Smuggler Archive
Thread: Spice: Smuggle or Craft?
Message Edited by yimaz on 01-11-2005 01:45 PM
Can you all please read my post and give me some input?
I really think it would be a small change that would add content and a smuggler feel to the game.
WesBelden wrote:
DRWolfe wrote:
Spice would be actually sold through various dealers (NPCs) scattered throughout the galaxy (in cantina back-rooms and other such likely places). A method of making these PC dealers and making PC cities more useful would be to make PC cantina owners able to place these dealers in their cantinas.
Each dealer is linked to a particular criminal group (Jabba, Valerian, etc). Missions are generated by an NPC at the criminal group's base of operations for Smugglers to deliver spice to their dealers (or a cantina owner uses an option on his dealer to place an order for spice to be delivered). If it is only PC cantina dealers, missions should also be generated for NPC deliveries so there are always missions available.
The Smuggler takes the mission and the spice is placed in his inventory via a special container item that cannot be opened (like the supply crate for Whip's Vehicular Control missions). All law enforcement officers in cities (including Imperials) and Imperials in the wilds would do random scans (like the Imperials currently do) and this item would be considered contraband. If this item is discovered in a scan and the scanning trooper is not killed within a certain time, the shipment is lost, the Smuggler's faction for that criminal group is reduced, and possibly the Smuggler generates a little "notoriety" to be placed on the Bounty Hunter teminals. If the shipment is delivered successfully, the Smuggler is paid the mission reward, his faction for that criminal group goes up, and possibly his "notoriety" goes down. The crate is then broken up automatically into however many units of spice were ordered and made available to be purchased from the dealer.
I like this idea,a lot
Me too.
Malcolm_CaKrewrote:
*However* if various "hot or not" qualities are applied to spices, we could allow our aspiring underground chemists to tweak their spices. It would wind up a bit like slicing, but it would be either "cutting" it to get more hits, or "spiking" it to tweak the effects or downer. So, the savvy Smuggler could go after the qualities of spices he wanted, both by chasing down NPC contacts to follow shifts of hotter spice, and/or he could take what he gets and tweak it up through a crafting process. A true Spice Lord in the making would probably do both.
That would certainly appease those interested in crafting; however, given the player econemy/market is in the state that it is, namely that only the best is wanted and so only the best sells, it is likely that in order to compete a Smuggler would be required to act as underground chemist aswell as quality Smuggler.
An idea just popped into my head though (a rare occurance indeed); What if Smugglers smuggling spice for NPCs could slice into the containers and re-cut the spice so that it was slightly lower quality, but higher quantity, enabling themselves to keep some for themselves and, assuming they did a good enough job, their employer would be none the wiser.
How about if we were given the option to either make more of it (and keep a bit for ourselves) by making it a bit less effective; or making it more potent (by including our own additives), but costing the final consumer quite a bit more. If you manage to sell it all, you keep the extra profit, but if you fail to move it because it costs too much, your employer starts to get angry and shows it by sending BHs after your sorry arse.
JTGAlpha wrote:
and why craft at all? Because SOMEONE'S gotta make it, and it SHOULD be a player, and it might as well be smugglers. I like spices. I miss making and selling them. I would like to keep them in our family, and not toss them to docs or cm's.
I'm all for keeping things in our skillset as much as possible, but in the longterm if forced to make the choice of keeping the Spices line as is, or gettign a a new skill tree for smuggling or another skill set that makes more sense.....
I think part of the idea of changing the Spices tree was to make room for something more Smugglerery?? I still can't figure out why, but for some reason we are very unselfish with our profession in terms of making adjustments to our skills. If SOE came up with a skill tree and said we had to get rid of one, and it couldn't be Underworld....then I think Spices would be next.
I like the ideas so far that have been generated. I alsolike soem of our original ideas, and those centered mostly around a "DeadEye" liek approach. I think it makesmore sense tohave us smuggle it, but maybe we also have to smugglee the materials to make it. We can letan NPC make it, but what they make, and the quality of it would depend on our ability to smuggle quality materials to them.
I'm not talking the traditional resources here either, but rather other things that we could get from 1)other players 2)loot 3)components that maybe we can craft
SOE wants profession interdependability, well here is a good way toimplement it. We all know that in the description for nearly all the spices there is some hint as to what it is made of. Zypolene Droid Lube, well why can't a DE either make it for us or have it be a product of crafting droids that would randomly get dropped in their inventory (the way that the KSE Firespray peices do for Shipwrights)? Same goes for a lot of the medical type of spices, some from Doctors, Medics, and CM's. BE's could have animal byproducts (ewwww) that we could use.
All these things could be used by Smugglers to bring to NPC's toeither flat out make the spice, or to enhancea baseline spice that the NPC provides.
Example: Arashi brings 2 crates ofDroid Lube(given to him by his guildnmate Gilack) to Joe Schmucatelli theSpice Cutter. He takes that and offers to sell Arashi 6 crates of Zypo DL with increased stat mods for20,000 creds. Arashi buys them and then either keeps them, or distributes them, or sells them.
Both the enhancements and the end product can be contraband, and therefore subject to the use of smuggling skills to get both products around the galaxy safely.
In the end, I want to smuggle; not craft.
NickHeel wrote:
SMUGGLERERING@!!!!1111!ELEVEN!!
I want to go and take a mission from Jabba, Nym, Valarian, Borvo, ect. and take a Smuggling mission that has me travel to a few places to find and talk with NPCs to find the person I'm supposed to pick the spice up from. After finding the NPC and getting the spice, I head back to the mission giver and deliver the spice. For my trouble, I receive Smuggler XP andsome credits orjust get the spice which will"earn more money for my employer" by selling some spice to PCs.
You could also go on cool things like (PLUG ALERT! PLUG ALERT! WARNING! LEVEL 7 THREAD PLUG ALERT IN PROGRESS!!!) the Kessel Run which has all sorts of cool things to do with it
Let me repeat that...the Kessel Run with the Maw and the Pit with the potential for Bounty Hunters and Smuggling!
Thanks.
Well it looks to me like you have mastered the "pimper of good idea's" skill.
