Homicide Desk Precinct Guide

Ravenport Police Department is not a static menu. Homicide Desk runs a living precinct around DET. GHAITH’s CRT desktop: a salary you earn and spend, a Store that acts as commissary, a Game Room with blackjack in in-game currency only, patrol dispatch from City Atlas, a Gazette that prints city copy, Email that applies pressure mid-case, Personnel File, Certification, and a promotion track that ends in Top Brass if you keep Internal Affairs off your back. Shu’la Lab LLC shipped this layer with the September 1, 2026 Steam release. It is optional in the sense that you can ignore blackjack. It is not optional in the sense that Offer a Break and Request Dossier during interrogation cost pay.

This page is the station. Desk skills sit on the Guides Hub. First boot and the pawnshop sit in Getting Started. Mouse and UV sit in controls. Lab instruments sit in forensics. Case order sits in how to solve a case.

Salary, Store, and the Game Room

You are paid for work. Closing Case #000 The Pawnshop Key — Tommy Vale arrested, field-certified — is the first real check. Homicides 001–003 pay more and also risk Internal Affairs clawbacks if you charge the wrong body. Spend on tools that change interviews before you spend on toys. Request Dossier buys a packet in the booth when you under-read Case Files. Offer a Break cools an AGITATED suspect. Both are salary sinks. A detective who hits The Overtime broke will type into a lawyer-up because the pause button is grey.

The Store is the commissary. Collector is the achievement for people who buy the catalog. Buy after Certification, not before you understand 3D evidence and UV. Nothing in the Store replaces a chromatograph calibration or a presentable receipt. Treat cosmetic and convenience stock as a sink for surplus pay, not as loadout.

Game Room blackjack uses in-game currency only. There is no real-money wager, no Steam Marketplace chip, no cash-out. Mature-content copy on the store page says that explicitly. High Roller and The Regular are the table achievements. Play when a case is closed or when you are waiting on a dispatch timer, not when Marcus Reeves’s strongbox is still sealed and you might need a dossier in ten minutes. Losing a hand does not fail a case. Losing the bankroll does fail the next Offer a Break.

Personnel File is your jacket and other people’s jackets. Read it before you pay for a dossier you already had. Email is Morrison, HR (Whitmore), and mid-case pressure. It is not a second Gazette. When Email says the file is getting political, that is your cue to finish forensics and write a deduction, not to grind blackjack for High Roller.

Homicide Desk precinct and salary

City Atlas, dispatch, and the Gazette

City Atlas is Ravenport: Northloop, Eastdock, Westgate, Civic Quarter, Mayfair, Harrow Flats, Ravenport Quays, Dockside. Vanta Systems HQ sits in Eastdock — Server Room B, 21:47, 17 March 2024, is Case #001 geography. Westgate Pawn & Loan at 44 Corbett Street is Case #000 geography. Click a district. Read the streets. Dispatch a patrol unit such as U-19. Code 3 is the urgent run. Dispatch will not highlight a killer. It puts a unit in a neighborhood while you work the desk, and it feeds the living-city loop that also drives weather on the taskbar.

You do not walk those streets. Controls stay mouse-on-desktop. Atlas is a map app. Use it to check a phone record against a district, then pin the contradiction on the evidence board.

Gazette is the city paper on your OS. It will not give waypoints. It will give mood, crime chatter, and the occasional detail that makes a timestamp feel public. Read it the way a detective reads a paper: for names you already have, not for quest markers. Recycle Bin is still a desktop bin; do not confuse it with evidence disposal. Settings remain language and scanlines. Arabic full audio and RTL live there if you need them.

Certification, promotions, and Internal Affairs

Certification is the training gate. Finish The Pawnshop Key, arrest Tommy Vale, get field-certified, then Morrison will let you open a homicide. First Collar tracks that first successful charge. Skipping Certification is not a speedrun; the homicide apps will not treat you as Major Crimes until the robbery is signed off. Case Closer, Flawless Record, Swift Justice, Inspector’s Eye, and Leave No Stone are file-quality achievements. Clean Sweep and Top Brass sit on the long precinct career — multiple closes, clean jackets, no IA circus.

Internal Affairs opens when you charge wrong. That is the real precinct failure state. Written deductions and the Arrest Warrant app are covered in charging. Multiple guilty-party variants mean a reopen can change the truth; IA does not care that a previous timeline liked your warrant. Do not spend Store money to “fix” a bad charge. Reopen, re-lab, re-interview, rewrite.

Twenty-two Steam achievements mix desk skill and precinct life. Master Cryptographer is the lab. High Roller, Collector, and The Regular are the station. Chase the toy layer after cases 001–003 are stable. Updates and patch notes are where salary bugs go, not the commissary. Official channels sit on links.

Pay the desk first, the commissary second, and the blackjack table only after the warrant is signed.