Contraband: Will It Ever Change?

[jammi]

Would be nice if it was possible to somehow hide certain commodities (such as smuggled goods) from being displayed when scanning. Then we could possibly implement a command that would take like 5-10 seconds to output a list of cargo that the ship is really carrying. That coupled with the /nodock command would make for some nice minigame for cops and smugglers. Smugglers would actually try to hide smuggled cargo among other goods, while cops would have to think fast to decide whether to order someone to stop for scan or not - and now asking to stop for scan would actually make sense.

Of course the hardest part is coding the damn thing...

1. Buy 'scanner scambler', possibly as PoB equipment that takes up a CM slot. Requires energy cells same as cloak.
2. Buy contraband cargo. We'll use Black Market Munitions as an example in this case.
3. Type /scramble on, and your contraband is directly replaced by a 'dummy' commodity that is identical to its legal counterpart in appearance and infocard. Perhaps include a few small 'glitches' that will alert eagle-eyed onlookers. Retains the price information of its original contraband so it can be sold for the same price.
4. Scrambler runs until it uses up all its energy cells, at which point the commodities are switched back to their original form. Alernately, /scrambler off at any point.
5. Police IDs come naturally equipped with 'scan decrypters'. Type /descramble while targetting a suspect ship and stay within 500m for 30 seconds. Messages will be displayed on screen denoting scan progress. "25%, 50%, 75%, 100% - all in order / anomaly detected!" If there is scrambled cargo onboard, it will be reverted back to its original commodity.

Another piece of PoB equipment could also be introduced as a counter to scramblers for a more immediate / ranged effect.

Slaves = passengers.
Black Market Munitions = Side Arms/Light Arms.
Cardamine = Pharmaceuticals.
NOX = Pharmaceuticals.
Artifacts = Holosculptures.

etc etc.

Very feasible seeing as all it does is swap cargo types and set up the conditions by which it's swapped back again.