One of the issues with smuggling is that it is easy - easy as heeeell. You drop in at 10km distance from the station, and fly right in before anyone has a chance to scan you.
I suggest that a warp in point be added - if a player approaches a station within a thirty degree cone of it's entrance, that player will drop from warp at a specified point, within a circular structure (the warp gate), 10km from the stations entrance, and only has to fly straight forward to enter the station. This could also possibly auto-request docking permissions (just a cool side-thought).
However, if the player does not drop out of warp within that cone, they will land some 20-25km from the station, beyond sensor range of the security forces. Then, he/she would have to sneak into the station using silent running, heat sinks, etc, assuming he/she is carrying illegal cargo. Well, why not just go through the warp gate? It's faster and less risky than dropping far away, right? Wrong. The Warp Gate will be patrolled by system security forces, and ships using it will immediately and instantaneously be scanned, their cargo and wanted status revealed to the authorities.
A few things would need to change to make this change viable and balanced. I haven't used silent running against NPCs in a long time, but in my experience silent running has absolutely no effect on NPCs. NPC police would need to have lost you once you drop off their scanners. Another thing is that these police need to be absolutely deadly. When the authorities realize you're smuggling, there should be no fine - just a large (50 grand plus) bounty on your head, and they should all redirect their attention to annihilating you. The last thing is smuggling illegal goods would need a little bit of a buff - it's quite hard to figure out which system wants which illegal good when that information itself is illegal and unobtainable, so instead of having very similar characteristics to regular commodities trading, smuggling should allow players to usually have a net profit, and large profits. This shouldn't really be possible at all in larger ships, like T7 and up in size, so the profits should be substantial - enough to rival the bulk traders.
Thoughts?
I suggest that a warp in point be added - if a player approaches a station within a thirty degree cone of it's entrance, that player will drop from warp at a specified point, within a circular structure (the warp gate), 10km from the stations entrance, and only has to fly straight forward to enter the station. This could also possibly auto-request docking permissions (just a cool side-thought).
However, if the player does not drop out of warp within that cone, they will land some 20-25km from the station, beyond sensor range of the security forces. Then, he/she would have to sneak into the station using silent running, heat sinks, etc, assuming he/she is carrying illegal cargo. Well, why not just go through the warp gate? It's faster and less risky than dropping far away, right? Wrong. The Warp Gate will be patrolled by system security forces, and ships using it will immediately and instantaneously be scanned, their cargo and wanted status revealed to the authorities.
A few things would need to change to make this change viable and balanced. I haven't used silent running against NPCs in a long time, but in my experience silent running has absolutely no effect on NPCs. NPC police would need to have lost you once you drop off their scanners. Another thing is that these police need to be absolutely deadly. When the authorities realize you're smuggling, there should be no fine - just a large (50 grand plus) bounty on your head, and they should all redirect their attention to annihilating you. The last thing is smuggling illegal goods would need a little bit of a buff - it's quite hard to figure out which system wants which illegal good when that information itself is illegal and unobtainable, so instead of having very similar characteristics to regular commodities trading, smuggling should allow players to usually have a net profit, and large profits. This shouldn't really be possible at all in larger ships, like T7 and up in size, so the profits should be substantial - enough to rival the bulk traders.
Thoughts?