Identity, Licences & ID Cards

Your Government ID, your driving licence, and every other card that proves who you are and what you're allowed to do.

Every character on The Estate carries paperwork. Some of it you’re born with, some of it you have to earn — and all of it lives as physical cards in your pockets rather than some app on your phone.

Your Government ID

The moment you finish creating your character, you’re issued a Government ID automatically. It never expires, and it’s the one document every other licence and permit is checked against. If your character is ever deleted, all of your licences and permits go with them.

There’s no dedicated “wallet” screen for any of this — every licence and permit is a real inventory item. Open your inventory and inspect the card to see its type, status, expiry, and (for driving) points and endorsements.

Applying for a licence

Driving, Hunting, Food Hygiene, Boating and Pilot licences all work the same way:

1. Head to the right issuance point — the Driving School for Driving, City Hall for Food Hygiene, the Marina for Boating, Sandy Shores Airfield for Pilot, or the hunting job’s own entry point for Hunting. Some of these can also be run out of a licensed business (a driving school business owner, for instance) rather than a plain government desk.
2. Interact with the “Apply for X Licence” prompt. A tablet-style screen opens and your character visibly holds it up.
3. Pay the sitting fee, then take a theory test: several sections (things like Rules of the Road, Road Signs, Hazard Awareness, and — for driving — Vehicle Safety), each drawing a random set of questions from a bank, answers shuffled, against a time limit. Each section has its own pass mark, and there’s an overall pass mark too — fail either and you fail the sitting.
4. Pass, and you get a full review of every question with the correct answer and an explanation.

The sitting fee is charged whether you pass or fail, and there’s a cooldown before you can retake a failed test — so read carefully before you commit.

For Hunting, Food Hygiene, Boating and Pilot, passing the theory test lets you pay the issue fee immediately and walk away with the licence. Driving is different — passing the theory only gets you a provisional licence with no categories on it yet. That’s your ticket to book a practical.

Some licence types can require another licence held first as a prerequisite, and any type can be restricted to being issued only by an authorised business rather than a government desk — check locally if something looks gated.

The driving practical

At the Driving School you can book a practical test. Right now only the car category is open for booking — motorcycle and truck routes aren’t finished yet, so they simply won’t appear in the booking list.

To book the car test you need:

• A provisional (or active) Driving licence with valid, unexpired theory
• To not already hold the car endorsement
• To have held the provisional for a minimum stretch of time
• No active retake cooldown from a previous attempt

Pay the booking fee and a marked test vehicle spawns with an examiner NPC riding along. From there:

• A HUD overlay tracks your route instructions, distance to the next checkpoint, a running fault tally, and prompts for manoeuvres like an emergency stop or a parking exercise.
• You have to actually be driving — the exam checks who’s in the driver’s seat throughout, so swapping seats mid-test doesn’t help you.
• Faults come in three grades: minor, serious, and dangerous. A single serious or dangerous fault ends the test on the spot; rack up too many minors and you’ll fail that way instead. Speeding, missed indicators and any collision only ever count against you.

Pass, and your provisional is promoted to a full active Driving licence with that category added. Fail, and no promotion — plus a retake cooldown before you can book again. Cancelling or quitting mid-test doesn’t record an attempt, but it also doesn’t refund the fee unless the failure was the server’s fault (say, the test vehicle never spawned).

Once you’re through, Vehicle Documents & the DVLA and Fuel & Maintenance cover what you need to actually keep a car on the road.

The Fishing Permit

Fishing is the one exception with no test at all. Go to the Fishing Permit issuance point (through the hunting/fishing job’s entry point), pay a flat fee, and it’s yours immediately. The only ways this can go wrong are not having the money or already holding one.

Fishing and Hunting licensing both live inside the hunting/fishing job flow rather than a public desk — see Civilian Jobs for how that job works day to day.

Renewing before you lapse

Driving, Hunting, Food Hygiene, Boating, Pilot and Fishing all carry an expiry date. You can renew any of them for a fee at the same issuance point (or the relevant job npc for Hunting/Fishing) any time before they lapse, or during a grace window immediately after — no retest required either way.

Miss the grace window, though, and the licence auto-revokes. At that point you’re starting over: re-apply, and if it’s a theory-gated type, re-sit the test from scratch. Your Government ID is the only card that never needs renewing.

Lost or destroyed your card? Your licence status itself isn’t affected, but you’ll need to pay for a replacement card if you want something to actually flash or inspect.

Flashing your ID

Use any held licence item straight from your inventory like a consumable and your character holds the card up. Everyone within a few metres sees your card pop up on their screen — photo, name, licence type, and status — for several seconds. There’s a short cooldown between flashes so you can’t spam it, and if nobody’s in range you’ll simply be told nobody saw it.

Your card photo is a genuine headshot, captured automatically the first time it’s needed (shortly after your first login on that character) and reused from then on — you never pose for it manually.

Points, fines and suspension

Points and revocations only apply to your Driving licence, and they’re driven passively by police and the ticketing side of the PNC rather than anything you do yourself:

• Offences like speeding, no insurance, dangerous driving, or drink/drug driving each carry their own point value and fine.
• Points build up against a cap — new drivers (within roughly their first couple of years since promotion) face a lower cap than experienced drivers, and hitting the cap auto-revokes your licence outright.
• Points decay off your record after several years of clean driving, provided you haven’t reset the clock by picking up more.
• A driving-offence fine lands in your bank’s bills inbox. Leave it unpaid past the due window and your Driving licence gets suspended until it’s sorted — the suspension lifts itself automatically once the period ends, unless the fine resets it again.
• Staff or police can also suspend or revoke any licence directly as a disciplinary action.

Carrying the hunting weapon without a valid Hunting licence is actively checked and blocked, not just a paperwork technicality — get caught without one and you’re not just unlicensed, you’re breaking the law. See Crime & Consequences for how enforcement and evidence trails work more broadly, and Arrest, Court & Prison for what happens once police get involved.

What each licence covers

Money spent here doesn’t come back — every fee is a cost, not an income source. Budget for it alongside your other outgoings in Money & Banking.