The Smuggling discussion thread

Green

G
After spending a day doing this and asking myself if the payout is justified by the relative time investment and difficulty alongside other money-making options in E: D my personal conclusion is that no, it's kind of not.

That isn't to say these long range smuggling missions aren't fun, but I think adjustments are required. Either make improvements to some of the other career paths or tone these missions down. I also share the opinion that being able to refresh the BB manually by mode switching makes it far too easy to stack this missions much too quickly.

My breaking point was passing the amount of funds needed for a Tradeconda, and wondering why I'd want one other than for giggles when the Asp has become more profitable.

It's all just my two-cents, I'm not looking to rain on anybody's good time as I admit I've been having fun too.

Edit: Wonder what the payouts would be for smuggling at the nebula station once it's built? :p
 
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Uncertain

Uncertain
Green said:
My breaking point was passing the amount of funds needed for a Tradeconda, and wondering why I'd want one other than for giggles when the Asp has become more profitable.

Edit: Wonder what the payouts would be for smuggling at the nebula station once it's built? :p
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Heh, the tradeconda being partially obsolete is a good point. I think I'd be more fully comfortable with these rewards if they were focused on more specific or exclusive stations, like a unique nebula station, a high-class shiny white station or an theoretically impregnable political capital. Smuggling would need more development to make it work, but it'd be much cooler than taking missions without having to even think about the details of the place you're tainting with slavery and battle weapons. Following the yellow circle regardless of what it's pointing at feels a bit soulless and clinical.
 
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Starkiller_

Starkiller_
I guess it is hard to comprehend having risk for something that makes them quite a bit of dolla. Considering the fact that it makes quite good cash, adding challenge would just make it to hard to farm, how dare you!
 

lysan

lysan
Mississippi Jones said:
So, what happens when a smuggler gets caught with slaves? Death? That would be STATE SANCTIONED MURDER you are proposing. So thats it? Authority Vessels in ED are judge, jury and executioner? You make Judge Dredd come across like a wishy-washy liberal!

Would hate to see your reaction to parking tickets :p
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Just try to hover over the wrong landing pad or park in the entrance slot on the station, I dare you :D
 

ocflyer

ocflyer
Cmdr Eran Mintor said:
High-wake.
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When I'm in the system to deliver for a mission, using high wake to another system doesn't stop them from chasing me to the next system and back to the delivery system. This isn't random combat in a RES or CZ where it doesn't matter where I end up. To complete the mission, I have to go to a specific station in that system. A high wake merely postpones the battle for seconds, as the pirates follow me to the new system and even pop in the normal space that I dropped to. This typical evasion technique only buys seconds, maybe one minute. So, I'm forced to fight them as fleeing to SC or another system doesn't make them go away and doesn't provide a path to get to the target station. Next time, ask questions to get better informed rather than offer a terse and useless comment.
 

Cmdr Eran Mintor

Cmdr Eran Mintor
A lot of people seem to think "I'm making money and you don't like it!" and it's not true. I love that you're making money. In fact I would like to see smuggling make a lot of money. The fact is there is very little/no risk to counteract this. Time involved really shouldn't be brought into this discussion because that is what you choose. If you want to spend time abusing the BB that's your choice; if you want to run missions as they come and not try to max your cr/hr then that's your choice.

Having NPCs interdict you regularly does slightly increase the risk but in most cases (if you're a high rank that can accept these lucrative missions) you already have the ship or should, hopefully, have the know-how to evade ships even if you've been interdicted. High-wake. Boost. Have good shields. Chaff. Interdictions are not a threat unless you are in an un-shielded T6, and if you're smuggling in an un-shielded T6....well, I don't think we can come to a consensus.

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ocflyer said:
When I'm in the system to deliver for a mission, using high wake to another system doesn't stop them from chasing me to the next system and back to the delivery system. This isn't random combat in a RES or CZ where it doesn't matter where I end up. To complete the mission, I have to go to a specific station in that system. A high wake merely postpones the battle for seconds, as the pirates follow me to the new system and even pop in the normal space that I dropped to. This typical evasion technique only buys seconds, maybe one minute. So, I'm forced to fight them as fleeing to SC or another system doesn't make them go away and doesn't provide a path to get to the target station. Next time, ask questions to get better informed rather than offer a terse and useless comment.
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Oh I'm familiar with the NPCs who hunt you down. It's a great addition. Doesn't mean you have to fight them though. There are other avenues you can pursue to approach the station. Going straight at it is never a good idea. Having good shields is a great idea. An Asp also has great armor. Not sure what the problem is; you don't have to fight if you don't want to.

Edit: Most people in this thread are talking about smuggling in a Cobra. These missions are for small cargo missions. 1-4 tonnes. You can do this in a Cobra or Viper or anything that is a small, fast ship. Why are interdictions a problem? Boost baby boost. You can outrun every ship in the game. If they chase you down then boost some more. Don't let them get directly behind you and they're not going to be able to interdict. As I said, there are other avenues to approach the station. Approach in a parabola like you should in open. It's actually faster due to rates of acceleration and you can avoid interdiction.
 
