I dunno how many threads there have been here on this subject. nor do I care. I've participated in several on the discussion thread and i wanted to formalize my ideas.
Disclaimer #1: this is likely to be longwinded and potentially structured in a way not conducive to understanding by logical thinking individuals (which i tend not to be)
i will attempt to make it as amusing and eloquent as possible so that i don't waste the time of anybody who manages to muscle through it.
Disclaimer #2: I am not a designer. I am, however, an environment artist working in a studio where artists and designers tend to work very closely together...so i like to think i have at least SOME understanding of the design process and limitations.
this statement, however, is akin to saying "I've sat on a bench drinking beer while watching a mechanic fix my car and therefore i should be able to build a rocket capable of launching 10,000 tons of Lucan Onionhead to the moon."
Disclaimer #3: i haven't played the beta and don't know what changes if any are being made to any of this.
Disclaimer #4: if you say Disclaimer 3 or 4 times it starts sounding like a made up word.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
A SHORT STORY
-------------------------------------------
Let me tell you the story of CMDR Ulfric Stevebob. (any similarities to a real commander of a similar name is entirely coincidental and i apologize in advance. but only a little, because, come on...ulfric stevebob should be pretty safe)
Mr. Stevebob comes to E: D from a long career of playing TrekWars Online*. He's looking forward to a more sim-like experience and has high hopes of fulfilling his dreams of being a dashing space-rogue. He sits at his desk dressed in his combination Han Solo/Malcolm Reynolds Cosplay, stroking his cat Chewbacca-san contemplating an exciting career of dodging authorities and making a tidy profit supplying those under the boot of the man with the things they want and need.
(amounts paid or earned will all be off the cuff aproximations on account of maths being jerks)
Ulfic Stevebob flies a sidewinder. He can hold 4 tons of cargo. He finds an anarchy system in Federation space. This station has a HIGH supply of personal weapons He buys 4 tons of narcotics for 1000cr each - 600cr below the galactic avg of 1600.
4000cr spent.
He flies to a fed system and docks at an outpost to avoid being scanned by those pesky feds.
it doesn't have a black market.
flies to the outpost down the street.
also no black market.
flies to a THIRD outpost. still not having been harassed or scanned by any authority vessels.
black market acquired.
he sells his 4 tons of Smuggled goods to a shift character with TWO eyepatches lurking in the corner of the station cantina. he is offered the non-negotiable rate of 800cr per ton.
Needless to say Ulfric refuses the offer, shoots the blind man in the kneecap and moves on to another fed station. He finds another outpost and another black market and another double eyepatched man who "would like to purchase illegal goods" from him.
For the exact same price.
outpost after outpost he checks with the same blind idiots paying the same prices.
finally he sells if only to move on with his life. he makes 3200cr for his 4 tons of personal weapons.
3200-4000=FML
Ulfric throws his cat across the room, sheds his Mal-Solo outfit and dons his William Riker beard. He joins the Federation and enjoys a successful career being a lacky for the man.
----------------------------------------------------------
OK. Short story over.
At the moment there is not only no way to make a decent profit smuggling legitimately purchased goods into a system where they're contraband, but you will actually LOSE money. every time.
and that's WITHOUT ever getting fined.
What this does, in my mind, is effectively make the "CONTRABAND" tag completely pointless. The only actual purpose it serves is to discourage certain items from entering the system. it adds RISK to those items WITHOUT ANY REWARD.
the only way to make money smuggling currently is to scour the bulletin boards for the occasional smuggling mission or scour USS's for "stolen" goods that you can sell with no overhead cost. (the former usually requiring the latter to complete the objective)
SO. this is the problem as I've identified it. The games current mechanics are actively preventing smuggling. Sure. you could do it anyway. if the fun of speed docking is worth bleeding credits at an alarming rate.
In the end I feel very strongly that both the risk and reward of smuggling aren't sufficient. Getting fined tends to not hurt enough when you can just sell your contraband anyway and take a significantly reduced loss from it (assuming you found it floating around and didn't pay for it) and selling contraband you PAID for will pretty much ALWAYS go at a loss.
i will be discussing CONTRABAND items - not stolen ones. I feel the mechanics work more or less OK for stolen items at the moment.
------------------------------
ON TO SOLUTIONS!
