Smuggler Archive

The following is my proposal for underworld- I have added ideas based on Vampirerobot's and my posts on Infamy, BH terms and PvE/PvP smuggling as well as posts from Caylin and the desires of many others. Feel free to ask questions and poke holes but please be constructive.

ALSO- THESE ABILITIES ARE TO BE INCLUDED TO THE UNDERWORLD TREE WE HAVE NOW- NOT IN PLACE OF IT.



Here we go:


GOAL: To define and measure the smuggler's ability to work in and around the many factions of the galaxy.

Underworld I 75,000 Smuggler XP

ABILITIES:
Sneak
Mask Faction

SKILLMODS:
Sneak +20
Mask Faction +20

Underworld II 100,000 Smuggler XP

ABILITIES:
Grapevine

SKILLMODS:
Sneak +20
Mask Faction +20

Underworld III 200,000 Smuggler XP

ABILITIES:
Fast Talk

SKILLMODS:
Sneak +20
Mask Faction +20
Fast Talk +20

Underworld IV 300,000 Smuggler XP

ABILITIES:
Mask Faction Group

SKILLMODS:
Fast Talk +20
Sneak +10
Mask Faction +10
Mask Faction Group +30

At Master:
Fast Talk +10
Sneak +10
Mask Faction +10
Mask Faction Group +20

Definitions

Mask Faction:
Works exactly like Mask Scent for Scouts except this works on Humanoid NPCs and allows the Smuggler to temporarily hide overt status.

Sneak:
This allows the smuggler to hide contrabrand for a temporary amount of time. Apply this before you go into the starport to help with those nasty scans.

Grapevine:
This ability keeps you in contact with what is going on in the underworld as far as your reputation. Works like diagnose does for medic- Grape vine informs you of your infamy level and lists the negative factions you have earned.
At UW III it tells you if there is a bounty on your head and how much it is for.
At UW IV it tells you who (if anyone) has taken the bounty and what planet they are on.
At Master it tells you if a bounty hunter that is after you is in your immediate area (this is NOT a passive action).

Mask Faction Group:
When a smuggler is the leader of a group this allows them to hide the group's overt faction for a temporary amount of time. This does NOT work against covert scanners.

I forgot to add FAST TALK so here it is:

Fast Talk:
Smuggler gains the ability to stop combat for 10 seconds or until the smuggler fires again. This only works against humanoid NPCs and PvP.

Message Edited by HOTDOG on 05-17-2004 11:11 AM

Message Edited by HOTDOG on 05-17-2004 06:29 PM

COOL

I'd like to see more "sneaky" actions available to us Smugglers.

Anything to enhance the UW line is good.

Nice Post, very well thought out, kudos!. My only question/concern would be do you propose dropping Faction Point buying/selling and Faction Perk price reductions? While I never used them when I did have those skills, I know that some folks do. But aside from that, I like yer approach and ideas.

Best regards,

Dray

Thanks for the kudos guys! Now to answer some questions:

How do you earn smuggler XP?

When using Sneak and Mask Faction you would get points as you successfully passed red and yellow cons just as you do with Mask Scent. This amount would be even greater with Mask Faction Group

Also, in the original revamp TH said we would have PvE smuggling missions where we would deliver items from one NPC to another with ethical decisions and the like that would allow us to earn smuggling xp. I don't have much to add to that so I didn't.

However, I DO have an idea for player to player smuggling that involved Personalization Disks. You would get smuggling XP for each code you managed to decode. For more on that see this thread:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=87860


Would we still have faction perks?
YES! I would never propose to lose those. I say we keep everything we have in those boxes now- which ain't a lot- and add these things.


Can you have Mask Faction or Mask Faction Group while in combat?

uh, NO. Once you or anyone in your group fires a shot- you are exposed.

HotDog, please review my posting on my Smuggling Ideas, should be near the top of the page right now.... PLMK what you think...

First off, I support ideas to add more sneak abilities to smugglers. I definitely want to see us sneaking around more. I have some concerns and suggestions though:

You should probably make it clear in the original document that this is in addtition to the current underworld skills because I would definitely not rather have these skills than our current abilities to sell/buy faction and switch sides. Although masking your faction is kind of a cool idea, what would the actual application be? I don't see it as being too useful to hide from the occasional NPC out there. It would probably be pretty useful for rebels trying to avoid Imperial Crackdown encounters, but not so useful to Imperial Smugglers. Perhaps if it were tied to actual smuggler missions where we would need it to complete the mission. In that case the sneak ability - which hides contraband - is more useful. (except that we already have this ability, it's just passive.)

