Some of you people are way too defensive of any Criticism of the game...
The OP is saying that the punishment for failing at smuggling is WAYYYYYY too harsh.
In a sense, that is what he's saying, but
he's claiming that it's a bug when it isn't. I take issue with that. People calling things whatever they want simply due to how they perceive them, instead of checking facts to make sure it really is that way, is something I have a problem with (look around the forums at people misusing the word "troll"). Calling this a bug because the mechanics are obfuscated and unbalanced isn't right. I'm not reacting to him criticizing the game, I do that too. I'm reacting to him making a clearly premature conclusion because something he doesn't like is happening.
He isn't saying there should be no punishment, but as it stands right now, it makes smuggleing not viable at all
And that statement is just flatly incorrect. Smuggling is very easily viable. I've made over half a million doing it thus far, according to my stats, and all of that was done in an eagle or a viper. This goes back to calling one thing
something it's not because someone doesn't check to see if that's really the case.