The Smuggling discussion thread

[Zenith]

Dumping about 5MCr-7MCr of exploration data will get you allied with a minor faction and increase it's influence because of the flow of money.
Charity missions improve the influence of the faction giving the mission.
Taking a mission then abandoning it knocks your reputation with the faction down and also knocks a little of their influence.
Lots of import/export trade has a positive effect on the faction that owns the station. You tend to find 2-3 stations in a system and a different faction in charge of 1 or more of them. If you're wanting to boost one faction at the expense of another, trade with that particular station, and destroy ships of opposing factions. Be careful you don't lock yourself out of the system with too much bounty against you.

 

[smiths121]

We have to combat negative influence swings from Powerplay every week to try and avoid the civil war baddie of the week. Missions are king for this as there are only 3 or 4 of us. Deploying 2 x trade Anacondas and 1 x Type-9 does not match a focussed mission session. Doing both is better. Not sure if this changes with scale obviously. We are all fairly high rating and allied so mission selection may also play a part.

A note on the note "might be more effective than missions". I seem to remember there was a note in the 1.3 release notes reducing trade influence. I think the note is pre-1.3. Our recent activities would suggest this.

Just thought, mind you, we could be doing it wrong about 950Cr/ton both directions, may not be a good enough trade route.

Simon

Simon

 

[the100thmonkey]

Currently, dropping missions of any kind has no negative impact on influence. Accepting branches, however, does.

1.3 did indeed nerf the effects of trading. Additionally, I understood that black market smuggling reduced influence for the controlling faction - it's black because it's out of the control of the government.

Dumping many thousands of tons of a commodity that is not in demand currently negatively affects influence. We've found this to be true even for scrap. We've also found that selling many thousands of tons of in-demand commodities actually had a negative effect, suggesting that balance of payments is an important consideration.

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We have to combat negative influence swings from Powerplay every week to try and avoid the civil war baddie of the week. Missions are king for this as there are only 3 or 4 of us. Deploying 2 x trade Anacondas and 1 x Type-9 does not match a focussed mission session. Doing both is better. Not sure if this changes with scale obviously. We are all fairly high rating and allied so mission selection may also play a part.

A note on the note "might be more effective than missions". I seem to remember there was a note in the 1.3 release notes reducing trade influence. I think the note is pre-1.3. Our recent activities would suggest this.

Just thought, mind you, we could be doing it wrong about 950Cr/ton both directions, may not be a good enough trade route.

Simon

Are you supporting an independent faction?

 

[smiths121]

Hello 100thMonkey,

We support primarily a Federation Corporate on the Alliance/Fed border, in Mahon exploited space.

When undermining is out of sync with Fortification, we take some heavy influence losses, which seem to reset on Thursday night, the trick is to avoid a conflict kicking off Saturday to Tuesday, hence our experiments with large trade ships. Some expansion on turns where Mahon is not in turmoil would be nice, but I think we are starting to reach the max size we can manage given the size of the group, so is probably secondary at the moment.

We have recently started flipping stations to Fed around us to give Anaconda trade routes, so thank you for pointing out your balance of payment observations.

Another observation I have, I believe trading increases chance of boom state.

Simon

 

[the100thmonkey]

Hello 100thMonkey,

We support primarily a Federation Corporate on the Alliance/Fed border, in Mahon exploited space.

Ah... Power play really cocked stuff up for the unaligned.

When undermining is out of sync with Fortification, we take some heavy influence losses, which seem to reset on Thursday night, the trick is to avoid a conflict kicking off Saturday to Tuesday, hence our experiments with large trade ships. Some expansion on turns where Mahon is not in turmoil would be nice, but I think we are starting to reach the max size we can manage given the size of the group, so is probably secondary at the moment.

We have recently started flipping stations to Fed around us to give Anaconda trade routes, so thank you for pointing out your balance of payment observations.

Another observation I have, I believe trading increases chance of boom state.

Simon

It does. It's a shame you're flying for the Feds - I'd have offered to lend a hand when you're in a tight spot.

