RIP Smuggling (Discussion of smuggling changes in 1.3.01)

[SchroedingersNeko]

Yep, Smuggling is dead, Bounty Hunting is dead, RES' are dead, Combat Zones are abyssmal, Mining is still sub par.. Yep, it's all bad folks. Elite: Dead.

Elite: Dead, so hard you die just by logging in.........

But these doom and gloom threads are quite amusing at times, if it reduces (read fix) commodity values it should be left as it was, however if it is not enough (which tbh when is it ever enough?) it needs to be buffed, it is always the same vocal few that seem to want to game to hand them everything with as little time/effort as possible.

If it negatively affects anything then it is a nerf, if it is OP then it is 'fun' and if something does not give you at least 3x the amount of what it did then it is dead.......

Seriously people need to stop microanalysing every little change in the game and start having fun, I mean that's why people buy games right, to have fun?, or am I one of those old fuddyduddies that believe hobbies should not be treated as work?

 

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

Exactly my thought.

If I'd have been in the Frontier staff meeting, this is how it would have gone down:

Me:

"Right, people find discovering these high profit/more danger routes rewarding and fun. Let's go with that, but we have to make sure that it doesn't get out of hand as an exploit.

So, how about we rework Silent Running to be actually a necessary mechanic rather than a waste of time and space? You know, like make it so that it becomes a necessary skill for a smuggler and you have to work at it to successfully get your cargo into dock?

You know... Like when Han Solo escaped the Imperial Cruiser by masking the Millennium Falcon as junk? Remember that scene? Cool, no? So how do we do that? ​

Boss:

Erm... :S​

Me:

Well, I suppose we could remove Silent Running as a useless button from all ships as it is right now, since you know, most practised smugglers never use it anyway because they can speed or boost in after lining up and requesting docking.

We could then sell it as a scrambler or cloaking module you have to equip, taking up a slot, sort of like the heatsink launcher, and then rework the station scanning system so all ships get scanned after docking permission is granted, like, you know, customs at air and sea ports.

Now, when they scan you, they can't lock onto you so easily and think their systems are malfunctioning; but even with that scrambler/cloack thing equiped and active there's a chance it won't work to mask you because you have to learn to use it in the right way in a narrow window of opportunity while the station adjusts its sensors to compensate.

We could base that on piloting skills of timing, careful speed control, angle of approach... You know, stuff that's challenging, fun and rewarding so that when they get their 8,000/T of profit, they feel they've earned it? ...And if they fail: big fine!" ​

Boss:

Or... why don't you just play with the numbers and add some more grind? ​

Me:

​

Man, I wish this becomes reality one day. However since it's not already I fear it may never.

 

[Dbrn47]

Hyperbole is the new default setting for 21st century comms.

It most certainly is.

- - - Updated - - -

Elite: Dead, so hard you die just by logging in.........

But these doom and gloom threads are quite amusing at times, if it reduces (read fix) commodity values it should be left as it was, however if it is not enough (which tbh when is it ever enough?) it needs to be buffed, it is always the same vocal few that seem to want to game to hand them everything with as little time/effort as possible.

If it negatively affects anything then it is a nerf, if it is OP then it is 'fun' and if something does not give you at least 3x the amount of what it did then it is dead.......

Seriously people need to stop microanalysing every little change in the game and start having fun, I mean that's why people buy games right, to have fun?, or am I one of those old fuddyduddies that believe hobbies should not be treated as work?

Absolutely right. It's Frontier's fault though, they wanted the MMO crowd. They got it. o7

 

[Alexander the Grape]

4k profit smuggling slaves and people are complaining about lack of profits...

No more 4k per ton, now 2-3 at best

 

[Darth-Simba]

Conflict zones are actually a lot better now. Anaconda kills go for 72k now rather than 32k pre 1.3. And bounty hunting is actually hunting the target now, god forbid you have to actually find your prey rather than sit in a RES and wait for them to jump to you.

 

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

Man... "X isn't as profitable as Y. RIRIPRIP" Really? Smuggling should be coupled with piracy and not with trading. You might not make as much as another role but if you can make enough to survive or it's not so low in comparison to other roles it isn't dead so quit yer in'. People were making 1.6million in a single trade/"smuggling" run and it got nerfed, deservedly so.

Instead of nerfing the profit from smuggling FD should work on making smuggling an actual challenge. Smuggling has always and continue to be a joke. Just line up, ask for docking clearance and boost.

 

[Dbrn47]

Conflict zones are actually a lot better now. Anaconda kills go for 72k now rather than 32k pre 1.3. And bounty hunting is actually hunting the target now, god forbid you have to actually find your prey rather than sit in a RES and wait for them to jump to you.

