Smuggler Archive

The goal of the Smuggler Revamp is to bring Smugglers in the game inline with the iconic conception of Smugglers in the Star Wars Universe. To create a profession that has both utility to other players (Interactivity) and fun and challenge for the Smugglers themselves (Content). Smugglers want to fill the unique role of gatekeepers to the illicit and illegal.

The final Smuggler "Vision" is a profession that has two primary components:

1. The ability to acquire highly desired illegal goods and services for other players.
   


2. Drawbacks to the acquisition or possession of those illegal goods and services while gaining abilities to help overcome and survive those drawbacks not only for themselves but the rest of the player base.
   

Smuggler interactivity is in their utility to other players through the first part, and content is in the challenges presented by the second part. What will make Smugglers useful is the interactivity, while what makes them unique and fun is through the content.

Player smuggling involves smugglers interacting with other players to either obtain or transport something that they cannot do on their own, or without considerable cost/risk to themselves. When a smuggler is involved in getting those items from one location to another, the cost/risk is reduced. This allows smugglers to not only interact with ‘real’ customers, but to also to continue to play a part in the player-based economy.

NPC smuggling does not involve customers/players, but is essentially the same as above. Through some terminal/NPC we are assigned a mission to transport item(s) from one place to another without getting caught by any competing/law enforcing faction that is looking to acquire said item.

One of the largest challenges smugglers face in regards to smuggling for the player base is they would need to accept changes that could retroactively affect the illegal items that they currently take as staple improvements to their abilities. While these items are supposed to be illegal, they currently have no real consequence to being used or carried. Smugglers should also be mindful of the consequences of being caught or pursuing illegal activities, which at some point should include having their names placed on Bounty Hunter terminals as seen with Jedi.

• Contraband:









• Harsher penalties are needed when contraband is discovered on a player; death is not much of a penalty.
  




• A suitable large time-sink when caught, for what are a few hundred credits and a bit of faction loss compared to an hour of the players time.
  




• Impound lot – Where items can be taken to, stored and returned if the player makes the trip and pays the cost. A limited form of confiscation.
  














• No one but smugglers should be able to move contraband with any modicum of success.
  




• Restrict movement of some materials from certain planets without the aide of a smuggler.
  


• Remove the Imperial Immunity introduced with the Imperial Crackdown.
  


• Fix the Droid storage work-around to avoid contraband detection.
  












• Players will need to grow accustomed to working without equipment that has been illegally modified in order to compete.
  




• Illegal items should improve the abilities of the player, but be balanced by the risk of using or carrying them.
  


• Illegal goods and services should not be commonplace improvements without significant risk.
  












• Contraband should not be able to be sold on the bazaar or normal merchant vendors.
  




• This can result in smugglers being able to ‘corrupt’ merchant vendors in a limited fashion to sell illegal goods.
  


• Leaves the option of a new profession that could enhance and expand on the underworld of SWG with a business focus, as seen with Jabba or Xizor.
  












• Contraband Scans:




• Should be more frequent.


• Should treat all players equally.


• Bottlenecks to enforce the law concerning illegal materials, especially at starports.




• Instanced rooms or ship representations where players can be placed for routine searches. Where perhaps every nth ticket sold has a hidden trigger to take that player to the instanced dungeon to be scanned.


Or


• Somehow manage to scan every player at starports before they are allowed to travel.













• Bounty Hunters & Visibility:





Smugglers should appear on Bounty Hunter terminals, and have ways of reducing visibility for themselves and other people to represent ‘going to ground.’








• Good Ways:
  




• A form of visibility used, as seen with Jedi.
  


• A method involving GCW involvement missions. Success and Failure can lead to this, be too successful, and you will be wanted dead… failure can also have repercussions.
  


• Special NPC missions where the player knows without a doubt they will be hunted down if they don’t follow through.
  


• Special, optional abilities, that in order to use, the player should know he is consenting to potential PVP.
  












• Bad Ways:
  




• Making it nonconsensual PVP.
  


