CUEmu - Thread Posts

kingfarooq218

Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:09 am

Ok boring day at work, just thought of a smuggling idea that takes into account a couple of issues the Devs said they had with giving us smuggling content.

Please bare with me, as I have not fully fleshed out this idea yet. Here goes...

When players want to purchase a travel ticket from or to a high traffic starport (ie Coronet, Mos Eisley) the system performs a scan of their items at that time. If contraband is found on the person then they are unable to purchase a ticket to that location for a set period of time. This could cause the player to have to take a trip to a less frequented location on the same planet and then speeder it to their destination. You could even make it so that all starports at some planets, say Dantooine, cause you to be scanned. Also you could make it faction based as well. If the departure/destination starport is controlled by a specific faction then the scan could also check your faction to allow you travel their. Meaning that a Rebel could not take the shuttle to the Imperial Outpost on Dantooine.

Now for the smuggling. The smuggler could slice the travel terminal and puchase a non-scanned ticket from the terminal. This ticket could then be sold to the customer that needs to get to where he/she is going. Essentially allowing us to use our Underworld connections and slicing abilities to let them travel unscanned. You could also make this ticket a contraband item that could be identified by the ever threatening (sarcasm) stormtroopers.

What do you guys think, and what ideas do you all have that could make this better?

--Salazar Farooq

Shadowfire

--Salazar Farooq
M.Smuggler/M.Pistoleer/Scout/TKA
Shadowfire

GrimRebuke

Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:31 am

#2

What were the issues the devs had giving us content... I've been out of the loop.

I like the idea. I still think that the GCW would be better served if scans were more frequent and pretty much guaranteed at large populus star ports... I also think that any rank over Captain in the Alliance should be detectable during these scans in Imperial controled towns and vice versa in Rebel policed ports. How a smuggler would get someone past these scans is an issue for much discussion, but I'd like to see Smugglers and Bounty Hunters having the ability to get to and from their ships from somewhere outside of town (or at least outside of the starport where the searches and scans would be occuring). At least then we would be 'smuggling' people, as our title states. Otherwise, some other means of evasion (such as the scanning troops hang out by the ticket collector instead of inside the port or being grouped with a smuggler gives everyone in the group the same evasion chances as the smuggler... or even a 'smuggle buff'). It would be very nice if these scans also occured in space allowing us to do what we should be doing best.

kingfarooq218

Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:49 am

#3

stolen from Smugglers in SWG History - As told by the Devs...

Thunderheartwrote:

The thing is that smugglers essentially are a "space based" profession (at least the way we think of it)and giventhe inherent client/server limitations, its atough proposition any way you look at. 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? And then there are the guys that run back and forth across that threshold just to lag things out. This is one tiny piece of a larger puzzle. It has to be a cool game mechanic and work in the game system and in a big MMO environment.

The key here is that while I was in beta and I knew everyone (I actually have almost all of it saved on my hard drive, but doing a search on "smuggler" with 12 gig of materials would be insane). Further still, that was a while ago. I want to hear YOUR ideas and Ive worked with the devs and correspondents to focus communication so that correspondents can get me information and also in a way that I can both share it with the devs AND catalgoue it.

Its all a process and we're working on it and its going to take time. The devs want to make a good game, you and I want to play a fun game and as a community, I believe we can make this whole experience very cool.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=43562&highlight=smuggler#M43562

I realize some of these may be "old" issues to the Devs, but it seems that most of the crackdown has been more of a crackup than anything. I can't even recall the last time I was scanned...

--Salazar Farooq
M.Smuggler/M.Pistoleer/Scout/TKA
Shadowfire

Lixosskzzo

Tue Sep 14, 2004 1:42 pm

#4

I still think it's retarded that they haven't just decided to 'flag' everyone carrying contraband. As soon as you gain a piece of contraband, you become flagged. Flags are there, how else would stormtroopers know to attack an overt or TEF'd rebel? So just put the flag in place as soon as they pick up, buy, or trade for anything marked as contraband (those flags are on the items, since the crackdown troopers detect them). This wouldn't add too much overhead to the item aquisition code, it already has to check for certain flags on the items (no drop) and it also has to check to make sure the receiver has enough room.

Once you have the flag, any time you try to purchase a ticket, you're scanned again. You might have gotten rid of the item, hidden it in a compartment in your bag which was sliced by your neighborhood smuggler, or maybe you're a smuggler yourself and you can conceal the item. Either way, you have a chance of passing the scan, having the flag removed, and being issued your travel ticket. If you don't pass, something happens. Either you just don't get the ticket until you're clean (but you do lose the money), or maybe troopers spawn and ask you to hand over the contraband. If you're not flagged as carrying contraband, you don't even get scanned, so there's a nice way to cut down on lag.

