Discovery Gaming Community

There was a post a while back that got me all hyped back up on smuggling again. I'm running a small 500 cargo ship that's pretty quick on it's feet and powerful if I get in a bind. I can outrun lawfuls and fight them off if I need to. It's a very fun thing to do, being able to dodge fighters and larger ships with a run of contraband. There's nothing that give you more of a rush than trying to make it to that jumphole a second faster to get away from that CD on the other side.

I'm enjoying it still as I used to, even if it takes me a bit longer to make credits than others, I enjoy the RP element of it. However, while it's still fun and I can tollerate the lack of credits coming in as opposed to people in Fireflys (slow as a brick) and other ships like the Slave Liner (slower than a brick), it's still not enough. We need something more.

A discussion began a while back about smuggling and some folks came up with the idea of a mod like the mining mod. There were several different ideas. Two of which would be really neat to implement and I think you'd see a lot of lawfuls trying to crack down because of the increased number of those people smuggling. Of course it would be a tricky thing to balance, but the Admins and Dev's do a pretty good job of that already as it is.

Idea 1: Freelancer Smuggler ID will allow you to purchase say, 25% more of a contraband item. For example, if you had a 500 cargo transport ship, such as mine, and you went to pick up Cardamine from Malta. Instead of 500, you would be able to purchase 750.

Idea 2: Freelancer Smuggler ID will yeild a 25% increase in profits from selling at a base. For example. If, and I know this isn't an accurate number, Manhattan will buy Cardamine for 3,000 credits each item. Selling will get you 750 more credits per sale for a total sale of 3,750.

Smuggling is my favorite past time because of the high amount of risk involved. I've always craved a ship that could outrun the law and get away with contraband while making good credits to boot, to keep up with those of the powertraders. The risk involved is a rush, never knowing if you're going to lose all those credits you dumped into buying the illegal goods.

I know this was in a post before, but I really want to see something like this done, I just don't have the technical know-how to do it or else I would.

Thoughts?

~Leo

Freelancer Smuggler ID is going away and being rolled into the standard Freelancer ID along with several of the generics.

Some of your suggestions might be ok if based on ship type though (e.g., freighters get bonus selling contraband)

As a smuggler myself,I am heavily supportive for these ideas.There aren't even decent cargo checks in known hot smuggling routes,It would be great if the Police vs Smuggler idea was more popular.

I agree with what you suggested there, but math:

' Wrote:Idea 1: Freelancer Smuggler ID will allow you to purchase say, 25% more of a contraband item. For example, if you had a 500 cargo transport ship, such as mine, and you went to pick up Cardamine from Malta. Instead of 500, you would be able to purchase 750.

I suck at math. That just proves the proves it lol.

~Leo

Would be a great Idea, but as stated. No more Smuggler ID soon. Plus the "official" factions ruined it for smugglers when they FR5 you first time your caught landing on lawful base. Some even if you just get away from them. So the "official" factions lack of RP has forced many smugglers away.

Smuggling should be a profitable enterprise because of it's inherit risk. I would like to see a shipyard develop an even faster freighter to outrun the law and the opportunistic pirate.

' Wrote:Smuggling should be a profitable enterprise because of it's inherit risk. I would like to see a shipyard develop an even faster freighter to outrun the law and the opportunistic pirate.

I think the speeds are fast enough as it is. They did a good job balancing the smaller freighters (my own small little freighter can really MOVE).

At first, I wasn't sure about the news of the Smuggler ID going away. Just learned it in this thread in fact. However, after hearing the sense that Official factions were FR5ing (still don't know what that means, assuming it means reporting them) smugglers for landing on lawful planets to...well...do what their supposed to do, it makes sense.

So how could this tie into the Freelancer ID? Certainly we don't want it to work across every ship for Freelancer. That would just be unbalanced as all get out. So what? Only work up to a transport with 900 cargo and then only certain ship types? Similar to this whole new tech system I think for specifics. Or maybe on the cargo itself? I'm not very familiar with FL Hook coding, so Cannon's eventual input would be kind of nice if at all possible.

~Leo

As a smuggler and blockade runner I agree with this idea.

FR5 is a faction right. They get admins to make your character permantly red to lawful bases. So you become a smuggler that cannot land anywhere.

A faster smuggling ship would be great for smuggling, but guess what? All the pirates would suddenly buy them to pirate, and others will also find a way to abuse the faster speeds.