So I guess the answer is the same answer as the rest of the game. Framework and beauty first, depth later... maybe.
Right now a black market will buy stolen goods for half the price the commodities market will pay for legal goods. They'll also buy illegal goods, without, I beleive, the cost. This is... not very deep.
I would have thought that black market prices may vary on a number of things:
1) Rationing: if a place has severe food shortages, rationing could be in place. Here, you'd expect the black market price to be higher than the commodities market price. This happened during the second world war in the UK. Luxury foods were rationed, so a black market appeared to sell them. at mark-up prices.
2) Taxation: again, here in the UK we pay quite a high tax on tobacco and alcohol products. There is a small black market for these prices: people smuggle them in from places with lower taxes, charge less for them, but make more money as a seller as no tax is paid.
3) State: When moving stolen goods into an anarchy sector that demands them, why do they care that they're stolen? Maybe they care a little, but it's not going to matter to them nearly as much if you're moving stolen goods into a core sector with a very strong police presence. Selling goods at a less stable black market should net returns closer to the commodity price, and selling them at a more stable market should be further. I think the 50% we have at the moment is a good baseline for the "further" IMO.
The problem with 1) and 2) is that non-stolen, non-illegal goods can't be sold on the black market. If they could, then some sort of risk would have to be added to this, otherwise you'd just always sell on the black market. A "random" risk involving police stings wouldn't be a great game mechanic, as it would essentially be punishment by RNG. Maybe you could mark goods as smuggling/not smuggling at some point during purchase, or from the cargo menu (though from the cargo menu it would have to be further than a certian distance from a port). If scanned when smuggling, bad news for you, and a big fine. Smuggled goods then can't be sold on the open market. They could be marked as "unsmuggled" when outside of the station distance again.
What do people think?
Right now a black market will buy stolen goods for half the price the commodities market will pay for legal goods. They'll also buy illegal goods, without, I beleive, the cost. This is... not very deep.
I would have thought that black market prices may vary on a number of things:
1) Rationing: if a place has severe food shortages, rationing could be in place. Here, you'd expect the black market price to be higher than the commodities market price. This happened during the second world war in the UK. Luxury foods were rationed, so a black market appeared to sell them. at mark-up prices.
2) Taxation: again, here in the UK we pay quite a high tax on tobacco and alcohol products. There is a small black market for these prices: people smuggle them in from places with lower taxes, charge less for them, but make more money as a seller as no tax is paid.
3) State: When moving stolen goods into an anarchy sector that demands them, why do they care that they're stolen? Maybe they care a little, but it's not going to matter to them nearly as much if you're moving stolen goods into a core sector with a very strong police presence. Selling goods at a less stable black market should net returns closer to the commodity price, and selling them at a more stable market should be further. I think the 50% we have at the moment is a good baseline for the "further" IMO.
The problem with 1) and 2) is that non-stolen, non-illegal goods can't be sold on the black market. If they could, then some sort of risk would have to be added to this, otherwise you'd just always sell on the black market. A "random" risk involving police stings wouldn't be a great game mechanic, as it would essentially be punishment by RNG. Maybe you could mark goods as smuggling/not smuggling at some point during purchase, or from the cargo menu (though from the cargo menu it would have to be further than a certian distance from a port). If scanned when smuggling, bad news for you, and a big fine. Smuggled goods then can't be sold on the open market. They could be marked as "unsmuggled" when outside of the station distance again.
What do people think?