Sure, at first, with everyone carrying sliced weapons and such, scans will be through the roof. Once people start realizing that maybe they aren't going to get away with as much as they used to in terms of contraband, they will be more careful with sliced weapons and spices. Then again, we might be shooting ourselves in the foot, since slicing demand might drop when they can't carry them around as much anymore.

------------------

Noone loves you, go away

kingfarooq218

Tue Sep 14, 2004 1:58 pm

#5

Yeah see the drop in demand for slicingequipmentwas what I was trying to avoid in my solution. I think my idea would reduce the use of slice items a small bit, but the demand would still be there. Personally I feel that if you have contraband on you and you get posittively scanned that you should lose atleast one of your contraband items. This would be a wonderful thing for the smuggler economy because it would keep the demand for sliced items high, unless it backfired and people stoppped wanting slices completely.

--Salazar Farooq

Shadowfire

--Salazar Farooq
M.Smuggler/M.Pistoleer/Scout/TKA
Shadowfire

Undergrid

Tue Sep 14, 2004 3:46 pm

#6

kingfarooq218 wrote:
Yeah see the drop in demand for slicingequipmentwas what I was trying to avoid in my solution. I think my idea would reduce the use of slice items a small bit, but the demand would still be there. Personally I feel that if you have contraband on you and you get posittively scanned that you should lose atleast one of your contraband items. This would be a wonderful thing for the smuggler economy because it would keep the demand for sliced items high, unless it backfired and people stoppped wanting slices completely.
--Salazar Farooq
Shadowfire

The devs have stated previously, and I'm pretty much with them here, that confiscating items from players will never happen. How would you like to loose you (for example) 8 million credit RIS helmet because the system (correctly or incorrectly, bugs do happen) flaged it as sliced and it was confiscated?

Undergrid (Chimaera)
Master Smuggler / Master Pistoleer / Teras Kasi Master / Master Pilot / Rebel Colonel

kingfarooq218

Wed Sep 15, 2004 5:40 am

#7

Undergrid wrote:

kingfarooq218 wrote:

Yeah see the drop in demand for slicingequipmentwas what I was trying to avoid in my solution. I think my idea would reduce the use of slice items a small bit, but the demand would still be there. Personally I feel that if you have contraband on you and you get posittively scanned that you should lose atleast one of your contraband items. This would be a wonderful thing for the smuggler economy because it would keep the demand for sliced items high, unless it backfired and people stoppped wanting slices completely.

--Salazar Farooq

Shadowfire

The devs have stated previously, and I'm pretty much with them here, that confiscating items from players will never happen. How would you like to loose you (for example) 8 million credit RIS helmet because the system (correctly or incorrectly, bugs do happen) flaged it as sliced and it was confiscated?

That's a very valid point Undergrid and one I had not thought of too much, especially the bug aspect. And let me be clear the confiscation aspect is not part of my main idea, just something I was saying that I personally would like, though that opinion may have been swayed a bit by some of your points.

Lets not turn this into a thread about confiscation, let us instead stay focused on my initial idea, and hearing what people think about that, and any suggestions folks may have to improve it.

--Salazar Farooq

Shadowfire

--Salazar Farooq
M.Smuggler/M.Pistoleer/Scout/TKA
Shadowfire

GrimRebuke

Wed Sep 15, 2004 1:49 pm

#8

OK, so if the issue is that checking at the starport is the problem.. why not have the scan be automatic and done by the ticket taker? This way, the only people that are scanned are people who are about to have themselves and all their stuff picked up and dropped on another planet or starport anyways? We could restrict it to starports on major planets.. and make it all starports. This would mean a player could avoid the scan by hitching a ride in someone else's ship instead of using the ticket taker (so, here's a space-based smuggler solution). Trying to use the ticket taker with contraband results in a fine/potential attack and being refused access to the starship.

What do you think?

kingfarooq218

Wed Sep 15, 2004 1:55 pm

#9

I think either you didn't read my orignal post thoroughly, or I did a piss poor job of explaining my concept.

Basically what you just said, is EXACTLY what I was trying to get across as my initial idea. So, yeah I totally agree with and love what you are saying!!

--Salazar Farooq
M.Smuggler/M.Pistoleer/Scout/TKA
Shadowfire

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