Smuggling must be redone

[Zandraak]

Hello !
I want a real sandbox on Elite, with a real trade system, and conquest ect.
But first i want smuggling possibilities.

Actually, players think doing missions is smuggling. No.
They think loot on space and sell is smuggling. No.
And finally steal and sell isn't smuggling.

Smuggling is the made ​​illegal to sell a product has such a place. Such as drugs or weapons.
But the BlackMarket want a -25% of the real market.

I'm ok for that if the product is legal (you steal Clothes where clothes are legal), but when it's illegal? I mean "illegality" and smuggling haven't reward, and this destroy a full gameplay.

OFC the recelleur will take his commission of 25%, but if the product is illegal, the price will be *3 no? Or *2 minimum (depend how is the difficult to enter with the goods). So why don't apply:
Black market = Price * 0.75
Illegal good = Price *2

It's logic, try to sell Cocaine on Paris, it have a hight price, on Columbia no. It's rare, illegal and checked.

Please FD, create the Smuggler gameplay, not only "for RP", I want sell drugs, slave and weapons bought legally (Pirates Stations? ),d and resold by example in a federal system.
And why don't add effect to this? Like selling gun help revolutions, or Slave up productivity ect. ? With that players became Actors of the univers, and not only tourist on a fix univers.

----- IF YOU ADD REAL MARKET FLUCTUATIONS -----
It will make alliance between pirates and Smugglers (it's not the same job!) if you add a fluctuation or price due to rarity.

Pirates Steal, they sell on pirate station, price became low cause they don't burn stocks, and smuggler come due to good price and flow stocks. With this, your univers take life and isn't only a movie to watch.

 

[Butter of Sorrow]

I feel like you have a very good point. Would be interesting to see this catch on.

On another note I could also mention something somewhat related to smuggling. It's that the current smuggling missions are way too exploitable.

Here's what I mean; you dock into a starport with a black market in it and open the bulletin board to look for jobs. You see 2 slave smuggling missions, however you cannot accept them both because it would exceed your cargo space. Solution? Accept the first mission -> abandon it -> sell cargo in the black market -> accept the other one and be on your way.

I get that actually doing the jobs usually earns you more money, not to mention the reputation and rank progress, but it's still literally free money and it seems just ridiculous. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to sell mission related items, I'm just saying that the should be some penalty in abandoning missions whether they were legal or not. Maybe have a reputation penalty or since they're usually from a criminal organisation or something have them send hired goons after you to "teach you a lesson". That could be cool.

 

[Troa Barton]

While that was kind of hard to read I do completely agree.

sandbox smuggling is really limited to imperial slaves in between power controlled space. It does net you more than vanilla trading, marginally. however the other commodities one would smuggle like drugs or weapons makes you less money and in some situations can even net you a loss.

those commodities on their own aren't worth enough imo they should be very expensive and dangerous to transport in large quantities.

which is half the approach to fixing the profit side of smuggling crank up the prices of the goods, sky high. Profit stems from a percentage difference in good cost at point B from point A. By increasing the cost of an item you also increase the profit you make for it and let's be honest a ton of drugs should be selling for a lot more than it is currently.

The second half is simply adding more commodities a lot more again with high prices. Rare artwork, trade data, variations of drugs, variations of weapons, experimental medicines, the works.

finally put in a import export system into smuggling and allow purchase of stolen or illegal goods in black markets themselves. After that increase the police presence and give them bigger ships. Make smuggling difficult, not impossible but difficult where it essentially becomes tier 4 trading. Rare item trading > regular item trading > mission smuggling > bulk smuggling.

Have it scale with profit and risk proportionially, this will also have the effect of buffing piracy and adding some sand to the sand box. It will also give a reason to keep a cobra, diamondback, asp, type 6 ect even in the late game if the profits and difficulty are scaled correctly.

 

[Zandraak]

Well, non english speed post, If you want rewrite it, I can edit
Sorry for that really.

 

[Troa Barton]

Well, non english speed post, If you want rewrite it, I can edit
Sorry for that really.

No worries, it's a lot better than most actually.

 

[Marra Morgan]

Hello !
I want a real sandbox on Elite, with a real trade system, and conquest ect.
But first i want smuggling possibilities.

Actually, players think doing missions is smuggling. No.
They think loot on space and sell is smuggling. No.
And finally steal and sell isn't smuggling.

Smuggling is the made ​​illegal to sell a product has such a place. Such as drugs or weapons.
But the BlackMarket want a -25% of the real market.

I'm ok for that if the product is legal (you steal Clothes where clothes are legal), but when it's illegal? I mean "illegality" and smuggling haven't reward, and this destroy a full gameplay.

