yes it needs a nerf it's totally unbalanced. it's literally no risk, and extremely high reward. because the worst case? they scan you and oput a little fine on you, LOL not even 1% of what the mission pays.
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The Smuggling discussion thread
- Thread starter Sheepykins
- Start date
I'm all in for more consequences, but to have any consequences you've got to get caught first - and that's where I see the problem!
Security patrols have got better at interdicting you from supercruise, that's good. But now they seem to be wasting time by scanning you, what happened to psycho-cop from 1.3 who asked no questions and came at you guns blazing?
The station patrols also need to be homing in on any ships boosting, or the appearance of ejected heat sinks.
Security patrols have got better at interdicting you from supercruise, that's good. But now they seem to be wasting time by scanning you, what happened to psycho-cop from 1.3 who asked no questions and came at you guns blazing?
The station patrols also need to be homing in on any ships boosting, or the appearance of ejected heat sinks.
Proposal for smuggling nerf
Yes, I really did use the N-word.
As by now everyone knows 1.4 made smuggling insanely profitable. Good! By definition it should be a high-reward profession. However, currently the high-risk isn't as high, and that is making it a wee-bit 'unbalanced'. In another thread it was asked whether it should be nerfed or not, but as nerfing wasn't specified it is hard to judge the responses. So here is what I propose should, and should not, be done. I also focus on changes that are easy for FD to implement, as they have plenty on their plates as is.
What should not be done
1) Decrease profits. Profits are not that insane compared with ALD BH and bulk-trading in high-end ships, so while this is the easiest fix, it also is the worst. It wont increase the risk, and just drags it down to another form of trading.
2) Increase fines. Fines are related to the cargo value. If it is increased (and it should be much higher to have any impact), regular smuggling outside the missions becomes impossible. Getting a few million in fines already happens to people with a hold full of slaves, it'll then become tens of millions. Thats the ED equivalent of committing genocide.
3) Make the mission-cargo specific. As in 'special tabacco', 'high-end narcotics' and 'well-trained slaves'. This would allow higher fines without the issue of 2), but it would also mean that if you lose the cargo through death or otherwise you cannot fix it anymore. Currently you'd be in a pickle but you can still get out of it by finding similar cargo elsewhere. I can think of some movies that uses this for their plot, and its a fun part IMHO.
What should be done
In 1.2 or 1.3 (I think 1.3?) FD added an anti-smuggling mechanism in the beta: if you were scanned, all stolen/illegal cargo would be marked and could not be sold on the black market. It was removed due to player disapproval. Mostly because it made no sense: why should the black-market give not even one cent for it, and why was it galaxy wide? So I propose we bring it back with the following modifications:
1) Any illegal/stolen cargo that is scanned gets labelled 'marked'.
2) Marked cargo is sold at 50% of the normal price black markets pay in the jurisdiction of stations belonging to the scanning vehicle's minor and major faction.
3) Smuggling missions cannot be completed using marked cargo.
4) Rep decrease for detected smuggling is increased, lets call it 'bonus rep decrease'
5) Handing over marked cargo to the authorities removes the 'bonus rep decrease'. This way you can chose whether you want 'some' profit at the cost of extra rep decrease, or you can forfeit all profit for the normal rep decrease.
So, what do you all make of it?
Yes, I really did use the N-word.
As by now everyone knows 1.4 made smuggling insanely profitable. Good! By definition it should be a high-reward profession. However, currently the high-risk isn't as high, and that is making it a wee-bit 'unbalanced'. In another thread it was asked whether it should be nerfed or not, but as nerfing wasn't specified it is hard to judge the responses. So here is what I propose should, and should not, be done. I also focus on changes that are easy for FD to implement, as they have plenty on their plates as is.What should not be done
1) Decrease profits. Profits are not that insane compared with ALD BH and bulk-trading in high-end ships, so while this is the easiest fix, it also is the worst. It wont increase the risk, and just drags it down to another form of trading.
2) Increase fines. Fines are related to the cargo value. If it is increased (and it should be much higher to have any impact), regular smuggling outside the missions becomes impossible. Getting a few million in fines already happens to people with a hold full of slaves, it'll then become tens of millions. Thats the ED equivalent of committing genocide.
3) Make the mission-cargo specific. As in 'special tabacco', 'high-end narcotics' and 'well-trained slaves'. This would allow higher fines without the issue of 2), but it would also mean that if you lose the cargo through death or otherwise you cannot fix it anymore. Currently you'd be in a pickle but you can still get out of it by finding similar cargo elsewhere. I can think of some movies that uses this for their plot, and its a fun part IMHO.
