Smuggler Archive
Thread: What does the Smuggling Community want from the Smuggler Revamp?
UberCal wrote:One more drastic idea. This would piss everyone off but it might be fun. How about if someone gets caught with contraband the illegal stuff gets conficasted. For example if you get scannedand then incaped in the resulting fight all your contraband is taken away.
Yeah, I would be all for it, as well as more things to be illegal. It's no fun if it is easy.
UberCal wrote:
One more drastic idea. This would piss everyone off but it might be fun. How about if someone gets caught with contraband the illegal stuff gets conficasted. For example if you get scannedand then incaped in the resulting fight all your contraband is taken away.
3-C
Impound Lot Penalty:
As it stands, the current penalties for having contraband are near non-existant. They need to be increased drastically. One potential idea I had, while greeted with skepticism by many, I believe is harsh enough to at least make people cautious, instead of care-free.
Upon detection, all items with the contraband flag, would be stored into a safety deposit box, only accessable at impound lots, that we would have to pay a fee, which rose depending on what was inside, that we would have to pay to get access to.
Think of the police today who have suspected the lining inside a car is packed with drugs or other things. They place it in an impound lot or a place like it to complete the search, and often the owner has to come along and pay them for the return of what has been taken.
It would not permanently remove our items, but it would be a serious pain in the neck to find ourselves stripped of our gear, and have to go to the impound lot/storage area to pay the fine and get our materials returned to us.
No permanent removal, just a really freaking big inconvenience that could prove costly to get our materials back.
I'll again emphasize my idea was not permanent removal. That would be griefing. There is NO permanent item removal in this idea. It is just relocated. That is all.
The item would be stored elsewhere, into a bank storage of sorts, so we would have to stop what we were doing, go back, and pay a fine at the impound lot to get the materials back. Hey the impound officers could be corrupt, looking for money, and willing to sell all our possessions back to us.
We do need harsher penalties, as just fines, a fight and detection are NOT deterrants for many people.
I personally get a great deal of pleasure in the thought that I could be on a rebel raid, and if we did not stop the Imperial contraband scanners, they could confiscate all my contraband items, and I would have to trek halfway across the world to get them back, if I failed my saving roll. Even on my doctor alt who has no smuggling skills I would get a kick out of this.
Having to travel to a certain goverment center on that world, to get that equipment back from the guy who runs the impound lot or whatever, would seem a much more fitting punishment, It keeps them from delivering goods with such minor drawbacks.
I would propose that higher ranking Imperial officers not have to worry about the impound lot, they would just lose faction and credits, not their items. Please note that I completely disregard the immunity they have on live at this moment as I 100% believe they should not gain immunity to contraband scans through faction. It makes them smugglers without having to pay for the skill in skill points. Same with droid storage being able to avoid contraband scans. These issues need to be addressed and I believe are critical to the possible future of smuggling for the smuggler.
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse! 
Well I figured if they didn't act to prevent it, their items could be confiscated while they could be fighting them. After all, if they take your weapon from you while you are fighting and confiscate it, you are severely screwed.
Maybe have it act off a timer. "You have been detected as holding contraband material. It will be confiscated and sent to an impount lot in 60 seconds".
Then you can either try to fight them off, or have it taken from you outright.
If you were overt, well the timer will be going down while you are fighting.
Like I said, death and fighting is not a deterrant. Having your stuff stripped off you and sent to an impound lot would.
i like what im hearing, except for the "if we are caught we should be able to talk our way out of it" ?????
Like : Sry officer but im a master smuggler, sp please accpet theese 100k as bribe cus u got nothing to use them for what so ever since u have no life other than beeing a soldier
handing money over to ppl is hardly a skill, and if u really want this they should replace it with dirty fighting, since the pistol is a means of settling an "agrement" with ppl for smuggler, i liek the spice experimentation ideas, especially when alchohol has a much larger effect than spice, wich seems kinda off, so a better effect for muon gold's and a longer time effect, could be added a longer downtime as well, but most spices seem useless atm.
