Well you know what.
The game lets you keep them, get a reward if someone was after them (missions) and then sell the stuff too. Its tagged so you have to do it underground. Fun!!! Stolen stuff you should have left there sold.
Glass half full.
Proposal: Remove the STOLEN flag
- Thread starter Phier
- Start date
Well you know what.
The game lets you keep them, get a reward if someone was after them (missions) and then sell the stuff too. Its tagged so you have to do it underground. Fun!!! Stolen stuff you should have left there sold.
Glass half full.
This. If not 100%, then 90% or even 75%.
I appreciate what you're saying, I really do, but what this has to be measured against is the ability to make money doing other things. There has to be balance between the career paths. I've been in a Cobra MkIII since about 3 days after I started playing. I did try my hand in a Type 6 for a while, but I didn't like it. The reason I've been in a Cobra MkIII for so long is that I just can't bring in enough money to afford bigger and bigger ships because I spend most of my time in combat, bounty hunting mostly. Over the months I've earned enough to upgrade my Cobra to the point where everything that can be upgraded to A has been. My total assets is around 11 million. There are traders out there who make that kind of money in a couple of days. That is unbalanced. Even if I run assassination missions back to back I can still only make about half a mil per hour due to the infrequency with which they occur and the time it takes to track the swine down. The risk/reward balance is totally screwed imo. Trading is pretty much the safest way to make money, so long as you're not daft and don't decide to run routes that you know are heavily pirated. Piracy and bounty hunting are the most dangerous ways to make money, often incurring repair bills or even insurance claims if your attention slips for a few seconds and yet they bring in a pittance by comparison. This needs to be addressed. I don't want to be a trader, but if I ever want to climb into the cockpit of an Anaconda, or even a Python, it seems I have no choice and as I understood it, I was supposed to be able to "blaze my own trail". I'm not doing much blazing right now.
Name me one other MMO where you're living in a dystopian universe like that of ED.... There is no "innocent until proven guilty" in this world. If it's in your hold and you can't prove that you've the right to have it there, either because you paid for it or you've a haulage contract, you're in trouble. If you find yourself in that situation, with cargo that the local authorities frown on or that you can't prove you're entitled to have in your possession, then you're SUPPOSED to be paranoid about attracting attention from the fuzz. They've all had their sense of humor surgically removed and are trained to shoot if they get the idea you're even THINKING about provoking them. You're just one pilot, the universe has millions to replace you and if you were innocent when they blew you up their superiors will shrug and STILL report your death in the "criminals vaporized" section of their monthly report to the systems government.
Life is cheap in ED. Cheaper than cargo.
In respect to the loot/salvage/stolen/etc tags: The main goal is to keep the game fun, for both new players and experienced bounty hunters. The new players shouldn't be punished for bringing in found flotsam/salvage, experienced players should be rewarded for turning in reclaimed goods from pirates. Not for the full price, as the police takes its share (for 'returning' the goods to the rightfull owners), but certainly you shouldn't be rewarded with a price on your head...
Dodgy cargo only gets you a fine. You're not wanted and there's no bounty on you unless you don't pay it within 24h. The cops and stations won't open fire for an outstanding fine within that 24h period.
Leave a fine unpaid and THEN the fine turns into a bounty and you get the wanted status with all the hassle that comes with it. You get the price on your head for not paying your fines, not for the dodgy cargo.
Yup. Illegal goods should really go for a premium on the black market compared to the galactic average to make smuggling a genuine gameplay choice.
Nope.
As others have said, I personally do not want Easy Mode, thanks.
1) The way it currently works makes perfect sense in the context of the setting: A technological dystopia with an arbitrary frontier legal system. The Age of Sail in SPACE.
2) The way it currently works is really easy to understand: Things you buy or are contracted to haul are yours. Everything else is not. If you take anything else its stealing, simple as. "Loot" = looting (a crime!)
3) The way it currently works enables the entire Smuggling game mechanic as we know it: Sell stolen goods at Black Markets. Silent running, evading scans, finding Black Markets, all that gone?
4) The way it currently is, whereby you get lower prices at Black Markets for stolen goods, makes perfect sense too. Its how the receivers would mitigate the increased risk they take on by buying the hot goods. Try it yourself: Go and steal a TV from a shop, take it down the pub and attempt to get the full recommended retail price for it. Hint: Its not going to happen. (don't actually do this).
5) It even makes sense that you get less credits for stolen commodities, not only for the reason I mention above about buyer's risk, but also because albeit the price for Palladium at a Black Market is always less than at the Commodities Market, the fact is that this price for the smuggler is pure profit. No initial outlay for finding at a USS or from picking up from a pirate wreck. People need to ignore the headline price of Palladium on the markets and think about how much net profit they would earn from the equivalent tonnage via a legitimate trade.
Others have said about wanting better Black Market prices, I can understand that for some places like Anarchies, for instance. But gutting the entire current system of smuggling is not the way to go.
I really hope FD don't budge on this.
As others have said, I personally do not want Easy Mode, thanks.
1) The way it currently works makes perfect sense in the context of the setting: A technological dystopia with an arbitrary frontier legal system. The Age of Sail in SPACE.
2) The way it currently works is really easy to understand: Things you buy or are contracted to haul are yours. Everything else is not. If you take anything else its stealing, simple as. "Loot" = looting (a crime!)
3) The way it currently works enables the entire Smuggling game mechanic as we know it: Sell stolen goods at Black Markets. Silent running, evading scans, finding Black Markets, all that gone?
4) The way it currently is, whereby you get lower prices at Black Markets for stolen goods, makes perfect sense too. Its how the receivers would mitigate the increased risk they take on by buying the hot goods. Try it yourself: Go and steal a TV from a shop, take it down the pub and attempt to get the full recommended retail price for it. Hint: Its not going to happen. (don't actually do this).
