Smuggler Archive
Thread: Revamp Discussion: Contraband & Smuggling Missions
Comment:
Contraband visibility – In a similar way that a ranger can mask scent of another non-scout PC, would it be feasible to give the smuggler the ability to forge papers/forge license/forge permit etc. for illegal goods. The forged papers would not be periment, possibly an inverse relationship between the number of forged papers a smuggler does in a few days time and the number of times the papers get inspected. So if i sell forged papers to1person in a short time frame say 3 days there is a 70% or so chance thatthe forged papers will pass. If 10 people have the forged papers over the same 3 days then the chance of passing scan would drop to 65%, for every person who gets caught with the forged papers from that smugglerfrom those few days the chance of passing scan due to the forged papers decreases. What this will do is keep the vaule and usefullness of the forged papers high, keep a smuggler from sitting at the starport spamming "Forged Papers for Sale" because everyone will know that after 15 to 20 forged sets the chance of passing scan quickly approach worthless. So in a nutshell what this would do for the person being scanned is give them a temporary ability to get through a scan bottleneck, otherwise I can see the smuggler going from slicing monkey to mule.
Even at master smuggler this should not be 100% effective, maybe 65% or 70% tops. Then if the person gets caught with an illegal weapon with illegal papers the fine increases. That person gets visibility points and a roll is performed to determine if the papers can be traced back to the smuggler. If they can then the smuggler gets more visibility points.
Scan areas – It would be interesting if there were some areas, such as cantinas or hotels, where scanning does not happen very often, however these places are subject to raids or inspections. This gives a smuggler a place to do business with the risk of getting raided. The idea being that they can get lost in the sea of people and slip out the back door. With this in mind there needs to be a less cumbersome way of slicing goods for people. Otherwise there is a potential for people to be slicing, have a raid happen and sitting there trying to trade the items back to the person before you can run or fight. Possibly allow the smuggler to slice items directly in the other person’s inventory. The payment system will have to be figured out, but slicing in another’s inventory would allow a quick exit in case of a raid.
Thanks for your work on the GreenMarine,
Karamak
Osrim wrote:
This is in relation to greenmarines suggestion on adapting the visibility system from jedi to smugglers.Why not adapt the ‘ranking’ system as well?
This could take many forms, the ones I’ve come up with include:
Most feared bounty hunters.
Easily tracked, simply the bounty hunters that have collected the most player bounties.While ranked the bounty hunter will receive a skill box like ranked jedi which gives the bh additional mods ect.. and increases bounty missions payments (you want the best you have to pay for it)
Galaxies most wanted.
The reverse of the most feared bounty hunters, these are the crooks (smugglers or non-smugglers caught with illegal goods) that have taken out or avoided the most number of bounty hunters sent after them.Again, each rank will give special mods (will have to be general concidering the fact that these characters could have almost any skill set) and also will be worth more to bounty hunters if the manage to bring then in. (they are the galaxies most wanted after all)
You could add charcterful things in here, like automatic -5000 faction for all ‘law enforcement’ type factions (corsec, RSF ect..) and +5000 faction for all ‘criminal’ factions (word spreads in the underworld that it’s best not to mess with you).
Commands like /bountyhunter or /mostwanted should list these ranked individuals (what bounty hunter or crook doesn’t want fame/notoriety?)
Other ranking ideas:
Drug lords
These are the smugglers whose spice is detected most often (given the player carrying it visibility)The authorities can trace the spice and it come back to you.(in game terms a record is kept of the illegal goods creator)
Benefits could be bonus to spice creation.
Troublesome slicers
Like drug lords but with sliced weapons/armour.Bonuses to slicing skills.
GCW.
The other obvious ranking system would be the top imperial and rebel pvp’ers.(Hopefully coming with the GCW revamp.)
The majority of the code for these systems should already be in the game thanks to the jedi revamp, applying this to other game systems would give us all something to do if we don’t want to fight in the GCW, and give smugglers incentive to participate in the player bounty system rather than the npc bounty system that has been proposed.
