Cargo Piracy

[Stoat]

The best way to get this to work is to offer higher than the best unlawful price, but lower than best lawful buying price for whatever commodity.

eg Aluminium Ore. Southampton offers 10500 per unit (or there abouts). Trafalgar offers exactly half that. If the PoB you want in Leeds offered 8500, that gives the unlawfuls a reason to use it, and the lawfuls a reason to transport from the PoB to Southampton

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My Stories

[Pancakes]

The best way to get this to work is to offer higher than the best unlawful price, but lower than best lawful buying price for whatever commodity.

eg Aluminium Ore. Southampton offers 10500 per unit (or there abouts). Trafalgar offers exactly half that. If the PoB you want in Leeds offered 8500, that gives the unlawfuls a reason to use it, and the lawfuls a reason to transport from the PoB to Southampton

Or that.

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BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD

[Croft]

The best way to get this to work is to offer higher than the best unlawful price, but lower than best lawful buying price for whatever commodity.

eg Aluminium Ore. Southampton offers 10500 per unit (or there abouts). Trafalgar offers exactly half that. If the PoB you want in Leeds offered 8500, that gives the unlawfuls a reason to use it, and the lawfuls a reason to transport from the PoB to Southampton

I think that may be the best course of action for ores, depending on their sell prices I can tailor the buy/sells to roughly 70-75% of the highest lawful point per each base, depending on their relative position. I'll crunch some numbers and post what I get, see if the method works across the board.

However I'm not certain this will work with buyable commodities but I'll apply the idea and see what we get.

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

[Stoat]

Buyable commodities are more problematical, for sure, but the same logic should be applyable

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My Stories

[Croft]

Well I've crunched some numbers (thanks to Pell and Potter for supplying them) and come up with a set of prices that are 75% of the highest lawful sell point:

Aluminium @ Leeds 7980
Beryllium @ Stuttgart 6166
Gold @ Hokkaido 7425
Helium @ Leeds 6742
Niobium @ Stuttgart 7006
Platinum @ Stuttgart 7387

The full pricing list can be seen here.

Another base would be required somewhere within the New York, Colorado and California area to serve the remaining minables. So how do the numbers look, good enough or still need tweaking?

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

[EisenSeele]

Maybe you could have a pricing war between the various smuggling factions wherein separate smuggling organizations can lobby to have different commodity prices be a certain value?

I'm sure that Corsair and Corsair aligned smugglers would love to lower Cardamine prices while bumping up Artifacts and such - which could lead to both an increase in smuggling RP AND Corsair/Outcast RP.

Hell, Corsairs and Outcasts might even have turf wars in order to put pressure on some of the bases to have the prices that they want.

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FEEDBACK

[Gateway Shipping Inc]

So, quick question: Just so I understand, once you have the pirated cargo...you just selling them to smugglers to fence them? Will the PoB require licenses to dock? (I have a smuggler who'll be interested)

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♦ Gateway|: Information   ♦ Gateway|: Recruitment   ♦ Reporting Facility    ♦ Company Roster

[Croft]

Eisen that's certainly something I'd like to do once the bases are up and running, so far I've tried to keep my mind focused at the task at hand. Gotta get the go ahead before all the fun starts.

The PoB's won't require any licenses, so long as your faction isn't against picking up stolen goods you'll be fine. I'm hoping to see backhanded deals with small shipping firms picking up cheap deals and crooked cops selling evidence, all that kind of fun stuff.

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

[AceofSpades]

Hello Croft,

I like your idea alot! Smugglers need places of business like this, and I'm happy to provide any help needed to make projects like this succeed. The locations you have selected are all interesting, aggressive locations, which I appreciate as well, though indeed House Space would be a challenge for an unrestricted Base stocking contraband. I do think perhaps an independent system just off a major route, such as Koeln, might provide both anonymity and accessibility in a strategic location (independent Rheinland, only two jumps from both Omegas and Liberty). Though hopefully an idea with splendid RP behind it wouldn't be targeted for pews so easily and could survive within a House system..

Regardless, I wanted to offer you what advice I have regarding your PoB economy, as I currently do most of the administration for a couple PoB's that are also in the business of selling smuggled goods and Pirated Ores. We have had some success as both a point of sale, and a midpoint between a large number of smuggling routes. I struggled as well for quite awhile on how to balance the pricing points so that routes would not only be profitable, but would attract import business and bring materials in as well. I think after some trial and error we have found some practical and effective price ranges.

Ores: Granted, each system will require different pricing for each commodity to remain competitive locally, however our current setup buys and sells most Ores for approximately 5000-6500, and we see business coming both in and out pretty regularly. I might add that we refrain from changing prices or using buy/sell modes, so maintaining the economy is generally pretty easy once it is in place.
Contraband: Smuggled goods are often sold at 500-800 less than nearby pricing, as to provide a preferred selling point. However plenty of contraband is quite limited in it selling points, such as NOX or Military Vehicles. Goods such as these can be priced more competitively to encourage the importation of contraband, because no nearby systems offer a good sell point that can be easily taken advantage of.

If you would like any of my advice, assistance, numbers/charts etc please feel free to PM me. We can also have you cleared at our PoB if you care to stop by and checkout an economy in action, or even pickup a few supplies to help you along.




Edit: I see that many fellow privateers and smugglers have posted here and so I couldnt help myself, but this shameless plug shouldn't take away any business from a not-yet constructed station so I'll give it a try. If you haven't been by Inverness, come check it out.
Croft, I owe you a supply run for the advertising space!

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[5:57:11 PM] InfernalTater (Lewis) [Formerly TLI-Inferno]:meanwhile, Aces 'I don't always miss my destinations, but when I do, I'm on the other side of house space.'

Seriously nerf Junkers.

Shoot to Thrill

[Croft]

Thanks for your advice Ace, the pricing stuff is really the only stumbling point up to now.

I did consider using independent systems and borderworlds for the positions, as you said it'd make things far easier for what I have planned. The thing is, and it's probably an insane idea, I wanted the bases to bring the lawfuls up in activity too, especially the police factions as my time in the BPA was the best I've had in Disco. So I thought what could be better then to have a blackmarket on their doorstep bringing in smugglers and pirates for them to play with.
Plus the chosen systems being almost perfectly centred in the various smuggling really swung it for me.

I may very well take you up on your offer, depending on how much feedback I get for the posted prices as I'm currently leaning towards them being a little too high but we'll wait and see.

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