Smuggling is in the pilot’s book presented as a possible way of “trading” and as such it should be at least competitive with legal trading but ideally more profitable with some risks involved. Buying goods legally in systems and smuggling them to stations (Black Market) earns less credits than supplying legal goods. The reason why anybody in the history ever became a smuggler was that it paid so much more than the legal trading that it was worth the risk. It is true that the risks of smuggling are so inconsequential that there is no real risk to talk about but smuggling simply doesn’t pay enough to be worth getting into.
The Black Market feels more like a fence service rather than a market for illegal goods.
I would like to suggest a change that could make smuggling a more interesting option.
Change: Black Market Demand
Currently the black market buys illegal or stolen goods for a lower (-25%?) cost but there is never any demand for any goods. The idea here is that some system states could create a demand on black market for illegal goods.
For example:
During the Civil Unrest the black market in the system could have demand for Personal Weapons. Reason: Civil Unrest description says that the system has lower security and standards of living. So the security forces cannot guarantee the safety of people and because of that all types of crimes are on the rise. Therefore criminals would want weapons for all this sort of criminal activity and normal people would try to get their hands on some personal weapons to defend themselves from criminals.
During the War or Civil War state there would be demand for Battle Weapons and Landmines. Once one side starts losing the war by some margin, there could occur a demand for Combat Stabilizers. Reason: The factions are at war, we can only see combat taking place in the space but surely there is some ground fighting going on too so demand for means to ensure victory is logical. If one side starts losing the war they might not shy away from unethical methods to gain the upper hand, thus the combat stabilizers.
During an Outbreak state there would be demand for Toilet Paper. Reason: Everybody needs vast reserves (for up to half a year) of toilet paper when there is some disease spreading around, everybody knows that.
These are just some quickly made up goods demands for certain states, there is no need to come up with posts like “this justification makes no sense because (…)” – the reasons for the demand are pretty much arbitrary and would be just some in-game flavor text (maybe not even that).
During the given state, the black market would have a visible demand for the goods in the black market UI, showing how many units they want and what price they’re going to pay. The payout per unit would be substantial (easily 10x or 20x or maybe even more of the galactic average) however the market would only pay this until the demand is met.
On a side-note: It would also be nice if the "Smuggling" missions at stations were more frequent.
Change: Scanning for Illegal Goods
However, there would be some changes to the scanning system too – the current ways of avoiding scanning (running through the slot at more than 200 speed, deploying weapons…) would no longer work, and scans could happen until you hear the “touchdown” message upon landing. The silent running would still work though.
If you are scanned and it is discovered that you are carrying illegal goods, you'll be fined with double the cost of what you would get for selling the cargo at the station. At this point there is just the fine, if you decide to proceed and dock, your illegal cargo will be confiscated once you land and you will have restricted access until you pay the fine. If you are scanned, fined and decide to run away (charge your FSD or leave the exclusion zone of the station), you will get a bounty on your head on top of the fine and security forces will go after you. Either way you lose some amount of Reputation with the controlling faction.
There would be a high chance (90% ?) that stations would scan big ships that are not friendly with the station, medium ships would have lower (60% ?) chance to be scanned and small ships would have even lower chance (30% ?) to get scanned. If the commander has friendly status with the station the scan chances could drop by some amount. However, if you can keep your ship heat under the 20% mark, the chance of getting scanned would drop by 40% (or simply by some decent amount). This means that big hauling ships would not be very suitable for smuggling, best bet would be small or medium ships, which would limit how much you can carry at a time but would give you a good chance to avoid problems with authorities. It would also give more usage to some engineering blueprints and experimental effects that lower the heat generation of a ship and allow it to run cool even without heat sinks.
The numbers here are made up, they would need to be set in such a way that the payouts would be really good. So that there would be a good reason to get into smuggling but at the same time there would be a high risk in terms of fines and/or bounties if you get caught. The demand number would also ensure that a player would not be able to spend days (or the whole duration of the state) with just hauling one type of cargo making hundreds of millions of credits because once the demand is met, the prices would drop to the standard (which currently gives very low profits). It would also require the players to seek systems in specific states which also have stations with functioning black market (some governments don’t allow black market and some states shut black markets down) and at the same time find some system nearby that has a supply of the required commodity.
