market value of illegal goods after update

[Jmanis]

An illegal gun (in ED terms lethal firearms sold in places with arms restrictions) should be more expensive, because its hard to obtain because you have to use illicit methods to get it in. A stolen gun should be worth less if you have the option of buying the same thing legally.

I disagree for some cases, though it's a bit of a tangent to go on, so I won't bother, suffice to say smuggling for tax avoidance purposes is a situation where the product will be sold for less. Since that's not really in ED though, it's not a path worth going down.

I haven't smuggled for profit in ages, so if thats already in the game then great, but BMs need to pay far more than 100% to make it actually worthwhile and to do that logically.

I won't disagree with that, but as we've probably discussed before, there's a variety of conditions which

What I'm suggesting is that BMs act as an 'buffer' for a better word, in that when demand outstrips supply (and the supply is low in station or outside regeneration) BM prices spike well above that and you have the choice of selling to black markets if they are there (but in selling too much depresses the price like (IIRC) selling things like VO).

But then for that to work we'd need some new crime stat, or a way that makes life harder outside in space since what is going on is extortion really.

That simply doesn't make sense to me, sorry. A scarcity of a commodity doesn't necessitate a black market for those goods.

A black market by-definition has a level of illegality to the behaviours, and the nature of the illegality is what causes the price of a good to spike (or even, fall).

In your WW2 case, scarcity didn't cause the price spike in the black market. Scarcity caused regulation, creating a black market for scarce commodities. Regulation existed to help win the war and (probably in part) to prevent predatory marketing to desperate citizens. But scarcity alone could not create that thriving black market environment, as the "illegality" being undertaken was breaching regulation of those commodities.

If there's scarcity but no regulation (like in my example of Covid and Toilet Paper) of the relevant goods, a black market cannot exist, because no crime is being committed... there are no "illegal goods"... that's just plain old business.

It just doesn't follow that a shortage of goods suddenly results in some black market popping up for those goods, unless there is a correlating regulation of those goods which prevents them being traded on the open market (i.e being made illegal, in ED terms)

 

[GroG79]

Btw I think that illegal cargo should sell for a small premium but only the amount that is in 'demand'
Surplus illegal cargo should be sold below 'market price'. Be that -10% or -25% idc

 

[Jmanis]

That is all nice but the game is more simple. A thing legal in one system is being sold in a certain system where that thing is illegal. We are not talking about modded things that may or may not increases the value of the thing. You can not mod cargo

So an (illegal) semi-auto handgun sells for an approximate $15,000 on the black market in my country... contrasted with $500 for the same weapon in a country where it's legal, fwiw.

 

[Northpin]

That is all nice but the game is more simple. A thing legal in one system is being sold in a certain system where that thing is illegal. We are not talking about modded things that may or may not increases the value of the thing. You can not mod cargo

If we depart from RL and get back to the game, i already said that i expected illegal goods to have at least a 10% markup while i find that it's ok for stolen goods to sell for less than market price

 

[GroG79]

So an (illegal) semi-auto handgun sells for an approximate $15,000 on the black market in my country... contrasted with $500 for the same weapon in a country where it's legal, fwiw.

Are you talking in new condition or used?

 

[Jmanis]

Are you talking in new condition or used?

Like in ED, it doesn't matter. If the weapon was used in a crime abroad, it would have little impact on it's price here where simple ownership of (most) weapons, hot or not, is criminal.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I disagree for some cases, though it's a bit of a tangent to go on, so I won't bother, suffice to say smuggling for tax avoidance purposes is a situation where the product will be sold for less. Since that's not really in ED though, it's not a path worth going down.


I won't disagree with that, but as we've probably discussed before, there's a variety of conditions which

That simply doesn't make sense to me, sorry. A scarcity of a commodity doesn't necessitate a black market for those goods.

A black market by-definition has a level of illegality to the behaviours, and the nature of the illegality is what causes the price of a good to spike (or even, fall).

In your WW2 case, scarcity didn't cause the price spike in the black market. Scarcity caused regulation, creating a black market for scarce commodities. Regulation existed to help win the war and (probably in part) to prevent predatory marketing to desperate citizens. But scarcity alone could not create that thriving black market environment, as the "illegality" being undertaken was breaching regulation of those commodities.

If there's scarcity but no regulation (like in my example of Covid and Toilet Paper) of the relevant goods, a black market cannot exist, because no crime is being committed... there are no "illegal goods"... that's just plain old business.

It just doesn't follow that a shortage of goods suddenly results in some black market popping up for those goods, unless there is a correlating regulation of those goods which prevents them being traded on the open market (i.e being made illegal, in ED terms)

I think I'm tying myself in knots

Here a black market (or one function of it) is filling a gap in lack of supply by abstracting buyers who extort the 'real' sellers on station. They buy at a high price and then (via abstraction and thus out of sight) sell it onto the 'real' market because thats the only way at the time they can get that commodity. You won't be able to do it forever but its a boost above what selling normally would do. The problem is that you'd need a way to make it have consequences later on.

Its why I'd like lockdown to be a state where only BMs are active for goods at quite a markup.

 

[GroG79]

Btw I think that illegal cargo should sell for a small premium but only the amount that is in 'demand'
Surplus illegal cargo should be sold below 'market price'. Be that -10% or -25% idc

Also.. Id like some BSG influence for the number of weapons sold in demand to go with that. That will make it fun to visit multiple stations with lots of different illegal cargo

 

[Rubbernuke]

The other aspect is then making piracy easier, with either NPCs stuffed solid and / or making robbing people less fiddly. If you can bulk steal selling for less would not be a problem.

