Smuggling in freighters

[Grail]

if the IFF thing is implemented, I fear that more people will join the Junkers just to make money (as opposed to joining for the RP )
as the new swarm of Junker miners near Pittsburgh show

That may be truth, but maybe a balance should apply. i mean, when a new player joins the game he asks "how can i make money?" "buy a freighter and smugle". Its a matter of balance. maybe not 10 x a 500 cargo hull, but 2x or 2.5x. That way a serious of complications would be avoided, like killing underlevel players, etc.

The ships need love, but use them within RP but try to give them more money to make. Maybe the smuggler ID could work for this point, make it 5 mill to buy and with restrictions.

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LWB The Unioners Cryer~

[Janus]

Running Cardi from Rochester to Manhatten as the new way for new players to make cash would also be bad.

[kikatsu]

if there is a bonus, maybe the Rogues should get more of one, as they are the main smugglers (Cardamine and Artifacts) in Liberty

though this would be counteracted by the fact that the Lawfuls will shoot them down no questions asked if they go near Manhattan or any other port with lawful markings

Junkers maybe should get less of a bonus, as they are never supposed to be caught smuggling...approching the Capital with a load of alien artifacts or dangerous drugs will probably ruin that reputation with the lawfuls

[hack]

if there is a bonus, maybe the Rogues should get more of one, as they are the main smugglers (Cardamine and Artifacts) in Liberty

though this would be counteracted by the fact that the Lawfuls will shoot them down no questions asked if they go near Manhattan or any other port with lawful markings

Junkers maybe should get less of a bonus, as they are never supposed to be caught smuggling...approching the Capital with a load of alien artifacts or dangerous drugs will probably ruin that reputation with the lawfuls

Actually, not true.

Once a guy came in a 5K adv train with 4900 of Pharmceuticals and 100 Cardi. I scanned him, stopped him, and let him know that it looks like he had all pharms onboard, and that my scanner might be on the fritz. Anyways, I advised him to check his ship, that one of his crew members might have some onboard for recreational use... then I let him go. Why? Cause he was actually trying to smuggle.

EDIT: Oh, I get ya now, if a Rogue tried to land on Manhattan, got ya. That is a bit of a stickler

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Formerly known as LPI Police Chief Hull O'Brien.
Creator of Sgt. V. Price, 207th Precinct out of Chula Vista Station

[Janus]

Some further thoughts.

One way of keeping the prices from going totally out of whack and still keeping the big ships in play...

Have a new small depot put in near every base like Rochester. These would buy contrabrand at a high enough price for big transports to make some money still, but they wouldn't sell that same contrabrand. If the base was a no. For game purposes, this would then get shuttled to the real base by NPCs for resale as normal.

The big trans pilots could then offload safely at the contrabrand recieving depot or try and make more money by pacelling it off into freighters.

Freighters could make the entire run direct to the end point, giving them a signifcant profit margin, far more per unit than the transport would make delivering to the depot. The runs would also be quite risky in a freighter, making it a challenge to earn the money but rewarding financially.

The third option would be to incorporate the if contrabrand is under x% of cargo it gets ignored. The transport could then make a run with mostly legal goods and a small amount of contrabrand. The contrabrand would then get off loaded to a waiting freighter and the transport would dock at the moring point as normal, with it's legal load.

[Galacius]

I think making it so larger ships cant smuggle might be a little bit of a kneejerk at powertraders. No matter what you will do they will always exist just for the fact that some people dont enjoy making money and want to do other aspects *shrug*. You do this how are the awesome slave liner rp'ers gonna exist? They run cardi to beaumont and slaves to malta, you would neuter them with this idea.

I still push for making a new line of freighters balanced with transports instead of nerfing transports into the ground for smuggling. Stealth would truly compare. I would even think of dropping my high cargo ship for one if it looked good enough (for crying out loud you need more good looking transports, seriously the four the look good just arent cutting it you need more) and the stealth opportunites where there. I think some interesting system chat rp would make this a ton of fun.

Again please dont neuter this for the good liners and large ship rp. I acctually enjoy it and love interacting with the good people like titus and finnegan, plus the salvager guys.

[hack]

I think making it so larger ships cant smuggle might be a little bit of a kneejerk at powertraders. No matter what you will do they will always exist just for the fact that some people dont enjoy making money and want to do other aspects *shrug*. You do this how are the awesome slave liner rp'ers gonna exist? They run cardi to beaumont and slaves to malta, you would neuter them with this idea.

I think the idea was to leave the unlawful and Junkers bases alone, so you wouldn't be affected......

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Formerly known as LPI Police Chief Hull O'Brien.
Creator of Sgt. V. Price, 207th Precinct out of Chula Vista Station

[kikatsu]

the idea was not to make transports worthless for smuggling

but a seperate system for smaller ships which supports smuggling
a large ship can still dock on the mooring platform and make cash, but a smaller ship can sneak in and sell the contraband in a more shadey location for alot more cash, basically making the same amount as the giant transport selling it

or something simmilar

so far this is all just concepts

[Janus]

It's late here, I may be missing stuff..

Before I crash, can I just make a request that lawful freighters don't get kicked in the teeth in all this brainstorming?

[Galacius]

I think the idea was to leave the unlawful and Junkers bases alone, so you wouldn't be affected......

I misunderstood a bit then,sorry my fault. Thought people were wanting to nerf the prices or get rid of illegal goods completely from big ship docks.

I still think there has to be some way of making a new tier (same price range as the big transports (80mil-140mil ish)) of "super" freighters that are different but comparable to high end transports, instead of changing up the distribution or adding new bases. Would be far simpler to.

Ninja edit for me calling freighters transports