Negative consequences of moving best premium scrap selling points to Gallia

[The Savage]

I'd suggest doing something like allowing smugglers a chance to talk their way out of trouble, tell your members (this goes for all lawful factions) to RP your scans as rough guides not 100% accurate magic eye beams that can detect exactly what is in every single cargo crate. Reward those who provide good fun and explain to the more difficult players why they're not getting off so easy.

I think Croft made a point here.

Also, removing NPC ability to demand cargo would be pretty welcomed. I can't count how many times Valetta turned red on me, alongside with cap patrols, just because Outcast NPC wanted my cargo.

[Laura C.]

I'd suggest doing something like allowing smugglers a chance to talk their way out of trouble, tell your members (this goes for all lawful factions) to RP your scans as rough guides not 100% accurate magic eye beams that can detect exactly what is in every single cargo crate. Reward those who provide good fun and explain to the more difficult players why they're not getting off so easy.
If you do catch someone out in a bad lie, don't make their entire trip worthless by removing their entire cargo, only take a quarter or issue a fine but not both. After all you want these folks to come back time and again.

This is exactly what I meant when I talked about having hard times to find optimal balance between what makes sense inRP (or at least don´t look silly) and what is "smuggling friendly",

Unfoturtunately I would find very silly to tell smuggler as a cop "give me quarter (or half or basically anything other than all) of those slaves/artifacts/that cardamine and feel free to continue to finish the delivery". At this point we would be leaving RP environment completely and end in "we are playing computer game, lets be nice as players to each other". In such case, playing cop and chasing smugglers would no longer be fun for me because RP immersion would be completely gone. That´s over the line for me (and I believe other cop/lawful players too).

When comes to explanations and stories of smugglers to let them go, again, it´s not that simple. I´m sure everyone let someone go few times, be it because of heartouching stories or very smart ones. What is hard to set - what story should I believe? Thing is, if you play long enough, your character will several times see excuses like "I was forced" or "I did it just once, please let me go" or the most common "I didn´t know it is illegal, I will never trade it again, I promise", just to meet same ships with contraband the other day(s) again. How should such character believe anyone with this experience?

The more tolerant cop will become, the more the player will start to feel he is RPing a stupid cop (what isn´t role majority of people would enjoy), if will be enough for every smuggler to type some crappy story and cop will always believe it because "hey, the player tried and RPed, he will feel disappointed if I won´t believe it). Suddenly, you will start losing the fun from chases if you let go majority of smugglers because they just type something.

Btw, just for the record, I repeat that I let several smugglers go even despite Carsten is incorruptible strict cop. They just had to be smart and avoid making holes in their story. And another note - I smuggle too from time to time, because it can be great fun. But I´m the type of smuggler who play for fun, so I want to chase with cops, provoke them and give them chance to catch me, and this is minority when it comes to smuggler players. My experience unfortunately is that majority of smuggler players play for credits and would like to see only cops which are either corruptible or will believe almost every excuse. If you RP incorruptible cop with which you must be really smart with your excuse, very soon you will get labels of person which "is not willing to RP", "is obsessed with issuing fines", "is compensating personal issues and thus loves to bully others", "likes destroying other people RP" or "is just after easy blue message". Then you start to feel wrong, lose fun and reduce/stop playing cop, despite you don´t do fouls like hard metagaming (yes guys, I see many of you even when you fly out of lanes and gates, I just feel wrong to camp on the other side of the jumphole where I know you are heading), bullying, dirttalking, law bending and such.

Been there personally already and I´m not the only one...

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On a ragebreak. Or ragequit. Time will tell.

[nOmnomnOm]

Laura dont over generalize all smugglers as playing for money :|
Just one of the thing I have an issue with there... But ill let it go. That one sums it up best.

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[Sciamach]

I think Croft made a point here.

Also, removing NPC ability to demand cargo would be pretty welcomed. I can't count how many times Valetta turned red on me, alongside with cap patrols, just because Outcast NPC wanted my cargo.

Glorious Maltese Nation needs your cargo~

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[ sci·am·ach ]
/sīˈamək/

A simple, angry man casually working his way through life on a personal quest to acquire copious amounts of street cred.

[Laura C.]

Laura dont over generalize all smugglers as playing for money :|
Just one of the thing I have an issue with there... But ill let it go. That one sums it up best.

I don´t. I wrote about majority, and my experience only.

