Image Designer Archive

Reposting this here from smuggler and BH boards since it would also pertain to ID. Maybe y'all can expand on the ID aspect?

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Ok, here's my idea for a small start on player bounty hunting, tracking, and smuggling, which also happens to cover droid certifications.
I'm just going to put it in paragraph format to try and get the whole idea across.

Probots as they are now, not advanced probots but regular probots, will stay as they are now. Advanced probots will keep their existing damage dealing numbers, but their armor will fixed so that they actually have medium armor plus their resist percentages. Use of these advanced probots will require a 'license'. The licenses can be bought from special imperial license terminals. (they are the government after all [ps, keep reading for how rebels get it]). The license for these probots will cost 100,000 credits and be good for 7 days. At the end of 7 days you can no longer pull your advanced probot from your datapad until you buy a new license. For an even more advanced combat droid, the license will cost 200k. The license cannot be traded or sold, and overt Rebels cannot buy them.

However, when a smuggler goes to buy a license he can try and slice the license terminal. If he succeeds, he then gets a license for only 90,000 credits which appears in his inventory as a "forged" license. A forged license can be traded using a new smuggler skill, and are good for two weeks rather than just one.. This special skill is in the smuggler tree at whatever level is appropriate and is called "illegal transaction". A smuggler can open an illegal transaction window with anyone, regardless of their faction, overt/covert status, etc. Illegal transaction (/illegaltransaction with a target pc selected) opens a special trade window. In the trade window, the accept buttons cannot be pressed unless the license is the only thing on the one side, and 100,000 credits are on the other side. Based on the smugglers proficiency with illegal transaction, there is a percent chance the transaction will fail. In this case two things happen. First, the buyer becomes a mark, which I'll get into in a minute, and second, the smuggler get's a TEF that lasts 30 minutes, a criminal TEF if you will, that opens him to attack from Imperial NPCs regardless of his faction. The outcome of any battle with the NPCs based on a criminal TEF will not affect his faction points.

The smuggler will also have a new skill mod in his abilities list. This mod will be called smuggling stealth or something like that. When a smuggler is carrying a forged license, if he passes an Imperial NPC there is a resist based off that mod which creates a percent chance of being caught with forged documents.

On a failed transaction, the buyer becomes a mark. The bounty hunter terminals will produce a new one-time mission at a random terminal for a random bh who happens to be using that terminal. This mission will be a 10,002credit mission, ordered by the empire. His job is to death blow the player who was the buyer in the failed transaction. The buyer(mark) remains TEF for a minimum time of 1 hour, and only then can un-mark himself by either buying a legitimate license or visiting an Image Designer for minor image changes, which will remove the TEF. He will not have access to the license terminal during that first hour. The TEF is only good for the bounty hunter accepting the mission. Any buyer can become a mark on a failed transaction, including other bounty hunters, neutrals, and imperial factioned players, because they are temporarily marked as a criminal.

There are plenty of other licenses that could be created as well at varying degrees of expense, each time the illegal sliced version costing the Smuggler ten percent less than a legal one. Some examples, though maybe not good examples, would be like a Medical license for people without any medical skills, including not having novice medic. For 250k, they can buy a license, good for a week, to practice medicine. This can only be bought illegally via the smugglers and cannot be bought from a terminal unless you are a smuggler slicing that terminal. During that week you have the equivalent skill for using stim b despite having no medical skill boxes. You could buy a bodyguard license. Good for a week and costing 1 million credits, a bodyguard license permits you to use a special NPC bodyguard for a week, that obeys commands and such just like a creature/droid/faction pet, but does not count against your total number of pets. So you could have a droid and bodyguard out at the same time. Forged bodygaurd licenses last for a week and half and follow the same method as above, the exception being all the skill checks are more difficult.

