Bring back smuggling and blockade running

[ryoken]

Simple answer. Kill all freelancers spotted near Malta/crete.
And sorry but you can have a freelancer sitting 1K from planet claiming he is friendly to corsairs/outcasts, then screen the smuggler as he tries to dock/undock. Also mate you are wrong that it is hard to screen. Get a light fighter, with best scanner, and you can catch, and screen smugglers. I do it all the time in Liberty with my Navy Liberator. Not hard when you cruise faster then trains, and yes they all use trains, or other big transports, instead of fast agile frieghters.

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[AeternusDoleo]

1/ as mentioned barges jump smuggling. Completely ruins it for all other smugglers.
- Only way to fix this I can think of, is to prevent group jumps alltogether. Wether a barge or a few 5K transies, the issue is the same - instant cargo transfer without risk for an encounter.

2/ Freelancers reporting smugglers to lawfuls, and/or shooting them claiming they work for the law.
- Lawful mercs/bountyhunters intercepting smugglers is no different then the police doing so. Smugglers can turn around and have the freelancer doing the reporting be put on the shootlist of the factions they smuggle for. Personally I still feel that non-faction folk tend to have far too big a freedom in this game - to the point that it deters people who want to fly fighters from joining an actual faction.

3/ Prices suck right now, so junkers can get more mining scrap, or legal trading. Same as big 5Krs get more legal trading.
- Can't be solved without a mod update. 4.87 at earliest.

4/ FR5s. Now this one really kills smuggling fast. 1 player in any ship spots you smuggling, and reports you to lawful groups, and your done. They FR5 you, so you cannot land anywhere lawful. Hence you cannot smuggle anymore.
- Most police/house factions have fines set in their laws. Misinformed perhaps? A good example is the Rheinland police, which has fixed fines set for various infractions. However, a smuggler who is caught by the cops and then proceeds to dock somewhere while under fire shouldn't be surprised when an FR5 is requested as a result. Going boom might be preferable in those situations, or letting your cargo be confiscated. It has to come from both ends.

5/ And this is my personal fav. Noob players that are Corsair/outcast taxing smugglers when they are actually helping those groups by tranporting thier cardi/artifacts.
- That's not something the devs or admins can solve. That is an RP issue. You can prevent this by having a faction escort ship. IE if you deliver superconductors to Crete and want to pick up artifacts, have a Sair escort pick you up in Theta or O41 and take you the rest of the way. That educates the newbies in an IRP manner. ("Hey hombre, this junker is with me, bringing goods for the imperio, si? Leave him be or I'll have your hung by your cohones, comprende?!" - should get the message across)

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Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.

Mostly retired Discovery member. May still visit from time to time.

[Hannibal]

2 & 4 By removing the bounty board[with "Blanket Bounties"] and adding a ingame bounty with expiration day for like max 7 days with bounties from 500k to 10mil or more[per player/user maybe a reason field too or lawful/unlawful] would stop freelancer/bounty hunters by shooting anyone with even NOT claiming a bounty after the kill

*also if they shoot someone without a bountie on they're head they would either get a bounty on they're name or a sanction

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People want to believe that God has a plan for them.
They don't wanna believe that anyone else does..

[Duvelske]

1/ as mentioned barges jump smuggling. Completely ruins it for all other smugglers.
- Only way to fix this I can think of, is to prevent group jumps alltogether. Wether a barge or a few 5K transies, the issue is the same - instant cargo transfer without risk for an encounter.

But by removing it its just killing the tactics. As if you want you can now jump a whole battleship fleet. for invasion for example. wich in my view makes it fun. The barges itself. Its GIVEN by ADMINS. So if these decide to restrict the Barge owners more. As i have an own Barge too. Wich sometimes is jumped. But its never jumped for making creds! Not as i see with some others who does. also i fly it (YES FLY!!) this week i did fly it for 10 hours or so. Also 5k jumptrading is not worth the effort. and to be honest jumping is not that much used anymore (my views) As coordinates etc costs lots time to maintain. And the old JZ was a good example. It was much coordination. Wich in my view is good. But no matter what is changed. there are allways people trying to avoid rules. or 'bending' them if possible.

So in short:
Add some lines to id's wich would be easiest and fastest to solve it. or add in this case on the barge some additional lines like on the zoner whale. (whale may only be used with zoner id for example) its not that hard with some small additional lines to fix a lot.