I apologize if it wasn't clear that I was being sarcastic in my post.

 

[Darth-Simba]

I apologize if it wasn't clear that I was being sarcastic in my post.

Fair enough

 

[DigitalMandalorian]

Not a doom and gloom thread. I just want a decent balance in professions. Smuggling by all logic should pay more than normal trading since you taking the risk of getting fined.

 

[Fearless Sister]

Instead of nerfing the profit from smuggling FD should work on making smuggling an actual challenge. Smuggling has always and continue to be a joke. Just line up, ask for docking clearance and boost.

Dont even need to do that if you use the outposts.

 

[SchroedingersNeko]

Not a doom and gloom thread. I just want a decent balance in professions. Smuggling by all logic should pay more than normal trading since you taking the risk of getting fined.

Smuggling does pay out exceptionally well (i make around 200k per mission, or would if they actually paid out what they said they would half the time) if you actually take the missions that have you smuggling items into stations, freelance smuggling is not really smuggling cause you are basically taking something somewhere and hoping that there is someone that wants what you have.

Also raise your combat, trade and exploration ranks as they now directly effect the type of missions and the monetary reward you get now, so maybe what is really happening is your ranks are not high enough to get the better offers or prices.

 

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

Smuggling does pay out exceptionally well (i make around 200k per mission, or would if they actually paid out what they said they would half the time) if you actually take the missions that have you smuggling items into stations, freelance smuggling is not really smuggling cause you are basically taking something somewhere and hoping that there is someone that wants what you have.

Also raise your combat, trade and exploration ranks as they now directly effect the type of missions and the monetary reward you get now, so maybe what is really happening is your ranks are not high enough to get the better offers or prices.

200K per run is much less than what can be achieved with normal non-risk trading. I wouldn't call that exceptionally well pay out.

 

[Daffan]

smuggling was glorified trading anyway

rofl

 

[Dbrn47]

200K per run is much less than what can be achieved with normal non-risk trading. I wouldn't call that exceptionally well pay out.

Right, but when done via missions there is a substantial increase in profits per unit of cargo. What causes it to not be so amazing is that missions don't fill your cargo hold and you must chug along taking and turning them in to get the reward. It may not be as fast as picking 500 tons in your Type 9, but the profit is there.

 

[akaviko]

4k profit smuggling slaves and people are complaining about lack of profits...

Consider you'll have to travel at least 120ly (10+ jumps in a loaded ship) to get this 4k/ton though.. Not more profitable than any old 2k round trip trade route.

But think of the profit in a different way for a moment. Let's assume that a lot of people do what's profitable in game (judging by this forum, not a far fetched assumption).
When powerplay went live, I looked at the stats:
- +25/20% for black markets in archon controlled/exploited systems,
- -20% for imp slaves price in zemina controlled systems.
From this, I inferred FD was trying to:
- Send smugglers (traders who want some risk) into the pirate's den
- Encourage those smugglers to carry high value illegal goods like slaves

Now the rollout was bugged and the bonus snafu in archon exploited systems led to a fest of 8k profit single jump trade routes.. They fixed it (wrong IMO) by halving all the bonuses, then fixed again today the archon exploited system bug.

But imagine they left the bonuses as is. You would have 6 to 8k smuggling routes (120+ ly long). People looking for profit would start to smuggle massively to archon controlled systems. How long until the pirates who play there realize this and start pirating massively?

The net effect is that pirates have loads of targets carrying valuable cargo (20t = ~400k) so yay for the pirates, and the smugglers have some danger from the pirates (something everyone agrees is lacking today) so yay for the smugglers. All of this without a single line of code from Frontier.

The problem with the 3 to 4k profit is that you'll never get critical mass where enough smugglers are there to attract enough pirates. I know I won't bother doing 10 jumps for it, and I'll go pew pew or something instead.

 

[Guyperson]

I think they greatly underestimated the multiplicative effect of stacking bonuses. most of the time you make little over 10% on a sale and can call it good (eg: buy gold for 9k, sell for 10k). If you apply bonuses directly to the sale price, that margin gets blown away very quickly. Sell that gold for 12k (20%) and your profit is tripled on the spot.

I get the feeling the intent was to increase the profit margin by fractions and someone brutally stuffed up the math.

 

[akaviko]

I think they greatly underestimated the multiplicative effect of stacking bonuses. most of the time you make little over 10% on a sale and can call it good (eg: buy gold for 9k, sell for 10k). If you apply bonuses directly to the sale price, that margin gets blown away very quickly. Sell that gold for 12k (20%) and your profit is tripled on the spot.

I get the feeling the intent was to increase the profit margin by fractions and someone brutally stuffed up the math.

