"Stolen" Cargo

[Scoob]

So, in my very first play EVER in the new beta (1.02) I was just leaving the starting station - after docking and undocking just fine - when I saw two (at least) Vipers taking out another ship. Spewing from the wreck were canisters containing "Battle Weapons" (or something like that) and some form of Meat. So, I decided to figure out how to scoop them up (first time Piloting anything in ED of course!) I managed this, after bumping just one accidentally and destroying it lol.

So, I land with my very early game haul and cannot sell anything. I discover than all four items - two meat, two Battle whatevers - are classed as "stolen".

Ok, so I didn't buy the wares, I scooped them from space after police ships took out the original owner for whatever offence he'd committed. I would have expected them to become free cargo in such an event.

Say if things had been different and this ship - which one assumed had a bounty on it - was destroyed by ME instead of the police? Would the dropped wares still be flagged as "stolen"?

I guess I could sell my haul is some disreputable systems, but that's not the point. Shouldn't ownership of a cargo be removed if the owner is destroyed via "legal" police action? If a player (or NPC) had attacked a non-bountied ship to STEAL the cargo that's one thing. The the posessions of a dead criminal are...negotiable at least. Possibly some sort of "recovery bonus" for tidying up and delivering the wares to a station...

Anyway, first impressions are good, very polished game already. I sooo need a new joystick though. All I have is an ancient wireless one, which keeps going to sleep at inopportune moments lol.

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[Half Giant]

The way I see it the cargo canisters contain chips that store encrypted data including the valid owner. This owner data changes when the cargo is bought and sold through the legitimate market. This data is matched with the registered owner for that cargo through the galaxy trading database.

If you pick up a cargo canister in ANY way other than the legit market you won't match the registered owner. Even if I drop a cargo pod for you because we are friends. So 'Stolen' means not the registered owner.

You can sell them through the black market seen in the contacts section of some stations.

If a police ship scans you and sees you with cargo that you are not the registered owner of they don't know if you happened upon the stuff or killed the owner yourself. I'm sure we'll see more game play elements around this but it does kind of make sense at the moment.

Edit - if you see an accident site on a motorway and you go through the glove box and put the tires on your back seat the police are going to take a pretty dim view of it regardless of the fact you had nothing to do with the crash.

 

[Svaje]

Hello

If cargo does belong to the original owner. Is there a mechanism to return the cargo to him/her ? And perhaps get a small reward/bounty ?

Thanks for the game !
/Svaje

 

[xyphic]

Ok, so I didn't buy the wares, I scooped them from space after police ships took out the original owner for whatever offence he'd committed. I would have expected them to become free cargo in such an event.

Why? If you saw a police chase in real life where they apprehended the suspect, would you expect to be able to just nip into his car and take his satnav? If anything the cargo should be in possession of the police (or at least under the ownership of the jurisdiction in which the police operate).

So yeah, you're stealing it. The caveat to this being that I think in a system with no overall jurisdictional control (e.g. an anarchy) I don't think it should be an offence to scoop canisters.

Say if things had been different and this ship - which one assumed had a bounty on it - was destroyed by ME instead of the police? Would the dropped wares still be flagged as "stolen"?

That's an interesting one. If the goods he's carrying were already stolen (hence the bounty) then you'd still be carrying stolen goods. If they weren't stolen, I can see your point. Again, probably should boil down to the system you're in.

I guess I could sell my haul is some disreputable systems, but that's not the point. Shouldn't ownership of a cargo be removed if the owner is destroyed via "legal" police action? If a player (or NPC) had attacked a non-bountied ship to STEAL the cargo that's one thing. The the posessions of a dead criminal are...negotiable at least. Possibly some sort of "recovery bonus" for tidying up and delivering the wares to a station...

There have been discussions around salvage rights. It'd be a nice little career to go around tidying up after careless traders, with a %age of the profit going to whoever issued the salvage rights.

 

[pete248]

I agree with the OP on this, I picked up some scrap from an "Unidentified Signal" encounter and promptly got ended at the next station, a bit unfair I think.

Also, in regard to Half Giant's post:

The way I see it the cargo canisters contain chips that store encrypted data including the valid owner. This owner data changes when the cargo is bought and sold through the legitimate market. This data is matched with the registered owner for that cargo through the galaxy trading database.

