Approve, deny and detain in a timely fashion (does contain spoilers)

The line of entrants is endless. You have twelve "hours" to process as many people as you can so you can feed your family. On top of that, too many errors will result in citations and penalties. Here are some tips that helped me through the game and hopefully will be of use to you too!

Congratulations!

Good day citizen. You have drawn the lucky straw from the lottery and have thus been chosen to become a border control inspector, the worst best job in the world. It is your job to keep Arstotzka save from smugglers, criminals, terrorists and other vermin (looking at you, Kolechia). Only innocent foreigners and citizens with the correct documentation are allowed to cross the border. Failing to meet these simple requirements will result in the termination of your job...or worse. For the glory of Arstotzka!

- The Ministry of A**holes Admission

As you can read, my fellow inspectors, your job is rather simple: People with the correct documentation in, the rest DENIED. However, there are a few catches:

• You only have twelve "hours" each day to process entrants. You don't have all day, get a move on!
  
• Each correctly processed entrant nets you five bucks. Your daily upkeep at the start of the game is fifty bucks and will increase as you progress through the days (structural and incidental, scripted and by your own choice). Harder, better, faster, stronger!
  
• Some days are cut short because some maniacs think it's cool to blow stuff up. Its not. It deprives you of income and thus it will be harder to meet the upkeep requirements. Family? What family?

So what can we conclude from this small list? A lot of things to do and little to no time to spare. So lets get cracking and get to the tips!

Speed Dating

One of the first discrepancies you come across in this line of work (game) are invalid/expired dates. At first you will only have passports to check, but rather sooner than later you'll be having more documents with expiration dates. If any of those documents have expired: DENIED. Don't bother with the rest. To do a quick scan of the dates, just put the all the documentation on the table and compare them. Only check the rest of the documents when the dates are valid.

Example:

Blind Inspection

So you have discovered a discrepancy. Very good. You press the inspection button, highlight the two elements in the documents and voila, you made it known to the entrant. To finish things off, you stamp DENIED into the passport (unless it's about clarifying a statement). Ha! Good riddance. Although this way of working is completely correct, it is time consuming and time is money. So what if we just skip the inspection part and put a nice red stamp in the passport? It saves you time and you still safeguarded the country from forging filth. NEXT!

Tip: After spending more time on the job, you will be forced to inspect and highlight discrepancies. Why? Because some pressrats made a fuss about it and the higher-ups don't like disturbances in the force. In order to improve your way of working (and saving time), you might want to consider upgrading your booth to speed up the inspection.

Stampede

Behold, the power of the stamps. Approve, so that they may witness the glory that Arstotzka is? Or deny, and send them back to the hellholes from which they came (KOLECHIA). The stamping, however, takes time. First, you have to pull them out. Second, you have to press them down on the passport and wait until the stamps go up again.....OR DO YOU?!
The answer is: No, you don't have to wait. The moment your almighty stamp hits the passport of the filthfy peasant entrant you can pull it away and hand it back over to said peasant entrant. This will take few seconds less per person and might give you the extra time to squeeze in another entrant.

Colleague inspector Dread has also noted that our beloved weapons, the stamps, are fixed in position. Probably so you can't steal them and stamp DENIED on your mother-in-law. By learning their position you can "pre-position" a passport under the stamp you use most. No more dragging it around and thus time saved to shake down process more entrants!

Below you will find an example of swift stamphammering:

To Detain Or Not To Detain

Detaining suspicious individuals keeps the great state or Arstotzka safe, but one might wonder: Is it also good for you? Detaining someone is a time consuming affair. You have to call the guards. They need to walk all the way from their station to you. Although for a period of time, they will be close to your booth and thereby will cost less time to detain someone. Still the question remains? Is it worth it? HMMMM?

The short answer: No
The long answer: Yes.

If the guards are far away, you might want to consider using your mighty red stamphammer. It costs less time and the scumbag won't be entering the country. This will leave you with more time to process extra people.

However...

There is a guard who is willing to part with some money if you detain enough people. Two people detained equals five bucks. There is a maximum amount of money that he can give and that is thirty bucks.

When will this happen? When will he come to you? All in due time. In other words, keep working you lazy capitalist!

Peeping Tomsky

Sometimes, the entrants are confusing. They look like women, while their passport states they're men. Or vice versa. On different occasions, their stated weight is different from their actual weight. What's going on? In the early days, a swift stamphammer or fingerprint analysis would have been sufficient. But noooooo, the M.O.A. director, in all his stupidity wisdom, has decided to give you a bodyscanner! And he expects you to use it. More to do, in the same amount of time.

Since we have it, we might as well make the best of it. Now don't try to have a look through the curtains, it won't work. You get a nice picture anyway. Don't tell the wife though. Back on topic: While you are waiting for the photoshoot to be done, you might as well have a looksy in their documentation. It might show more discrepancies(if the photo doesn't turn up with anything). This saves you some time.

An example of said peeping into the documents while our dear entrant is busy.

Sealing The Deal

As your working days pass by, you will see an increasing amount of documentation. Some of these documents have a seal. It won't be long until some M.O.A. schmuck forgets to lock the office door and... OH MY GAWD they have stolen our stamps and forms. As if you didn't have enough on your tiny desk. Great.

