I'm glad you enjoy the VN, I'm worried it will turn people off since it's different from the rest of the game. As I've mentioned before, this project is a learning experience for me and in the future I hope to make games that tell stories with human interaction so I need to learn that too.

On the other hand, I love the game play Radnor created in DSCS so I hope to be able to continue making odd hybrid games like SR24.
On the 'pay wall': You just won't give up on this one will you. Since you feel the need to vent give me the same privilege. In this game $20 per turn or $80 per day if you go to the district every single turn is not the difference between success and failure. I believe you are caught up in the principle of the thing. So am I: traveling long distances efficiently costs money so I put in what I believe to be a trivial cost. Can we just agree to disagree and not bring this up over and over again? Go ahead and write a rebuttal to this message so you have the last word but please make it the last word.
Regarding the frustration of finding parts at the dump. The odds of finding things in SR24 are exactly the same as they were in DSCS and I haven't noticed a lot of complaints about it. There have been 2 changes made at the dump, one positive and one negative. Both changes involve the quality of the bots you find not the frequency. It's a dump, people don't usually throw away good stuff.
About getting parts early in the game, there are 3 ways of going about it. First choice, hope you get lucky at the dump. Second choice, hope you find what you're looking for at the flea market which has better odds but you have to pay. Third, check the BBS frequently looking for discount parts which is all you can afford. Try to build up a small inventory of low quality parts of every type so you can patch up bots no matter what they need.