What should be done
In 1.2 or 1.3 (I think 1.3?) FD added an anti-smuggling mechanism in the beta: if you were scanned, all stolen/illegal cargo would be marked and could not be sold on the black market. It was removed due to player disapproval. Mostly because it made no sense: why should the black-market give not even one cent for it, and why was it galaxy wide? So I propose we bring it back with the following modifications:
1) Any illegal/stolen cargo that is scanned gets labelled 'marked'.
2) Marked cargo is sold at 50% of the normal price black markets pay in the jurisdiction of stations belonging to the scanning vehicle's minor and major faction.
3) Smuggling missions cannot be completed using marked cargo.
4) Rep decrease for detected smuggling is increased, lets call it 'bonus rep decrease'
5) Handing over marked cargo to the authorities removes the 'bonus rep decrease'. This way you can chose whether you want 'some' profit at the cost of extra rep decrease, or you can forfeit all profit for the normal rep decrease.
So, what do you all make of it?
I think the payout may be a little high, on easy way to 'fix' it would be to have same payout for larger deliveries 10-40 tons.
Some tweaks I would find fun :
As a note : PP allow to make similar amounts of cash, if not more. But its combat so nobody asks for a nerf/)=
Some tweaks I would find fun :
- Having the missions failing upon detection would make the whole thing more 'interesting' for sure.
- Cops should ask you to drop the cargo when scanned. Seriously, letting you away go with those narcotics and battleweapons sure...
- Create some 'baned' items, such as nuclear materials, nootropic drugs, active nanites and so on. Have them behaving like rare goods, each produced in a few stations with black markets. Make it so that the stations/systems producing them change at regular intervals (or once X tons have been bought by players) (so you have to find them, and keep the location secret XD).
- Nerf regular long-dist smuggling missions and add some for those goods, only at the appropriate stations.
- Getting scanned with baned goods gets you killed on the spot by the police / military.
As a note : PP allow to make similar amounts of cash, if not more. But its combat so nobody asks for a nerf
/)=
Good points and suggestions.
I particularly agree with point 2 - it speaks to the problem of increasing the risk on missions, and not breaking 'independant' smuggling.
So how about adding a racketeering crime if your caught on a smuggling mission, and leaving everything else as is? Fine (maybe a half mill) + short lived bounty if you don't surrender the cargo. Or some-suchlike.
I particularly agree with point 2 - it speaks to the problem of increasing the risk on missions, and not breaking 'independant' smuggling.
So how about adding a racketeering crime if your caught on a smuggling mission, and leaving everything else as is? Fine (maybe a half mill) + short lived bounty if you don't surrender the cargo. Or some-suchlike.
I see no reason that smuggling shouldn't pay well enough to equal high-end trading. It generally takes more time and the missions are not guaranteed to be there every station.
Also this current implementation I think is good for the game, it has got people moving away from their standard short A-B routes and moving more widely about. I have actually bothered to deviate from my 2 normal trade runs and been all over the bubble, seeing many more/different cmdr's then I would normally encounter; can only be a good thing for player-interaction and the social side of the game.
Also this current implementation I think is good for the game, it has got people moving away from their standard short A-B routes and moving more widely about. I have actually bothered to deviate from my 2 normal trade runs and been all over the bubble, seeing many more/different cmdr's then I would normally encounter; can only be a good thing for player-interaction and the social side of the game.
The risk isn't the fine, the risk is getting instant hostile rep which I've heard of happening through smuggling in Fed systems. Don't know what circumstances needed for that to happen, since the rep system is a little murky, but it hasn't happened to me yet thankfully despite being caught.
I feel like right now bounties are worth doing, but still isn't better cash than trading or combat zones, so I feel it's pretty balanced.
The one change I would make is when caught, the station and cops should kill the player and he should get the standard 6 day wanted status in that system. Same goes for cop interdictions and scans during the route to the dropoff system, if the cargo is illegal in that system and is scanned by the cops, this should aggro the cops and give the 6 day wanted status. The fine doesn't make sense, and the reploss is too inconsistent, varying from small loss to massive loss.
Smuggling right now is fun and profitable. It's a way for the smaller ships to make some cash without getting wrecked in combat zones or saving forever for a trading ship and being bored to tears making cash that way. A straight cash reward nerf to smuggling would just make it an unused feature only used by a few roleplayers since other methods would be more profitable.
Instead of nerfing it I suggest buffing mining and other non combat related methods of making cash like exploring, to bring those into line with the top 3 methods of making money.