Slicing seems fine imo.
the smuggling thing is ok, but i wouldnt trust anyone to give them 500k or so and go and pick something up for me and come back with it, and vise versa, i would never put out 500k for someone and then come back with it to see the buyer gone, smuggling should be better, and i love ur ideas but they have alot of flaws, its kinda like the bh's dreaming of beeing able to get player bounty hunter mission targets from other players, wishfull thinking but bot gonna happen, the scanning should be alot more frequent, allthough i cant see what we should do about it, either we'd have to act storage place for 20 ppl who's in town atm, or we'd have to group a bunch of ppl all the time, thoose ideas are based on putting the smugglers into a central role of the game, and with the wish to make contraband possesion punishment bigger u would depend too much on smugglers.
Now what could happen is something like, someone buys some "illegal" recourses on another planet, pays for it and goes to find a smuggler who can transport it without the smuggler beeing able to use it or hand it over to anyone else than the buyer or something like that.
Well, given what I've been reading on the boards today, I sure as heck DON'T want the ability to sell junk to Jawas.
Where in the heck did THAT bit of steaming bantha poodoo come from?
Shrendyc wrote:Well, given what I've been reading on the boards today, I sure as heck DON'T want the ability to sell junk to Jawas.
Where in the heck did THAT bit of steaming bantha poodoo come from?
It is called a sop. It means that when they next decide that they are going to have to delay the Smuggler revamp they can say they gave us Upgrades in Pub7 so we have to wait at the back of the queue again
Here is what I posted on the smuggler revamp board, what do you guys think?
For some reason i get the not allowed to post HTML message when I try to quote your post..but here is my reply without the quote.
UNDERWORLD
I like the presence of the underwold tree, but I agree that it needs some serious revamps. I would love smugglers to possess the ability to work forother factions other then rebels and Imperials. Make the mission difficulty dependent on a person's smuggling skill with the hardest missions given at master smuggler. I understand the lag problems of having contraband checks done at starports, so new NPC's that are contraband inspectors could be put in place. Make these NPCs the same faction of the local militia (likeNym on Lok for example) and make them much more proficient at detecting contraband (say at master smuggler you would have a 50% chance to get through on a master levelmission) yet not as well armed asthe stormtrooper patrols. Make being discovered give you a TEF to the local authorities, whatever they happen to be. This would give smugglers a reason to use knockdown and panicshot as it is currently designed (after the PS nerf.) It would allow smugglers to escape without damaging their faction to the local people. If a person decided to shoot it out with the locals, and was incapped, make the mission a failure. This failure could result in negative faction with the people issuing themission and those that caught you, and on a high level mission perhaps it could allow you to be placed on a bounty hunter terminal until you fixed your faction with the angry party. This makes an incredibly in depth system for people to work and have fun with, not just the bland systen that is in place for underworld now,and itincludesother players. A person could bribe the BH once caught (or possibly not,) and then be removed from the list, or perhaps slice into the terminal to get a temporary relief period, which I will go into deeper in the slicing section. Image designers (a profession screaming for something to do) could be also tied into the tree with the possibility of assisting in making Fake ID's to temporarialy hide faction status (everyone has spies right?) Lastly I think that smugglers who have gotten to Underworld IV should be able to buy and sell faction other then Rebel and Imperial, and they should be able to do so in blockslarger then 500 (I understand the need to cap it so smugglers can't purchase their own faction rewards so increase the cap to 1000 or 2000.) I can't count the number of people who would Love to fix their faction with the Nyms on Lok, or perhaps Jabba.
SPICES
Spices have really taken a beating from the chef revamp (which I personally LOVE.) I think that spices should be given a boost to give their users a reason to use them. Right now good Vasarian Brandy will buff all your mind stats for 400ish for about 45 minutes, and you can take TWO. Compared to Muon which does 500 for 10 minutes with a downer there is NO question which is better. This makes spices a poor man's food, and that is not the reason anyone I have ever talked to makes spices. Spices need a revamp like the chefs' food did. Increase the benefit of using spices, and add new spices that give other bonuses (not the same as chef's food and drink)for example make Muon buff for 1000-1500 for the same 10 minutes with the same downer. That would give people a reason to use the stuff in conjunction with, not instead of vasarian brandy. Other spices can be modified similarly.There is still no reason to go master smuggler as far as crafting spices is concerned. Add more spices that havevaried effects, but add some of them to the master smuggler box, this too would decrease the reasoning to dabble in smuggler.