The Black Market feels more like a fence service rather than a market for illegal goods.
I would like to suggest a change that could make smuggling a more interesting option.
Change: Black Market Demand
Currently the black market buys illegal or stolen goods for a lower (-25%?) cost but there is never any demand for any goods. The idea here is that some system states could create a demand on black market for illegal goods.
For example:
During the Civil Unrest the black market in the system could have demand for Personal Weapons. Reason: Civil Unrest description says that the system has lower security and standards of living. So the security forces cannot guarantee the safety of people and because of that all types of crimes are on the rise. Therefore criminals would want weapons for all this sort of criminal activity and normal people would try to get their hands on some personal weapons to defend themselves from criminals.
During the War or Civil War state there would be demand for Battle Weapons and Landmines. Once one side starts losing the war by some margin, there could occur a demand for Combat Stabilizers. Reason: The factions are at war, we can only see combat taking place in the space but surely there is some ground fighting going on too so demand for means to ensure victory is logical. If one side starts losing the war they might not shy away from unethical methods to gain the upper hand, thus the combat stabilizers.
During an Outbreak state there would be demand for Toilet Paper. Reason: Everybody needs vast reserves (for up to half a year) of toilet paper when there is some disease spreading around, everybody knows that.
These are just some quickly made up goods demands for certain states, there is no need to come up with posts like “this justification makes no sense because (…)” – the reasons for the demand are pretty much arbitrary and would be just some in-game flavor text (maybe not even that).
During the given state, the black market would have a visible demand for the goods in the black market UI, showing how many units they want and what price they’re going to pay. The payout per unit would be substantial (easily 10x or 20x or maybe even more of the galactic average) however the market would only pay this until the demand is met.
On a side-note: It would also be nice if the "Smuggling" missions at stations were more frequent.
Change: Scanning for Illegal Goods
However, there would be some changes to the scanning system too – the current ways of avoiding scanning (running through the slot at more than 200 speed, deploying weapons…) would no longer work, and scans could happen until you hear the “touchdown” message upon landing. The silent running would still work though.
If you are scanned and it is discovered that you are carrying illegal goods, you'll be fined with double the cost of what you would get for selling the cargo at the station. At this point there is just the fine, if you decide to proceed and dock, your illegal cargo will be confiscated once you land and you will have restricted access until you pay the fine. If you are scanned, fined and decide to run away (charge your FSD or leave the exclusion zone of the station), you will get a bounty on your head on top of the fine and security forces will go after you. Either way you lose some amount of Reputation with the controlling faction.
There would be a high chance (90% ?) that stations would scan big ships that are not friendly with the station, medium ships would have lower (60% ?) chance to be scanned and small ships would have even lower chance (30% ?) to get scanned. If the commander has friendly status with the station the scan chances could drop by some amount. However, if you can keep your ship heat under the 20% mark, the chance of getting scanned would drop by 40% (or simply by some decent amount). This means that big hauling ships would not be very suitable for smuggling, best bet would be small or medium ships, which would limit how much you can carry at a time but would give you a good chance to avoid problems with authorities. It would also give more usage to some engineering blueprints and experimental effects that lower the heat generation of a ship and allow it to run cool even without heat sinks.
The numbers here are made up, they would need to be set in such a way that the payouts would be really good. So that there would be a good reason to get into smuggling but at the same time there would be a high risk in terms of fines and/or bounties if you get caught. The demand number would also ensure that a player would not be able to spend days (or the whole duration of the state) with just hauling one type of cargo making hundreds of millions of credits because once the demand is met, the prices would drop to the standard (which currently gives very low profits). It would also require the players to seek systems in specific states which also have stations with functioning black market (some governments don’t allow black market and some states shut black markets down) and at the same time find some system nearby that has a supply of the required commodity.