If you pick up a cargo canister in ANY way other than the legit market you won't match the registered owner. Even if I drop a cargo pod for you because we are friends. So 'Stolen' means not the registered owner.

But the authorities could, when they scan you, see that the cargo you are carrying belonged to someone they dealt with so they don't care? I find it hard to believe they expect all this cargo from ships they blow up just endlessly float about in space. It would be a threat to ships flying through space, including their own.

if you see an accident site on a motorway and you go through the glove box and put the tires on your back seat the police are going to take a pretty dim view of it regardless of the fact you had nothing to do with the crash

That's because the authorities clear up after the accident occurred - which in ED they don't do, they leave the cargo there. If valuable items were left in accidents after the authoritites were finished with it, I bet some people would stop by to have a look. If the authorities in ED did clean up the cargo, then I could see why they would have a problem with you stealing it, but otherwise I think it's unnecessarily harsh to kill you since it's going to be floating about anyway.

 

[Scoob]

Why? If you saw a police chase in real life where they apprehended the suspect, would you expect to be able to just nip into his car and take his satnav? If anything the cargo should be in possession of the police (or at least under the ownership of the jurisdiction in which the police operate)

Don't see many police in the UK chasing down a suspect then, using car-mounted lasers, destroy their vehicle rather than apprehend them. If I DID, I may well have a rummage through the wreckage...

I do like the whole flagged containers thing, that's pretty good. Makes piracy the risky business it should be. However there's THEFT then there's recovery. I'd not be deemed a criminal if I found some goods that'd been dumped in a field for example...if I tried to sell them as mine, maybe, but taking them to a local police station for a finders fees would be acceptable.

Non-paid for goods should have an option to be sold on the black market as now. However an additional "legal" option would be appreciated too. Sure, you'd get no where near full black-market value, but a reward for recovery would help keep space clean...call it an environmental initiative on the part of all good governments

If the goods in question are ILLEGAL in that particular jurisdiction, the police should blow any containers up there and then. However, I'd not expect them to destroy potentially thousands of cr worth of valid goods...seems a waste.

I think additional options here would only enhance game play further. I mean, I initially thought I'd gotten lucky in my first few minutes of playing...I suppose I had, but I needed to find a black market to benefit fully. A quick "hand them in to local authorities, get 20% value" would have been a good early-game bump for my finances.

I like scavenging.

Scoob.

 

[Half Giant]

But the authorities could, when they scan you, see that the cargo you are carrying belonged to someone they dealt with so they don't care? I find it hard to believe they expect all this cargo from ships they blow up just endlessly float about in space. It would be a threat to ships flying through space, including their own.

That's because the authorities clear up after the accident occurred - which in ED they don't do, they leave the cargo there. If valuable items were left in accidents after the authoritites were finished with it, I bet some people would stop by to have a look. If the authorities in ED did clean up the cargo, then I could see why they would have a problem with you stealing it, but otherwise I think it's unnecessarily harsh to kill you since it's going to be floating about anyway.

I'm just chatting, not saying it is perfect as it is. I'm sure we'll see additional aspects to all of this. But I do think the basic concept is - It aint yours, it's stolen. Maybe if a pilot has enough reputation you have access to the means to prove it wasn't stolen. But the fact that the Vipers destroyed the ship makes it a special case. 90% of the time the reason the goods aren't with the owner is unknown and this is all a 2 day old feature.

The police don't need to clean up, I think canisters have a limited lifespan in space.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Don't see many police in the UK chasing down a suspect then, using car-mounted lasers, destroy their vehicle rather than apprehend them. If I DID, I may well have a rummage through the wreckage...

I do like the whole flagged containers thing, that's pretty good. Makes piracy the risky business it should be. However there's THEFT then there's recovery. I'd not be deemed a criminal if I found some goods that'd been dumped in a field for example...if I tried to sell them as mine, maybe, but taking them to a local police station for a finders fees would be acceptable.

Non-paid for goods should have an option to be sold on the black market as now. However an additional "legal" option would be appreciated too. Sure, you'd get no where near full black-market value, but a reward for recovery would help keep space clean...call it an environmental initiative on the part of all good governments

If the goods in question are ILLEGAL in that particular jurisdiction, the police should blow any containers up there and then. However, I'd not expect them to destroy potentially thousands of cr worth of valid goods...seems a waste.

