The Smuggling discussion thread

[Greeba]

Last night I filled 70T of illicit cargo, and flew the initial 300LY run of pant-filling terror. Interdictions by pirates and cops, trying to balance the time it took to fuel scoop with the chance of getting caught, run ins with Federal Assault Ships and Pythons, silent running in to Coriolis stations or just plain sailing to to smaller outposts.

Yes, I mode switched. I also had a genuine moral discussion with my girlfriend which resulted in me ditching the Slave cargoes before I set off. That's interesting game depth right there. I still made 39M in a few hours' play (I only completed about 2/3 of the missions and I only started about 2/3 full, and the slave missions are more lucrative so the stories of 80-100M per round trip are realistic) and I agree there may need to be some checks and balances here. But it's possibly the most fun I've had doing bulletin board missions. So I'm not sure it's a complete mistake.

I've also done CGs, trading and even recently a fair stab at mining (I feel the game owes me some cash after that, as mining just doesn't pay well enough for the time). So I'm not a one-stop 'sploit kind of player, I'm putting in the hours. I am Combat Dangerous after ~40M of combat bonds in my Vulture (mostly on the recent Emperor's Dawn CGs) and last night's antics walked my half way through progressing from my 'Broker' rank. Exploration I'm a nobody, not really tried that yet.

I also got my Elite rating on the Amstrad CPC version in the '80s, and again on the PC version, so I know the game of old like many of you, and I'm not sure a big Smuggling bonanza feels out of character with the game at all.

And why shouldn't most traffic in Sothis be Asps? It's bloody far out and Asps have the best range, that's the point, shurely?

 

[L'Espion]

I think smugling is fine, but there are a few things that could be changed slightly...

- The fine/punishment is way to low when you get disvovered, I could see a system where you, if interdicted and scanned, are required to hand over/eject your cargo.... Or you'll get a bounty on your head in the system where they caught you.

- The same when you're on appoach to a station, if scanned and caught, the collector of the goods dissapear from the bulletinboard and replaced with a "hand over to authorities"-option instead. If not, bounty on your head until you've done so.

- On top of the two previous, you'll still get a fine/standing hit if you comply (you dirty smuggler).

- You could add a "Inform authorities"-option on the bulletinboard on arrival when you've been caught on approach to a station... That'll keep you from getting fined/standing hit, but you won't get the credits from the sale. (There may be some implications with regards to smuggler missions in the future though, if the buyer finds out you were the reason local police just threw him through the airlock)

 

[louks]

This is why Elite: Dangerous should have been a standalone single player game like previous elite games - no one ever cried NERF! at a single player game.

I don't disagree, as I really wanted an off-line, single-player "galaxy in my pocket"; however I go in to this with the attitude that it IS effectively a single player game, even in Open, and how others get to an Anaconda (or whatever is considered success) is irrelevant, as I'm not directly competing against anyone. I think if they ever offer an EVE-style capacity of ownership or economic/political power, then I would agree that eliminating "degenerate strategies" becomes important.

I am confident FD has enough on their plate for addons that they have no need to drift from the ideals that Elite is an adventure game and not a 4X simulator (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate).

 

[Marra Morgan]

I think smugling is fine, but there are a few things that could be changed slightly...

- The fine/punishment is way to low when you get disvovered, I could see a system where you, if interdicted and scanned, are required to hand over/eject your cargo.... Or you'll get a bounty on your head in the system where they caught you.

- The same when you're on appoach to a station, if scanned and caught, the collector of the goods dissapear from the bulletinboard and replaced with a "hand over to authorities"-option instead. If not, bounty on your head until you've done so.

- On top of the two previous, you'll still get a fine/standing hit if you comply (you dirty smuggler).

- You could add a "Inform authorities"-option on the bulletinboard on arrival when you've been caught on approach to a station... That'll keep you from getting fined/standing hit, but you won't get the credits from the sale. (There may be some implications with regards to smuggler missions in the future though, if the buyer finds out you were the reason local police just threw him through the airlock)

None of those things would make any difference to me, because I don't get caught! (and that's the problem!)

 

[L'Espion]

None of those things would make any difference to me, because I don't get caught! (and that's the problem!)

How is it a problem?

 

[andrak]

To those that say the "exploit" here is re-logging to manually refresh the bulletin board you must assume that the current system in game is satisfactory, which it isn't. Not by a long shot.

Apparently there are billions of people in some of these solar systems, yet the list of things they want done amounts to 4 or 5 things that are nothing more than the equivalent of some post it notes on a fridge. The to do list on my fridge is longer than the mission system in this game today.

We shouldn't have to relog. The mission system should be vast, with so many choices we could fill our cargo hold 10 times over.

Until the day that we do get an acceptable mission system and not the place holder system we have today we unfortunately have to play stupid games with it by logging in and out to refresh.