• Interlock exp progression skills with Visibility.
  












• Adjusting Visibility:
  




• Let smugglers manipulate their visibility to an extent, perhaps helping other players as well, such as Jedi.
  

• The Good:









• Underworld:
  




• Able to understand all languages.
  


• Able to purchase faction.
  


• Reduced faction perk costs, which helps stimulate the GCW.
  


• Reduced faction lost upon PVP death.
  


• The ability to avoid scans relating to illegal item possession and faction affiliation.
  












• Slicing:
  




• Slicing is a good moneymaker both in mission terminals for newer players and as an income for Slicers/Masters.
  


• Slicing is a good money sink in the server economy
  


• Slicing has been an added feature in small portions to newer dungeons and adventure zones.
  


• Slicing is a niche skill that helps to define the smuggler profession
  


• The scaling of what you can slice at what level is a functionally good idea.
  


• The player base is dependent on slicing for armor and weapons allowing us to be sought out as a profession.
  


• The ability to craft items to increase our chance at slicing successfully.
  


• Slicer is a pretty good title.
  












• Dirty Fighting:
  




• Last Ditch is the most damaging pistol special in the game.
  


• Low Blow is a good ranged knock down.
  


• Ranged and Melee mitigation from only one line.
  


• Feign Death can save your life if you’re with a group
  


• Rogue is a great title.
  












• Spice:
  




• Portable and consumable buffs useable by anyone.
  












• Master Smuggler:
  




• The slicing bonus.
  


• The additional faction perks reduction.
  










---



• The Bad:









• Novice Smuggler:
  




• There is a lack of locked containers that the novice can get in order to progress and gain the initial experience in Slicing.
  












• Underworld:
  




• Language Comprehension isn’t really needed when every player knows all the languages save lekku in minutes upon entering the game.
  


• Sell Out has too little return for such an expensive investment to purchase it to make it worthwhile.
  


• The majority of abilities are GCW centered, and thus not useful for neutrals.
  


• Buying faction is an overly tedious process.
  


• The cap at buying faction is too low.
  


• Buying faction is in fixed increments.
  


• Sell Out requires a player to resign from their faction in order to make use of the skill.
  


• The Jawa mini-trash game, while it is making use of language skills, has little return and little use for smugglers.
  


• Fixer isn’t that great of a title.
  


• Little documentation of some skills or proof of their existence.
  












• Slicing:
  




• The player base is dependent on slicing for weapons and armor at little to no risk.
  


• Limited use in dungeons (Mag-seal containers for example).
  


• The number of sliceable items is very limited at the moment.
  


• Slicing into non-mechanical objects doesn’t make sense in the current cut x wire system.
  


• Players giving items to a smuggler to slice is wide open to griefing by dishonest smugglers.
  


• The wide use of Molecular Clamps without a skill requirement makes FAN’s useless.
  


• Limited market for non-master smugglers in regards to slicing for the player base.
  


• There are very few types of slices in this system that has many different statistics on items.
  


• Current level of randomness doesn’t make sense for smugglers who are very experienced slicers.
  


• Near inability to slice into data terminals that the Expanded Universe uses for slicing (equated to hacking in our world) save on the corvette.
  


• Choosing to slice composite armor and getting the color palette window as well gets annoying.
  


• Too much myth as to the range possible with slices.
  












• Dirty Fighting:
  




• No unarmed moves even though one of our prerequisites is Unarmed 4.
  


• Standing up from Feign Death in PVE will make the MOB come after the smuggler from several hundred meters away.
  


• Using Feign Death in PVP is openly inviting “Black Rot” (999 battle fatigue, 1/1 HAM on all stats from wounds, and 0 condition armor) and massive griefing.
  


• Panic Shot is worthless to any smuggler with decent pistol mods since the pistol will fire again, breaking the delay, immediately after Panic Shot is landed. This second tier elite profession skill was “balanced” to coincide with a Novice box starting profession skill.
  