SLICING
This is a touchy subject with ALOT of smugglers. Some want to see experiementation added, or a pick your slice system added, but I do not agree. I like the risky part of slicing, the fact that you don't know what is going to come out, but I would like to see less variance in the slices. A master smuggler has GOT to have less chance of slicing a weapon badly then a slicer with slicing 3. Now as far as other things slice-able there are a few I would LOVE to see. I think it would give smugglers a big piece of group utility if they were able to slice through doors for the whole group. As it is now, a smuggler can go into the Genosian dungeon and slice his way through the doors, but his (or her) group can't come with him. Why would I open a door and not let my fellow group members with me through? Another thing I would love to seesmugglers be able to slice is bounty hunter terminals. As I stated above this could give the smugglers a few hours to go and repair theirfaction with any group that is currently upset with them. It would also add another business for smugglers, so they could remove the names, temporarily at least, of Jedi clients.
DIRTY FIGHTING
This is yet another place alot of players disagree. In my opinion smugglers should NOT be a combat profession. It doesn't take that many skill points to master smuggler, which allows for another skill to augment a smuggler's combat ability. Although I think the Panic Shot nerf should only affect PvP combat, I do not agree that smugglers with no other combat skills shouldbe aforce to be reckoned with, again smugglers are designed to be a hybrid profession, please leave us that way. I do think, however that the ranged KD and PS as it was previously gave a smuggler his or her hunting group utility. Perhaps add more status debuffs to smuggler to further proove that we are a hybrid profession. I would like to see some unarmed combat specials, however, do to the requirement of unarmed 4 to get smuggler What role would you like to see smuggler play planet-side? I see how hard it is to incorporate a planet-side side smuggling system. This is especialy true for other player interaction. I do not think there is a good way to make smuggling work from one player to another. Now, having smuggler missions that I described in the Underworld tree (as I think that is where your "smuggling" should come from) doesn't seem like it would be an impossible (although difficult) feat.
GROUPING INTERDEPENDENCIES
I thinkthere are a couple reasons player groupsshould want smugglers with them. One should be for the contraband scanning bonus. Add alot more NPC's as inspectors, and don't make all of them imperial stormtroopers. This would give people who are already imperial officers a reason to group with a smuggler. I also think that smugglers should be able to slice doors like I detailed in the slicing section. I also think that smugglers should be able to slice mission terminals for groups of players doing missions, and have the sliced terminal remain "sliced" for all members of the smuggler's group for the whole 2 minutes rather then just the first screen. This would possibly be the biggest non combat draw for smugglers groupwise. Combat wise I think that smugglers should have more debuffs (blind, dizzy, bleeds, position down,) and should function as a more support role then as a damage dealer. Their ability to knockdown from a distance, and their ability to use Panic Shot (until the nerf at least) was a great reason for them to be in a group. It allowed them to stay back with the other ranged damage dealers and help prevent creatures from getting to the damage dealers.
Well there is are my opinions, I hope that they help you decide what to do with the smuggler revamp.
This is my Premiere here!
Now to what i have to add up to the Discussion.
I agree with Nisse und Geevo. I think that most of the "Problems" with the Smuggler is that the Master Title means nothing without some benefits it brings.
Slicing: I strongly suggest that You allow the Master Smuggler to choose what he want to Slice. In case of a Armor he should be able to choose to atempt to enhance the Stats or den Encumberance. Still the outcome of the Slices Valure would remain Random. This would be the perfect way to tell a Master Smuggler from a "simple" Slicer.
Spices: I don't think that the Master Smuggler should be able to craft new Spice that the umastered don't know. Again it is very similar to theSlicing Suggestion i made. Give the Master Smuggler the Experimentation back. Thus only a Master Smuggler could try to enhance the Power or Duration of the craftable Spices. So he could make "more" out of the Average Muon Gold or Thruster Head and so he could be proud of his Master Title and benefit from it. If we take real life for an example everybody can cook after the same recipe but only a well experienced can add a few experimental changes without ruining the whole Meal and make it taste even better, even though he used the same Recipe as the "Chef-Student". to put it in simple Word.
Smuggling of Contrabant: The Crackdown is a Joke! I don't need a cool Contrabant revamp or such, just MAKE the Crackdown mean something. I want to see NPC Stormtroopers constantly stopping and questioning people. Maybe you could connect it to a timer. If the people simply move away for more then 10 meters the Troopers will Fire upon them. And if they don't wait till the Troopers scanned them for Contrabant they'll start firing too. The Crackdown is a good step into the right direction. But without putting some pressure to the PC's it means nothing. If there would be "real" stopping and questioning of People the would be forced now and then, to take a Smuggler as some sort of "Escort Service" into their Group when entering a Big NPC City. There could be a safe Zone like the Starport and the Shuttleport for example where Groups could make Contact with the "Local" Smugglers to join them.