The current assumption (lookup the posts from Alexander the Grape on first page) is that at go live, exploited systems bonuses were stacking with controlled system bonuses, resulting in a whopping +45% bonus in those systems. Unfortunately, they first halved all the bonuses on monday (IMO wrong fix, but they probably freaked out and tried to fix it asap), then fixed this stacking issue today in 1.3.01).

They got lucky they also messed up the bonuses for zemina at go live (the -20% on imp slave prices wasn't working when I tried this weekend), or they'd have seen reports of 11k/t profits instead of 8

 

[Fearless Sister]

Consider you'll have to travel at least 120ly (10+ jumps in a loaded ship) to get this 4k/ton though.. Not more profitable than any old 2k round trip trade route.

But think of the profit in a different way for a moment. Let's assume that a lot of people do what's profitable in game (judging by this forum, not a far fetched assumption).
When powerplay went live, I looked at the stats:
- +25/20% for black markets in archon controlled/exploited systems,
- -20% for imp slaves price in zemina controlled systems.
From this, I inferred FD was trying to:
- Send smugglers (traders who want some risk) into the pirate's den
- Encourage those smugglers to carry high value illegal goods like slaves

Now the rollout was bugged and the bonus snafu in archon exploited systems led to a fest of 8k profit single jump trade routes.. They fixed it (wrong IMO) by halving all the bonuses, then fixed again today the archon exploited system bug.

But imagine they left the bonuses as is. You would have 6 to 8k smuggling routes (120+ ly long). People looking for profit would start to smuggle massively to archon controlled systems. How long until the pirates who play there realize this and start pirating massively?

The net effect is that pirates have loads of targets carrying valuable cargo (20t = ~400k) so yay for the pirates, and the smugglers have some danger from the pirates (something everyone agrees is lacking today) so yay for the smugglers. All of this without a single line of code from Frontier.

The problem with the 3 to 4k profit is that you'll never get critical mass where enough smugglers are there to attract enough pirates. I know I won't bother doing 10 jumps for it, and I'll go pew pew or something instead.

Id agree with that except for a few things. Firstly if pirates become an issue then people will just play solo and then they wont make a difference. Secondly id liketo think that ED are trying to do what they sort of did with rares. Limit the amount you can trade but give a massive boost in income.

My idea of smuggling is that some guy comes along into a hostile system in something small and fast like the new diamondback explorer for eg, has about 40t cargo. He dodges interdictions/fights his way to station docks up and pick up his 40t of slaves for eg. He then sets of on his 100+ly journey again dodging interdictions and the fuzz till eventually gets to his destination and sells his 40t of cargo for maybe a little over what a normal trade run would give him if he had a bigger ship so say 500k-800k profit. I say this cos trading 50t of diso corn gives you a reported 800k so something along those lines.

As it stood yesterday you had everyone comming i there 280t pythons etc moving 1 or 2 systems and then selling for 2mil profit. Was great while it lasted, i thought to myself finally something i can milk and actually make a bit of money. Ok so it was nerfed, i now only make 1mil profit per run. Still good though huh? Then todays patch hit. I now only make 400k profit for a run. Wait why am i doing this risking getting fined when i can go back to my old cushy trade route and get more.

I dont know whats going to happen or even if this is just another bug that will be balanced in the future i dont really care. I didnt even make this thread to discuss it i was more of making a statement rather than crying about it which then turned into a discussion.

As per usual when things get nerfed to hell and back i just find something else, maybe ill one day find something that sticks or just quit altogether nbd. Id actually like to have more people doing cg`s cos they were making me quite a bit of money on the side

 

[Guyperson]

The current assumption (lookup the posts from Alexander the Grape on first page) is that at go live, exploited systems bonuses were stacking with controlled system bonuses, resulting in a whopping +45% bonus in those systems. Unfortunately, they first halved all the bonuses on monday (IMO wrong fix, but they probably freaked out and tried to fix it asap), then fixed this stacking issue today in 1.3.01).

They got lucky they also messed up the bonuses for zemina at go live (the -20% on imp slave prices wasn't working when I tried this weekend), or they'd have seen reports of 11k/t profits instead of 8

Even without considering bonuses stacking by bugs, what they intentionally implemented demonstrated a poor grasp of the underlying numbers.

eg: 40% on imperial slaves would have required no bugs as it was originally laid out. That's up to 8x the typical profit margin.

 

[Zeeman]

Instead of nerfing the profit from smuggling FD should work on making smuggling an actual challenge. Smuggling has always and continue to be a joke. Just line up, ask for docking clearance and boost.

Agree, whilst I'm very good at hot docking, I'd love to see it become so hard that I need to combine hot docking with stealth to stand a chance.

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