However, one piece of advice. Posting long rants on why you think a system will not work is fine, but if that's all you post it isn't really that useful. You should also post suggestions on alternatives.
For example, I'm reading a lot of threads about the impact that increasing the illegality of sliced goods will have on the market. While I don't necessarily agree with these arguments, they would be more convincing with a solution. You could say "for that reason, we should also be able to craft special powerups for armor or weapons that reduces the visible illegality of that weapon for 1 scan" or whatever. It's just an example of a random possible solution to the problem...not only does it allow some players to have a chance to slip through scans, but they have to use an item you supply to do it.
It's okay to disagree and have a debate about the proposals, but its important to keep a cool head and look for better alternatives.
Message Edited by GreenMarine on 06-21-2004 02:18 PM
TroThorns wrote:
No, the initial question was is there any revamp content that will ONLY be available if you buy the expansion. GM said the answer was no, but then specifically said that some revamp content would only be available to people who buy the expansionSo the answer is in fact "yes" without the expansion you won't get all the revamp content
Daker-Naritus wrote:
Now if you re-read what I posted, you will see I advocate the following:
(1) Spices and other items (like really good powerups or maybe skill tapes) are acquired through NPC smuggling activities. The greatness of the item is directly proportional to the skill level of the smuggler (as in the better the smuggler the more the "boss" will trust the person with). All of these items are HIGHLY desirable to players. The smuggler has the choice to complete their NPC mission, or to sell these highly desirable items to PC players for a LOT more money, but roll the dice with the bounty hunters.
(2) Slicing, Spices, and items acquired from smugglers have little or no contraband properties. This keeps them desirable to players, so them will want to pay smugglers top dollar for the items (without being hassled). Since only smugglers can acquire these items, it makes no sense to keep penalize players for buying them from smugglers.
(3) Substantially increase contraband scans and power of the troopers near star ports (NOTE: Slicing, Spices, and items acquired from smugglers have little or no contraband properties).
DON'T FREAK OUT YET...I'M NOT DONE.
Create a brand new class of "highly illegal" items, that people will get scanned and killed for possessing if they try to planet hop with them.Smugglers are near required to move these items. These are NOT items that will bug and annoy players every single time they play (like guns and armor), but rarer items that make sense.
Message Edited by Daker-Naritus on 06-16-2004 08:59 PM
Manabu2 wrote:
uggg any word on pub 9? tommorrow next week next month? ugggg 3 profs left
tommorow
Good summary as of page...uh...15? I'm slowly working through all of this.
Ternque01 wrote:
1.Clarify a system that would allow those not intersted in PvP to be easily guided and informed on the decisions they make that gain visibiliy
a. A message that alerts a player that thier visibility has increased.
b.An easily accessible means for playes to check their visibiliy.
2.Ensure that an effective and convenient way to dissapate visibiliy is given to the players - good example is a slow decay of a players visibility naturally. Adjustment of this rate can be made to balance the visibility system.
3.Ensure that leveling smugglers have a very clear ability to not engage in PvP in their professional line of work. Not all smugglers like PvP. We just want their to be a "slightly less rough" road to master smuggler. Ethical decisions in smuggler missions should play the primary role in visibility gains for a leveling smuggler. This is opposed to gaining alot of visibility due to mission failures. The hope is to even allow an unskilled smuggler to level smuggler without ever having to engage in PvP. I recommend an emphasis on ethical decisions and not on mission performance.
4.Some smugglers don't like the imperial immunity even on psuedo-illegal items. We would like clarification on what makes the psuedo-illegal list. I personally prefer low/mid level spices and maybe some crafting resources to be on this list
Daker-Naritus wrote:
Now if you re-read what I posted, you will see I advocate the following:
(1) Spices and other items (like really good powerups or maybe skill tapes) are acquired through NPC smuggling activities. The greatness of the item is directly proportional to the skill level of the smuggler (as in the better the smuggler the more the "boss" will trust the person with). All of these items are HIGHLY desirable to players. The smuggler has the choice to complete their NPC mission, or to sell these highly desirable items to PC players for a LOT more money, but roll the dice with the bounty hunters.
