The Smuggling discussion thread

racer1 · Oct 1, 2015

I guess there is a difference between smuggling missions and smuggling commodities.

Based on your comments and my experience I think the following may be true:

Smuggling missions count
Normal commodities trade counts
Smuggling commodities to black market DON'T count

I started doing only smuggling missions and they definitely counted
My current trade route is smuggling to black market one way and legal trade the other so that would fit my small progression that I see with only the legal stuff counting. I then dropped off a load of gold to Sothis and my trade rank increased more than I was expecting.

Dark Lord · Oct 1, 2015

racer1 said:
I guess there is a difference between smuggling missions and smuggling commodities.

Smuggling commodities to black market DON'T count

Smuggling commodities i.e Imperial Slaves to black market, do count.
Been doing it since I turned Tycoon @ 0% I am now at 56%

[VR] Mad Mike · Oct 1, 2015

I think the confusion here if from the oldies who did smuggling back in 1.0.

initially the only thing which counted to your trade rank was (legitimate) trading.

this changed - sometime around 1.2 i think - and now all commerce counts.

I know this is not gonna be popular but personally I wish it didn’t because as already said, why would you get "official" ranking for smuggling, its not like the black marketiers would be advertising your profits.......

Personally I would rather have more rankings (skinner boxes FTW

) the ones we have now, awarded from the pilots Federation, and then a more "dark side" set of rankings which are tracked from a more underground network, which records reputation for smuggling and piracy, so we had 2 new reptuations to fill up.

This may mean needing to reduce the amount of profits to get to elite on trade, or not I dunno.

just my 2p.

TLDR - smuggling did not used to count, it does now..

Cmdr Ultra · Oct 1, 2015

Smuggling commodities to Black Market's does count as Mad Mike said. I was running 500 tons of Imperial Slaves one way @ one point and literally watched my rank increase by 1% per trip.

askavir · Oct 1, 2015

Smuggling profit counts as much as trading profit, either through missions or "regular".

Actually, as a BB smuggling mission is all profit, and there are tons of over 200k missions out there (plus the fact you can pickup multiple at a time), I dare to say that unless you have very large capacity freighter, like a T9 or Anaconda, smuggling missions is the fastest way to both make money and raise rank in the transportation business.

[HJ]-RedRaven · Oct 1, 2015

Agony_Aunt said:
AFAIK its simply down to profit made on sales to the commodity market. So it doesn't matter whether its from regular trade, mining, or whatever... but sales to the black market do not count.

If correct, i suppose the in-game justification is sales to the black market don't official exist, so how can you be recognized for transactions you haven't made?

LOL, I am 100% certain that smuggling does count towards trading rank.
I think rank progression is the same for a given credit value for any of mining, smuggling or regular legal commodity trading.

Doh, ninja'ed many times over.

Deleted member 38366 · Oct 1, 2015

Mad Mike said:
Personally I would rather have more rankings (skinner boxes FTW ) the ones we have now, awarded from the pilots Federation, and then a more "dark side" set of rankings which are tracked from a more underground network, which records reputation for smuggling and piracy, so we had 2 new reptuations to fill up.

Hehe, for all I know, the Pilot's Federation is that dark side...
They keep count and increase Rank (never decrease) for anyone free of charge, regardless it it's a clean harmless Trader - or a Terrorist Mass Murderer of Millions. Pilot's Federation don't care *g*

I think the Dark Wheel took them over a long time ago - hence the awkward meaningless fines for Killing clean Ships.

PS.
They don't seem to like smugglers, though. Kill-spree whatever you want - but don't ever get caught smuggling

Vandaahl · Oct 1, 2015

Mad Mike said:
I think the confusion here if from the oldies who did smuggling back in 1.0.

initially the only thing which counted to your trade rank was (legitimate) trading.

this changed - sometime around 1.2 i think - and now all commerce counts.

I know this is not gonna be popular but personally I wish it didn’t because as already said, why would you get "official" ranking for smuggling, its not like the black marketiers would be advertising your profits.......

Personally I would rather have more rankings (skinner boxes FTW ) the ones we have now, awarded from the pilots Federation, and then a more "dark side" set of rankings which are tracked from a more underground network, which records reputation for smuggling and piracy, so we had 2 new reptuations to fill up.

