Smuggler Archive

This is what I envisioned SWG to hopefully be like someday when I started playing it at launch (omg I've been playing that long), here it is:

A smuggler get contracted by Jabba to gather some materials for him (armor, weapons, almost anything), the smuggler uses some skill in his underworld tree to find the items in the galaxy through his "connections", he finds that several Players have this item in their vendors, the smuggler goes to the vendor and places a device on the vendor that will crack the security on the vendor in 48 hours, if the smuggler succeeds he gets the item for %50 of it's normal cost (hence stealing it for jabba), and upon returning it to Jabba he would get a reward of credits or some loot items.

Now how is this fun? Sounds like we would be griefing people with vendors.

Here is the catch, upon having the device placed on their vendor the owner would be notified by email that his security will be compromised in 48 hours unless he takes action, smugglers name would not be given, item to be smuggled would not be given. The artisan would have a few options:

1: Choose to pay the smuggler more than Jabba is offering, and this would be done through the system and the item would be returned, and the smuggler would get the credits.

2: Refuse to pay the "protection" money to the Smuggler and place a Bounty on his head, a mission would be spawned in the BH terminals for the smuggler who is attempting to take the goods. A BH would take the mission, and find the Smuggler and deal with him, if the BH wins he gets "credits" and the smuggler would get increased visibility in the galaxy for a limited amount of time, making him vulnerable to NPC authorities and Special Ops IMP and REB military. The artisan would get their item back, as wellas the value it was initially listed at because the insurance paid for it being lost without knowing a BH was dispacthed to retrieve the item. If the smuggler beats the BH, then the BH must pay for the other half of the items cost, and the smuggler gets half of the BH's Bounty as "looted money off of the BH's corpse", then the bonus for returning the item to Jabba or whomever.

3: Do nothing and lose the item for half cost.

Notes:

This is just an idea there are a lot of holes in it I know, but here are some of the things that would enhance or help make this system work, *Suggestions welcome*.

*Participating Artisans (WS, AS, Tailors, etc...) would have to opt-in to the system, their reward for opting in is no maintanence fees on vendors or the homes the vendor is stored in.

*Smuggler would be forced to hold onto the time for a certain period of time to give the BH a chance to find them.

*I would have said the Artisan would get the item duplicated if the BH wins, but I don't know if SWG can dupe items like that.

*To deter exploiting the smuggler can not be in the same guild, or the same faction as the BH or artisan.

*Griefing would be detered since the time to be smuggled is randomly generated, and the connections find it in multiple locations.

*An alternate reward for the Artisan could be 30k of a specific type of resource as well, this would give them incentive to do it.

Just an idea, I know this has been discussed millions of times, but I think including artisans in it and making them pay "protection" in a sense would make it seem more like organized crime, and give the artisans a break from the crafting and resource hunting. Since they would be the only players in the galaxy with the ability to place bounties on people.

Battosai Sano
Master Bounty Hunter

"The code of the Bounty Hunter states that every mark must be killed at all costs, but you must get nerfed." --Random SWG DEV