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I says it again... had ther most fun yesterday i had ever had in ED (since last xmas)... no need to tweak.
Saw loads of the universe i had not seen / scooped / against the clock / dodged security / fought pirates / flew my Cobra Badd *** style the way a Cobra should be flown / made CR / had fun fun did i say fun.
Might make more in my Conda, might make more if i swapped to an ASP. However for me this has brought everything together and Cobra is king.
Really happy. Soon as i finish work i will jump back in. This is the first time i have been this keen for a long time. So say we all.
Saw loads of the universe i had not seen / scooped / against the clock / dodged security / fought pirates / flew my Cobra Badd *** style the way a Cobra should be flown / made CR / had fun fun did i say fun.
Might make more in my Conda, might make more if i swapped to an ASP. However for me this has brought everything together and Cobra is king.
Really happy. Soon as i finish work i will jump back in. This is the first time i have been this keen for a long time. So say we all.
I'm pretty sure it will get some attention given the obscene amount of cash you can make - rares and luxuries were nothing compared to this.
I just hope they don't sledgehammer it into oblivion as I'm really enjoying it.
I just hope they don't sledgehammer it into oblivion as I'm really enjoying it.
Leave us out of it, we're not the mindless twitch shooter-obsessed teenage crowd you appear to think we are.
The change was introduced, probably, to satisfy the 'people who enjoy playing games' crowd.
People brag about making 8-10 million or more through trading. People in Powerplay have made 20 million per hour in conflict zones. Explorers come back from holiday and are given 120 million+ for their troubles.
Risking my life for a 1.3 million cr Kessel run*, relocating items of, er, indeterminate legality, is fair reward for a fair risk.
*in under 12 parsecs,
To me, you suggestion tends to be a bit complicated. There could much simpler solutions
1 Smuggling should be risky. So, fines should be about twice bigger than the profit from the single transaction.
So, the amount of illicit cargo should be increased to about 100...400 ton.
2 Scan, being started, should always be finished, even inside of the station. The only exclusion - supercruise and/or distance.
3 The ship with bounty is not allowed to dock, unless the controlling faction is anarchy, dictatorship, feudal and etc
4 Big fine at some point, i.e. 1 Mil should be automatically converted to bounty with the same value.
5 Minor factions should have the jurisdiction area much bigger than the system or station. I.e. couple of systems around agriculture world.
I thing in the current game design minor factions are too minor. They should be bound somehow to the agriculture worlds. Similar to powerplay but around single agriculture world.
This way it is much ease to handle bounties, trade, smuggling and etc.
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Might work, but it would be hard to explain why smuggling 10 slaves would be punished harder than smuggling 100 slaves.
1) This would effectively block small ships from smuggling, defeating one of the main points of it.
2) This would remove a player option: attacking the vessel and blocking the scan at the cost of a bounty and a seriously angry security ship.
3) Already the case, if the station nows you have a bounty your docking rights are retracted.
4) Yes, agree.
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Have you read the actual post? If so, what fun is being removed in your opinion?
I think youre missing the point since youre arguing against yourself. you said "no reason that smuggling shouldn't pay well enough to equal high-end trading" If they were equal or even a bit higher that would be fine, except its like triple of what you can make in high end trading or anything else in the game. Being a former Conda trader myself, if you were doing 10 mill/hr you were doing exceptionally well. I'm staring at missions for 7m+ each.. I can easily get 10 of those and have them delivered in 2 or 3 hrs while eating lunch..(you do the math)
So i was imagining the racketeering charge would come on top of the fine for the illicit cargo, and would be down to your involvement with organised crime. When you take these missions, the cops are already aware that 'someone' is running the goods, hence the greater chance of interdiction and diferent cop chat when you're on the mission. So if they are hunting an organised crime smuggler, and you get caught for it... i think it makes sense. many countries in the present have anti-racketeering/mafia laws.
Cheers,
Metkis
This idea is awesome. FD plz
Outposts have unuseable docking slots already. Just make them useable
Is there something about them being available that compels you to do it? Sitting there waiting for them to pop up is your fault. It sounds like you could solve it yourself by not taking them, and if you are worried about what other people are doing, well... Don't.
I still find the idea of Anaconda and Smuggling odd
However it is balanced, by risk and reward, should it not be the role of the small ships
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Addendum
Two modes;
Smuggling Missions, and buy legal to sell where illegal smuggling, both should be the purview of the small ships as it involves delivery into a patrol star port
The remaining mode of smuggling; delivery goods to off market traders at signal sources, either USS for goods based on system economy, or various goods based on faction state (battle weapons to systems at war) is still where Big ships shine
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