Recommended default balance preset for new players. |
| Economic | More focus on the economy and running the drug business. The enemies are easier, and there are fewer threats in general. |
| Gangsta | More dangers and challenging gameplay. There are more enemies, and combat is harder. Raids will hit you much more often. |
| Chillout | Designed for pure enjoyment. Progress is much faster, raids are disabled, and enemies are very easy. Chill out on Isla Sombra. |
Settings and preset values
| Setting | What it does | Default DDS2 | Economic | Gangsta | Chillout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Experience multiplier | Affects how fast you gain cartel experience. | 1 | 1.2 | 1 | 1.4 |
| Demand multiplier | Affects the number of drug demand points you gain. | 1 | 0.96 | 1.15 | 1.5 |
| Reputation multiplier | Affects the amount of reputation points you gain. | 1 | 0.9 | 1.1 | 1.7 |
| Street cred multiplier | Affects the amount of street cred you gain for your actions. | 1 | 1.3 | 0.85 | 1.4 |
| Daytime multiplier | Length of day and night. A direct multiplier on real-time hours (24.0 makes a full day last 1 hour of real time). | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Sales multiplier | Affects the speed at which clients make orders; higher means more orders. | 1 | 1.1 | 1 | 1.2 |
| Loss multiplier | Multiplies maintenance costs (power and water, employee fees, etc.) and fines (arrest fine, prison bailout, etc.). Does not affect shop prices. | 1 | 1.2 | 1 | 0.75 |
| Earnings multiplier | Affects the prices clients pay for drugs. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.3 |
| Enable raids | Enables militia raids (0 = off). The game warns that this affects access to the prison camp. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Raid chance multiplier | Affects the chance of a raid happening. | 1 | 0.5 | 1.3 | 1 |
| Enable enemies | Enables the spawning of enemies. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Enemy amount | Changes the number of enemies that spawn on the map and their spawn chances. | 1 | 0.5 | 1.2 | 0.5 |
| Enemy damage | Changes the damage enemies deal to you and your allies. | 1 | 0.6 | 1.3 | 0.3 |
| Player damage | Changes the damage you deal to enemies. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.2 |
| Clothes affect stats | Enables clothing affecting player stats. When disabled, every player has average stats affected only by meds and drugs. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Stamina drain | Affects the stamina drained by sprinting or actions. | 1 | 0.8 | 1.15 | 0.7 |
| Stamina regain | Affects the speed at which stamina regenerates. | 1 | 1.3 | 0.95 | 1.2 |
| Crafting speed multiplier | Affects the speed of crafting. | 1 | 0.9 | 1.1 | 1.5 |
| Wanted points multiplier | Affects the wanted points obtained for criminal actions. | 1 | 0.6 | 1.2 | 0.2 |
Day length
Every built-in preset sets the daytime multiplier to 16, so one in-game day lasts 90 minutes of real time (24 hours ÷ 16). A value of 24 would make a day last one hour. See Day-Night Cycle & Time.
Things worth knowing
- Loss multiplier covers running costs and fines, but not shop prices. See Bills, Debt & Running Costs.
- Raids off (Chillout) also changes how reachable the prison camp is, because the camp is normally reached through raids. See Wanted Level, Militia Raids & Arrests.
- Clothes affect stats is on in every built-in preset. Turning it off makes every character average, with only medicine and drugs changing stats. See Player Stats & Attributes and Clothing & Apparel.
- Stamina drain and regain are multipliers on the base flags, see Stamina, Health & Rest.
Source: game DataTables (CartelConfigPresetDatabase, strTable_CartelConfig). Values are as stored in the current Steam build; bolivars are written with a leading B.