----------------------------------
I will ATTEMPT to list my ideas for improvement in the order of easiest to hardest to likely impliment. I will likely fail.
-REWARDS-
Stop paying 1/2 galactic avg for contraband.
--items not allowed on a station should sell at a premium (well over galactic avg)
---if personal weapons avg is 1600 they should sell as contraband for something more like 2-3k.
Make the black market function more like the commodities market
--Ideally there would bestations on which narcotics or slaves are more in demand than others - but all contraband items should sell at fairly inflated prices
---this could be separated from the fence you sell stolen goods to in the contacts menu. or not.
-RISKS-
fine the CRAP out of them.
--the fines obviously need to be higher than the potential profit - you do NOT want to get caught. getting scanned with 1 ton of personal weapons (avg 1600) should get you find something like 3500cr (assuming you could sell them for ~3k)
don't let them keep their contraband
--the feds should require you to dump your cargo if you get scanned
---leaving the encounter (if you get interdicted) or entering a station with DETECTED CONTRABAND CARGO should result in an immediate bounty and lethal response. You don't speed dock fast enough and get scanned right before you get in the gate? that station is gonna blow you the heck up.
Secure those outposts!
--there should basically ALWAYS be at least one authority vessel hanging around even the outposts.
---He doesn't always have to be actively guarding it...maybe docked, maybe having coffee 10-15km away, but he could at least pop in from time to time just to make sure nobody's stabbed themselves with scissors lately.
--(the obvious exception would be an anarchy station in an otherwise lawfully controlled system)
-BALANCE-
If the rewards from smuggling are VERY high and the risk is VERY high, then there have to be ways a clever smuggler can stay in the black, while a sloppy one dives straight to the red.
Scan-proof cargo holds
--these would basically be normal cargo holds, but won't reveal their contents to a cargo scan
---the tradeoffs could be: they suck up power, they malfunction easier, they increase chance of being interdicted by authorities, or they hold less tonnage (or any combination of these)
----maybe they could have actual ratings - so that a smuggler hold of, say, C3 will resist the scans of cargo scanners C-E but will be revealed by cargo scanners B or A.
use of Silent Running
--i'd like to see silent running disrupt scans in progress (i'm not sure if that happens currently or not - but my experience says that it doesn't)
---i think that chaff currently accomplishes this, so....meh. at the very least it would be nice if it could disrupt CARGO/KW scans.
sneaky undercover feds (this one's my favorite)
--so the current dialogue for the black market says "i would like to sell illegal goods". if anybody were to actually say that to a fence they'd probably get shot.
---It'd be nice if maybe a black market said something more...seedy. "i'd like to talk to a man about a horse" would suffice. whatever.
the POINT being: if a market ever said "we'd like to buy your stolen and/or contraband items from your person, please sir" that would could be an undercover officer highly conscious of rules and procedure -
and responding "well that's convenient, sir, as I am currently in possession of goods both illegal and dangerous that i would like to exchange to you for credits" would cause you to have your cargo CONFISCATED and a fine applied.
plus they'd TOTALLY call your parents and tell them what you've been doing with that college education they paid for.
Bribes!
--there should be an opportunity when scanned or otherwise apprehended, to offer a significant sum of credits or cargo to the party what apprehended you - to entice them to forget this whole thing ever happened.
---don't get me wrong: it should still hurt - but when you're looking at a 35k fine AND losing 20k worth of cargo OR being shot out of the sky...well paying that nice man in blue 40K to forget how to cop for a few minutes might seem a pretty good deal.
More obvious black market locations
--please don't make us dock to find out if there's a black market. please. especially if you make it more dangerous to smuggle.
--a simple visual tell outside the station or outpost would suffice. grafiti. a pirate beacon off in the distance. a certain configuration of freaking lights. a back door. something.
---if you don't want to make it part of the challenge just include it in the services list in the system map
---ideally you could do something with the contact dialogue before you request docking permission
-------------------
CONCLUSION (finally)
------------------------
Ultimately I'd like to see a skillful smuggler hauling 30t be able keep financially toe to toe with a legitimate traider hauling 40-50t at a time. assuming he never gets caught.
I'd also like to see clumsy smugglers very rapidly become bounty hunter fodder and go back to trading rares where this kind of thing just doesn't happen.
if you made it this far: congratulations. you're bored.