The problem is not that we are re-logging, it's that we have to do it at all.

 

[Mississippi Jones]

Did the MOD have MERGERENE with his toast for breakfast this morning?

 

[Tarman]

To those that say the "exploit" here is re-logging to manually refresh the bulletin board you must assume that the current system in game is satisfactory, which it isn't. Not by a long shot.

Apparently there are billions of people in some of these solar systems, yet the list of things they want done amounts to 4 or 5 things that are nothing more than the equivalent of some post it notes on a fridge. The to do list on my fridge is longer than the mission system in this game today.

We shouldn't have to relog. The mission system should be vast, with so many choices we could fill our cargo hold 10 times over.

Until the day that we do get an acceptable mission system and not the place holder system we have today we unfortunately have to play stupid games with it by logging in and out to refresh.

The problem is not that we are re-logging, it's that we have to do it at all.

"Officer, I only looted this store because my regular television supplier was closed on the weekend and somebody else already kicked the windows in. I'm not actually a thief."

I don't care that people are hammering Sothis right now, but it's certainly not because they want a better mission setup. It's to take advantage of a cashbleeding loophole before FD may decide to bandage it up.

 

[andrak]

"Officer, I only looted this store because my regular television supplier was closed on the weekend and somebody else already kicked the windows in. I'm not actually a thief."

I don't care that people are hammering Sothis right now, but it's certainly not because they want a better mission setup. It's to take advantage of a cashbleeding loophole before FD may decide to bandage it up.

Exaggerate much?

Compared to trading the profits aren't that far away when you factor the time that it takes to get out to Sothis and back plus delivery, plus re-logging isn't exactly a guarantee of anything. You can be sitting in a station for hours waiting on decent missions.

Factor in that the whole galaxy wants a piece of you and is hunting you down, feds and pirates alike and that you can be scanned and fined plus lose reputation.

The risk = the reward.

Wanting a better mission set up has nothing to do with it. We unfortunately have to make the best of the one we've got, which is a bad joke.

 

[Tarman]

Exaggerate much?

Compared to trading the profits aren't that far away when you factor the time that it takes to get out to Sothis and back plus delivery, plus re-logging isn't exactly a guarantee of anything. You can be sitting in a station for hours waiting on decent missions.

Factor in that the whole galaxy wants a piece of you and is hunting you down, feds and pirates alike and that you can be scanned and fined plus lose reputation.

The risk = the reward.

I don't have any issues with smuggling itself, it's the coolest fun in the game so far. Don't even care if everyone Asping Sothis ends up with a Conda for every day of the week.

But to me, jumping out of the entire game to get it to re-roll a table has always been pretty cheapo. In any game ever; it's far too meta. I don't even like it when it happens to me by accident even if it works out in my favour. I'm certainly not going to go actively do it. That's not really playing the game, that's gaming the programming. I'd rather play the game from inside the game.

 

[andrak]

I don't have any issues with smuggling itself, it's the coolest fun in the game so far. Don't even care if everyone Asping Sothis ends up with a Conda for every day of the week.

But to me, jumping out of the entire game to get it to re-roll a table has always been pretty cheapo. In any game ever; it's far too meta. I don't even like it when it happens to me by accident even if it works out in my favour. I'm certainly not going to go actively do it. That's not really playing the game, that's gaming the programming. I'd rather play the game from inside the game.

I agree with you. I'd rather play the game from the inside as well and I'd love to be able to do that but unfortunately the current implementation of the mission system won't allow it.

What if FD put in a refresh button next to the bulletin board in game? Think of it like turning the pages of a newspaper and seeing more job applications. That would be an acceptable compromise until we actually get a realistic mission system.

 

[Tarman]

I agree with you. I'd rather play the game from the inside as well and I'd love to be able to do that but unfortunately the current implementation of the mission system won't allow it.

What if FD put in a refresh button next to the bulletin board in game? Think of it like turning the pages of a newspaper and seeing more job applications. That would be an acceptable compromise until we actually get a realistic mission system.

Moar missions, yes. There can't be a thing as too many missions to choose from. But I'm satisfied with the current iteration over previous. When did you start playing? Because the mission system we started with wasn't even good enough to be pants. Underpants maybe. The kind you find in the park and chase people around with on the end of a stick, if you're so inclined.

It's much improved from its infancy, and if you take a long-view of its development it looks like it's finally headed in the right direction. Everybody's finally got at least a few neat things on the boards for them to do, from miners to murderers. Sometimes us players, even me, get down too far into the details and forget there's a much longer development going on.