That's a really interesting and useful insight about Powerplay - one I hadn't noticed as I don't 'do' PP and we're well outside the bubbles currently.. I just had to remove myself from a mission to spend three days fighting a civil war in my "home" system caused by influence swings that didn't - until now - seem to have a rational explanation. It's just outside a PP bubble, and has expanded into a neighbouring system that's just inside one. It went from over 80% influence down to 12% straight away in release, and has constantly swung since then

 

[goemon]

Currently, dropping missions of any kind has no negative impact on influence. Accepting branches, however, does.

1.3 did indeed nerf the effects of trading. Additionally, I understood that black market smuggling reduced influence for the controlling faction - it's black because it's out of the control of the government.

Dumping many thousands of tons of a commodity that is not in demand currently negatively affects influence. We've found this to be true even for scrap. We've also found that selling many thousands of tons of in-demand commodities actually had a negative effect, suggesting that balance of payments is an important consideration.

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Are you supporting an independent faction?

thank you! i did not really fiddlewith the bgs since april (beside mission play to secure or unlock rares), so your insight is for sure more up to date!

now, concerning OP's rare good question: rare goods always have a high demand (everywhere), and they sell highly priced - in the logic that 100thMonkey described it should have good effects for influence... right?

 

[Ben Ryder]

A bit of clarity around the who gets the benefit from trade? The sending faction or the receiving faction or both?

Some say smuggling (not smuggling missions) helps the black a market faction and other say the main faction. Does anyone know for sure?

 

[Patau82]

The crime lords big houses, big ships and other big spending must benefit local economy

 

[Ben Ryder]

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

1 and 2 seem to contradict each other. How did you flip a system by trading if the influence goes to the controlling faction?

 

[goemon]

the influence goes to the controlling faction

the influence goes to the faction that controls the station you sell to.

so, if you have a system where the main faction controls the main station, but the faction you want to flip to controls another station, you can push that second factions influence by trade.

 

[Futuristic Kung Fu]

Does it count if I do it in a Clipper?

 

[Ben Ryder]

Does it count if I do it in a Clipper?

Up to you Tailor to your skill

But you wont be able to land it at the outposts so ... fail

I've did it in two maybe three solid days play following the challenge in the opening post.

 

[Arry]

Ben, why no shields?

 

[Marra Morgan]

Ben, you've got Lucan Onion Head in your list... I didn't think this was available anymore, since Onion Head production moved back from Luca / Tanmark to Kappa Fornacis?

It looks like a fun challenge!

My Cobra is already fitted perfectly for it, but I'm not doing any of that exploration stuff! Ewww!

Should it be completed before a certain time?

 

[Marra Morgan]

Well, I've made a start!

First three collected without any trouble, but when I arrived at Borasetani there was no sign of the Pathogenetics - looks like they've been removed at some point

Ah well, onwards we go. Next stop: Hutton Orbital for the Mega Gin!
I've got a spare fuel tank and a good book

 

[BorakRed]

I'll give it a go. I have never bothered with rares. Do I sell the rares at each outpost along the way? or do I hold them until the end?

 

[Arry]

I'll give it a go. I have never bothered with rares. Do I sell the rares at each outpost along the way? or do I hold them until the end?

Stock up with as much as you can be allocated and sell when you have to make room as and when the hold space, is required; but keep just one, of each for the last drop, only 30 tons, I think. A lot more profit that way and I would say that there are a lot of distance to cover on this trip: Alphabetically??? I thought that Ben fellow was alight, turns out he is just evil. Nice work sir. Alphabetically?

 

[Ben Ryder]

Ben, why no shields?

Who needs shields? Just to add to the risk really and to keep a low heat signature and be all stealthy.

I hear you are going to be the new Emperoar?

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I'll give it a go. I have never bothered with rares. Do I sell the rares at each outpost along the way? or do I hold them until the end?

End goal.

 

[Arry]

Who needs shields? Just to add to the risk really and to keep a low heat signature and be all stealthy.

I hear you are going to be the new Emperoar?

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End goal.

And the challenge is to complete this, how do we give the proof?

 

[Ben Ryder]

And the challenge is to complete this, how do we give the proof?

Swear on you doggy bowl or post a screen shot. I just opened mine. 42 screen grabs and my PC went bonkers. I will go through them while the server is down tomorrow.