Last but not least...i forgot who had the Idea of giving the Smuggler a Brass Knuckler so he could fight his Mean-Street-and-Barfight Style. I love the Idea!!!!
Oh....and one thing more.....i think the Dev's should devenitely add Pistol Holster!!!! Not only for the Smugglers of course. I really miss to see my special rigged DL44 or my Acid Gun dangling in a Holster at my Hip
May the Force be with You and may it grant the Dev's the Wisdom to hear the Smugglers cry of agony!!!
Colonel Avan Pandros - Chief of Staffs (Resistance Task Force)
(Joint Chiefs of Staff)
HQ Hills Garden / Corellia (Gorath)
1. Underworld Tree. Useless UNLESS you are a faction seller. Chuck the whole thing. That and pistol giving this xp is out of whack.
2. Spices. You should be able to experiment away some of the downer.
3. Slicing. Either choose a way to slice, or maybe allow us to pick one NOT effected. I HATE when I get a range mod!
Content would be really nice too. Maybe when Space comes out, Smugglers would be the only ones who could get the big multi-person transports.
Who knows. I know I'll be re-claming some smuggler skill points soon.
If you would like the background information, or just want to read up on how this idea came to be developed, please follow this link.
Smuggler "Tinkering"
A Smuggler makes changes to his or her weapon over time, and each time holds their breath in hopes they do not damage their weapon irreversibly. This weapon is highly illegal, but a Smuggler deals in illegal businees daily, right? What I am suggesting is a system where each progression in "Smuggler Ability" (see Smuggler_Caylin's Revamp Proposal here for an in depth explanation) of +20 grants the Smuggler the ability to experiment on their weapon one time.
The amount of experimentation points (maximum of 10 at Master) and the chance of success or failure will be based off of a Smuggler's ability to slice (the Slicing Tree Modifiers in the revamp proposal).Each experimentation session would allow a maximum of a 10% increase on one stat (at Master) if successful. If adding an ability to the weapon (such as Dodge) it would take 2 experimentation points per +1 attribute increase.
Each "experimentation" session would allow the Smuggler the ability to rename the item, and this information (along with the number of times modified and the level of Smuggler Ability required) would be added to the weapon's description. The weapon then becomes non-tradeable (Just like the Collector's Edition Goggles) and is considered highly illegal (giving a chance to be detected by contraband scanners). This would keep us from being able to use this method to slice a customer's weapon, instead of our own, as well as keeping someone from mastering the profession, modifying their weapon, and dropping the profession.
An example of how the certification would read is as follows: (This would be shown by examining the weapon)
"This weapon has been modified to be exclusively used by [NAME]"
"This weapon has been tinkered with a total of [X] times."
"This weapon requires a Smuggler Ability rating of [XX] to use."
In order to modify their personal weapon, a Smuggler would have to craft a "Personal Weapon Modification Kit" which would be available at Novice Smuggler. When used, just like a repair kit, you would have to manually select the wepon you want to modify from the list. This helps to ensure that a customer's weapon is not accidentally chosen to modify. Upon finishing your modifications the kit is consumed.
Only the weapons that can be certified by advancing in the Marksman and Brawler Professions would be able to be tinkered with. This would prevent the possibility of a Commando / Smuggler having an unbalanced weapon in the form of a tinkered flamethrower, or a TKA / Smuggler and a tinkered set of VKs, or the Geonosian Sonic Blaster modified in the hands of a Pistoleer. There are many other examples, these are just the ones that came up most often in the disucssion prior.
NOTE: The weapon can either be sliced conventionally, or "tinkered" with, but not both. This prevents the possibility of a 35% Dmagae increase on a slice, and then further modification by means of a damage increase of 60% through "tinkering" which would result in an overly powerful weapon. Also, Tinkering is an IRREVRSIBLE process. It acts just like slicing in that respect.
