Why is Piracy and Smuggling the "worst" careers for profit?

[Red Fox Four]

I've been generating my own wealth in this game primarily from:

a) bounty hunting
b) missions (lately including passenger missions)
c) trading

These are without question the easiest "money makers" in the game.

If you want to do smuggling or piracy instead you are basically gimping yourself as far as Credits/hour profits go.

It's time consuming to do piracy since you have to find a target, chase it, engage it (sometimes multiple times) and grab the loot. Then you have to go sell the loot which, since it's stolen, is often sold at much reduced price.

Likewise with smuggling you often get paid much worse prices for the illegal goods in the place where they are illegal compared to where they are legal... which makes absolutely no sense. For the smuggling you have to go far out of your way to find good profit... which is a waste of time since you can make the same profits from doing a single jump when doing legal trading.

And another factor that affects both piracy and smuggling is the matter of legality. You get fined, you get bounties and you run the risk of getting attacked or destroyed everytime you approach a station with your contraband and everytime you engage a ship to pirate the loot.

This legality issue doesn't apply for legal trading, bounty hunting or mission runs (well, most missions anyhow).


So why is the piracy and smuggling aspect of the game so penalized in terms of profitmaking?

Wouldn't Narcotics purchased for 100Cr/ton in a legal station be worth at least twice as much, perhaps ten times as much, if you manage to sneak it into a Tourist station where they are illegal? Everyone knows tourists love to party and would pay handsomely for something to spike their experience... or at least so you would think. Instead you risk fines, bounties and your ship to get those Narcotics there and you can sell them for *gasp* 76Cr/ton.

What happened to Risk vs Reward? A lot of risk for zero reward? In fact, worse than zero cause you actually LOSE money on it.

Now I know there are those who have found smuggler routes in some backend Bumville part of space... the point however is that it's 200 times easier to find just as lucrative legal trade routes as it is to find a single smuggling one that pays off.

I really feel something needs to change with this whole thing.

Right now piracy and smuggling is more like "hobby" activities you do simply because you want some extra thrill and not because you are attracted to the huge rewards that might come as a result of taking larger risks.

In my book any smuggler mission to carry, e.g. 10 tonnes of illegal goods to a station, should easily be worth TWICE as much as ANY other legal mission to transport 10 tonnes of legal goods to the same station.

Smuggling should ALWAYS be more profitable than legal trade.

Then you say, but noone would do legal trade then. Of course they would. Not everyone is willing to risk fines, bounties and ship destruction. Plenty of players would still do legal trade, but for those who ARE willing to take the extra risk there will at least be an incentive to do so, aka credit rewards.

As much as I love to get into the Han Solo smuggling role and the Space Pirate role... everytime I am flying back to sell the goods I end up thinking how many millions of credits I could have made from simply doing bounty-hunting in a RES instead in the same time I spent chasing down traders to pirate to make 100k profits from the loot.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

You don't do piracy for the money. You do it for the YAAAAAAAAR!​-life

 

[Red Fox Four]

You don't do piracy for the money. You do it for the YAAAAAAAAR!​-life

I understand that part of it, but it makes zero logical sense that anyone interested in that gameplay should effectively be penalized as far as earning profit goes.

If I can make 1 million credits in an hour of bounty hunting then shouldn't I be able to make, if not the same total amount, at least something close to it (assuming a similar sized / equipped ship) ?

 

[Robert Maynard]

Piracy relies on the contents of the hold of the target - that alone cannot guarantee a rate of earning.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

I understand that part of it, but it makes zero logical sense that anyone interested in that gameplay should effectively be penalized as far as earning profit goes.

If I can make 1 million credits in an hour of bounty hunting then shouldn't I be able to make, if not the same total amount, at least something close to it (assuming a similar sized / equipped ship) ?

Hmmm. I'm not sure it works like that. I think piracy is a bit like old-time mining - you're always looking for the big strike but mostly what you get is dust.