But to be honest. if i look around and see how much barges there are left ingame (at this time 57). And of this i know where like 15 of them are. From wich maybe 1 or 2 abuses it for gaining credits by whole time trading with it. a.k powertrading. so the ones wich are (ab)using it is not a big group. But its allways that the minority ruins it for the majority. Seen this happen to many games shamefully. Some wich even turned bad due to the never ending crying of people to change it to the people who are coding or modding it. But in the end, are the players responsible how to play their equipment and in this case ships.

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[ryoken]

"- Most police/house factions have fines set in their laws. Misinformed perhaps? A good example is the Rheinland police, which has fixed fines set for various infractions. However, a smuggler who is caught by the cops and then proceeds to dock somewhere while under fire shouldn't be surprised when an FR5 is requested as a result. Going boom might be preferable in those situations, or letting your cargo be confiscated. It has to come from both ends."

Nope they FR5 you. Rhienland has FR5'd my junker 4 times now because they cannot catch me zipping through rhienland space in my CSF. Does not bother me as i am already red to all Rhienland, and never land there, but all the same i got FR5'd first time spotted because "I did not stop when ordered" by a cruiser that had no chance stopping my CSF. Hell i had Rheinlanders FR5 me because of forum RP with 1 of my chars claiming he smuggled through rheinland.
They cannot shoot you, so they instead try to ruin your RP.
As for fines? Those are laughable. 3 of my Junkers have 50mil/60mil, and an 85mil fine pending on them, but yet i can sit infront of manhattin with half the [LN] =LSF= LPi fleet there, and none of them even know i have fines on me.
As for my other points you are right that most can be fixed, but they require all players to use common sense, and well.....pixle money/PvP out wieghs common sense here, and fair play.
People do not want rules, but without them you get all this dis-order.

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[Exdeathevn]

Come to think of it. Is one of the reasons smuggling isn't common, that there are no smuggling ships with 5K cargo capacity? Does that deter people from doing the unlawful runs? The PiTrans and the Pilgrim Liner fill the combat transport roles for unlawful factions (and to some extent, the Raba and BWTrain as well), but the pirate factions don't really have a heavy train...

Even we in UC don't have access to a 5k Pachyderme, best we can get is the 4.2k Vache as I've previously stated. Heck, I even use Heavy Armor upgrades, weapons, and Advanced Transport shields which lower the cargo capacity even further, despite the added protection value.

Other than smuggling Cryocubes around to Player-Bases for more profit than we could ever receive from an NPC station, due to Cryocube Export being restricted by Gallic laws, I do agree that other Smuggling commodities need a more profitable drop-off price over certain distances.
Nox & Hypnotainment bands, for instance; We in UC are barely trading in these due to the high demand for Cryocubes from various Player-made bases that look for a quick delivery.

but the pirate factions don't really have a heavy train...

This is something that could bring together various Unlawful groups however, were we to ever get one; Several unified attempts to convert the Civilian/House trains into our own designs and heavy trains. It would certainly add a larger variety of ships to space that I can agree with.

Honestly, though? a 5k Smuggler train definitely has the potential for boosting smuggler activity, though unless it actually happens we won't find out if it works.
From a personal standpoint, I would welcome it, but I don't have a problem with it either right now.

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Casual Flier: Returning Player. Forum-PM me if you require my attention

[Lonely_Ghost]

Honestly, though? a 5k Smuggler train definitely has the potential for boosting smuggler activity, though unless it actually happens we won't find out if it works.
From a personal standpoint, I would welcome it, but I don't have a problem with it either right now.

Not 5Kers, but 4200- Titank. Rly good for independ. smugler. And we need to bust up corporative trade with some unlawfull base, like IC and Hessians, Samura and Corsairs, and so on. It's my personal opinion, such ties between corps and unlawfulls can boost up activity to trading corps.

And, I belive, it could be done in 87 only, but FL ID can rly be devided by two sides- Lawfull and unlawfull FL. UL FL-smuggler/trade aid pirates terorists. Can dock to lawfull bases, but can't pirate anyone. L FL can trade with lawfulls, aid lawfulls and hunt smuglers. Something like that.
So, player with L FL ID wont sit near to Malta/Crete and report smuglers undocking from planet.