This is how the skill tree would look:
The following is a list of stats that could be tinkered with:
- Weapon Speed
- Weapon Damage
- Dodge
- Counterattack
- Block
- Ranged Defense
- Melee Defense
- Aim
- Accuracy (Including variations such as while moving, standing, prone)
- Defense versus State Attacks
- Armor Piercing**
**NOTE ON ARMOR PIERCING: This would take three tinkering sessions to complete, and would only grant AP1 on a weapon that has no Armor Piercing ability.
Here is an example:
A Master Smuggler decides to "tinker" with his or her weapon. They have the ability to "tinker" 6 times (at each +20 Smuggler Ability Skill achieved, of which a total of +120 can be gained by Mastery). Also, because of being Master, they have the best chance at succeeding (+100 to Smuggler's Luck). On the first attempt they choose to increase Pistol Speed. An experimentation window opens, and the Smuggler has 10 experimentation points to place where they see fit. In this scenario let us say the Smuggler is successful (either success or failure, no variations) and gets a 10% increase in speed (all points attempted in speed, equates to a 1% increase per experimentation point). The Smuggler gets hyped up because of their success. The second attempt is in damage. The Smuggler gains a 10% increase in damage output. The third attempt is to try and add some mods to Dodge. Success, the Pistol now has a +5 Dodge modifier (2 experimentation points are required per +1 mod). The Smuggler seems to be on a roll, and decides to try again. Fourth attempt is a failure, and the weapon is rendered unusable (condition 1/1). The Smuggler had bad luck on that attempt. Granted, more often than not the Master Smuggler would not fail, whereas the Novice would.
This probably is too difficult to implement, but it would allow a much larger diversity among Smuggler's and their chosen weapons, and could help provide more content in a contraband sense. After all, these "tinkered" weapons would be highly illegal, and therefore anyone caught with one (which would only be Smugglers who do not manage to evade scans) would be punished. On a side note, I really like the idea Smuggler_Caylin had in his revamp thread about an "Impound" and think that it would fit nicely with this scenario.
NOTE: I figured this belonged here as well, although this is a repost of the original thread.
Message Edited by Ryutek on 03-09-2004 10:04 AM
In a way you are right BUT as i experience it now as a "Slicer" and unmastered Smuggler, even now the people with lots of Money go on distance to me as soon as i tell them that i am no MS. They don't want their Weapons & Armor to be sliced by me. But the People who do not have the Big Wallet come to me since i use the 100 Credits per success percent as Fee. So if the Master Smuggler could at least select what he is slicing nothing would change. The People with the small Wallet could not afford his Slice (Since then their Fees would rise even more due to the fact that they can at least guarantee that they can select the thing the customer wants to be sliced) and would still go to the umastered "Slicer". So nothing at all would change and the only good thing would be that the Mastered Smugglers could finally be proud of their Title and what they achieved. And from the Roleplaying aspect of the Game, the ability to select what they are slicing (outcome still randmomzied) shows only that they are more experienced and have a greater wisdom when it comes down to cut and fuse the right Cables to the right spot. After all this is sort of a Roleplaying game. At least it could be
Same with the spices. The Master Smuggler who could experiment with the Power, Duration or impact that the Downer of spice will have would devenitely charge more Money for their "premium" Spice. But not everyone in the Game is a Millionaire and so the Guys with the Small Wallet would still come to their friendly, shady Spice Fence from their home Cantina to get his Stuff. And the same explanation as with the Select-Master Smuggler Slicing comes in here. A MASTER must be more experienced with mixing Spice then a talented but yet green Skill Rank 4 Fence. I see absolutely no danger to the unmastered Smugglers here. There are so many Players on each Galaxy, not all of them can afford to buy "Premium" Spice for the, let's say double Price then usual. And even those Guys who can buy themselves almost anything run out of Spice now and then and in the Middle of a Hunt they will buy the Unmodified Spice gladly if they can get it. After all "Normal" Muon will serve them better on their Hunt then No Muon at all
Colonel Avan Pandros - Chief of Staffs (RTF)
(Joint Chiefs of Staff)
Daermoth wrote:
Aye, we absolutely need a way for players to rely on smugglers to transport contraband in a way that works. But it has to be done in a way that makes people not want to sweep into the smuggler profession so they can do it themselves. That is the biggest issue the devs face with any profession revamp. Keeping it so that there is a proper balance across the server of professions. Make one profession too fun, and EVERYONE will dabble or master to enjoy it and its perks.
Player bounties. Who's gonna smuggle if they have the risk of dying? (Throw in some sort of death penalty too)