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Quineloe

Quineloe
It will still die the way of rare trading. FD sees big numbers paid out on turn in, disregards how long it takes to actually do this, and then decides to nerf something that makes 1-2 million an hour while bulk traders generating 600k every 5 minutes is perfectly fine, because it's small numbers. Doesn't matter how this adds up over an hour.
 

ocflyer

ocflyer
Cmdr Eran Mintor said:
A lot of people seem to think "I'm making money and you don't like it!" and it's not true. I love that you're making money. In fact I would like to see smuggling make a lot of money. The fact is there is very little/no risk to counteract this. Time involved really shouldn't be brought into this discussion because that is what you choose. If you want to spend time abusing the BB that's your choice; if you want to run missions as they come and not try to max your cr/hr then that's your choice.

Having NPCs interdict you regularly does slightly increase the risk but in most cases (if you're a high rank that can accept these lucrative missions) you already have the ship or should, hopefully, have the know-how to evade ships even if you've been interdicted. High-wake. Boost. Have good shields. Chaff. Interdictions are not a threat unless you are in an un-shielded T6, and if you're smuggling in an un-shielded T6....well, I don't think we can come to a consensus.

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Oh I'm familiar with the NPCs who hunt you down. It's a great addition. Doesn't mean you have to fight them though. There are other avenues you can pursue to approach the station. Going straight at it is never a good idea. Having good shields is a great idea. An Asp also has great armor. Not sure what the problem is; you don't have to fight if you don't want to.

Edit: Most people in this thread are talking about smuggling in a Cobra. These missions are for small cargo missions. 1-4 tonnes. You can do this in a Cobra or Viper or anything that is a small, fast ship. Why are interdictions a problem? Boost baby boost. You can outrun every ship in the game. If they chase you down then boost some more. Don't let them get directly behind you and they're not going to be able to interdict. As I said, there are other avenues to approach the station. Approach in a parabola like you should in open. It's actually faster due to rates of acceleration and you can avoid interdiction.
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Thanks. That's a much more useful response. I do try the gravity braking but it helps only 50% of the time because sometimes the interdictor camps inside the gravity well just waiting for me. I'm not flying a Cobra so that doesn't help me. It doesn't have sufficient cargo space for my goals. So, I use a shielded Asp with booster and chaff. The "boost" works for lightly configured cobras in normal space but wouldn't stop the chain interdictions that keep pulling you further away from the target station.
 

Starkiller_

Starkiller_
There is other efficient ways for slowing down the ship other than using the gravity well of the planet. Staying on the 'plane' of the system so to say is a sure way to get interdicted by pirates. Also interdiction are more of a annoyance factor, death is only certain if a player that is there to kill you arrives in a superior intercepting ship like the Fer-De-Lance.
What WarWolf stated the blue zone also helps with slowing down.
 
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ocflyer

ocflyer
UnarmedWarWolf said:
Do you know about the blue zone, or placing the intercept time at 6 seconds?
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Yes, I'm an experienced pilot (Deadly, Entrepreneur) so I know all about fast supercruise drops and fast station docking. The simple fact is that slowing down for a supercruise drop reduces your speed making it easy to interdict for those camped out near the drop point.
 

Starkiller_

Starkiller_
ocflyer said:
Yes, I'm an experienced pilot (Deadly, Entrepreneur) so I know all about fast supercruise drops and fast station docking. The simple fact is that slowing down for a supercruise drop reduces your speed making it easy to interdict for those camped out near the drop point.
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Then do as I suggested, do not stay on the 'galactic plane' so to speak and come in at the station from an angle, 'experienced pilots' usually know this.
 

Mississippi Jones

Mississippi Jones
Lysander lysan said:
Just try to hover over the wrong landing pad or park in the entrance slot on the station, I dare you :D
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Yeah, I know the stations' draconian responses well LOL

And, err... flying De-Imperialised Clipper, it's almost impossible NOT to hover over wrong landing pads. Always a blast for station smuggling is the old clipper though hehe! Careful with that forward momentum now...oops! ;)
 
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ocflyer

ocflyer
Starkiller_ said:
Then do as I suggested, do not stay on the 'galactic plane' so to speak and come in at the station from an angle, 'experienced pilots' usually know this.
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I do this regularly by staying off the direct path and fly at an oblique angle or hook the station by overflying and then coming back to keep the interdictor facing me, thus preventing him from interdicting me. This works a lot of the time. However, when you're flying an Asp, the turning radius in SC is much worse than a Cobra or Viper, so the method doesn't always work.
 
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Commander Biscuit

Commander Biscuit
I was smuggling all day yesterday, the day after the lower tier smuggling missions got a payout nerf, and I noticed some additional changes;

1) Interdictions are far less. This is good and bad, good because I hate interdictions, bad because it's what made smuggling distinct
2) Fines for being caught smuggling are now upped quite significantly, (around 80k) again good and bad. Good because a small fine was unrealistic, bad because now it totally devalues illegal salvage. Getting an 80k fine when your payout is 500k is one thing, but getting an 80k fine for hauling a single escape pod worth 4k is another.

Now having said all that, due to the reduced payouts I wouldn't want the constant interdictions back, but sadly now smuggling feels a bit generic and boring. Low risk, low reward. Yawn, why not simply take up trading?
 
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