 

[Red Fox Four]

Piracy relies on the contents of the hold of the target - that alone cannot guarantee a rate of earning.

Of course, but in general if you do Piracy you'll also be meddling with smuggling.

But right now, regardless if you do piracy, smuggling or both you are not getting anywhere near the profits made from legal activities.

Perhaps I should rephrase it to: Why is the criminal gameplay the "worst" careers for profit?

It's like the game forces you to "play nice" if you want to progress at a sensible rate.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

FD did say that smuggling was going to get some attention in the near future.

 

[Morbad]

Because we have galaxy-wide price fixing on commodities, but exponentially increasing monetary payouts.

The real value of commodities, relative to the labor they are worth, has been deflating since soon after the release of the game.

A ton of gold used to be worth about the same bounty I'd claim from an decent rank Anaconda kill in a RES. Now that kill takes one tenth the time and pays thirty times as much. 300 fold devaluation in commodity value.

 

[Red Fox Four]

FD did say that smuggling was going to get some attention in the near future.

Really hope so cause the criminal playstyle in this game is really lackluster (besides the added thrill aspect) as it stands today... and this has been brought up several times over the years.

From my point of view attention to the smuggling is long overdue.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Perhaps I should rephrase it to: Why is the criminal gameplay the "worst" careers for profit?

'cos "crime doesn't pay"?

It's like the game forces you to "play nice" if you want to progress at a sensible rate.

Possibly.

 

[bladebss]

Agreed. Its been an issue since launch.

Piracy is exploitable if you get more money than if the goods wernt stolen, however most npcs carry junk worth peanuts so pirateing them will get you less than peanuts!

If the npcs carried things like 200t of paladuim or gold in extraction economy with the apropriate rez sites, you could at least know where to go to look for the juicy cargo and make a decent amount of money in the time.

Smuggling should give increased profits based on security rating and systems should give bounties to smugglers with large quantities of ilegal goods if caught, as fines are not realy an issue. Some one caught with one tone of onion head is a minor offence but if they have an anaconda stuffed to the gills with slaves thats major smuggleing and the player should face death if caught! But if they make it they should get double the money they paid.
Thogh station security scans should be much more regular in hi security systems and faster. I also always liked the old style buletin bord smuggling where you could be caught buy a sting operation and fined, in ffe. This ment you had to remember your contact that is cool with dodgy goods.

I realy hope they get major fleshing out in terms of risk and reward. I understand though that its more complicated than other careers so had been on the back burner.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

For me, piracy is one of the highest paying professions. I make more doing piracy than i do in CZ or RES over the same amount of time. And piracy is more involved than just pew-pew.

 

[Red Fox Four]

Agreed. Its been an issue since launch.


Smuggling should give increased profits based on security rating

This is also a key thing.

There should be more valuable cargo in the random NPC ships in high security systems than what you find in lower security. Again, risk vs reward. High security means faster police intervention so you have to be on the ball and efficient to get loot, but the loot would be worth it. Plus, the longer you stay in a high security system the more fine and bounty you get from repeated pirate activity, ergo more dangerous it becomes to remain in the system.

Both smuggling and piracy should have higher rewards once you are in a higher security system... with the obvious increased risk.

That's not how it works today.

 

[Red Fox Four]

For me, piracy is one of the highest paying professions. I make more doing piracy than i do in CZ or RES over the same amount of time. And piracy is more involved than just pew-pew.

Glad it is working out for you, but for the vast majority the criminal playstyle is alot of extra effort and hurdles to jump to get less, or at best same, amount of profit as you do from just picking up a simple "transport dude to a system 14Ly away and get 1.2 million credits" mission.

Last passenger transport I did in my Dolphin was 2 missions to same system 30 Ly away (2 jumps) for 1 200 000Cr + 2 300 000Cr. 3.5mill for 10 minutes worth of work. And sure, that was a special case, but it just goes to show how exceptionally easy it can be to earn vast amounts of credits the legit way... while the criminal gameplay never even comes close to touching the same profit.

