Pro Staff Co-Op

In the dairy year

Winter is when you decide whether this year buys a rung. The top of the ladder takes years on purpose. Cheaper fertilizer partway up. Better disease information higher. A wage discount. At the very top, a price floor that shrugs off a crash.

That floor is why a bad market year is not the end of the dairy.

The feel

Each farm climbs with money and standing. Cost scales with level and, later, with net worth. You cannot game it by emptying the current account. The host owns the purchase.

Companions pull discounts. This mod does not reach into their ledgers and write. If a companion is missing, the getter returns a neutral “no change”. Precision Farming silences the soil and spray discounts. The ladder itself stays.

How it works

Twenty levels per farm. Level cost scales as level ^ 2.2 × base cost. From level 10 up, a wealth-bracket escalator keyed on net worth (capped at 1.35×) stops you from gaming it by spending down cash.

The host writes the money. A client on a dedicated server asks through Network Sync. Tax Mod can record the spend for the audit. It does not take the payment.

Companion mods read modifiers for the farm that reached that rung:

Companion	What the ladder can soften
Worker Costs	Wage modifier, fatigue mitigation, fatigue recovery, global effectiveness
Soil Fertilizer	Fertilizer discount, fungicide discount and effectiveness, spray-cost modifier. These four stand down under Precision Farming.
Dairy Core / Realistic Livestock	Vet-supply discount, dairy logistics bonus, bulk procurement

Report flags unlock later: forecast access (level 7), market intel (level 15), predictive control (level 18), early warning (level 20).

Recurring money rides the Time Guard clock: an optional monthly agronomy-report fee (once forecast access is unlocked) and a level-14 fleet rebate. Those settle once, on the host, and survive a save/reload without double-paying.

Settings (enable, level base cost, subscription fee, agronomy fee) can live on Settings Hub. Twenty-six languages ship.

The in-game investment screen is not built yet. For now the climb is driven from the console: proStaffStatus and proStaffBuy. The discounts companions already read are complete. A couple of late flags (level-20 early warning into Market Dynamics, level-9 herdsman rebate into Worker Costs) are wired and waiting on those companions to apply them.

How you use it

• Buy the next level when the year can spare it.
• Read what the current rung actually unlocks. Do not expect day-one god mode.
• Treat forecast and market intel as late-game sight, not a tutorial.

The outs

Soil, workers, dairy, and markets all get a little easier as you climb. Time Guard times recurring fees and rebates. Tax records the spend. The Cockpit is where you see whether the climb was worth this winter.

What you need

This mod alone is a ladder with no one to soften if you installed nothing else. It shines when the agronomy and economy chapters are present. Still optional.