• No modifiers to help a smuggler land his specials. A smuggler without Pistoleer can kill himself on the accuracy, delay, and HAM cost of his own specials before he can hit his target.
  


• No weapon for smugglers to call their own.
  












• Spice:
  




• Spice is crafted instead of smuggled.
  


• The spice tree is extremely limiting as to what can be placed in it.
  


• Only two spices are in any real demand, as the effects of most spices are not even close to comparing to the power of chef or doctor buffs.
  


• The title ‘Fence’ causes problems with fencers…
  












• Master Smuggler:
  




• Only two skill trees get bonuses at mastery, the box looks empty.
  


• Little documentation, the slicing bonus isn’t even mentioned.
  

Message Edited by Smuggler_Caylin on 05-31-2004 02:26 AM

The Infamous Caylin Borealis - First Master Smuggler on Bria
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse!
:The Ghost with the Most:

1. Underworld:





This skill tree represents the underhanded dealings, contacts, the criminal environment the smuggler exists and flourishes within and should assist the smuggler with lining up his next mission, while interacting with various factions that are not solely based on the GCW.








• The Tree:








• Contraband Concealment Ability:
  




• Move the contraband concealment ability to what is currently known as the spice tree for reasons revealed there
  




• Change the title Fixer to Scoundrel.
  


• Change the XP from Pistol to a Smuggler Mission Based XP, where completion of these Smuggler missions results in 'Smuggler XP.'
  










• The Smuggler Missions:








• PVE Smuggler Missions:
  




• Extensive NPC driven missions that generate PVE encounters during the travel portion.
  




• Difficulty is adjusted based on the origin of the missions.
  




• GCW faction missions could encourage the smuggler to group with other people, as they could be difficult missions with good rewards. Act 3 for Rebels for Dead-eye is a good example.
  


• These encounters can come in the form of direct combat, encountering law enforcement, threatened combat in exchange for the smuggled item, or non-combat encounters seeking to bribe or convince the PC to give up the item.
  


• Can include ethical decisions that effect the smugglers reputation and if he warrants a bounty placed on his head.
  


• City and travel combat.
  








• Rewards:
  




• Equipment buff programs.
  


• Datadiscs to further adventure.
  


• Rare Artwork.
  


• Rare Components.
  


• Rare Schematics.
  


• Credits.
  


• ‘Magic’ items.
  


• Rare Spice.
  


• Faction (If mission is granted by a GCW or Criminal faction)
  


• Skill tapes with suitable bonuses for the missions’ difficulty.
  


• Locked Containers to assist Novices in initial slicing experience.
  
















• Player based smuggling:
  




• When a player can contract a smuggler player to take a shipment from point a to point b.
  








• The use of NPC intermediaries who can ‘set things up’ and generate a mission and a flagged item to for the smuggler to take in order to copy the items to the new location so the client can pick them up.
  

Or


• Have the client interact with an NPC, pay the bill, and have the items copied to their destination immediately. A suitably difficult smuggler mission should be generated at that location for a smuggler to attempt at that time with a good reward to encourage using player-based missions.
  

Or


• Simply have smugglers take the items themselves from one point to another.
  
















• Existing Skill tweaks.








• Language Comprehension:
  




• Give smugglers the ability to communicate and understand a new language known as either Traders Argot or Smuggler’s Cant.
  




• Allows for smugglers to discuss illegal dealings with NPCs in more public areas for potential missions.
  














• Fast Talking
  




• The ability to bribe, convince and otherwise schmooze NPC from either letting you go for a price, giving you a discount on services or otherwise letting you know things you shouldn’t.
  




• Should be directly comparable to the Force Sensitive Persuasion skill


• Should continue to reduce faction lost when the player is defeated in a GCW encounter.














• Sell Out:
  




• Raise the value per faction point sold to a more reasonable level.
  


• Allow smugglers to choose exactly how much they want to sell instead of in fixed amounts.
  


• Allow smugglers to sell their faction to the opposing faction's recruiters without resigning.