 

[Spenceuk99]

Wouldn't piracy be the last throw of the dice for someone?
I mean, it isn't really like the 17th century where it was a choice between a hard life and no life. You'd have to be really down on your luck to have to turn to piracy now.

As long as you have money to buy goods you can still trade, as long as you can dock at a station and you have fuel, you can do missions, I guess you would only be a pirate if you were broke, your ship wasn't up to missions or you were unwelcome in normal space, hence the meagre returns on offer.

Exploration pays pretty well providing you have a ship with the right kit on board too.

 

[Jason Lightning]

Where to begin?

Well we have far too many cheaters that pull the plug when faced with the prospect of losing their cargo for one. Since they face no consequences this isn't exactly getting fixed anytime soon. Also we have the still unchecked money exploit that is Quince, which dwarfs all forms of legitimate income. Not to mention the abuse of block lists that would rather put the pirate in an empty instance rather than the blocker.

Yeah piracy is unfortunately a dying profession, it's decent pay under ideal circumstances and lots of fun, but ultimately it's a career path that exposes you to all sorts of cheaters.

 

[goemon]

the case of smuggling is really weird. can just add that on many occasions running legal goods on the same route is more profitable, which shouldn't be the case. i think a modifier in sell price for illegality and security would make sense to me.

 

[StiTch]

Piracy is going to be low-rate income until additional mechanics are introduced that increase the profit of illegally obtained goods.

You are otherwise comparing a profession that involves taking a massive ship and buying expensive cargo on demand in seconds (trading) with a profession that inherently depends on waiting for a target and laboriously extracting it...for a few T of cargo worth much less.

You can only make it reasonably profitable by making the illegally obtained goods worth more, because any direct buffage to goods value will buff trading too.

Experienced pirates often don't even need the profit...ya kinda know it's for the fun times. It's much more engaging than sitting there and clicking twice to get your goods. However I have also always been of the opinion that newer players shouldn't be discouraged from it. People in their first cobra demanding goods or extracting it from NPCs just gives me so much hope <3

Of course let's not forget that in PvP piracy the great CL will always reign supreme. But don't worry about that guys, it's not like it affects anyone else's game, right?

As for smuggling...well that's not strictly low profit but it IS higher profit to simply do poo hauling, or whatever haulage missions are the flavour of the month. They're far more plentiful. The main reason smuggling is worth bothering with is, again, the fun - which received a massive nerf with the mission update. Where it used to take a decent ship and semi respectable skills to get through an entire smuggling run without losing it all, a braindead mongoose could now make it through a full run...and being caught doesn't even penalise you properly -_-

 

[Red Fox Four]

Wouldn't piracy be the last throw of the dice for someone?
I mean, it isn't really like the 17th century where it was a choice between a hard life and no life. You'd have to be really down on your luck to have to turn to piracy now.

As long as you have money to buy goods you can still trade, as long as you can dock at a station and you have fuel, you can do missions, I guess you would only be a pirate if you were broke, your ship wasn't up to missions or you were unwelcome in normal space, hence the meagre returns on offer.

Exploration pays pretty well providing you have a ship with the right kit on board too.

Or you would be a pirate because there is some actual profit from it worth taking the risk of pirate activities?

In the current state of the game however there is absolutely nothing, economically, interesting about playing as a pirate. It's almost exclusively done for either the added thrill, roleplaying or combination of both.

 

[Wasp0]

You don't do piracy for the money. You do it for the YAAAAAAAAR!​-life

I pirate not to earn dosh, but the buzz of PvP interaction and trying my stealing skills against their avoiding skills. My session credit taking as a Pirate is about enough to buy a couple of glasses of Laverian Brandy in the nearest Pirate bar, but i end the session most times on a high!