This may mean needing to reduce the amount of profits to get to elite on trade, or not I dunno.

just my 2p.

TLDR - smuggling did not used to count, it does now..

Ok...
So transaction on the black market do now count as well? Because this was absolutely NOT the case. If it had done that, I would of been close to Elite by now, and not a 4% Tycoon.
So does ALL smuggling (missions, selling illegal stuff on the balck market, transactions with T9's) count to your trading rank now, or only the missions?

racer1 · Oct 1, 2015

Maybe blackmarket trades don't count as much?

I have over 100 million from trading in one form or another (mostly blackmarket) and am still only 50% broker.

DaggerSnake · Oct 1, 2015

askavir said:
Smuggling profit counts as much as trading profit, either through missions or "regular".

Actually, as a BB smuggling mission is all profit, and there are tons of over 200k missions out there (plus the fact you can pickup multiple at a time), I dare to say that unless you have very large capacity freighter, like a T9 or Anaconda, smuggling missions is the fastest way to both make money and raise rank in the transportation business.

I agree, there is no better credit per ton value. The only way to make more money is to already have invested a ton of time and money into a large ship.
If everyone was using a Cobra as a constant, smuggling is the most lucrative profession.

With a large ship, straighhr trading will be the best (I think)

maddsloth · Oct 1, 2015

does smuggling count as "trade profits"

I am asking because I smuggle a lot and am think about joining a finance based power, if Smuggling counts toward the PP bonus voucher you get from them for "trade profits"

thanks.

bitstorm · Oct 1, 2015

Partial answer.

Smuggling counts towards your Pilot's Federation trader ranking.

PP stuffs I don't know.

maddsloth · Oct 2, 2015

ya I know, am an Entrepreneur mostly from smuggling, just cant figure out if doing those missions count toward getting these bonus trade vouchers. I have looked looked everywhere for the answer...

one would think if you get trade rank for it then it would count toward trade vouchers, but don't want to join till I know one way or the other.

[HJ]-RedRaven · Oct 2, 2015

Yes smuggling counts towards your trading rank.

Not sure if it helps with PP bonuses though.

Try it and let the forum bask in your new-found knowledge!

maddsloth · Oct 2, 2015

dc83 said:
Heh, you guys have answered the wrong question I think.

ya, but I just wish there was a better resource to get info on this game like wowhead or something. the wiki page is good for some things but it does not seem to have anything on the PP stuff.

Ben Ryder · Oct 4, 2015

How does trade and smuggling influence a factions influence

How does trade and smuggling influence a factions influence. And what about rare goods trading? Some clarification would be good :S

ComradeFresco · Oct 4, 2015

The wiki claims trade might be more influential the missions and that smuggling increases lockdown/unrest at the receiving station.

excalibus · Oct 5, 2015

indeed smuggling missions have effects (positive and negative) on influence, smuggling illegal weapons tends to increase lockdown / civil unrest for the delivery systems controlling faction I think, where as smuggling acient artifacts type goods tend to increase boom for the mission faction, smuggling military plans, rebel transmissions, and possibly black boxes tends to lower lockdown for the mission faction.

Smuggling narcotics and tobacco missions does have an affect as well I just cannot recall if it affect outbreak, boom or lockdown right now...

ComradeFresco · Oct 5, 2015

I want a confirm/deny on the claim that charity missions lower the giving factions reputation.

goemon · Oct 5, 2015

here is the best thread with devs quotes: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=105921
afaik:
1) trade pushes the influence of the station owning faction. to what amount is unclear, but it was described as being more effective than missions (of course that needs large trading ships).

2) from my own experience with using rares to flip a system (good times of 45t of diso corn!), the gain of influences is bound to total price you sell. e.g. not number of tons, but selling price. so rares are around double effective than palladium per ton, but you will be better of to trade 100 t of palladium or 200 t of performance engancers, than 50 tons of rares

3) it looks as if bulk smuggling is simply counted as trade, e.g. blackmarket sales push the influence of the station controlling faction (which doesn't make sense...) - whether this bug still applies idk

The Smuggling discussion thread

Deleted member 38366