I'd prefer the sneak/hide faction ability to be an ability whereby we can sneak past members of factions that we have a lot of negative faction with. Like pirates, criminals, security forces, etc as well as rebels and imperial military members. Basically a maskscent vs. NPC's.

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Merchillon wrote:

First off, I support ideas to add more sneak abilities to smugglers. I definitely want to see us sneaking around more. I have some concerns and suggestions though:

You should probably make it clear in the original document that this is in addtition to the current underworld skills because I would definitely not rather have these skills than our current abilities to sell/buy faction and switch sides. Although masking your faction is kind of a cool idea, what would the actual application be? I don't see it as being too useful to hide from the occasional NPC out there. It would probably be pretty useful for rebels trying to avoid Imperial Crackdown encounters, but not so useful to Imperial Smugglers. Perhaps if it were tied to actual smuggler missions where we would need it to complete the mission. In that case the sneak ability - which hides contraband - is more useful. (except that we already have this ability, it's just passive.)

I'd prefer the sneak/hide faction ability to be an ability whereby we can sneak past members of factions that we have a lot of negative faction with. Like pirates, criminals, security forces, etc as well as rebels and imperial military members. Basically a maskscent vs. NPC's.

I'd like to see Underworld Skills that give us the ability to get information from underworld contacts and also to be able to get items from a "black market" that can't be obtained elsewhere. Perhaps items that could be used to create/enhance spice, slicing, etc, or just rare art items that could not be acquired elsewhere that people would want for display in homes or their ships. Or also items that can be used to enhance our ships.

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I agree about making clear that this would be in ADDITION to what we have now. I will change it as soon as I post this.

The intention with Mask Faction was mostly for use against NPCs and Mask Group Faction would be more of a GCW thing but I wanted to make clear that you could Mask your OR your groups Overt status with them as well.

If you have to go through some heavily patroled Jabba terrain and couldn't afford any entanglements, Mask Faction would come in handy. If you are Overt and have to run through an Imperial Outpost this would be VERY handy- True rebels would probably use this more but I think that is fits the setting we are playing in.

On the other hand, Mask Group Faction would allow for sneak attacks (probably not on bases though because of scanners) and covert operations that smugglers should be a part of (some people do this with "TEF wars" already kinda but this seems more legit). I see Imperials using this to clear out Cantinas and Starports. Another idea is to attack a base in "waves" by hiding your number until they get close or in a flanking position.

So there are some cool uses for these abilities AND they allow us to be the sneaky cats we are supposed to be.

As far as Sneak is concerned- I just liked the idea of it being more active than passive. When I was a scout I LOVED mask scent. I turned it on and watched the XP ring up as I strolled past lair after lair of beasties. This would just add to the feeling that I'm actively sneaking something past all the guards at the starport. As well as informing me "Contraband has been detected. Your Sneak abilities have failed-". That beats passive sneaking ANYDAY.

I TOO would like to see more of a black market type feel to the game- what would help is the banning of contraband on the bazaar. Ultimately though, I think a lot of that will come from the players.
Having Infamy, the risk of bounties, stiffer contraband punishment, better NPC smuggling missions and player to player smuggling will add to that big time!

Thanks for the comments Merchillon. I think that smugglers should be more sneaky too. I proposed a dirty fighting tree as well that pushes our sneakiness to the next level with unarmed hits that paralyze and an instrument that disrupts gun fire. Check that out and let me know what you think.

OOO- I just had another use for Mask Group Faction- Jedi might come to us to help them in THEIR battles with each other too. Probably get a LOT of XP smuggling Jedi around, eh?

MO' bumpage

Hehe. To think that we believed the devs would pause working on Jedi for one second to fix our profession.

I love it! This would truely bring out the "Scoundrel" in us. In addition to that they should change the title from "Fixer" to "Scoundrel". This also would give us a new need in the game, Just think using Mask Faction Group for a imp or rebel base raid.Also could be useful in spying etc...