I think additional options here would only enhance game play further. I mean, I initially thought I'd gotten lucky in my first few minutes of playing...I suppose I had, but I needed to find a black market to benefit fully. A quick "hand them in to local authorities, get 20% value" would have been a good early-game bump for my finances.

I like scavenging.

Scoob.

I'm fairly certain that there's a DDA thread on salvage, including that you will be able to get a permit to do salvage.

I'm on break at work, so I don't have time to search for it, though.

 

[Scoob]

I'm fairly certain that there's a DDA thread on salvage, including that you will be able to get a permit to do salvage.

I'm on break at work, so I don't have time to search for it, though.

Thanks for posting, that's quite a nice idea for a working salvage model.

On an unrelated note: I just ordered an X52

Scoob.

 

[Space]

Station smuggling guide:

1 Jettison cargo near station
2 Fly near station security to get scanned
3 Collect cargo
4 Dock
5 Profit

 

[TallTroll]

You need a more "real life" rather than "this is a game" mindset. If you happened to observe police arresting someone in the street, and saw that they dropped their wallet, and you picked it up, it wouldn't be legally yours would it? Even if the owner subsequently died in police custody, you still have no legal claim to the wallet or its' content. The same sort of rules apply in game.

There will be ways to fence stolen cargo, eventually, either by selling it on the black market, or getting the data changed so you can sell it on the open market, but I'd imagine that might cost a bit, so it would only work well for high value cargo

 

[Serpentstar]

Station smuggling guide:

1 Jettison cargo near station

I take it you forgot.... Littering is a crime. Punishable by death! It may be fine, I don't know. I just know that picking up space trash is a capitol offense everywhere (well, maybe not anarchy)...

 

[Space Frehley]

Speaking of going back for cargo... is there a way to bookmark or note an exact location in space? I noticed some scraps after a dogfight and was getting ready to scoop but got interrupted by the police.. after, I went back to try and find the scraps and couldn't. It didn't show on my radar either.:S

 

[Half Giant]

You need a more "real life" rather than "this is a game" mindset. If you happened to observe police arresting someone in the street, and saw that they dropped their wallet, and you picked it up, it wouldn't be legally yours would it? Even if the owner subsequently died in police custody, you still have no legal claim to the wallet or its' content. The same sort of rules apply in game.

There will be ways to fence stolen cargo, eventually, either by selling it on the black market, or getting the data changed so you can sell it on the open market, but I'd imagine that might cost a bit, so it would only work well for high value cargo

Exactly. I think we can get used to games where you just open every crate there is. Then there is a game where an NPC complains about it and you get caught out. FD will of thought about the whole scenario from front to back to make it interesting. At the moment we are only seeing part of the implementation. It's the same with the galaxy map except the bits that it needs - like way points - are more obvious. Just have faith and watch as things develop.

 

[Scoob]

Who should have legal claim of the cargo then? The original seller? If the legal owner is dead, who is the owner as far as the cargo is concerned? The thing is, currently the cargo says "you are not my owner" and it's as simple as that.

I think some form of salvage rights, as previously discussed, are a good way to go. Plus it opens up another career choice for players, which can't be bad. Lingering on the edge of a fight / warzone scooping up dropped wares sounds fun.

Possibly the player needs a licence for each system, maybe they have a contract with a larger, multi-system organisation. Regardless, I think it'll make fun, Legal, addition to going Black Market for the play who wants to role-play that way.

From a more simple game play perspective, I like the idea of the player taking out another player / NPC for their bounty, and the bounties cargo being forfeit to them also....Perks of the job, so to speak After all, if a bounty is paid out in the middle of space light hours from the nearest station, then the same system should allow the authorities to disable cargo ownership. I would say though, if the target was carrying wares marked Illegal in the given system, they bounty claimant would still get in trouble for carrying them...if detected.

Just discussing options and ideas here, feedback is part of the Beta process after all.

Scoob.

 

[Alienfresser]

Guess they still need to implement the "Law of salvage". In the moment, I don't even think of scooping any drifting cargo, because I know I will get blasted as soon as someone is scanning my cargo near a station.

Salvage License would be nice and we really need a tractor beam. Scooping manually is nice in the beginning, but gets quite boring very fast.