 

[varonica]

The advantage in selling stolen goods is that you aren't paying out the initial cost to purchase them. So if something is simply stolen it should also be cheaper than the market price, but the seller makes more money selling because for instance a legal player spends 50k to purchase 10 of product X and sells it for 55k, his profit is 50k. A thief steals ten of product X and sells it for 30k, his profit is 300k. But that's for stolen legal items that are otherwise available on the market.

Illegal items there is a demand for should always fetch a premium price, more than where the player purchased it otherwise the player wouldn't bother, illegal items there isn't a demand for should fetch no price at all, there isn't a demand, it's basically junk, doesn't matter what you paid for it. Unlike the example above though, a stolen illegal item should sell for the same price as an illegal item of the same type purchased legally and smuggled in, the reason for this is the buyer doesn't know or care whether it's stolen or not, it's illegal anyway.

Seems simple enough, how hard can it be?

 

[goemon]

or is the listed 'market value' price already marked up?

it is not. basically it is the same price as you'd get if the item is legal. crosschecked with a station owner change.

 

[goemon]

The price of what, specifically?

actually with this change the state depending illegals (explosives for exampel during civil unrest) get that markup. or food during outbreak.

 

[goemon]

the only "Always illegal" thing I'm aware of is Toxic Waste.

trinkets of hidden fortune i think as well. not sure about some of the other rare salvage.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I have no opinion on this (other than that crime should be riskier and more lucrative than legal trading) but it's good to see @goemon still around.

 

[goemon]

Also.. Id like some BSG influence for the number of weapons sold in demand to go with that. That will make it fun to visit multiple stations with lots of different illegal cargo

well ... if demand would still have that more extreme effect on prices (which was changed or mining)... and if state effect on demand wouldn't simply be multipliers by population/economysize ... because it neither makes much of a dierence whether you sell at demand or if you have a demand of 25t instead of 23t.


___

i think it is funny in how much detail we discuss this here. my main take was somebody at dev got it wrong by making illegal a higher priority than stolen in terms of price.
playing with it a few days now, at least i can say i don't feel embarrassed anymore, because at least smuggling is profitable. not as much as trading bauxite though, which is the raw material of aluminium, which pays and costs less than bauxite, but also less than smuggling now

 

[Jmanis]

actually with this change the state depending illegals (explosives for exampel during civil unrest) get that markup. or food during outbreak.

I'll have to double check the food-outbreak one again; last time I checked, foods just sold for normal market rate on the BM during outbreak.

trinkets of hidden fortune i think as well. not sure about some of the other rare salvage.

I thought they were illegal because it was impossible to get a trinket that wasn't stolen?

 

[varonica]

I have no opinion on this (other than that crime should be riskier and more lucrative than legal trading) but it's good to see @goemon still around.

Well yes it always is, because you aren't investing money to purchase the good in the first place, just because you don't get market value doesn't mean you aren't making more profit than a trader in the same goods doing it legally.

actually with this change the state depending illegals (explosives for exampel during civil unrest) get that markup. or food during outbreak.

Marke-ups usually don't matter in that case. When I was smuggling land mines into Ceos the worst way to make money was to sell them on the market, the way to make money was to take missions asking for me to supply them, you could easily get rewards in the 6-8m range for under 20 land mines, and since I was sitting there in a T9 with 700+ land mines making huge money from the missions was simply a matter of pressing a couple of buttons. I never went anywhere near the markets, black or regular.

 

[Jmanis]

Marke-ups usually don't matter in that case. When I was smuggling land mines into Ceos the worst way to make money was to sell them on the market, the way to make money was to take missions asking for me to supply them, you could easily get rewards in the 6-8m range for under 20 land mines, and since I was sitting there in a T9 with 700+ land mines making huge money from the missions was simply a matter of pressing a couple of buttons. I never went anywhere near the markets, black or regular.

The problem with that is the BGS effect, which I imagine isn't a consideration for you here.

Completing missions to "Source Landmines" will have a positive security and influence effect for the faction you're doing it for.
By contrast, selling to the black market will have negative economic, security and influence effects for the victim.

The latter is why it was so important to get the "stolen" price debuff fixed for illegal goods; those BGS effects relied on making a profit in the sale. If you made a loss, there was no effect (because those effects rely on a profit being made).

That's really why I wanted smuggling prices fixed; not because I want to make a profit, but I want to go back to trade routes where I hurt an enemy one way, and help myself in the other by smuggling to them, and open trading back to us.

 

[goemon]

The latter is why it was so important to get the "stolen" price debuff fixed for illegal goods; those BGS effects relied on making a profit in the sale.

as far as i know it didn't - effect of smuggling was (is?) bound to galactic average similar as to profit of trade. but with the change you can do this activity without feeling stupid, because you can make some profit.
also, as the ingame market comparison does not take legality into account, at least if the station has a black market, you are not sitting on a stock of battle weapons selling for a loss.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The advantage in selling stolen goods is that you aren't paying out the initial cost to purchase them. So if something is simply stolen it should also be cheaper than the market price, but the seller makes more money selling because for instance a legal player spends 50k to purchase 10 of product X and sells it for 55k, his profit is 50k. A thief steals ten of product X and sells it for 30k, his profit is 300k. But that's for stolen legal items that are otherwise available on the market.

As an aside, this is only true in cases where stealing things is roughly as quick as buying them, which is true in most real-life situations but which Elite Dangerous has managed to break.

The time and opportunity cost of tracking down and disabling a suitable cargo ship, siphoning cargo a few tonnes at a time, etc. means that in practice the thief's effective profit is considerably less. So in game-logic terms rather than realism terms, stolen goods should probably have a significant mark-up ... perhaps best handled through piracy missions where the conceit is that you're after a specific canister, not just any old vegetables barrel.