Smuggler Archive
Thread: Revamp Discussion: Contraband & Smuggling Missions
), i will lose the 1 million dollar composite suit I was smuggling for someone else? 
DRWolfe wrote:
I say no immunity to Imperials other than what was mentioned in the original document (quasi-legal goods at Officer level would be best), if even that. It's illegal, even for Imperials. Just because someone's a police officer or is in the military, it doesn't mean they can do drugs or own illegal firearms and get away with it. I don't care how "corrupt" the Empire is.
That is not the point. It is still Illegal, but the fact that a lowly Stormtrooper would dare to search a Captain or a Colonel at all, that is the point. They wouldn't.
Also, keep the Stormtroopers as they are in the crackdown. Novatroopers are NOT a police force. Stormtroopers (or even lower ranked troops) do the "police" work. They're dangerous to "normal" folk (shopkeepers and such) and "regular" military-types (the guys on the Tantive IV), but fall in droves to "heroic" individuals (Han, Chewbacca, etc). Therefore, "elite" combat characters should be able to take them out.
Yes, an Elite Combat Character should be able to take out a Stormtrooper or 2, But not 20-30 of them at a time. I don't care if it is "Han Solo Himself", and that is what we have right now. It's a joke for a Rebel to get searched, unless there happen to be some Overt Imperials arround.
frkjerm wrote:
Just a thought from a non-smuggler.
You are giving a benifit for imperial smugglers and not to rebel smugglers.
Why not let rebel smugglers pick up rebel smuggleing mission (not spices and such but maybe top secret plans for the rebal alliance) with some sort of increase payment or factional reward to give some benifit to the rebels.
It also make sence that the rebels would have a great need to smuggle stuff.
Thunderheart wrote:First!
that has got to be the most hilarious thing i have ever seen...
Smuggler_Caylin wrote:
Contraband
Concept
The game’s contraband system will be changed to include a greater number of illegal items, a range of legality levels, and increased penalties for being found with illegal items.
Legal Ranges & Punishment
Items will now have a range of legality. The following legal ranges will be implemented.
Quasi-legal. A player caught with quasi-legal goods will be attacked.
Banned. A player caught with banned goods will be attacked. The player’s visibility will increase slightly for each violation.
Highly Illegal. A player caught with highly illegal goods will be attacked, the goods confiscated (if the attacked player is defeated), and the player’s visibility will increase. Highly illegal objects cannot be transported via the standard travel system by anyone other than a smuggler. The player must use the new smuggler travel system in order to move highly illegal goods. (This new system will be discussed later.)
This highly Illegal part sounds *awesome* Now, what happens when an item is confiscated? Is there a chance to get it back? Is feign death going to have an effect on whether or not they take the item? I'm excited about this.
My guess Caylin is that Highly Illegal goods will be those only obtainable by smuggler missions. Once these items are sold by smugglers to the general populace they are probably still highly illegal. Getting the item back after losing it from a scan attack of BH shouldn't be the case if the player understands the risk of possesing a highly illegal object. They are highly illegal, it would make little sense to be able to go to the nearest police/imperial garrison and pick it back up
Illegal objects will display their legality in the examine properties list.
Great
A faction aligned player who is caught with contraband will lose a percentage of faction appropriate to the degree of the crime.
Sounds Great.
Imperial aligned players will now only be immune to scans regarding quasi-legal goods if they have the rank of corporal or better.
Imperial immunity to scans is a big sore-spot. I don't know if I care for them to be immune even here as that still insures 100% success without picking up smuggler. A high chance at success I don't mind on just quasi-legal items, but I do not believe there should be immunity in any way, for any player. Hopefully droid storage immunity will also be addressed?
As a staunch Rebel and long time supporter of killing imperial free passes, I'm going to have to say it makes ALOT of sense to give high ranking imperial officials a free pass on quasi-illegal goods. There needs to be SOME perks of being an imperial officer and being above the law. Currently Imperial colonels could walk around dragging crates of spice and illegal weapons behind them in full public view. Now they can carry low level spices and not get in trouble. This is MUCH more sensible. The military wouldn't demote a Colonel just because he keeps a bottle of alcohol in his desk or is somehow caught with three bottles of Robitussim (cough syrup) and is caught abusing it out in the field.
Old sliced weapons and armor will be converted to have the legality level of "banned."
Cool.