(2) Slicing, Spices, and items acquired from smugglers have little or no contraband properties. This keeps them desirable to players, so them will want to pay smugglers top dollar for the items (without being hassled). Since only smugglers can acquire these items, it makes no sense to keep penalize players for buying them from smugglers.
(3) Substantially increase contraband scans and power of the troopers near star ports (NOTE: Slicing, Spices, and items acquired from smugglers have little or no contraband properties).
DON'T FREAK OUT YET...I'M NOT DONE.
Create a brand new class of "highly illegal" items, that people will get scanned and killed for possessing if they try to planet hop with them.Smugglers are near required to move these items. These are NOT items that will bug and annoy players every single time they play (like guns and armor), but rarer items that make sense.
Message Edited by Daker-Naritus on 06-16-2004 08:59 PM
To expand on #1, I think slicing should at least require a minimal contraband flag. It should be minor because a modified weapon shouldn't be easy to detect, yet they are still illegal. The Empire outlawed ALL weapons by civilians, but a lot of slack is cut in that department. I think that if you have the gun equipped, it should be prone to scanning.Weapons in your inventory should be protected from that. After all, walking around armed is a very noticable thing, is it not?
I have to disagree with not penalizing players for carrying smuggler made or certain smuggler aqquired goods. For one, they're illegal in the first place (else, why would the need to be smuggled?). Secondly, it would add a few choices on how risky you want your character to be. I think that kind of choice is a great, stimulating experience for a player. If he wants to be the biggest and baddest, there should be a risk involved. He should have to work at it, or ever fight for it. Besides, there nothing against smugglers modifiying storage droids to hide illegal items from scan points (give the mouse droids some usefullness!), or even temporary shields that can lower scan percentages.
If I had it my way, I'd make all weapons equipped in city areas illegal. If it's out in the open, and held in the hand, it's punishable. But then, that's probably not feasible, and a lot of people would hate it.
GreenMarine wrote:
Daker-Naritus wrote:
Now if you re-read what I posted, you will see I advocate the following:
(1) Spices and other items (like really good powerups or maybe skill tapes) are acquired through NPC smuggling activities. The greatness of the item is directly proportional to the skill level of the smuggler (as in the better the smuggler the more the "boss" will trust the person with). All of these items are HIGHLY desirable to players. The smuggler has the choice to complete their NPC mission, or to sell these highly desirable items to PC players for a LOT more money, but roll the dice with the bounty hunters.
(2) Slicing, Spices, and items acquired from smugglers have little or no contraband properties. This keeps them desirable to players, so them will want to pay smugglers top dollar for the items (without being hassled). Since only smugglers can acquire these items, it makes no sense to keep penalize players for buying them from smugglers.
(3) Substantially increase contraband scans and power of the troopers near star ports (NOTE: Slicing, Spices, and items acquired from smugglers have little or no contraband properties).
DON'T FREAK OUT YET...I'M NOT DONE.
Create a brand new class of "highly illegal" items, that people will get scanned and killed for possessing if they try to planet hop with them.Smugglers are near required to move these items. These are NOT items that will bug and annoy players every single time they play (like guns and armor), but rarer items that make sense.
Message Edited by Daker-Naritus on 06-16-2004 08:59 PM
Not a bad set of ideas.
The best part about this idea is that it creates the (future) possibilty of player created missions for smugglers and bounty hunters. For example, if it were the case that only smugglers could transport highly illegal items between planets, there could then be the ability for players to create smuggler missons to have their items transported to another planet, since they can't do it themselves (or they will be killed, whatever). On top of that, the smuggler who takes the mission could either follow the player-created mission and drop of the players cargo at the requested location, OR the smuggler could keep the player's property. Then the player has the option of placing a bounty on the smuggler that stole from them. I wouldn't advocate this exact system because there are griefing possibilities. But I think it would be great if the revamp allowed for player-created mission, and this is a suggestion along those lines.