 

[louks]

It's interesting you feel that way. I think the opposite would have been better. Going full community centric instead, having a more balanced law, security and repercussion system to enable equal opportunity in a single shared universe instead of optional shards, with a lack of true, fully committed "we're doing it this way" community forming structures.
(...)
This means that FD then had a pledge of responsibility to a group of people chasing a nostalgia from an era MMOs weren't remotely in the public lexicon, and whom had major sway in the core design development of the game; while, FD, being a company in the modern gaming era, and having decided to make a game around the scale of the milky way (and basic nature of a game's structure like Elite), were in a position that strongly urged them to go down the MMO route, a sensible business decision in terms of potential long term revenue.

So they found themselves in a very tricky situation, with two completely separate islands. One of a formal contract of a pledge of responsibility to the DDS kickstarter funders, acting not to differently as investors, and whom essentially, on the whole, desire a single player experience; and to a larger, contemporary online PC gaming demographic, which will in the long run provide them the majority of their revenue.
(...)
Anyway, my observations aside, Going full community should have been the choice. It's the sensible thing to support the larger long term demographic and so keep revenue healthy. Even more, having done so would have (already) had plenty-fold positive effects on the social psychology of the in game culture. People would be focused on constructive, emergent points of tension, rather than this meta-game "finger pointing - They're having more fun than I am" crap that happens here on a daily basis in stead. This happens as a result of people filling the vacuum in place of what should be "in-world" politics and tension, that naturally evolves in an MMO with appropriate means of social construct. Something Elite Dangerous has been deliberately kept from supporting.

I really like this; could you elaborate a bit with examples? I don't play MMOs, and I'll admit I am an "old timer Kickstarter" backer, but my primary concern in your scenario is with games like EVE Online where a few players have the power to effectively control the gameplay of many others. I mentioned it above as a "4X" game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) like Civilization, where if done in an on-line, persistent situation creates degenerate game mechanics of spending more and more real-world resources (money, time) to even exist in the game.

I'm open-minded to your concepts, but I'm not clear on how they might be implemented. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what type of scenarios you'd create. Would you allow players to become security personnel/enforcers, or expand it to being lawmakers? There's a fine line between "appropriate means of social construct" and "plutocracy".

 

[diddycarter]

That traffic report though

 

[TMB1979]

Chuckle! 1546 Asps.

 

[kepler84]

Please, don't take this as an offense, but could we stop trying to make this game a copy of Eve Online?

Yeah, both games are based in the space, but there is where all the similarities end.

Elite is a game about pilots, eve is a game about captains.

Elite is about traders, Eve is about bunissesmen.

Elite is about pirates, Eve is about organized crime.

And this hasn't been done just because a bunch of backers asked for it, is at the very core of de game infrastructure. You can't have a whole army of ships battling eachother because the matchmaking system is uncapable to manage that.

And want to know something? Thats good. Because variety is good for the genre.

 

[Slack]

So, instead of proposing changes to improve a somewhat defective gameplay, you propose to just break it. Okay...

Btw, smuggling to an outpost with security is probably the hardest smuggling thing to do. I wish there were more of those...

Lets be honest, smuggling IS easy, unless youre very, very new. If you want to know what FD thinks tho, i might have the answer... I had a post with many participants called "Do smuggling missions need a nerf"? You might remember it. Last night FD deleted my post, so I think the answer is NO!! XD

On a positive note. I sent a ticket asking if re-logging in and out of the main menu to refresh premium missions was intended by FD. They said they "are aware of this happening and its under investigation". It would be nice to have this fixed as I think its unbalancing the game. If on the other hand it is intended, then i have to say its a bit of a ghetto set up, and in that case they should add a "refresh missions" button in the Bulletin board.

Must say its nice to get a reply from them, which shows that they listen to the community, even idiots like me.

 

[S~P]

None of those things would make any difference to me, because I don't get caught! (and that's the problem!)

This, if you get caught you are doing something wrong.

 

[Mississippi Jones]

I had a post with many participants called "Do smuggling missions need a nerf"? You might remember it. Last night FD deleted my post, so I think the answer is NO

No this is it, slack. It's been merged. Not too happy myself, as I thought the different threads about it were going in different directions. That, and it's utterly confusing now

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

Lets be honest, smuggling IS easy, unless youre very, very new. If you want to know what FD thinks tho, i might have the answer... I had a post with many participants called "Do smuggling missions need a nerf"? You might remember it. Last night FD deleted my post, so I think the answer is NO!! XD

On a positive note. I sent a ticket asking if re-logging in and out of the main menu to refresh premium missions was intended by FD. They said they "are aware of this happening and its under investigation". It would be nice to have this fixed as I think its unbalancing the game. If on the other hand it is intended, then i have to say its a bit of a ghetto set up, and in that case they should add a "refresh missions" button in the Bulletin board.

Must say its nice to get a reply from them, which shows that they listen to the community, even idiots like me.

I think we shouldn't pay too much attention to the replies we get after submitting tickets. I'm guessing they're using some kind of macro to reply because their reply is always "we are aware of this and we are currently investigating", or something similar. Not sure how serious their investigation is, though...