Independent Leesti Adapts

[Agarthan]

Yes. The only trouble is the piracy missions are currently badly designed place holders.

They are little more than shopping lists for specific items. Not only are they incredibly difficult to fill (how long would it take to find the specific commodities from piracy?) but if they were changed to give big pay then you'd have wings buying them legally then jettisoning them for mates to trade in for big profits.

Piracy missions need to be target based. Just like assassination missions. The mission should give you a target trader to find, engage and steal its cargo. The value and difficulty should increase as you gain reputation.

The same should happen with smuggling. Keep the current wish list missions (we need you to source this illegal cargo to this station) but add in missions where you're given illegal cargo to take to a destination where it's prohibited.

I still think anarchist should be a career choice too. To qualify you need a high enough bounty on your head. Then if you kill a clean target belonging to any faction that opposes a piracy faction, you get anarchy "points" (call them whatever makes sense). These can be handed into the piracy faction for credits.

It would be the exact opposite of bounty hunting. And should pay more, due to the risk of being a wanted criminal.

Make it so the rewards scale just like bounties do. And make it pay more for taking out authorities. Particularly anaconda and pythons etc.

All those missions are considered piracy if the group providing the missions are a pirate faction I thought?

 

[Apos]

Smart anarchists are alliance anarchists.

Look at the silver gang. They even expanded.

 

[Ydiss]

All those missions are considered piracy if the group providing the missions are a pirate faction I thought?

I think so, yes.

I'm just saying the majority of illegal missions (those that are only ever illegal) aren't taking anyway.

The few that are could be boosted in profit, as you suggest. But it would take a lot more than that to encourage someone to do it as a way of making serious money because missions are generally rubbish and unreliable as a good way to make money.

1.3 will hopefully change that.

 

[Poseidal]

In theory, legal activities would be regulated and taxed. The advantage of the illegal ones would be higher payouts to avoid the 'tax'. Black markets should pay a premium for goods illegal in the jurisdiction, like where Tobacco is banned. This would immediately make for a 'smuggler' who buys a load of tobacco and takes it to a place for the standard +x for a high demand good, x1.25 to x1.75 (perhaps even higher), for massive profit margins with big risk (of fines).

Hopefully with missions, there will be normal bounties, but a shady faction will pay a lot for you to cause some havoc that will pay better than bounties do.

 

[yyy]

I don't think any of us would be alive long enough to see all anarchy systems in civilised space flipped. But certainly the popular regions.

As I said above, right now being a passive bounty hunter is more lucrative than being an active anarchist. The level of effort required to increase a criminal organisation's influence is the same as the opposite but there are only two ways to work at it:

Missions and trading.

Trading doesn't really pay that well unless the planets align. And missions definitely don't pay well at all, under any circumstances. Furthermore, the missions that technically oppose bounty hunting, the murder kill missions, definitely don't pay nearly enough and aren't passive (you have to be lucky to even see them on the board, but you can bounty hunt indefinitely in one spot).

And that's the issue. We have bounty hunting, an easy way to make a living with ample opportunities to get paid. But nothing to counter it.

I've maintained this for months... Murder and chaotic destruction needs to have a pay cheque. The criminal, anarchic organisations should pay for killing clean targets. Smuggling from their stations to clean stations should pay well. Piracy needs to have a much better structure so you can become part of a local crime organisation and make very good money once they like you enough.

It should culminate in big heists (steal the cargo from a very well protected convoy in lawful space), very lucrative smuggling jobs and assassination missions directly targeting the lawful dignitaries.

Hopefully, the new mission revamp will allow this sort of thing to happen. But the baseline should be the opposite of bounty hunting. Start killing clean targets. Once your bounty is high enough you start getting anarchy credit. You can hand them in to criminal organisations, just like bounties.

But you only gain them if you are wanted above a certain level (say 100k cr).

There is currently a big imbalance in credits depending on your chosen occupation. It makes sense to have similar credit earning potential regardless of occupation.

 

[Agarthan]

I think so, yes.

I'm just saying the majority of illegal missions (those that are only ever illegal) aren't taking anyway.

The few that are could be boosted in profit, as you suggest. But it would take a lot more than that to encourage someone to do it as a way of making serious money because missions are generally rubbish and unreliable as a good way to make money.

1.3 will hopefully change that.

I agree they are a horrible way to make money they are only a way to influence factions and reputation currently, I figured that out pretty quickly. I don't know everything they have planned in 1.3, but if it doesn't resolve this may be this idea will.