Smuggler Archive
Thread: Revamp Discussion: Contraband & Smuggling Missions
The answer is INFAMY!
In other words the whole player base earns INFAMY when they commit crimes be they Quasi-legal, Banned, or Highly Illegal.
BUT Highly Illegal crimes ALSO earn the player VISIBILITY!
Commiting acts that give you Infamy would result in PvE punishments like- Being aggro'd to security types, loss of faction and heavy fines. Commiting acts that give you visibility could land you on the BH terminals.
With this system GMs proposal works- You just have to make Highly Illegal crimes acts that a smuggler wouldn't neccesarily need to level.
Example:
Quasi-legal:
Giggledust, Being under the influence of spice, holding sliced weapons and armor.
Banned:
Muon, Pixie, selling spice, slicing weapons, slicing terminals.
Highly Illegal:
possession of Glitterstim (a jedi spice), using Lightsabers and force powers, Skimming off missions given by certain NPCs (Jabba, Nym), Running Data disk (spy) missions for either faction.
So you see- Highly Illegal stuff would be things that are done by people open to PvP in the first place and so having PvP BHs come after them FITS.
Also- as someone suggested earlier in this long ass thread, there could be TWO types of smuggler missions- Both would earn you INFAMY if you failed them but one would also earn you visibility.
Example:
One mission says:
Deliver Crates (2500 units) of MUON for Jabba.
Smuggling XP earned 2500
Delivery Reward: 20k
Your cut: 7k
Infamy earned for failure/non-completion: 20
Visibility earned for failure/non-completion: 0
No visibility will be earned upon failure or non-completion of this mission.
The other mission says:
Deliver Crates (2500 units) of Glitterstim for Jabba.
Smuggling XP earned 2000
Delivery Reward: 35k
Your cut: 12k
Infamy earned for failure/non-completion: 20
Visibility earned for failure/non-completion: 10
Failure or non completion of this mission will result in visibility and possibly a bounty on your person.
To go even further- there could be factional NPCs found in bases and cantinas that would have smuggling missions. Where a smuggler would deliver certain plans from one point to another that could earn them great amounts of faction and visibility upon completion. If they failed they would get neither.
THAT is the answer to the problem-
This way there are:
NO PC BHs
NO Unconsentual PvP
NO Hard to code hang ups.
Now correct me if I am wrong but I seem to recall that when the crackdown came out some jedi would be walking in the wilderness and suddenly a squad of Imps would land and attack them. I think that is what should happen when you have hit your Infamy cap. It doesn't neccessarily have to be Imps either- it could be Hard to kill Cor sec- Fed dub- etc. Would this be hard to code?
As far as punishment for Imps- I don't think they should have to fight STs but if they get caught they should be HEAVILY FINED and lose faction- maybe even a rank if they fall below 200. That would be more than fair and would not break immersion.
So there it is- You can be Infamous as hell and have the cops after you but if you get your visibility up then expect to get a visit from your local BH!
Message Edited by HOTDOG on 06-21-2004 12:23 PM
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse! 
This is what I called it. Lol.
3-A
Lawful Citizen Faction
This is a faction that would apply to all players in the game.
Its purpose is to help you see how lawful the authorities believe you to be.
On a scale from -5000 to +5000 it would act like a regular faction.
+5000 would mean you are the Saint of the community. You are so squeaky clean, that tar holds no purchase on you. Or so the Law believes.
-5000 would represent the fact you are kicking old ladies, stealing the candy from small children and flashing government officials from the street in front of the city capitol, while giving rude suggestive hand signals to the security and the police that are running your way to kick you in the head.
A person with a low enough faction would be considered a wanted criminal, and NPC law enforcement would attack them on sight. Perhaps random NPC spawns of a hostile nature trying to 'bring you in.' No more than once every 24 hours for that though, and never when in another person's house. Out on the open range or in a city.
The lower the faction you have would also increase the chance you are scanned by NPCs as suggested by Thunderheart in a developer post a while back.
The higher your faction, the less chance of an NPC scan of your inventory. Police should also assist you if you are in combat situations with NPCs.
What Raises Lawful Citizen Faction?
- Doing a Mission for Corsec, the RSF or other law enforcing organizations.
- Using a Counterfeit Identification
- By killing known NPC criminals.
- Buying their faction from a representative through the Smuggler ability to purchase faction. Must find a contact NPC of a law enforcement agency to do so, to bribe them.
What Lowers Lawful Citizen Faction?
- Eating Spice (If you are a drug user, you should be recognized as one.)
- Killing Law enforcement personnel. (Killing cops is not a good way to get them to like you.
- Trading spice to other people. (Drug dealers are criminals.)
- Being caught with spice or other contraband in your possession during a Smuggler based mission, or during a normal NPC scan.
- Successfully completing a Smuggler mission. You gain a reputation for coming through with the goods. The loss of faction here though is minor compared to if you were detected with the contraband.
Osrim wrote:
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.
Not a good idea to makecreation of spice or slicing activities increase visibility to bounty hunters. This would force active Smugglers who do a lot of slicing into PvP encounters with Bounty Hunters, even players who don't enjoy PvP. The system as proposed by Green Marine is better. Visibility comes only from taking Smuggler missions.and nobody is forced into PvP.
For gods sake please do not make travelling take even longer. It is stupid how much game time is spent stood around an empty starport thinking if only i had got her 10seconds earlier.
