Elite: Dangerous is named for a reason. It's a cutthroat galaxy out there, and not everybody is a law abiding citizen. Many large and powerful criminal groups exist throughout the galaxy, and these syndicates bring in lots of money and influence. So why is it that whenever a player tries to go over to the dark side that they get one of three things:
-Piracy that provides absolutely no profit.
-Smuggling which is just trading with risk of a bounty.
-Murderhoboing and getting told to commit suicide and being compared to real life terrorists, rapists, and cannibals by people on Reddit. (Not exaggerating, I've seen people unironically call PvPers theses things)
And now there's going to be further punishment for being a criminal which only continues to push the penalties far beyond any potential rewards one might get for engaging in actual meaningful gameplay.
So I say Elite needs to take one from Star Citizen's playbook and actually start making crime the high risk, high reward playstyle it should have always been. Using Star Citizen as an example, that's game's alpha has a bare bones crime system that already has for more meaning than Elite does. If you commit a crime in Star citizen, you can no longer spawn or visit the main station, you get sent to the pirate station that has a much smaller armistice zone (so you can be gunned down on the landing pad by another player) but this pirate station has its own theme and feel and special shops for more anarchy themed clothing and gear. You also then get missions to go and commit crimes or to break in to a security port to delete your criminal record, missions other players get counterparts to that involve them stopping you.
So bring that method in to Elite. Add in major criminal syndicates that have bases in anarchy systems and allow players to get in good with them by taking on sabotage, murder, and piracy missions. Maybe have it set up so a player has to work for a small time black market dealer representing the group in a low-sec system before they get invited to work for the syndicate out of their home anarchy system, and players who try to fly through that system without being invited will be attacked by the syndicates goons.
As players work their way up through the ranks, maybe have a contact that will unlock and allow a player to pay off their bounty at a reduced rate with a timer of 30 minutes (to allow the smooth talker who's services you hired to make a couple of calls nudge nudge wink wink). That way, you still have the penalty, you still have to pay credits, but because you're a dedicated criminal and have worked hard at getting reputation with a major crime syndicate, you get to take some of that pressure off.
As for missions, maybe have low reputation missions be as simple as "go murder some dudes in this low sec system (player or otherwise) to scare the population" for like, 20-100k and then with higher reputations have a 1-3mil mission to go in to a high sec system and kill cops, and then get another 500k bonus chained mission to go down and sabotage an outpost by destroying the anti air guns. Have actual piracy missions that will mark cargo you take from an NPC or player as pirated goods you can sell to the syndicate black market for increased profits as well as mission rewards.
And then, to counter this newfound viability in being a criminal, have more skilled and numerous cops come after you the higher your bounty is, making you have to stick to anarchy systems as much as possible.
this could then tie in to the future karma system, where players who have really high reps with criminal syndicate should will start to gain a stigma around high sec systems even if they don't currently have a bounty. Causing stations in those systems to have people who recognize you as a member of a big crime ring and give you half value in anything you try to sell or refuse to give you the highest paying missions.
When I think of Crime in open ended games like Elite, I always imagine Elder Scrolls. I remember playing Morrowind and doing the Thieves Guild quests, and the thrill of sticking to night, sneaking through towns to avoid guards and breaking in to houses, stealing the valuables of nobles and shop keepers, and the frantic escaping if I ever got caught. It's a rush, and a very fun way to play the game with high risk and high reward. I want to see Elite follow that example and let people who want to play a criminal have the tools and support to do so. Yes, give them consequences for their actions, but dangle rewards in their faces that make them tempted to risk those consequences. Give meaning to these interactions and encourage players to choose their own path. Let those raider ship kits and pirate paint jobs actually mean something.
once again, I'm not saying make criminal gameplay have no consequences, I'm saying give enough meaning and temptation behind the consequences that players want to risk those consequences instead of just throwing on punishment after punishment to a method of gameplay that is already dead and rotting in the ground and discouraging anybody from ever doing anything mean.
![BigBANGtheory [VR]](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/71/71385.jpg?1644873788){kind=avatar}
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