Disclaimer #1: this is likely to be longwinded and potentially structured in a way not conducive to understanding by logical thinking individuals (which i tend not to be)
i will attempt to make it as amusing and eloquent as possible so that i don't waste the time of anybody who manages to muscle through it.
Disclaimer #2: I am not a designer. I am, however, an environment artist working in a studio where artists and designers tend to work very closely together...so i like to think i have at least SOME understanding of the design process and limitations.
this statement, however, is akin to saying "I've sat on a bench drinking beer while watching a mechanic fix my car and therefore i should be able to build a rocket capable of launching 10,000 tons of Lucan Onionhead to the moon."
Disclaimer #3: i haven't played the beta and don't know what changes if any are being made to any of this.
Disclaimer #4: if you say Disclaimer 3 or 4 times it starts sounding like a made up word.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
A SHORT STORY
-------------------------------------------
Let me tell you the story of CMDR Ulfric Stevebob. (any similarities to a real commander of a similar name is entirely coincidental and i apologize in advance. but only a little, because, come on...ulfric stevebob should be pretty safe)
Mr. Stevebob comes to E: D from a long career of playing TrekWars Online*. He's looking forward to a more sim-like experience and has high hopes of fulfilling his dreams of being a dashing space-rogue. He sits at his desk dressed in his combination Han Solo/Malcolm Reynolds Cosplay, stroking his cat Chewbacca-san contemplating an exciting career of dodging authorities and making a tidy profit supplying those under the boot of the man with the things they want and need.
(amounts paid or earned will all be off the cuff aproximations on account of maths being jerks)
Ulfic Stevebob flies a sidewinder. He can hold 4 tons of cargo. He finds an anarchy system in Federation space. This station has a HIGH supply of personal weapons He buys 4 tons of narcotics for 1000cr each - 600cr below the galactic avg of 1600.
4000cr spent.
He flies to a fed system and docks at an outpost to avoid being scanned by those pesky feds.
it doesn't have a black market.
flies to the outpost down the street.
also no black market.
flies to a THIRD outpost. still not having been harassed or scanned by any authority vessels.
black market acquired.
he sells his 4 tons of Smuggled goods to a shift character with TWO eyepatches lurking in the corner of the station cantina. he is offered the non-negotiable rate of 800cr per ton.
Needless to say Ulfric refuses the offer, shoots the blind man in the kneecap and moves on to another fed station. He finds another outpost and another black market and another double eyepatched man who "would like to purchase illegal goods" from him.
For the exact same price.
outpost after outpost he checks with the same blind idiots paying the same prices.
finally he sells if only to move on with his life. he makes 3200cr for his 4 tons of personal weapons.
3200-4000=FML
Ulfric throws his cat across the room, sheds his Mal-Solo outfit and dons his William Riker beard. He joins the Federation and enjoys a successful career being a lacky for the man.
----------------------------------------------------------
OK. Short story over.
At the moment there is not only no way to make a decent profit smuggling legitimately purchased goods into a system where they're contraband, but you will actually LOSE money. every time.
and that's WITHOUT ever getting fined.
What this does, in my mind, is effectively make the "CONTRABAND" tag completely pointless. The only actual purpose it serves is to discourage certain items from entering the system. it adds RISK to those items WITHOUT ANY REWARD.
the only way to make money smuggling currently is to scour the bulletin boards for the occasional smuggling mission or scour USS's for "stolen" goods that you can sell with no overhead cost. (the former usually requiring the latter to complete the objective)
SO. this is the problem as I've identified it. The games current mechanics are actively preventing smuggling. Sure. you could do it anyway. if the fun of speed docking is worth bleeding credits at an alarming rate.
In the end I feel very strongly that both the risk and reward of smuggling aren't sufficient. Getting fined tends to not hurt enough when you can just sell your contraband anyway and take a significantly reduced loss from it (assuming you found it floating around and didn't pay for it) and selling contraband you PAID for will pretty much ALWAYS go at a loss.
i will be discussing CONTRABAND items - not stolen ones. I feel the mechanics work more or less OK for stolen items at the moment.
------------------------------
ON TO SOLUTIONS!