And another note - I smuggle too from time to time, because it can be great fun. But I´m the type of smuggler who play for fun, so I want to chase with cops, provoke them and give them chance to catch me, and this is minority when it comes to smuggler players. My experience unfortunately is that majority of smuggler players play for credits

I never said anything about all smugglers being up only for credits. I´m one which is not, and I know very well there are others. On the other hand, I play cop for years and I met/caught dozens of smugglers during them. This is experience I have. I would like I could say otherwise, but can´t. I can even tell you that unfortunately some players when caught with contraband get angry in very same way like traders when caught by pirates.

But don´t take it personally to you or AFC, I´m not talking about you. However, maybe you can make indie cop and play some time so you can have your own experience from both sides like me.

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On a ragebreak. Or ragequit. Time will tell.

[nOmnomnOm]

I have though.
(made an indie cop b4)
(that was not corrupt)
I agree and understand... Though just some things I cant trust like my issue with the "mythical" FR5
But yeah. Other than that its no big.

skype me if you wana continue this further

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[Croft]

If you want to take the hard route then only demand the amount your ship can carry but it is no sillier than a pirate asking for only a quarter of a traders cargo, it is for the sake of fairness and something we have already accepted, being lawful or unlawful should not diminish that fact. Nor am I suggesting you let every single smuggler pass through, as I said reward the good RP'ers and explain what the lacking ones did wrong, what that entails is entirely up to you.

The bottom line is you cannot expect to play the constant arm of the law, ruthlessly stopping all smuggling and then turn around wondering why all your activity has dried up, putting another route down won't fix much, you only need to see the lack of traders and pirates to know that credit earning isn't always the best incentive.

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Jimmy The Rat | Croft's Feedback | The Rat Pack

[Thyrzul]

I was just explaining my point. Of course it´s kind of "apples and oranges" thing, but some traders still go after biggest profit (despite the profit/time ratio is not the best) and that´s why I don´t believe that devs would be willing to let any contraband (so NPC station cargo) have same level of best possible profit as player mineable cargo, despite fact that in comparison by profit/time ratio, player mineable cargo would be still way better.

Just because some traders go for the bigger numbers instead of the faster cash doesn't mean the rest doesn't use their brains.* I'm firmly convinced the majority of traders/smugglers out there aim for profit maximization while calculating with travel times as well. In addition, Xoria has already stated in the past that he does economy balance (yes, according to some it actually exists) through defining sell/buy prices by credit/slot/sec profit margins instead of just credit/slot margins.

* (Though at the same time not picking the best choice available doesn't necessarily mean silliness/lack of knowledge either as it can also mean lack of interest, but then that group of players not caring much about how fast they earn cash isn't really relevant in regards of economy balance.)

About the other matter (police-smuggler relations): It's like pirate vs trader games, predator vs prey in general, just lawfulness roles switched. I'm more than with Laura on this one, if I'd were to RP a stern, incorruptible police officer, unlike her I wouldn't let people go, because in my view incorruptible police roleplay not only doesn't consists that, but goes straight against that. And smugglers need to get used to the fact that the chance of getting caught and being shot at by lawfuls is also part of their roleplay, as well as that they may also encounter an incorruptible officer, in which case they better have bigger guns, thicker hull or quicker engines than just another excuse of a story in their pockets.

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[Croft]

About the other matter (police-smuggler relations): It's like pirate vs trader games, predator vs prey in general, just lawfulness roles switched. I'm more than with Laura on this one, if I'd were to RP a stern, incorruptible police officer, unlike her I wouldn't let people go, because in my view incorruptible police roleplay not only doesn't consists that, but goes straight against that. And smugglers need to get used to the fact that the chance of getting caught and being shot at by lawfuls is also part of their roleplay, as well as that they may also encounter an incorruptible officer, in which case they better have bigger guns, thicker hull or quicker engines than just another excuse of a story in their pockets.[/color][/align]

So your basically poisoning the well and expecting more people to drink from it? How could that attitude possibly encourage any smuggler to want to actually interact with police?

To use your own words, when the predator has eaten all the prey what happens? It starves.

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Jimmy The Rat | Croft's Feedback | The Rat Pack

[Thyrzul]

Why would any smugglers want to interact with police? Isn't smuggling about delivering illegal cargo, possibly avoiding lawfuls in the process because those can be expected to try and intercept illegal cargo, thus bad for business?

Oh, wait, I know. Because of the playerbase shrinking bit by bit we are looking for more ways to force interactions in order to keep up the same amount and with that the same amount of enjoyment, slowly giving less and less crap about whether it makes sense inRP or not, totally ignoring that perhaps that may also be an important factor in the enjoyment of certain people.

Yeah, good luck fitting an activity all about avoiding contact with lawfuls in a scheme like this. When do we want to force pirates letting traders go in order not to discourage people from trading with bad experiences? How far do we really want to go at this?

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