Peasant permit

Entry Permit, Access Permit and Grant of Asylum. These documents all require the red M.O.A. seal. Its either a circle with the letters MOA and a right dash shield or a square with right dash shield. If the seal doesn't correspond with that, DETAIN the criminal scum.

Below is a picture of a valid seal on an entry permit.




You want good time?

Workpass. This pinkslip to richdom contains one of the four valid seals. See the picture below:




Notice the following:

• All hammers face towards the left. Why? Communism duh!
  
• Three out of four are purple with a white hammer. The other has a reversed colourscheme.
  
• Three out of four contain the letters MOL. The square seal does not.

If the seal doesn't match the above requirements: DETAIN.

The filthiest of filth, the scummiest of scum.

Diplomatic immunity Authorization. Sometimes countries want to talk with one another instead of going to war like real men. Cowards. Anyway, a diplomat will present this authorization. This document must contain the diplomatic seal of the country of origin (among other things). There's too many to explain, but below is a picture with an example.




Tip

So what's the tip here? Remember them. All of them. The red seals are the easiest, followed by the workpass seals. Although there are twelve diplomatic seals (and an equal amount of forgeries), there aren't that many diplomats who come too your booth. They probably fear your STAMPHAMMER.

Remember, time is money and by remembering you have more time and more money!

Vax On, Vax Off

Arstotzka is a healthy nation and we want the nation to stay that way. Especially when the lesser countries surrounding our beautiful country are starting to get ill with Marx knows what. So how do we stop these literally filthy people from crossing our borders? How does one recognize somebody with a horrible, disgusting contagious disease?

The answer: MOAR PAPERWORK. More specific: A Vaccination Certificate. It looks like this:




All diseases aside, there is one disease our government truly fears: Polio. No poliovax? DENIED. Expired poliovax? DENIED. Go spread your filth in Kolechia.

Sure, you need to check the other info (which is little) on the certificate too, but the emphasis is on the vaccinations and as such should quickly be checked. During my time on the job most problems I had with these vax. certificates were polio related (expired, non-existent).

Time's Up

This is it for now my fellow inspectors. I hope these tips will serve you on the job and keep the great state of Arstotzka safe. Just a few quick last notes:

• Brain Training: Remember issuing cities (their spelling and country) and seals. The timer won't start until you call up your first entrant. So check the rulebook thoroughly before you start your workingday.
  
• Forced Labor: This job is fairly unforgiving. You pay for your mistakes and you will make mistakes. Too slow and you dont make enough money to pay your rent, food etc. Too fast and you will drown in the citations, which will ultimately lead to penalties and therefor less money. Don't give up and keep going at it. You will find a balance and you will get better.
  
• The All Seeing Eye: Your desk has limited space, so keep it tidy. Although I made this clear for checking out expirationdates, it accounts for all things. A messy desk will lead to more time spend on each entrant and less time to process enough entrants to make ends meet.

Comments on this guide are welcome. Do you have tips which I could add to the guide? Share them! Do you think a section should be altered, added or completely removed? Tell me! Constructive criticism will be thoroughly read and I will try to reply in a timely fashion.

[Baer]

An additional tip about document positioning for stamping: you only need a corner of the stamp on the passport for it to be a valid stamp, so when you place the passport in the middle, between APPROVED and DENIED, and then press the one that applies.

This was particularly useful to me later on, when you have to stamp the reason for denial, so I placed the passport between APPROVAL and DENIED and then swiftly tapped both stamps.

[NoblxNoah]

Interesting. Yes, verrrry interesting.

[Stoque]

Another hidden trick when processing entrants, is that as soon as the inspector says papers, please. Click on the desk where the passport information would slide in, and they will appear a second sooner.

[Bennyboi08]

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you!, never gonna make you cry never gonna say goodbye! never gonna tell a lie and hurt you!

[Bennyboi08]

ARSTOTZKA

[Bobbyration227]

very informative and humorous 9/9 ARSTOTZKAN EAGLES

[MissME0W]

DOWN WITH KOLECHIA!!! UP WITH ARSTOTZKA!!!

[Mr. Human]

Before the Reason for Denial stamp becomes available, if there's a discrepancy, you can deny the entrant for it, even if it's for something as simple as an incorrect response to your questions.

When the Reason for Denial stamp becomes part your job, you're forced to interrogate the entrant for discrepant information, but if the discrepancy was more than an invalid response, you can just deny them before clicking the search or fingerprint button, and you won't get a citation for it.

Also, on the day you are required to search all Kolecians, you can just deny them instead of searching them, and you won't get any citations for it.

[Dovahseod]

Well as a very late comment: No you don't need to have the whole stamp on the passport. You can literally just have a corner of the stamp on the passport and that'll do. You can shove the passport between the two stamps every time and then just press on the stamp you want to get the stamp count.

[Zynions: The Rise of Snus]

Is there any point in getting the higher housing levels? Because it just seems to increase the rent, keep the heat the same (or increases the rent so that he overall cost stays the same) and cost a load of money