Smuggler Archive

Looks nice, just want to show this to you though.

Thunderheart:
"For instance, lets say Imperials do a search for contraband at starports. Can you imagine the lag if we even did an item check for everything inevery player's inventory as they entered and exited a starport?"

So this basically means scanning at starports for contraband materials is out.

The Infamous Caylin Borealis - First Master Smuggler on Bria
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse!
:The Ghost with the Most:

First off, I must say your post is one of the best I have read in a while Electricnomad.

However, I quite firmly belive, no mather how many great ideas there will be to improve the Smuggler professions what we will see is most like some rewamp of the skilltree boxes, with some bonuses for Master Smuggler, and most likely Last Ditch being moved up to Master.

I think we're pretty much stuck with what we got, seeing we allready got 2 skill trees that doesn't belong there, first being Slicing, second being Spices, so we should spend time trying to make those trees useful.

Main things for now, Ibelive, is making it possible for a Master Smuggler to choose if it will be Speed or Dam slices on weapons, and protection or encumbrance on armor, and for the love of god, make so that you can experiment on spices.

About your ingame ideas for Smuggler profession content:Theyis great, we need it, and so does all other professions. I describe myself often as "smuggler by name, not profession" seeing that a Smuggler in galaxies is far from the real "canon" smuggler in star wars, so it would be more then great if galaxies include content in the way you suggest.

Weapon Cert for smugglers could be a good idea, however, we are a hybrid profession, not a pure combat, like pistoleer/riflemen/carbineer. As I wrote in another post, a ranged smuggler specific weapon I would like to see a hold out blaster cert. Good speed, "low" dam and bonuses to the dirty fighting tree. The DL44 HBP is a more then average used weapons by Smugglers as it provides good firepower for short range combat. However, in galaxies it's just more or less an "average" biginners weapon, and not the beast it is in EU canon. (even though there are many more heavy blasterpistols that can outdamage the DL-44 there).

Hawi Carrod, Master Smuggler & factoid gimp, Eclipse - Northstar City, Naboo

Okay, I never made a "Yay for me, the new Master Smuggler" post, so I'm cashing in some ego points and making this.

Actually, I've been making this post since, oh, July or so, when I started posting ideas on how to improve the profession. Here are the ideas I like the best, color-coded a bit to divide the concepts:

GIVE EXPERIENCED SMUGGLERS ACCESS TO MORE SMUGGLER CONTENT:

After seeing what the Devs did with Creature Handlers and "Creature Level," it occurred to me that the eventual "content" of Smuggler should be handled the same way.

In other words, use Underworld for something other than simply our "content" line. Turn it into defensive/combat modifiers, or unarmed specials, or state defenses, or something else (I'd like to see Brawler tied into it somehow and make us tougher to kill). The key is to do something with it now, not just leave it as a blank pointsink we need in order to become Master Smugglers.

When the Devs do introduce content in the future, handle it as the Devsare instituting"Creature Level" in CH - as you climb each tree, you get bonuses to your "Content Level." Let's call it "Smuggler Sense." Depending on your "Smuggler Sense," you would get better, more challenging (and higher-paying) missions, and would have access to higher-end content. Advancing in one branch of Smuggler would gain you better content, but unless you climbed several branches, you'd be far behind other Smugglers in terms of content.

Here's a sample tree, counting only the proposed "Smuggler Sense" modification:

Master Smuggler = +15

+8 / +8 / +8 / +8

+6 / +6 / +6/ +6

+4 / +4 / +4 / +4

+2 / +2 / +2 / +2

Novice Smuggler = +5

Based on that, a Master Smuggler would have a "Smuggler Sense" of +100, and get access to all Smuggler content in the game, including the best payouts. However, someone who went up, say, the Dirty Fighting line would have +25 "Smuggler Sense" - not much, but enough to do some basic smuggling work. Novices would have access to the lowest of the low in terms of content - but that's howit should be, really.

I think a system like this could solve two problems in one:

1) It would spread content over the entire tree rather than pack it all into a single branch, rewarding people who invest more skillpoints in Smuggler with better,more challengingcontent.

2) It would enable a faster solution to the black hole of the Underworld line - we could get some modifications there now, rather than wait (months? years?) until the Devs figure out how to implement Smuggler content, which would be tied to the entire skilltree rather than just one branch.

TARIFFS AS A WAY TO ENCOURAGE EVERYDAY, NON-MISSION SMUGGLING:

This is a rough idea, but I'd like to see Galactic Import Tariffs and a customs evasionminigame for Smugglers.

Institute a tariff oncertain flaggedgoods thatenter Starports from another Starport (track it during the loading screen). Let's say each weapon costs 100 credits to import, each stack of 500 or more units of resources costs 1000 credits at the border, each droid costs 1000 credits to import, each vehicle costs 5000 credits, etc. All items get a tariff applied to them, kind of like insurance. You can pay in advance or try your hand at smuggling, and everyone in the game should have a small chance of smuggling a certain amount of goods - say a 10% chance for anyone to smuggle three or four items.

The only people who can dodge the tariff with great skillare Smugglers. Depending on their skill level, they have a better chance of going through customs undetected. Bypassing customs successfully would let the Smuggler warp out to the Starport like normal. Getting busted, however, would require any number of fixes - fast talking to dodge the guards even after a failure; bribes to pay off a detection and lose a cut of the profit, if not all of it; and all-out fighting off the guards, which should drop the secondary Faction of whatever type of customs officials you attacked (CorSec, RSF, etc). The customs minigame could play out in a side room at the Starport where detained players and Smugglers would warp into, rather than the usual landing pad.