• Purchasing Faction:
  




• Allow us to purchase faction for nearly all factions, especially those like Hutt/Nyam/Jabba/Corsec/Rogue Corsec/Borvo, etc.
  


• Allow smugglers to set exactly how much faction they want to buy, at a fixed rate per faction unit.
  


• Raise the 500-faction cap to purchase more faction points.
  


• When purchasing faction from a criminally oriented NPC, the player should be able to purchase as much faction as they wish, as it is not GCW related and no real perks are involved. The criminals could perceive you as a business partner with a lot of money, so they will gladly take it from you in whatever degree you wish to spend it.
  














• New Skills:








• Stealth Skill:
  




• An ability that will allow smugglers to help conceal themselves and/or their group members in hostile situations in various hostile situations that can include the GCW.
  




• Perhaps allow them to travel safely through areas with covert detectors undetected, and disable them.
  














• Resilience:
  




• Through underworld dealings, the smuggler has learned to build immunities against various diseases and poisons, as well as a better understanding of tricks designed to inhibit him.
  




• Poison/Disease/State resists that are all-inclusive, and allows smugglers to better resist and recover from the various negative effects in the game.
  


• Another Option is calling this 'Bravado' and having high resists granted against Intimidation or delays instead.
  












• Opportunist:
  




• Essentially an ability that will allow smugglers to trade freely with opposing factions, regardless of affiliation or Overt status.
  












• Connections:
  




• Allow smugglers through their connections and various factions, gain knowledge of when a Bounty Hunter has accepted a mission to take them out.












• Pilot’s Empathy:
  




• Proper use of this skill would allow smugglers to find a transport for themselves and their group members without having to wait for the normal starport shuttle by appealing to the Ticket Collector to find them another pilot with a ship, who would be willing to take them for a fee.
  


• Depending on how much time is left till the shuttle arrives, the droid will deny the request.
  


• Party members should be prompted if they wish to travel at that time.
  













---



2. Slicing:
   




Create additional uses for slicing using a more reliable method than we currently employ at this time.








• Place certifications for FANs and Clamps to encourage FAN use and prevent novices from using Clamps without earning the right to use them.
  


• Make it clear that quality does not matter in tool creation and use.
  


• In the slicing tag, add how much the item was changed and how by the smuggler.
  


• Change text in the slicing window so slicing non-mechanical items makes more sense, an example being cutting wires on stone knives.
  


• Make slicing similar in fashion to crafting with experimentation points with a slicing skill modifier to represent it, allowing smugglers to adjust many different aspects of what they are slicing with control over what is changed and without the worries of material/tool quality and skill tape hunting.
  








• Armor: Effectiveness (Including special protection), encumbrance, condition (In the case of PSGs).
  


• Backpack: Extra number of items in a sub-compartment, limited scanner immunity.
  


• Containers: Locked containers of all kinds, such as mag-seal. Scaling difficulty, more experimentation needed to open higher-level containers.
  


• Counterfeit Identification: A false identification that, depending on the level of success in creation, can remove TEF, make players covert and lower their ‘Visibility’ level.
  


• Doors: In dungeons and adventure zones, with scaling difficulty, more experimentation needed to open more advanced doors, they should also open for the group members with the smuggler.
  


• Droids: Storage space, Armor, Weapons, Battery Use, many options here.
  


• Terminals: Mission, Profession, Travel, security terminals/computers in dungeons. Increase rewards, disable systems and other useful abilities, the greater the success, the better the reward or effect.
  


• Vehicles: Maneuverability, durability, acceleration/deceleration, armor, weaponry and scan protection depending on type of vehicle.
  


• Weapons: HAM, damage, range modifiers, speed.
  










---



3. Dirty Fighting:





Add to the survivability and combative versatility of the smuggler by not only increasing the smugglers’ ranged weapon or melee skills, but unorthodox abilities that are useful against either NPC or PVP opponents on land or in space.








• The Tree:









• Consider changing the Pistol XP to a different XP, to explain additional melee or other skills not particularly related to using a pistol and are more versatile. Combat XP is a possibility.
  