I also thought of the idea that there could be PA licenses. Costing approximately 10 times whatever a normal license is, a PA license gives everyone with that PAs tag the same benefit that they would otherwise get from an individual license. If the PA is buying their license through an illegal transaction and that transaction fails, the PA leader (who is the only one authorized to buy the license) will get the criminal TEF. In such cases, the only way to get rid of the TEF, which will last for two hours, will be to visit an image desinger after that two hours is up, buy a legitimate PA license, OR, killing the bounty hunter sent to kill him. In all other non-pa cases, killing your bounty hunter will not remove the TEF, but will rather put your bounty back into the terminal, with no time limit. So feasibly if you kill the person trying to collect bounty on you, you could still visit an image designer right away or buy a license right away and cancel the bounty.

I'm sure there are other licenses that could be thought of also. Anyway, just my idea for a starting point for some new game dynamics that might cover multiple new aspects simultaneously.

I like these ideas. I think it's kind of silly that smugglers don't really do anything illegal in the game, and this looks like a good way to incorporate some criminal aspects into the profession. It would also give bounty hunters something fun to do while involving (and bringing a lot of business to) image designers.

I don't really agree with all of the specifics in your proposal, but those are mainly just minor details. Overall, I think you have some great ideas.

It's nice and exciting for players, but I don't see how this could be implemented - sounds far too complex. The mere process of getting a mark when a transaction fails and aggroing imperial NPCs sounds like a pain to program, not even to speak of the dancers as those who're spreading rumors while the terminals arelocked.(granted, I'm not a programmer - just seems as if the devs tend to stay away from stuff that is too complex).

One additional thought:

After posting this on the smuggler, BH, and image desinger boards I thought of another idea. Dancers as rumor passers. At master dancer you get a new skill called Cantina Rumors or something like that. When someone get's a criminal TEF from a failed illegal transaction, Master Dancers get a small unobtrusive chat notification that there is a new rumor available, and a 15 minute hold is put on the Bounty mission actually appearing in terminals. By talking to the rumor NPC which will be in every dancing venue within that 15 minutes, the Master Dancer can obtain this rumor. During that 15 minute hold, the Dancer can target a bounty hunter and use the Cantina Rumors skill. Doing so notifies that BH that there is a bounty in the terminal for him. He then has ten minutes to access the terminal and have the bounty appear as the first mission on his list. During that ten minutes no other bounty hunter can get the mission on his terminal. If the BH fails to get the mission in ten minutes, then it becomes open to all BHs on a first come first served basis (first to accept the mission gets it and it disappears or becomes unavailable for all other BHs). If he succeeds in getting the mission, and then successfully completes the mission, the Master Dancer get's 10% of the total bounty price deposited in his or her account, without taking it from the BHs payout. So for example on a ten k mission, the bh would get a full 10k and the dancer who passed the rumor would get 1k. Obtaining the rumor fromt he rumor monger npc would be first come first served also, meaning once one dancer gets the rumor, no others can get it. This would mean that the player's criminal TEF minimum timer of one hour would not start until that 15 minute hold was up, and if a BH is given the rumor, the timer would not start until that additional ten minutes was up, so potentially 25 minutes.

I also wanted to clear up the way to get rid of the criminal TEF. As I said, image designer and buying anew license (after 1 hour has passed) gets rid of the TEF, while killing the person hunting you does not. However, being killed by your hunter does of course end the TEF. Other than that, if you are tef and do not get image designed, do not get killed, and do not buy a legit license, your TEF remains indefinitely with regard to the bounty mission.

Any thoughts? Anyone like or hate this idea?

I'm not sure what kind of response you'll get from image designers about your idea, Neologist. The people that are in the profession now are probably doing it because it's a) safe, b) non-confrontational, c) social, d) friendly, e) creative, and f) unfactioned for the most part, or any combination of the above. Your proposal basically turns us into miniature Harriet Tubmans operating an Underground Railroad to sneak known criminals to safety, doing back-alley plastic surgery so the cons can avoid the feds, dodging the authorities, rubbing shoulders with the combat guys looking for an edge at any cost, and so on.

In fact, a lot of non-IDers want to turn the ID profession into the I-just-killed-a-man-and-the-Imperials-are-after-me-can-you-please-cover-my-tracks profession. It is for this reason that I'm not sure your idea is going to be praised on the ID boards; we didn't sign up for the profession so we could aid and abet.

Your idea is nevertheless interesting, with a few holes in the conceptualization that could probably be spackled over and sanded down real good.

Escia