(01-05-2025, 09:25 AM)Brain_Scratch Wrote: Having in mind that after presenting unstable jump gates the freighters started to be more fun for me.
I was wondering how I could achieve Smuggler ID while flying freighter? It’s obvious that 300k cap is impossible to achieve playing such ship equipped character.
Please advice how to get it without using barge or 5k ?

(01-02-2025, 01:13 PM)Barrier Wrote: Let me clarify a common misconception I see in events. Just because someone is not on the config / cannot do the main gameplay loop does not mean they're not welcome to participate. The idea is that those people don't need more incentives to log and interact with the other players. And in some cases, I want to deliberately filter out people who do need the incentive to log, for various reasons.

In this event, the lawfuls are incentivized with a high cargo base price, resulting in high-value nearby lawful "fences". Rogues and Xenos have been further incentivized with an additional bonus for choosing this type of gameplay.
HOWEVER.
I knew and expected that there will be people who will log simply to kill each other and to specifically kill smugglers. That knowledge went into the decision about how much the base price of Slog should be raised by, and how big the profit should be at the salepoint. And of course, we have the Smuggler ID itself as the ultimate prize. Basically, if I didn't think that smugglers would face opposition, I would either reduce their rewards (not my preference), or incentivize the opposition itself further.

Guys, the game is meant to have conflict, interaction, and I'm here to ensure this. While I also try to ensure the high quality of these interactions, there are only so many tools I have. What I've taken so far is that the risk for smugglers, while present, is still not significant enough to consider hiring even a single escort to scout ahead, or to band together into convoys as we've seen in the Synth Food event. That is something I can and will try to change for the next one. But the rest of it needs to come from the people actually playing the event.

(01-05-2025, 12:20 PM)Chenzo- Wrote: Nobody will ever want to run escort ‘Caus they want to make the profit/get the end goal themselves.

Banding together as smugglers would have been the dumbest idea ever. A lone bomber can down a transport in under 30 seconds as proved multiple times by XA instant engaging & blue messaging. Banding together meant you all die.

The ultimate prize of the smuggler ID was the only thing which kept people who were smuggling going. The credits alone wouldn’t make me want to do that run.

TLDR: Buy in price wayyyyy too high, XA officials used the event to abuse/break rules 1.0 & 2.1 repeatedly, people kept on going to get the ultimate prize only. The event took me just over 30 hours playtime due to death, taking evasive routes etc. I’m actually disappointed in myself for sloggin’ on for that long.

(01-05-2025, 01:46 PM)Brain_Scratch Wrote: Still. Is there a chance to get the smuggler ID while delivering goods directly to i.e Pittsburgh hidden Xeno base in freighter ?
I don’t know maybe by forum and game RP but without reaching the cap?
I am seriously curious cos it is important for me in case of similar even in the future.

(01-05-2025, 01:25 PM)Barrier Wrote:

(01-05-2025, 12:20 PM)Chenzo- Wrote: Nobody will ever want to run escort ‘Caus they want to make the profit/get the end goal themselves.

Banding together as smugglers would have been the dumbest idea ever. A lone bomber can down a transport in under 30 seconds as proved multiple times by XA instant engaging & blue messaging. Banding together meant you all die.

The ultimate prize of the smuggler ID was the only thing which kept people who were smuggling going. The credits alone wouldn’t make me want to do that run.

TLDR: Buy in price wayyyyy too high, XA officials used the event to abuse/break rules 1.0 & 2.1 repeatedly, people kept on going to get the ultimate prize only. The event took me just over 30 hours playtime due to death, taking evasive routes etc. I’m actually disappointed in myself for sloggin’ on for that long.

Consider this simplified outline. Let's say every time you jumped into Texas, there was a gunboat or bomber waiting for you. And I mean every time. You know that this player will try to kill you.
- You may choose to decrease your own profits to pay an escort. Actually screw it, why do you need money if you can get the ID? The escort gets ALL the profit. But only if they ensure you make it to your destination. Anyway, the profit you make is reduced by some number, between 20-100%, depending on your generosity.
- You may choose to swap to a 3600 transport (e.g. Serenity) or a frigate (Longhorn, ahem). This won't affect your profits over the long run, but it will require you to make more runs, and therefore make more actions quicker, not enabling you to watch a steam on your second monitor as easily. When the enemy player attacks, you now have a greater chance of surviving the encounter. Of course, if you haven't fired your guns in 10+ years of playing this game, your chance goes up by only a few percent, but it goes up. Let's say the profit you make from the run goes up from -100% (always die), to 0% (die half the time). But you're still working towards that ID.
- Finally, you may choose to involve other players in your run. No one else wants to wake up or skip work to start the event at 10am on the dot, but you are willing to sacrifice some game time for the following benefit. The benefit being, the enemy player, when faced with a convoy, has to both decide if they can take them all on. If they cannot, they will likely demand everyone pays them, and lets everyone go (this outcome is likely less profit loss than paying an escort). On the other hand, the enemy knows that they can easily defeat the convoy in 30x seconds, where x is the number of transports. But now you have two secret weapons up your sleeve - cruising and countermeasures. So as soon as the enemy is shooting one unlucky transport (the chance it is you decreases with x, so you want to increase x), you simply activate cruise and spam the countermeasure dropper button. Overall, the profit you make with this method varies wildly from run to run, since it is -100% when you're targeted, 100% when you're not, and say 80% if you have to pay to pass.

To more seriously respond to your other points:
If the smuggler id was the only thing that mattered, why do the 5 people that got it only account for half the delivered slog? Remember, other people who think differently from you are playing the event, and I have to try to accommodate them all.

If you believe that other players are abusing a rule, report them. But consider also that different players play the game differently, and are able to do so without breaking the rules.

(01-05-2025, 01:52 PM)Barrier Wrote:

(01-05-2025, 01:46 PM)Brain_Scratch Wrote: Still. Is there a chance to get the smuggler ID while delivering goods directly to i.e Pittsburgh hidden Xeno base in freighter ?
I don’t know maybe by forum and game RP but without reaching the cap?
I am seriously curious cos it is important for me in case of similar even in the future.

The current event is over, unfortunately.

But to answer your general question, yes we've done freighter-focused events. They ran as you imagine, where the main drop-off point was like the Xeno Hideout, only accessible to freighters and below. We did not do this for the current event due to the sheet volume of Slog making its way into Liberty as part of the story beat. This means that I need to balance the profits around transports, making freighters not viable for trading in comparison.