----------------------------------
I will ATTEMPT to list my ideas for improvement in the order of easiest to hardest to likely impliment. I will likely fail.
-REWARDS-
Stop paying 1/2 galactic avg for contraband.
--items not allowed on a station should sell at a premium (well over galactic avg)
---if personal weapons avg is 1600 they should sell as contraband for something more like 2-3k.
Make the black market function more like the commodities market
--Ideally there would bestations on which narcotics or slaves are more in demand than others - but all contraband items should sell at fairly inflated prices
---this could be separated from the fence you sell stolen goods to in the contacts menu. or not.
-RISKS-
fine the CRAP out of them.
--the fines obviously need to be higher than the potential profit - you do NOT want to get caught. getting scanned with 1 ton of personal weapons (avg 1600) should get you find something like 3500cr (assuming you could sell them for ~3k)
don't let them keep their contraband
--the feds should require you to dump your cargo if you get scanned
---leaving the encounter (if you get interdicted) or entering a station with DETECTED CONTRABAND CARGO should result in an immediate bounty and lethal response. You don't speed dock fast enough and get scanned right before you get in the gate? that station is gonna blow you the heck up.
Secure those outposts!
--there should basically ALWAYS be at least one authority vessel hanging around even the outposts.
---He doesn't always have to be actively guarding it...maybe docked, maybe having coffee 10-15km away, but he could at least pop in from time to time just to make sure nobody's stabbed themselves with scissors lately.
--(the obvious exception would be an anarchy station in an otherwise lawfully controlled system)
-BALANCE-
If the rewards from smuggling are VERY high and the risk is VERY high, then there have to be ways a clever smuggler can stay in the black, while a sloppy one dives straight to the red.
Scan-proof cargo holds
--these would basically be normal cargo holds, but won't reveal their contents to a cargo scan
---the tradeoffs could be: they suck up power, they malfunction easier, they increase chance of being interdicted by authorities, or they hold less tonnage (or any combination of these)
----maybe they could have actual ratings - so that a smuggler hold of, say, C3 will resist the scans of cargo scanners C-E but will be revealed by cargo scanners B or A.
use of Silent Running
--i'd like to see silent running disrupt scans in progress (i'm not sure if that happens currently or not - but my experience says that it doesn't)
---i think that chaff currently accomplishes this, so....meh. at the very least it would be nice if it could disrupt CARGO/KW scans.
sneaky undercover feds (this one's my favorite)
--so the current dialogue for the black market says "i would like to sell illegal goods". if anybody were to actually say that to a fence they'd probably get shot.
---It'd be nice if maybe a black market said something more...seedy. "i'd like to talk to a man about a horse" would suffice. whatever.
the POINT being: if a market ever said "we'd like to buy your stolen and/or contraband items from your person, please sir" that would could be an undercover officer highly conscious of rules and procedure -
and responding "well that's convenient, sir, as I am currently in possession of goods both illegal and dangerous that i would like to exchange to you for credits" would cause you to have your cargo CONFISCATED and a fine applied.
plus they'd TOTALLY call your parents and tell them what you've been doing with that college education they paid for.
Bribes!
--there should be an opportunity when scanned or otherwise apprehended, to offer a significant sum of credits or cargo to the party what apprehended you - to entice them to forget this whole thing ever happened.
---don't get me wrong: it should still hurt - but when you're looking at a 35k fine AND losing 20k worth of cargo OR being shot out of the sky...well paying that nice man in blue 40K to forget how to cop for a few minutes might seem a pretty good deal.
More obvious black market locations
--please don't make us dock to find out if there's a black market. please. especially if you make it more dangerous to smuggle.
--a simple visual tell outside the station or outpost would suffice. grafiti. a pirate beacon off in the distance. a certain configuration of freaking lights. a back door. something.
---if you don't want to make it part of the challenge just include it in the services list in the system map
---ideally you could do something with the contact dialogue before you request docking permission
-------------------
CONCLUSION (finally)
------------------------
Ultimately I'd like to see a skillful smuggler hauling 30t be able keep financially toe to toe with a legitimate traider hauling 40-50t at a time. assuming he never gets caught.
I'd also like to see clumsy smugglers very rapidly become bounty hunter fodder and go back to trading rares where this kind of thing just doesn't happen.
if you made it this far: congratulations. you're bored.
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