Smugglers and Mooring Rings

[waddoff]

Every LPI, LN, LSF etc member knows what its' like to be sitting outside Manhatten, idly scanning cargos, when all of a sudden you see some Adv. Train or Pirate transporter hauling a huge shipment of Cadamine or artifacts, or some such.
Immediately you scream for them to halt, but they don't listen. They're too close to the planet for you to blow them up in your poor Liberator, what can you do? It's very OORP for a smuggler to dock with a lawful base after being sprung for contraband goods. I've been an LPI officer for about a week or so now, and I see it nearly every day.
(By they way, saying "what cardi?" is the oldest, and most used excuse ever, try coming up with something original.)
So once the persons docked, there's nothing we can do, they won't pay the fine, they're safe, and just log out and wait for all the lawmen to go away.

So here's my suggestion, I believe it would have benefits not just in Liberty, but right across Sirius. Make Mooring Rings able to be temporarily disabled, like tradelanes. This will give lawfuls an actual chance to stop Smugglers from docking with their bases. If your not slippery enough to get by unseen, then you should get caught and have your cargo destroyed. Hell, my smuggler ain't been sprung yet, and I've shipped hundreds of millions of credits worth of Cardamine into Liberty.

Now, every smuggler and his dog is going to jump on this and try to shut the idea down, but lets not listen to them, they ain't looking for RP, they're just looking to make cash. There are smugglers out there who do it for the fun and the RP, like me. But they're vastly outnumbered by all these other oorp smugglers. As an LPI recruit, I just have to wonder sometimes, whats even the point of telling a smuggler to stop, you know they ain't gonna, might as well just make Cardi, Artifacts, etc legal.

Again, these oorp smugglers are ruining the point in RPing contraband within systems. This modification won't make it impossible to smuggle, it will just make it more of a challenge. Give you more RP oppurtinities than just "What cardamine? What artifacts?"
If you're only smuggling for the money then you're in the wrong route. This isn't about making our jobs easy, this is about making our jobs possible. At present the only real way to stop a smuggler flying in and speed docking with Manhatten is to park a big ol' battlecruiser in front of the mooring ring and shoot anything carrying contraband. Its nearly impossible to give a smuggler fair warning before blowing them up, without them docking before you can finish, in all my time as an LPI officer, I have never seen an inbound contraband shipment stopped outside of Manhatten.

Once again, I believe making Mooring rings able to be temporarily disabled will be a great asset to RP right across Sirius.

~Joseph L. "Sky_Jocky" Truman of the Liberty Police Inc.
Who's with me?!

---