Travel takes up far too much time for gamers that arent on for more than 4hours at a time.
Jimbolina
(no pun intended)
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
Brandon Reinhart / GreenMarine
SOE Designer, Star Wars Galaxies
I Think Muon Gold, Pixie and the slicing that now exists to be the very very good. Going so far as to say over-powered. Muon and pixie are lifa savers in any situation and slicing is just a no-cost 20%+ , at least, buff to you weapon/armor... It is no cost, you pay 3K to slice a weapon and turn it from a 300K weapon into an immediat 1,5mil buyout weapon with the correct slice. I don't want to imagine what highly desirable items would these be that made muon, pixie and slices quasi.legal but I shudder to think about it. Plus if they where so good ppl would want them and a don't-attack-the-smuggler-that-feeds you movement would appear.
And this bounty hunter pursuing smuggler is just for smuggler who upset the crime lords, right?
Arianrhod
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.
This is a great idea. Problem is, Bounty Hunters,...pure Master Bounty Hunters aren't necessarily strong enough to deal with stacker templates. Most Smugglers take some commando, or master tk or pistoleer with some tk thrown in for defense. While most Bounty Hunters do play with their templates a bit....This idea would be better if the risk vs. reward was Higher for the Bounty Hunter...say scale it to the private difficulty of the player...so a TKM/Master Smuggler would be 125, which is say 125k, and a Master Pistoleer/Master Smuggler is a 100, which is 100k. That way the bh actually gets something from it, and won't mind the risk of getting pummeled, you may get exploiters...but I know the devs will try to work out any bugs in this, if they decide to try something similar.
Also, this game is pretty loot dependant as it is...we don't need more loot in the game that will just wreck the economy further...its bad enough for new players as it is. So. Make the loot, if there has to be loot, desirable to the Smuggler. And have that loot be a part of something really nice...say a faster swoop bike with an illegal power coupling...or a back pack component that gives players back packs a false bottom...there own little...i emphasize little...smuggling compartment...say to throw that sliced fwg5 or krayt scatter pistol, or those illegal high weapon speed components. You could be able to get components for droid engineers that increase droid ham, toughness, or damage output. Or, from one of your contacts in the underworld, you could be able to "acquire", highly volatile chemicals used in specific poisons used by say bounty hunters and combat medics. Hell even a weapon component that adds a bleed to melee weapons that adds a dot to the weapon for say 4000 attacks (remember you don't swing your vibro knucklers only once in battle, and this component would give the weapon a higher likelihood of a bleed, say 15% chance to cause etc.). I mean the list goes on and on. And the only way to get these items is through the smuggler mission quests. Make it so they can't be sold on vendors....so people don't try stock piling. It also increases the risk of having too many in your inventory, i.e. smuggler risk vs. reward. So when they charge 150k for that nice illegal swoop, or that nice smuggling compartment, or those higly volatile chemicals, they will have earned it.
(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.
So by this philosophy, Drug addicts should not be busted for using drugs, just because they bought them from a dealer?...Nah doesn't wash...there would be no risk and if they are getting illegal items...they are taking a risk with breaking the law....So I say yes increase the penalties to players caught with smuggler items...BUT increase the effectiveness of those items, i.e. you get 45% speed sliced, or damage increase to that h ell a fast or high damage rifle, BUT if you are caught with it, expect to pay the price. (would be a great idea to really BUFF up the stormtroopers doing the scans...as it is now...a novice marksman with pistols 4, good buffs and comp armor can wipe the floor with them fairly quickly...I know, I have done it, many times)
(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).
Definitely. This is a risky business. Ask yourself...if Han would have been caught with Luke, and one of the LAST remaining Jedi...do you think Vader would take it easy on him? Ah h e l l no...he would wipe the floor with him. and I still disagree with the note in this paragraph, would sort of take away from the whole, "I'm being naughty, and don't want to get caught" thing.
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.
Cool. I like this idea but I addressed this a bit in the first highlighted area. Rare items are nice. BUT, illegal is illegal...do the crime, be ready to do the time...etc.
i.e. I have effectiveness sliced armor. A Stormtrooper finds it. He should shoot first clean up looking for answers later. OR maybe you could make it possible to bribe a trooper...say a percent chance they will take the bribe...if they don't...RUN....this would include Everyone except say high ranking imperial officers...(which I am not...but why tick off your boss who can make your life h e l l?. So say...hmm...5 to 6 ranks up you should get a decrease in the number of scans you get if you are imperial. And if you are rebel (which i am) you should get a set percent increase to the chance of being scanned. Say rank 1 private or corporal, 10%, but Colonel 85 to 90% chance you get scanned...and if you are a colonel in the Rebellion, they recognize you and attack anyways (which they do now sometimes...which is so darn cool.)
Message Edited by Daker-Naritus on 06-16-2004 08:59 PM
Not a bad set of ideas.
I think that is what this boils down into. Some classes just dont have a place in the gcw. Therefore these classes would be better suited with a different set of faction points for their class. (I am not saying this means they have to be removed from the GCW!)
BH faction
Smuggler faction
Successful completion would positively affect your standing, while loss of a mission would hurt your standing.
This would also help the bh/smuggler explotation since the punishment for a loss would be equal to or more than a success. Thus the smuggler might gain visibility, but his master bh would be going into the negative.
Also this would allow for end content, rank bonuses, titles, purchaseable items, class specific rank items. Cool things like that!
