Let me clarify a common misconception I see in events. Just because someone is not on the config / cannot do the main gameplay loop does not mean they're not welcome to participate. The idea is that those people don't need more incentives to log and interact with the other players. And in some cases, I want to deliberately filter out people who do need the incentive to log, for various reasons.
In this event, the lawfuls are incentivized with a high cargo base price, resulting in high-value nearby lawful "fences". Rogues and Xenos have been further incentivized with an additional bonus for choosing this type of gameplay.
HOWEVER.
I knew and expected that there will be people who will log simply to kill each other and to specifically kill smugglers. That knowledge went into the decision about how much the base price of Slog should be raised by, and how big the profit should be at the salepoint. And of course, we have the Smuggler ID itself as the ultimate prize. Basically, if I didn't think that smugglers would face opposition, I would either reduce their rewards (not my preference), or incentivize the opposition itself further.
Guys, the game is meant to have conflict, interaction, and I'm here to ensure this. While I also try to ensure the high quality of these interactions, there are only so many tools I have. What I've taken so far is that the risk for smugglers, while present, is still not significant enough to consider hiring even a single escort to scout ahead, or to band together into convoys as we've seen in the Synth Food event. That is something I can and will try to change for the next one. But the rest of it needs to come from the people actually playing the event.
