Development Cycle Archive

I was scanned for the first time yesterday. It was exciting right up to the point that I passed. Here's the thing, I'm not a smuggler. Not at all. I happened to be grouped with a friend who has one box in the Underworld tree; I don't know if that's why I passed but I did.

From others that I have talked to even if I had failed the only thing that would have happened would have been to receive a small, and rather insignificant fine.

This is wrong, absolutely. There is no fear or motivation to be concerned about this Imperial shakedown what-so-ever! Perhaps it should be renamed the Imperial Annoyance.

Here's what I purpose, I think it's a little harsh but I would love to see it implemented. It would allow smugglers to smuggle things and also be in high demand!

All Starports on major routes (Theed, Coronet, perhaps all of Naboo and Corellia, etc...) is where the empire would take up residence. As soon as you land you are scanned for illegal items. They would in essence act as customs agents who are very strict in regards to allowing ANY illegal products to come through their spaceport.

Here's the big thing. If they find anything they simply confiscate it!! Now that would hurt wouldn't it!! I don't know about you but most characters that can afford a full suit of composite and have it sliced, or are toting around crates and crates of spice practically laugh at the fine they receive. Big deal, I'm a millionaire syndrome. So see if they laugh if it's immediately taken away from them in the name of the empire.

This would force characters to talk to smugglers and have them smuggle things through customs.
Perhaps a separate trade window would need to be constructed where any items that are given to a smuggler within this "Smuggle Trade Window" are totally unusable by the smuggler.
This is to prevent the smuggler from simply stealing them. If the smuggler is caught running through customs a system message should be sent to each item owner stating the fact that the empire has confiscated the items.
The smuggler would also be fined substantially.

If the smuggler is caught perhaps allow him one chance to "Bribe" the official on duty. This could be a class skill gained somewhere in the smugglers tree that improves as the character does.
The difficulty of the bribe would be based on the location (Theed and Coronet should be more difficult then Tattoine or Lok) and it should also be based on the amount of illegal items the smuggler is carrying.
Link this bribe skill directly to the smugglers "underworld contacts", this would symbolize the fact that a smuggler that is really well connected would be less likely to be treated roughly because of his connections.

Each smuggler should be given a number of items he or she is allowed to smuggle that increases as they go up in levels. Thus a higher level smuggler can take a larger haul through customs and get away with it. Although it would also increase the difficulty. Items being smuggled should not count against the smugglers inventory cap.

If players do not want to take the risk of having their items confiscated they would simply: a) leave them behind or b) fly to a small settlement on the same planet that is not be closely regulated by the empire and simply drive to where they want to go.

Current cities that are not being actively scanned by the empire could be something that changes over time and it could also be information that a smuggler could discover with a successful slice on a starport ticket terminal.

Perhaps if having your item taken away permantely is a little steep let's try this. Your item is confiscated and immediately placed on a special "Imperial Bazar terminal" where it is auctioned off. All profits to go to fund the imperial war machine.
The item would sell for 50% of its original cost or perhaps some form of set price structure that would actually cause players to be careful.

There has to be consequences to using illegal items. If there isn't nobody will ever bother using a smuggler for anything!

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CharleySpace wrote:
Here's the big thing. If they find anything they simply confiscate it!!

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Since we heard that mains would become your jedi after the revamp process what type of concessions can be made for those that made their characters under the impression it would not be a jedi and now dont want that name, race, faction, responsibilities, tied too or affected by the jedi status?

Fried yoda wrote

Yeah, what a primo idea. Going out on a hunt with your Krayt Weapon (which cost you a few million) and you get randomly scanned. Ooops! its sliced! sorry, we gotta take it from you. Its ok, it was only worth 2 million credits. i'm sure you can easily get another

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I agree, random scans would destroy this idea. However, what I am suggesting is that there is no more random scans. The Empire simply set's up shop at spaceports.
Right now because scans are random players can never know when the services of a smuggler would come in handy. It's not like you are going to have a smuggler running around with you permanently just in case you are scanned.

If the scans are now only at the spaceport you can avoid them or hire a smuggler to get you through. Once through go about your business.

It's just that at the moment there isn't any consequences to being scanned. "You are fined 200 credits" SO WHAT!

It's just an idea that would allow smugglers to actually smuggle something and also something that would give players motivation to utilize them.

I'd just like to take a few minutes to voice my concerns about Avian meat and the lack of quality spawns. I'm playing on Chimaera and we currently have an excellent Avian shift on Tatooine. The amount of creatures dropping avian meat galaxy wide needs looking at. Taking Tatooine as an example, Nuna are the only creatures that drop it and they only drop a tiny 4 units a kill.

More experianced doctors can afford to pay up to 300 credits per unit for this which makes it very hard for less equipped doctors to compete. Please can we see more creatures switched to Avian or have more epic style creatures that groups can hunt for Avian meat.

I'm notsaying make Avian as common as the other kinds of meats, but please can we see more creatures that drop this that can be farmed at all levels. I can't even farm this because I'm to high level. Sure I can equip a gun to get them, but seriously every character should be able to farm Avian without doing this. With any luck this will make Avian less rare and help everyone, especially younger doctors and those who want to make buff packs, but can't afford prices like 250-300 cpu

I would also like to add that making a crafting station input hopper'sinventory similar to that of a vendor (not counting against the house inventory) would add greatly to the usefullness of player structures!

Man, it would be sweet for each race to get their own special weapons. Right now, some things I would like to see are:

RIfleman getting back their melee damage penalty in a smaller form,and getting a larger range, like maybe at least 30 meters more.

Being able to use enviroment features like tall grass as cover to hide yourself from the radars of players, and making them have to get a lot closer to detect you, and also providing you with a slower detection by enemieswhen fighting in PvE ranged. It would add a major degree of strategy to the game, and also providing morepurpose for Rifleman moves like Strafe shot, which could be used to flush out players like this.( I can just imagine Imperials coming to a base to attack, thinking that no one is there to guard it at a first glance, then Rebels suddenly opening fire on theme from their natural cover.)

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Wanderer33y wrote:

I have an Idea that might be interesting.

Have factional characters be able to show rank. It could be put along the lines of the (HELPER), (LFG), ect.....

Only show it on Overt characters and have it be disabled during covert. This way when in a factional fight we can have some sort of rank structure. Or just for grins about it.

Johro Klpor

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Would make sense to have your rank as an option for a title , now you can call yourself gunslinger, battlemaster etc but not captain, sergeant or any other rank. If its not very hard to implent I think it would be great to have rank titles added.

Err adding higher end professions will only make the things you discussed worse.

If there is not enough high end content why would we want to make professions that are even stronger?