Bonuses to help with the Customs minigame include disguise skills and factional disguises (see below).

In the event that someone did not have the cash to cover a fine or a bribe, the items would simply be confiscated. There would be a warning anytime you bought a ticket to somewhere and you had contraband on you, so people would have the option to either ditch the gear or find a Smuggler to handle it or even to take a chance on importing it themself.

To add some flavor to the game, I'd like to see certain items illegal on some planets but perfectly legal on others. Say, all vehicles are officially banned from Endor and Dathomir, and the only way to avoid outright confiscation is to smuggle them through.

SMUGGLER CONTENT & GENERAL 'UNDERWORLD' SKILLS:

Smugglers don't do anything that justifies their title, namely smuggling. We have a few ideas for how to remedy this situation, and these fit squarely in the still-incomplete Underworld skill branch. These are major changes that require major space:

A) Smuggler Missions - sprinkle NPCs in various locations to act as mission terminals (it's more "smuggler-ish" to get a mission from an NPC rather than a computer terminal). Based on our "Smuggler Sense," give us missions that require us to pick up and deliver various illegal items (or perhaps make them and deliver them). These missions would have to be different than simple delivery missions; there would have to be danger involved. We have a few ideas on how to deal with that, too:

1. First, authorities in cities (CorSec, Stormtroopers, etc) would have a limited-range detection ability of illegal items. Smugglers would be able to counter this with a kind of a /maskscent abilityto cover up the illegal items, but it would never be close to 100% successful (maybe 80% - it has to be dangerous). Maybe just be direct and call the skill /smuggle.
   
2. Second, taking a Smuggler mission would alert Bounty Hunters somehow. Whether it would open a mission or whether all BHs would get a TEF against the Smuggler, we don't know. To counter this danger, Smugglers would get a new ability (also similar to /maskscent) called /disguise. The new /disguise command would obscure the Smuggler's TEF and make him appear as a blue dot on the radar. As above, even a Master Smuggler shouldn't be able to do this perfectly, and maybe a max 80% success rate would be fair.

In the event that Smugglers are detected by either Bounty Hunters or authorities (depending on which one you use, if not both), Smugglers would either have to run or fight if they wanted to complete their mission. A Smuggler's "Smuggler Sense" would affect how many Smuggler missions a person could accept at any time, and would affect the level of payouts. Perhaps advancement along the Underworld skill branch would make more NPC "sources" accessible to Smugglers as their network of underworld inflormants expands. In addition,separate general "Smuggler XP" would have to be earned by completing the new Smuggler missions, so Pistol XP would be stripped from this tree.

B) Interfactional Trading Permission - allow Smugglers to be intermediaries for Factions. As it stands, Faction members can't trade with each other. Make Smugglers the conduit for trade they're supposed to be. This should be a low-level skill in the revamped Underworld.

C) New Factions - Hutts, Valerians, Black Sun, etc. Give Smugglers a non-GCW-aligned group that offers Faction missions (see above for NPCs doling out Smuggler missions). Also give them Faction perks like special gear and NPC pets. Allow Smugglers to work for one of the GCW sides in addition to a criminal syndicate - they know how to play multiple sides, after all, and criminals are busy with their own 'wars.'

Part Two coming right up . . .

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Smuggler_Caylin wrote:

Looks nice, just want to show this to you though.

Thunderheart:
"For instance, lets say Imperials do a search for contraband at starports. Can you imagine the lag if we even did an item check for everything inevery player's inventory as they entered and exited a starport?"

So this basically means scanning at starports for contraband materials is out.

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I know Thunderheart wrote that, but he's a communicator, not a designer, andI can recallseveral instances when theDevs have tossed out dismissive comments only to later retract them because they were wrong.

The bottom line is that I'm still hopeful that there can be a contraband search at all Starports that wouldn't lag things out. Hey, we already go through a load screen upon entering Star and Shuttleports. Adding a few more seconds to it to scan for certain items might be completely viable. There wouldn't have to be a scan every time you simply walked into or out ofthe Starport, but only when you warped to a new location, or if you bought your ticket.

Until I hear from an actual programmer that Starport scanning is impossible or would break the game, I'm going to push the idea for tariffs. When I send a wish list to the Devs, my first concern is that it has fun features that could make the game more enjoyable. As for the dirty details, the Devs can work on the reality of the coding.

bumpage to more good ideas!

One thing I think would be great (and never ever happen) would be to be able to slice the bank terminals If you fail you get an BH TEF, if you succeed you get a random item from a random player's deposit box - obviously certain items would have to be automatically excluded, or maybe you just add "insurance" as another money sink?

Another thing would frankly be to make more spices useful. Currently I selll Muon Gold, Neutron Pixie, and no one cares about the rest. I've read about skill buff spice, things like that, or even simply being able to experiment the downer portion of a spice hit down, would be useful.

When ever I want to get the "they did WHAT?!?!?!" look from my friends, I explain how SPICE Experimentation is used to experiment on SLICING TOOLS which have no net effect when experimented on. Goes something like:

So, you've got a skill called Spice Experimentation, right?

Right.

So you can experiment on your Spice, right?

Nope.

So what does it do?

It lets you experiment on your slicing tools, like Precision Laser Knives, Molecular Clamps and FANs.

Ah, so you can make better slicing tools then?

Nope.

What?

The experimentation has no effect - the items have no stats anyway; a critical fail after the initial combine is just as good as 10 straight amazing successes.

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Yep. Honest. I'm a smuggler. I wouldn't lie to you!

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OK, but not for free I wouldn't!

Anyway, lot of good ideas ahead of me in the thread.

keeping em together, cause devs don't read page2