Smuggling makes good profit. I personally make about 20 mil profit on one of my runs back and forth from Rheinland through Kusari, down into Bretonia. Just today I dodged two attempts by the law to make me go *POP*. I do all that in a Firefly which is nimble enough to dodge Cruise Disruptors and even take a pretty decent beating.
I will say though, the Cardi/Slave route is a bit depressing. Seems to be kind of dull and boring. I see what you're saying Hawk, seems my route is just more fun running away from the Germans and laughing as I do so.
I'd love to see anything that would promote the use of freighters while smuggling. I cringe and grit my teeth every time I see or hear of a transport doing it. Smuggling in a firefly or anything bigger is pretty much the unlawful version of power trading in my opinion.
' Wrote:I'd love to see anything that would promote the use of freighters while smuggling. I cringe and grit my teeth every time I see or hear of a transport doing it. Smuggling in a firefly or anything bigger is pretty much the unlawful version of power trading in my opinion.
I never thought about it that way, mayby because of the description of Firefly which says something about Firefly being one of most favourite ships for smugglers.
In 100% RP and - in the same time - 100% realistic way, you may be even right. Sure, it would be more 'moody' to smuggle in thing like CSV - so agile and fast - but in current situation, this CSV char wouldn't have a chance to make any significant money.
But with player controlled bases in 4.86 a lot of things may change, and mayby it would be fun and profitable to make a smuggling RPG char in really small ship, dealing only with some specific, high risk cargo.
It does have to be very carefully thought about balance wise.
Sure maybe setting smuggling up so it makes freighters as much money as 5k Transports to promote them would be better.
But what happens when a 5K transport or even a barge manages the same route?
Well, one solution is to set it so that you can only sell or buy so much of the cargo per trip.
Another solution would be to make it drop in price once you purchase or sell a certain amount. For example, if you sell 500 units at a time you get 10k a pop, but if you sell 4000 units at a time you get 4k a pop. We could chalk it up to market saturation. There are only so many buyers for black market items, after all.
Or maybe the smuggler ID could be rigged like miner ID's are. With the right ID and ship you get a bonus to your buying and selling prices. For example, with an Anki and and smuggler ID you could get a 25% reduction in purchase price and a 25% increase in sell price.
I don't know if any of those things are possible but it's something to think on.
' Wrote:Well, one solution is to set it so that you can only sell or buy so much of the cargo per trip.
Another solution would be to make it drop in price once you purchase or sell a certain amount. For example, if you sell 500 units at a time you get 10k a pop, but if you sell 4000 units at a time you get 4k a pop. We could chalk it up to market saturation. There are only so many buyers for black market items, after all.
Or maybe the smuggler ID could be rigged like miner ID's are. With the right ID and ship you get a bonus to your buying and selling prices. For example, with an Anki and and smuggler ID you could get a 25% reduction in purchase price and a 25% increase in sell price.
I don't know if any of those things are possible but it's something to think on.
I like the idea of getting smuggling bonous with smuggling id. I think it will be good if it applies for traders too. All trader faction will get some bonous for transporting certain goods. That can restrict some powertrading also.
' Wrote:Well, one solution is to set it so that you can only sell or buy so much of the cargo per trip.
Another solution would be to make it drop in price once you purchase or sell a certain amount. For example, if you sell 500 units at a time you get 10k a pop, but if you sell 4000 units at a time you get 4k a pop. We could chalk it up to market saturation. There are only so many buyers for black market items, after all.
Or maybe the smuggler ID could be rigged like miner ID's are. With the right ID and ship you get a bonus to your buying and selling prices. For example, with an Anki and and smuggler ID you could get a 25% reduction in purchase price and a 25% increase in sell price.
I don't know if any of those things are possible but it's something to think on.
The first idea would just have me selling 500 units at a time from my 5k transport.
The second has merit and would be good if it could be applied, as leonidos stated, it would be a good system for all traders.
' Wrote:Or maybe the smuggler ID could be rigged like miner ID's are. With the right ID and ship you get a bonus to your buying and selling prices. For example, with an Anki and and smuggler ID you could get a 25% reduction in purchase price and a 25% increase in sell price.
That sounds awesome, just open to a bit of abuse :|