OFC the recelleur will take his commission of 25%, but if the product is illegal, the price will be *3 no? Or *2 minimum (depend how is the difficult to enter with the goods). So why don't apply:
Black market = Price * 0.75
Illegal good = Price *2

It's logic, try to sell Cocaine on Paris, it have a hight price, on Columbia no. It's rare, illegal and checked.

Please FD, create the Smuggler gameplay, not only "for RP", I want sell drugs, slave and weapons bought legally (Pirates Stations? ),d and resold by example in a federal system.

Ah, you mean the kind of smuggling by which I've made my hundreds of millions through?

 

[lysan]

I think the missions were a bit bonkers regarding the mission briefing text. There are still a lot of work needed however you can smuggle outside the missions if you find the right route.

 

[Mississippi Jones]

Ah, you mean the kind of smuggling by which I've made my hundreds of millions through?!

How modest....any chance of a loan then?

 

[Apos]

I think the pricing model is generally fine, but the way that you get to discover which black market is profitable is not. There is absolutely no way to know the specific demands of a black market until you try to sell a specific illegal or stolen commodity to them.

This is somewhat realistic in the sense that you wouldn't get to know the price of heroine by asking people in the nearest Starbucks, but once you have established good relations with the black market, why can't you extract information out of them?

The black markets of each system could have their own reputation meter and the more you fill them in, the more their commodities list becomes more transparent. If you reach the equivalent of allied to them, they could even provide rumors of other black markets that pay well, with some of the details left for the commander to discover. Like "we have heard that the black market of Hutton Orbital in Alpha Centauri has been a gold mine lately, but we don't have the exact information on what commodity they seek" or "we know that narcotics sell really well in some system close to Achenar, but don't have the exact location."

Right now, black markets that pay well for narcotics, slaves, etc do exist. It's not just the imperial slaves that make a healthy profit. But discovering them is always by chance and rarely is any feedback involved.

 

[adrinker]

/Signed!

 

[Quineloe]

Smuggling missions should have never been delivery missions where you are just provided the goods. They should be fetch missions where you must find the illegal goods yourself.

 

[Willa Allason]

Black market prices should be higher not lower. If I buy Narcotics from a dodgy pirate station and sell them in a place where they are illegal I should get a profit for them. And I'm talking a BIG profit. That's how it goes in real life.

 

[Apos]

Black market prices should be higher not lower. If I buy Narcotics from a dodgy pirate station and sell them in a place where they are illegal I should get a profit for them. And I'm talking a BIG profit. That's how it goes in real life.

Are you sure? Because I could swear that dealers are most of the time some lowest class nobodies who remain lowest class nobodies.

Truth is, only the producer earns the big bucks. Most of the people involved in the distribution are poor people having their misfortune exploited.

 

[fruitbat]

I'm making 10.5 million credits an hour smuggling imp slaves at the moment.

Buying legally and selling them where they are illegal, just as the op says should happen.

The fact that I'm doing it in a cutter and have avoided being fully scanned once, since I started does make me think that the police are pretty useless though.

Still, 2.6 million per run is finally pushing me towards elite after staring at broker for the best part of this year.

 

[Butter of Sorrow]

Smuggling missions should have never been delivery missions where you are just provided the goods. They should be fetch missions where you must find the illegal goods yourself.

Those missions do also exist, don't they?

 

[Quineloe]

Those missions do also exist, don't they?

No, fetch missions are always legal

 

[Zandraak]

Well, sorry but "missions" isn't "smuggling", you're just a courier, Like flying in space is the looting of falls.
Actually smuggling is just "sometimes somewhere" and the global system is broken, it's RP job... And being "legal" is more profitable. That's just incredible :/

 

[Quineloe]

Well, sorry but "missions" isn't "smuggling", you're just a courier, Like flying in space is the looting of falls.
Actually smuggling is just "sometimes somewhere" and the global system is broken, it's RP job... And being "legal" is more profitable. That's just incredible :/

You mean the people who smuggled alcohol for Al Capone in from Canada weren't smugglers?

 

[Zandraak]

For me this is a Smuggler:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mandrin

And no, sorry be used for transport isn't the real smuggler. And chain mission A to B isn't "fun".
For Chain A to B I buy a Chineese.

I want a real smuggling system with fun, and more profit (Real profit) than trade and a lot of Risk.
Actually, we chain mission without risk, without fun, but FD say we can be smuggler.

 

[Quineloe]

For me this is a Smuggler:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mandrin

And no, sorry be used for transport isn't the real smuggler. And chain mission A to B isn't "fun".
For Chain A to B I buy a Chineese.

I want a real smuggling system with fun, and more profit (Real profit) than trade and a lot of Risk.
Actually, we chain mission without risk, without fun, but FD say we can be smuggler.

He brute forced his success with the means of a small army. That is not a smuggler, lol