• Add combat modifiers to the tree to make us more combat effective, but preferably ones with a more defensive orientation.
  




• Smugglers fear the addition of combat modifiers will result in the weakening of the specials for the sake of balance, particularly mods with an offensive orientation. It would be preferable to keep the specials strong if balance is an issue when considering the addition of combat modifiers.










• Ranged Combat Skills:
  








• Allow Last Ditch, Panic Shot and Low Blow to be used with any rifle/carbine/pistol ranged weapon, as you would find with Overcharge Shot 2 in Master Marksman.
  


• Restore Panic Shot to what it was before Publish 7, which made Panic Shot almost entirely worthless.
  




• Or change the breakable delay to something more valuable, such as a cone effect Intimidate. One way or another, change Panic Shot to something more useful.
  








• Melee Combat Skills:
  








• Create at least two melee combat skills that are useable with any weapon equipped, but make their range limited as one finds with Pistol Melee Defense 1, which is found in Pistoleer. The following are only possibilities.
  




• Knock back technique – Used to put space between the smuggler and his humanoid opponent, by knocking them outside melee range.
  


• Eye Gouge – Melee technique that can ‘white out’ a PVP opponents’ screen as well as add the blind effect.
  


• Cancel Regeneration. Move – A move that can stop a player from regenerating damage for a time. Essentially freezing their secondary stats.
  


• Etc… creative and unorthodox skills that should not be simple improvements of other skills or disguised repeats of a skill we already possess.
  










• Ship/Vehicle Skills:
  








• Techniques that can be used on vehicles to give the smuggler an advantage. Not all smugglers were great pilots, but they were willing to do things no orthodox pilot would.
  




• Playing ‘Chicken’ to cause a delay.
  


• Minimizing detection range, by shutting down systems.
  


• Etc…
  










• Other Skills:
  








• Feign Death needs to be useful in PVP as well as PVE.
  




• Find a way to prevent ‘black-barring’ of the smuggler if he feigns death in PVP, it’s just a prolonged way to grief a player.
  




• Make the player have a chance at appearing a corpse in PVP.
  




• Reduce the agro range of mobs when a player stands back up after a successful feign.
  


• Give a chance at clearing off the agro list at mastery.
  


• Posture-up attacks are bringing smugglers out of feign death, this should not be happening.
  














---



4. Spices:
   




We hope to make smugglers no longer ‘crafters’ of what should be highly illegal and valuable spice, while extending the flexibility of the skill tree to accommodate for potential new abilities not necessarily tied to the creation of spice itself.








• The Tree:
  








• Change the skill tree’s name to Profiteer, or something equally suitable, that way the smugglers have more ‘play’ room so in the future the tree would not be limited to strictly spice.
  


• Find a different fourth tier title more suitable for Profiteer, as Fence tends to get players confused.
  




• Swindler perhaps.




• Change the XP required to progress to the XP gained when a Smuggler Mission is completed.
  








• The Spice
  








• Give the NPC criminal or GCW factions’ factories as seen in Act 3 of Dead Eye, where smugglers with friendly faction can interact with that organization to acquire spice as opposed to crafting it.
  


• Increase the power of all spices to be more competitive with Chef foods and Doctor buffs.
  


• Add new spices.
  


• A form of Spice experimentation is needed to make spices vary in quality between smugglers where extra time and effort should be rewarded.
  


• Add special effects to all spices, increasing their usefulness to the player base.
  


• Some spices should be more rare than others and exist as quest rewards only. Glitterstim is a very good example of a spice this could apply to.
  


• A form of spice addiction that is gained through abusing the power and abilities spices grant by taking more than previously allowed but at an increased downer and other side effects.
  








• Profiteering
  








• Additional locations for smugglers to land and take off from, for themselves and their party members, such as Jabba’s Palace.
  


• Move the contraband detection evasion skill to this skill line.
  


• Vehicular Control and Speed bonuses as seen in the new force sensitivity lines, affecting any and all vehicles/ships.
  