Scan Frequency
Contraband scan frequency will be somewhat increased. Scan bottlenecks will be introduced at various locations in major cities, such as starport entries and medical centers.
Great! Though I will continue to dream of being hauled in for an 'extensive search' when I board a shuttle.
As long as it doesn't involve a rubber glove i'm on the same page, haha
Contraband Visibility
The game's "visibility" system will be expanded. Any player can now accumulate small amounts of visibility for a contraband infraction. The amount of visibility will be dependent on the severity of the infraction.
Isn't this too close to pvp without consent? Carrying an illegal item and being punished by an NPC is one thing, getting hunted down by a bounty hunter in a PVP situation is another.
???? Caylin!! How many smugglers have felt that if you choose to do illegal actions that you should face your consequences???? Carrying banned and highly illegal good despite continued local and imperial reprimands IS consenting to being permanently erased. I still don't know why you feel that this is non-consentual being that it is a players choice to carry banned and highly illegal items. If they don't want to be hunted, don't carry illegal stuff - that simple. We finally get the hard "law" that we've been crying for. Let's keep it that way
Smugglers may attempt to find out or reduce the visibility of any player by slicing a bounty hunter terminal. Failure to successfully slice the terminal will result in the smuggler being immediately added to the terminal. Clamps cannot be used in this form of slicing. (This will be a new type of slicing, not wire cutting.) More information on this is available in the slicing section.
This I honestly don't care for. The mental imagery of bounty hunters hiring smugglers to get themselves on terminals for easy investigation xp is not something I care to see. It's bad enough with Jedi farming themselves out I don't want to see smugglers going down the same road. This is why I've always supported the Counterfeit ID idea, as it does not rely on the smuggler, but the usage of the item by the jedi in order to gradually decrease their visibility while raising the risk of the smuggler who made it.
This is something that I do care for. As you point out Caylin, there are some "issues" that need to be addressed
Smuggling Missions
Concept
Various criminal organizations throughout the galaxy have found financial success in moving illegal substances and goods from one place to another. The vehicles of these transfers are the smugglers, men and women who store their morality along side coffers full of questionable goods. The smugglers are brave and often brash individuals who risk their lives for monetary gain on a daily basis.
The smuggler revamp will introduce new missions to simulate the smuggling underworld.
Are we going to make all smugglers strictly criminals? Or are we going to allow them to have a 'cause'? For example, I smuggle materials for the Alliance as I believe in their cause. I never lay aside my morality in an RP sense. The idea of having to surrender my GCW faction to actually become a real smuggler is not an appealing thought.
I didn't see this implied. Don't worry
Basic System
Smuggling Missions are received from various underworld bosses, called ‘suppliers’. Jabba, Lady Valarian, and other key criminal characters, as well as new characters, will offer smuggling missions. Smuggling missions are only offered to smuggler characters. The difficulty of the mission will scale to the average tier level of the smuggler’s skills.
At its core, a smuggling mission is similar to a delivery mission. The player is given a crate of illegal goods to move to another contact. The player must then return the payment for the goods to the source of the mission.
Ex: Jabba gives the player a crate of 50 narcostims to deliver to a cantina in Mos Eisley. After the player delivers the narcostims, she receives a payment of 12,000 credits. The player then returns to Jabba and delivers 8,000 credits, pocketing 4,000 as payment for the job.
There are no skill boxes specific to smuggling missions, but the smuggler’s skills in scan avoidance and slicing will come into play.
So how does a smuggler figure out how difficult these missions will be? Will a novice smuggler be able to take the same missions as a Master? I'm not quite comfortable with that.
Cargo Legality
Smuggling mission cargo is highly illegal. Any non-smuggler caught carrying a crate of any item to be delivered from a smuggling mission will be attacked and have the cargo confiscated.
Due to the illegality of the cargo, the authorities may occasionally hear about a particular supplier’s intent to move goods. Smugglers on a smuggler mission may encounter attacks from planetary or Imperial authorities, depending on the difficulty of the mission. Killing these enemies is not necessary to complete the mission.
Sweet!
I agree
The target for a smuggling mission will only wait so long to receive the delivery. If the player does not deliver the goods within a reasonable amount of time (dependent on mission difficulty), the mission will be lost and the player will receive some visibility.
