A note about smuggling missions

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Now of course they could long since standard beta have implemented a sensible way of handling criminal actions and consequences in the game.

For instance: Why do the smuggling missions go FROM Sothis into the Bubble, and not from inside the Bubble to Sothis?

Why are the commodities sought simple market commodites, and in such low amounts as well?

Why not smuggle illegal luxuries into the far out frontier systems?

Dozens of tons of narcotics and performance enhancers? Or even combinations of different rares? 5 tons each of Lavian Brandy, Leesti Evil Juice, Orrerian Brew, Wolf Fesh... someone is surely planning a party out there! Wait - 20 slaves on top, too? Oh hell... this can't be legal! You would be hopping from system to system gathering all the necessary wares, hunted by npcs... then make the trip far out and be handsomely rewarded if you succeed in getting the wares inside the station.

If you get scanned, however, you not only get fined, but all your cargo gets confiscated as contraband, and your contractor puts out a bounty on your head, just as Jabba the Hut did with Han Solo. You also get a criminal record "Smuggler", a tag that every police ship and every other CMDR can see on your ship after a finished scan, and that gets you much more attention from the cops in the future. You get pulled out of supercruise more often by NPC authority ships and bounty hunters for a random search scan... and some stations in lawful authoritative regimes won't even give you docking clearance until you have cleared your criminal record - which you can only achieve by doing lots of charity missions or donating large sums to charitable projects.

Unless you feel comfortable to retreat into more unlawful space where less people give a damn about your reputation, of course... but that's exactly where the bounty hunters will be looking for you...

whilst i am glad they realised their mistake in those smuggling missions, I have to say, all of the above sounds great. That mission you described right there where not only are you delivering the goods but having to find them from multiple places is a mission worth a payment of 1 or 2 (maybe even 4 or 5) million esp with the risk of confiscation thrown in there (confiscation would have to be when docked I wouldn’t want a magic transport weapon taking the stuff from your ship!).

 

[Stealth Gamer92]

Server malfunction on my side I guess .
I feel that Frontier was fair in balancing out the payouts. The smuggling missions are there just lest often. The long range trade runs are still there. I get sometimes three to four missions going to the same star port from the same board. On a average of 800k to 1.5m per mission. That in my book is still ok.

Nope, fair would've been nerfing the problem area's and not the whole galaxy.

- - - Updated - - -

WOW!! I would kill for an average of 800k to 1.5 per mission.
I've spent the past couple of weeks, hours per day looking for decent smuggling missions. MY average is 30k-50k with the "rare high-paying missions" averaging around 100k to 120k. I have to stack up four to six missions to get about 400k depending on the day.

Prior to the update I was getting average 150k-220 with the highs being 400-500K and I was totally fine with that. Now I'm putzing around space for pennies and wondering why I'm doing it.

I'm making more money hopping navs and using my advanced discovery scanner than I am with smuggling missions.

Smuggling is severely broken from my point of view.

UPDATE:
After sitting at a port in Rhea I finally got a 220k smuggling mission!!!!! First I've seen since the update. I hope Frontier gets their balancing act together because I'm finding it hard to justify the time with such measly payouts.

Same here.

 

[Nooneeyeno]

WOW!! I would kill for an average of 800k to 1.5 per mission.
I've spent the past couple of weeks, hours per day looking for decent smuggling missions. MY average is 30k-50k with the "rare high-paying missions" averaging around 100k to 120k. I have to stack up four to six missions to get about 400k depending on the day.

Prior to the update I was getting average 150k-220 with the highs being 400-500K and I was totally fine with that. Now I'm putzing around space for pennies and wondering why I'm doing it.

I'm making more money hopping navs and using my advanced discovery scanner than I am with smuggling missions.

Smuggling is severely broken from my point of view.

UPDATE:
After sitting at a port in Rhea I finally got a 220k smuggling mission!!!!! First I've seen since the update. I hope Frontier gets their balancing act together because I'm finding it hard to justify the time with such measly payouts.

That's interesting, the only thing I can add to my statement is , too get higher paying missions, one must be very far out, at the edge of occupied space 450+ LYs. Also once I ranked up to tycoon the pay outs got much higher. I don't know how important this next point is, but I always donate to all local factions. Sometimes that's all there is on the the board. Sometimes I donate up to 100k credits by the time my cargo hold is full. It seems that if you are allied or friendly to the factions they seem to give out good missions. Last night my average was 1.4M credits per mission. It took about one hour to fill my hold.

 

[zoso67]

Interesting

That's interesting, the only thing I can add to my statement is , too get higher paying missions, one must be very far out, at the edge of occupied space 450+ LYs. Also once I ranked up to tycoon the pay outs got much higher. I don't know how important this next point is, but I always donate to all local factions. Sometimes that's all there is on the the board. Sometimes I donate up to 100k credits by the time my cargo hold is full. It seems that if you are allied or friendly to the factions they seem to give out good missions. Last night my average was 1.4M credits per mission. It took about one hour to fill my hold.

NOW THAT'S interesting. I haven't tried going out to the fringes. I'll have to give that a try. I guess I'm basing it off my prior experience before the last update which was low paying missions at the start of my ED career, progressing to higher paying missions, 250-450k. Then the update came out and that all went out the door.

I'm currently Allied with almost all factions in Rhea and I see no real change to the amounts. I also give generously to charity and haven't seen much of an effect there either. Plus when I do see the higher paying missions their an one off event. Future missions are back to next-to-nothing payouts.

Anyway, I'll try going further out and see what happens.

Thanks!

 

[cmdr_maska]

It would be easer if you would have a lvl. Then missions difficulty & reward could be calculaded to your progres ie. requiremets. So on lvl 1 you would earn 100-500k, on lvl 10 1-5m, and so on.

Now Im in one of starting systems, and missions arent interesting at all. 90-150k for a run? No thanks. It was ok when I go a Viper, but with Clipper, where each A Module costs 16m, sorry, rly like the game, but dont have another life to spend on those runs. Hope devs will change this.

 

[Hadron-Higgs-Boson]

It would be easer if you would have a lvl. Then missions difficulty & reward could be calculaded to your progres ie. requiremets. So on lvl 1 you would earn 100-500k, on lvl 10 1-5m, and so on.

Now Im in one of starting systems, and missions arent interesting at all. 90-150k for a run? No thanks. It was ok when I go a Viper, but with Clipper, where each A Module costs 16m, sorry, rly like the game, but dont have another life to spend on those runs. Hope devs will change this.

they sort of are, but the 'level' is your trade rank, so as a low level rank a mission may pay 100k, as an elite level rank it may pay millions, for more or less the exact same mission.

Simply put, the mission system is very weak, one day it might get a major overhaul, until then we will just have to put up with its failings and the odd tweak to it

 

[Antoniius]

they sort of are, but the 'level' is your trade rank, so as a low level rank a mission may pay 100k, as an elite level rank it may pay millions, for more or less the exact same mission.

exactly, there already is a level for mission, that is the result of status with the minor faction (allied/friend etc etc) and trading/combat/exploration rating.

 

[persian]

Why on earth are you trying to ruin the game and take the fun away. I done playing ED. first Fehu then Rabigo now Sothis. Come on guys! you killing it

 

[Riverside]

Why on earth are you trying to ruin the game and take the fun away. I done playing ED. first Fehu then Rabigo now Sothis. Come on guys! you killing it

Find the new meta. It's out there.

 

[Jenner]

This thread is really old. Please see some of the newer threads on this topic. Thanks.