• Access to interesting vehicles and ships that assist with smuggling, which could bring up smuggler specific vehicles.
  

• Smuggler Ability:
  




• A measure of the skill and varied experiences of the smuggler as he progresses throughout the profession.
  




• Difficulty and rewards of missions should increase comparatively with how many skill boxes in smuggler filled, instead of solely existing in a single skill line.
  

• Smuggler Luck:
  




• Smugglers should be lucky.
  




• Increase defenses (The lucky miss).
  


• Increase random cash loot reward.
  


• Increase offense (The lucky hit)
  


• Let a master’s luck ‘rub off’ onto group members and stack with other masters to a point.
  

• Personal Weapon:
  




• Smugglers should possess a personal weapon that they can alter beyond what is normally seen with slicing, while rendering the item unable to be traded.
  




• Should scale in power depending on the smugglers ability and be tinkered with over time.
  


• Should be certified for use at the smuggler’s ability, to prevent a player from making a powerful personal weapon, and surrendering the skills afterwards, yet keeping the weapon as it is.
  

• Personal Ship/Vehicle:
  




• Smugglers should be able to modify their personal ships and vehicles beyond the norm. Players may have sliced components for their ships or vehicles, but smugglers should have modifications that are not seen on any non-smuggler’s vehicle. The experience and ability of the smuggler should influence the power of the modifications to a large extent.
  

• To have interactive player based gambling with Sabacc, Pazaak or another card game.
  


• Allow smugglers to enable a limited amount of special ‘corrupted’ vendors for merchants, so they can sell illegal goods. (Providing the request that all illegal items be removed from bazaar and normal vendors is worked with)
  


• If a personal weapon is not allowed, a weapon certification useable only by smugglers, such as a DL-44a.
  


• Providing a form of slicing experimentation is not possible, perhaps make material quality affect the slices.
  




• Or allow smugglers to pick-a-slice, perhaps at mastery.
  


• Or adjust the range on slices so masters at least do not suffer from hideously low slices.
  




• Smuggler run Casino for player cities.
  


• Smugglers get the ability to have criminally oriented thugs working for them as pets.
  


• Players shot with low blow grab their crotch, scream in agony with a big ‘O’ of surprise on their faces and fall face forward to the ground, twitching.
  

Message Edited by Smuggler_Caylin on 05-31-2004 02:16 AM

The Infamous Caylin Borealis - First Master Smuggler on Bria
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse!
:The Ghost with the Most:

---

Raanan wrote:

---

Players shot with low blow grab their crotch, scream in agony with a big ‘O’ of surprise on their faces and fall face forward to the ground, twitching.

---

rofl I love that

Great doc Caylin. I have no issues with it.

---

Let it never be said I didn't bring it up despite how much I despise it.

I'm rewritting the thing in HTML that Lithium will let me use... I'll need a bit.

The Infamous Caylin Borealis - First Master Smuggler on Bria
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse!
:The Ghost with the Most:

Very nicely done Caylin!

If they implemented even half of these suggestions, our profession would be much better off.

/bow2

my 2 fav things in there are the Thuggish NPC pet idea, and the LowBlow animation LOL!! I can just see it now.....

Message Edited by Osuss on 05-28-2004 06:36 PM

Woops...

posted in wrong section...

that was supposed to be 'edit' not reply...

Message Edited by Smuggler_Caylin on 05-28-2004 07:56 PM

The Infamous Caylin Borealis - First Master Smuggler on Bria
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse!
:The Ghost with the Most:

Nice, you got the formatting in. Hurray for lithium Stupid you couldn't just copy nad past from word. Not like word puts that much code in there. It still won't let me put a link in my sig either.

Message Edited by Raanan on 05-28-2004 07:41 PM

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Smuggler_Caylin wrote:

• Players shot with low blow grab their crotch, scream in agony with a big ‘O’ of surprise on their faces and fall face forward to the ground, twitching.
  

---

Haha, I love it! Bravo, Caylin!

/cheer Caylin