This makes me wonder about the possibility of making our missions give out an XP type required for progression. If that happens, you are again having PVP without direct consent by the player, in order to progress up the skill tree. Interlocking XP progression with PvP is not a great idea for those smugglers who chose neutral for a reason.
I think you are also worrying here. If a smuggler chooses correctly his/her actions there will be no failures - save severe computer crashes/power outages. A quick fix to this would be to allow visibility to drop over a certain period of time. A smuggler who wishes to avoid PvP and has botched several missions due to unfortunate circumstances would be smart to lay low for a bit. Trust me Caylin, the devs know that forced PvP will detract from certain players gameplay. Structures will allow for one to avoid any "unpleasant confrontations".
Somehow I think that smuggler will be able to choose the difficulty of missions they take. There will be no forced PvP on a smuggler who take easier or less risky missions (not the most difficult ones) as the easy missions are a piece of cake to complete. This is exactly like the current BHmissions: bounty hunters who want PvP take the harder (Jedi) missions, bounty hunters that don't want to PvP take the easy ones. It's that simple.
Besides Caylin, considering that the very upper level of this game is centered around PvP (GCW), it should make sense that those smugglers wanting to push to the upper level and take large risks for large rewards would be the ones who choose the difficult high level smuggler missions - missions who consequences could be PvP fighting! The upper eschalon of smugglers should be PvP oriented.
I would lastly like to say that I favor a system that allows smugglers to lay low for a bit should they mess up a mission. PvP should be consentual, but I'll be damned if a system is implemented where a smuggler can take and break all the risks he/she want's without having to ever deal with a BH. Why even have a contraband system in the first place??? That would be exactly the kind of Care Bear Land that electricnomad said he would leave the game for. Caylin we want hard law and we want consequences for illegal and dirty decisions. If a smuggler doesn't want PvP, they should play their damn cards straight. End of story. Any thing less would be spitting on the law - the law that makes us smugglers the most money. Got me?
Withholding Cargo
The player may choose to withhold part of the delivery. In the above example, the player may choose to only deliver 30 of the narcostims to the contact in Mos Eisley. If the player chooses to withhold cargo, s/he will only be paid a portion of the actual delivery fee. The amount of the payment will be directly proportional to the amount delivered.
In order to split a container of mission supplies, the smuggler must successfully slice the container’s locking mechanism.
Great to hear about this, I've been pointing to this for a long time, in order to increase the novice container availability. Thank you for listening!
The player may also choose to withhold part of the money to be paid to the supplier. For example, the player might deliver all 50 narcostims, but only pay Jabba 6,000 credits.
Withholding cargo or pay will result in the smuggler earning a small bit of visibility. Thus, a smuggler who chooses to defy the crime lords who supply her with jobs faces the possibility of execution at the hands of a hired Bounty Hunter.
The more difficult the smuggling mission, the greater the visibility gained for cheating.
Sounds great.
Cargo Contents
Smuggling mission cargo often contains items that are components for smuggler crafting. Narcostims, for example, might be a component used in the creation of the spice, Glitterstim. Thus, a smuggler will need to occasionally withhold some of the cargo from a mission if they wish to enter the spice business.
In the interests of the player economy and current game balance, spices will remain craftable. Now, however, smugglers will "assemble" various components into spice packages, instead of chemically brewing them. Experimentation will be added...more details later in the spices discussion.
I'm very interested in this.
Smuggling cargo may also include crates of low or mid level spices. The player may choose to withhold these spices and resell them to other players if they wish.
Alrighty.
Space Integration
There will be elements of smuggler missions involving space zones & space gameplay, but I can't discuss many space details. The player may have to pick up or deliver goods in space. Players without JTL will not be required to go to space. This is an "after space ships" feature.
Okey-dokey
Overall Caylin I appologize if I've been to harsh on you. Please do not let your pessimism unmeaningfully denounce a particular idea becuase you have a small disagrement with it. Maybe I'm reading the wrong way into it because of text. Anyways bro, my point is that I disagree with any stance that would allow a smuggler to take and break every risk in the book without having to face a BH. It isn't Star Wars and it doesn't make sense. In response to your concern I appeal for a slow decay of visibility for a player. If a smuggler finds that they gain visibility and they don't wish to PvP, they can choose to lay low until their visibility drops to an acceptable level. Anyways, thank you for your time Caylin, and thank you devs for this AWESOME contraband/mission system. I'm so excited about it I almost ****** my pants