5) It even makes sense that you get less credits for stolen commodities, not only for the reason I mention above about buyer's risk, but also because albeit the price for Palladium at a Black Market is always less than at the Commodities Market, the fact is that this price for the smuggler is pure profit. No initial outlay for finding at a USS or from picking up from a pirate wreck. People need to ignore the headline price of Palladium on the markets and think about how much net profit they would earn from the equivalent tonnage via a legitimate trade.
Others have said about wanting better Black Market prices, I can understand that for some places like Anarchies, for instance. But gutting the entire current system of smuggling is not the way to go.
I really hope FD don't budge on this.
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Your view on the topic is too tight; it's strangling criminal and semi-criminal gameplay. Pure profit per transaction currently, sure, but at a rate of severe poverty compared to every other angle of gameplay, combined with more risk for such meagre creds. Currently the smuggling game is almost as weak as mining. It's not INTERESTING to smuggle currently, precisely because of how easy you just said that it is, after asking for a non-easy-mode. Having a rudimentary method of binary-coding cargo is a waste of potential gaming on many fronts.
Our current black markets are not black markets at all. They are a mis-named simple fence; the shifty guy down the street buying your crackhead's stolen TV. There's nothing interesting in that angle of "smuggling" at all. You can't even get Beer or Wine from him. Having an actual shadow economy means real smuggling can go on. Having more grey areas for cargo to exist in gives depth and places for people to fall through the cracks of the law in less binary ways then MINE=GOOD NOTMINE=BAD.
The shadow economy could be as fleshed out as the regular economy, with purchases and sales, as well as containing specialty markets. Finding a fence isn't that a big deal; he's the lowest possible criminal you could find to give your stuff to. If you found a black market specializing in art, or black boxes, slaves - markets who specifically dealt in the risky items on the downlow - then they would be waaay more fun to deal with, and incentivize the smuggling livelihood even into specialist areas. Just as clean traders could source Palladium, a grey trader would be able to source less-legal items as well as merely fence them off. Salvage licences alone would allow junkman-style scavenger gameplay, as well as a riskier unlicenced vulture-style scavenger method.
There is a huge amount of game available here in the grey areas. If this game wants us to play at the scale of Han Solo in a galaxy full of trade, then smuggling and the complexity of cargo issues are serious givens to get a much deeper treatment.
Don't get what you're asking here.
You take cargo that you didn't buy yourself, from another ship (regardless if it was a pirate or not) and you don't want it marked as stolen?
Well... here is the problem... it is stolen. You stole it from someone else.
If you didn't pay for the goods, or the other player did not abandon the goods, then it's stolen. You can't really argue the logic there.
You take cargo that you didn't buy yourself, from another ship (regardless if it was a pirate or not) and you don't want it marked as stolen?
Well... here is the problem... it is stolen. You stole it from someone else.
If you didn't pay for the goods, or the other player did not abandon the goods, then it's stolen. You can't really argue the logic there.
You were just paid to blow up a ship, but if you pick up that ships cargo now you are wanted? I can't really argue the logic there.
For crying out loud, it doesn't have to be complicated...
Step 1. Earn rep from a minor faction.
Step 2. Purchase a salvage license from that faction (rep required, only valid in systems where that faction has influence)
Step 3. Salvage legally.
Anything else is steeling. Both camps are happy.
Step 1. Earn rep from a minor faction.
Step 2. Purchase a salvage license from that faction (rep required, only valid in systems where that faction has influence)
Step 3. Salvage legally.
Anything else is steeling. Both camps are happy.
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Yes. If a guy steals my laptop and you chase him down the street, beat him up and retrieve the laptop, it's still my laptop. The fact that you retrieved it does not make it your laptop.
In this specific case it's more accurate to say you're currently allowed to assassinate someone, as long as you don't lift the money in their wallet because that's bad.
Agree with the OP. Trade is too easy at the moment. Make the game tougher by making piracy more competitive and reducing legal trade profits.
Also, if you've got a mission to free slaves, you shouldn't get pinged by the system authorities for it, that's just silly.
Of course, if you get caught with illegal goods you get blown out of the sky. But the authority vessels should attack for the murdering, once you jump out systems away the cargo looks like any other.
In addition, "illegal" goods, like, drugs in a system where they're forbidden, should fetch higher than usual market prices, not lower.
Also, if you've got a mission to free slaves, you shouldn't get pinged by the system authorities for it, that's just silly.
Of course, if you get caught with illegal goods you get blown out of the sky. But the authority vessels should attack for the murdering, once you jump out systems away the cargo looks like any other.
In addition, "illegal" goods, like, drugs in a system where they're forbidden, should fetch higher than usual market prices, not lower.
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I remember FD talking about being able to "mask" cargo so that it appears as something else. This was supposedly to aid in smuggling and thwart scans.
You need to think about that analogy a lot more. The local GOVERNMENT is PAYING ME to BLOW UP HIS SHIP. The cargo will be lost in space forever OR I can pick it up and be wanted. THIS MAKES NO SENSE.
This is more like privateering and pirate hunting in days of yore.
Exactly. Think of police auctions. Police catch bad guys, seize assets obtained through crime. Then SELL them off to raise money.
If I am contracted by the government to serve justice on the frontier of civilization, them I am the law. I see no difference.
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Not worth the fuel and if you get scanned/interdicted on the way by security forces it's a wasted effort. Sell them in an anarchy station that does not scan you in a black market. Lots out there. A stolen item worth 1250 credits is 1250 credits in your pocket you didn't have. Costs you nothing so pure profit.