I just had an idea how marked cargo could work in Elite:
* when buying commodities, the trader has the option to buy commodities implanted with a tracking device which costs a substanial amount of money. The tracking device does not show up when cargo scanned, the pirate would see the cargo with the device as normal cargo. Once loaded into the cargo hold, the trader cannot differentiate the marked cargo anymore. That means that the trader has to decide if he buys a small amount of tracked cargo, different from the rest of his cargo (e.g. 10 tons of tracked gold when he is also transporting 100 customer items), or if he plants devices in all of his cargo (but that would seriously dimish his profit).
* The knowing pirate interdicts him and scans him. He gets suspicious because there are 10 gold and 100 customer items. So he demands customer items as he has no way to find out if the cargo is marked (yet). If the trader also marked, say 10 out of 100 customer items, there is a 10% chance that marked cargo is dropped. The trader cannot control that as his only way of increasing the chance is to buy more tracking devices. This way things are kept interesting.
* after the cargo was handled over and assuming the trader is still alive the race begins. If the trader reaches an outpost or starport when the pirate is still on his way to the next black market, the trader can declare that cargo was stolen from him and the tracking devices are activated.
* The pirate will be tracked, i.e. the chances for getting interdicted by authorities increase and the scans at starports will be relentless. The interdiction and scanning attempts come along with a NPC-line like "stand still suspect" or something like that so now the pirate immediately knows whats up. Up to discussion: the trader sees the pirates position on his galaxy map (opens up the possibility of retaliation or hiring bounty hunters)
* NPCs only track the pirate in the 3 main factions space. This is because the independend factions are too small to have a intersystem wide authority aviable for such chases. This would make anarchy and independent systems more viable for pirates and would give a sense of danger when in such systems (I strongly encourage any form to make different factions more unique as it is one of the big flaws of Elite that every system feels kind of similar)
* The pirate can still turn the cargo into profit. If he suspects trouble or is already being chased, he goes into an anarchy system to an unsanctioned outpost (those with the skull hologram! Let's make them real pirate stations!) where he finds a new station option under his contact list: the mechanic. For a small fee, this guy will get rid of the tracker and remove any stolen tag. Now the pirate can just go to any station and sell his things, free of any trouble.
* if he tried to sell marked cargo on a normal commodities market, the cargo would immidiately cause a bounty (time to flee, cudos to the new bounty system). If found at a black market, it would greatly reduce his profit (or they might just flat-out reject his cargo)
My hope is that this implementation would make pirating more thrilling and enrich E
s universe. The trader would not be the harmless sheep anymore but would get more options to retaliate or at least make more effort for the pirate. The pirate would need to go through more steps to get his cargo but if the cargo is cleaned he would get the full credit, not just the black-market value.
What do you guys think?
* when buying commodities, the trader has the option to buy commodities implanted with a tracking device which costs a substanial amount of money. The tracking device does not show up when cargo scanned, the pirate would see the cargo with the device as normal cargo. Once loaded into the cargo hold, the trader cannot differentiate the marked cargo anymore. That means that the trader has to decide if he buys a small amount of tracked cargo, different from the rest of his cargo (e.g. 10 tons of tracked gold when he is also transporting 100 customer items), or if he plants devices in all of his cargo (but that would seriously dimish his profit).
* The knowing pirate interdicts him and scans him. He gets suspicious because there are 10 gold and 100 customer items. So he demands customer items as he has no way to find out if the cargo is marked (yet). If the trader also marked, say 10 out of 100 customer items, there is a 10% chance that marked cargo is dropped. The trader cannot control that as his only way of increasing the chance is to buy more tracking devices. This way things are kept interesting.
* after the cargo was handled over and assuming the trader is still alive the race begins. If the trader reaches an outpost or starport when the pirate is still on his way to the next black market, the trader can declare that cargo was stolen from him and the tracking devices are activated.
* The pirate will be tracked, i.e. the chances for getting interdicted by authorities increase and the scans at starports will be relentless. The interdiction and scanning attempts come along with a NPC-line like "stand still suspect" or something like that so now the pirate immediately knows whats up. Up to discussion: the trader sees the pirates position on his galaxy map (opens up the possibility of retaliation or hiring bounty hunters)
* NPCs only track the pirate in the 3 main factions space. This is because the independend factions are too small to have a intersystem wide authority aviable for such chases. This would make anarchy and independent systems more viable for pirates and would give a sense of danger when in such systems (I strongly encourage any form to make different factions more unique as it is one of the big flaws of Elite that every system feels kind of similar)
* The pirate can still turn the cargo into profit. If he suspects trouble or is already being chased, he goes into an anarchy system to an unsanctioned outpost (those with the skull hologram! Let's make them real pirate stations!) where he finds a new station option under his contact list: the mechanic. For a small fee, this guy will get rid of the tracker and remove any stolen tag. Now the pirate can just go to any station and sell his things, free of any trouble.
* if he tried to sell marked cargo on a normal commodities market, the cargo would immidiately cause a bounty (time to flee, cudos to the new bounty system). If found at a black market, it would greatly reduce his profit (or they might just flat-out reject his cargo)
My hope is that this implementation would make pirating more thrilling and enrich E
s universe. The trader would not be the harmless sheep anymore but would get more options to retaliate or at least make more effort for the pirate. The pirate would need to go through more steps to get his cargo but if the cargo is cleaned he would get the full credit, not just the black-market value.What do you guys think?
