Well that depends. If the run in one way (i'm making up numbers here) makes about 10 mil, and there's a pirate in sigma 13, taxing him 1mil for the passage. He pays, he's making 9 mil, a dragon in chogoku is making him drop 1500 diamonds to survive and his profit is down to 6. He pays it all, and he's on his way back with niobium or whatever what makes about 4mil a run. He meets the dragon again, ofcourse who wants 1mil now just to let him pass, and he comes on to sigma 13 where that same pirate wants 1mil again.
Thats about 8mil down the drain each run.
This should be possible, shouldn't it? Trader can get taxed over and over, it's his fault he's falling for the same trick.
am i right here?
But i see your point of not always being there. Thats true. Maybe route needs a bit cutting down, but those two pirates would help alot, trust me. Half of people get very frustrated trading vips when they run into me all the time. then they just (irritated obviously) stop to pay and they end up getting killed because i'm not letting them go just like that when i know i'm not asking for much. And then whining starts...
Another point is though even if I had Sigma-13 under my complete pirate influence, I doubt I would ever go there to take in funds. As you said they continue to make the same trip over and over and start whining when you ask them for a donation for some 10th time, then they don't pay, you blow them up and they cuss you out. It makes me jumpy to say the least.
If they behaved like RP dictates, there wouldn't be a problem. But whenever I am in Sigma-13 on an indie pirate, I have half a mind to just go ask every OORP trader that passes me 15 million and blow them up when they inevitably don't pay. Rinse, repeat.
Where the hell are the Phantoms anyways?
Meanwhile we are straying off topic. What is needed is a trade route change and removal of that OORP diamond-niobium run. Nothing short of removing the NB-S13 jump hole will stop the traders from using it, but that's just stupid to do. So change the run to force them to act like a real trader, like for example take trade lanes rather than go through Chugoku which they shouldn't even be aware of.
One thing, that Ivan and I were talking about, the Hessians could do something about the Diamond/Niobium run.
Don't you guys HATE diamonds going to Kusari?
I do the diamond/niobium run myself when OPG needs cash, and whenever (rarely) I come across a Hessian I get this:
"A trader carrying diamonds! You'll have to be punished for stealing our diamonds!!!..................... 2 million please"
Bit over-exaggerated, but you know what I mean.
You guys should be at least demanding half cargo be dropped, or even all of it...
1. the run doesn't need to be completely removed/ nerfed to death. The only things we need are counterbalances. Those can be:
- Other trade-routes
- Atractive Mining areas in Bretonia/Borderworlds
- Extreme Hostilities in sigma13 (mines, wild GBs, more gaspockets, other sick stuff)
Just killing one run may be easy but not quite intelligent on the long run as rheinland would suffer the bretonia-syndrom afterwards.
It is important to say that this run really is one of the arteries that keeps rheinland and kusari alive.
All we need right now is putting another artery into new london and some other little veins in the areas around it, like the taus or parts of the omegas. (Whats up with those omegas anyway? They are just the most hostile zone sirius has to offer. Nothing but pirates, mines, radiation and gas-pockets. They certainly deserve some _really_ good routes.)
2. RHA doesn't has much business in Sigma-13. As the Bundschuh, Outcasts and Hessian Tears take care about that.
Thing is, if you pirate in sigma 13 you feel almost as stupid as a trader doing the diamond-run heh.
Well Hessians in general should not enter S-13 except in special situations (and that's what I tell the RHA and that's what Ors tells the HT), so that leaves us with New Berlin. Believe me we used to sit around there a lot, charge people large sums (up to 4 million) for diamonds or niobium. Problem being it just gets tedious after a while with what I wrote in my previous post. When the traders get robbed again and again the OORP stupidity of "it's better to die" starts, and that's when I am done. From what I can see every other unlawful faction started avoiding S-13 like the plague as well, and with good reason cause for all the blowing up that happens there it doesn't seem like it's doing a thing about the route.
So what needs to happen is a hard change. Discovery could use some trade route rebalancing anyways to remove the so called "power trades" .. I'm not saying "remove the diamond run and leave the rest as it is", far from it. As part of a greater trade route rebalancing that should happen all across Sirius this route should be removed and replaced by others that lead through places far more in RP than New Berlin Jump Hole > Chugoku Jump Hole > Hokkaido > Kyushu.
By George a simple trader would get blown to hell and back through that route, so in RP it should not even exist. Ergo it should be removed..
' Wrote:Believe me we used to sit around there a lot, charge people large sums (up to 4 million) for diamonds or niobium. Problem being it just gets tedious after a while with what I wrote in my previous post. When the traders get robbed again and again the OORP stupidity of "it's better to die" starts,
You lack the patience of the OPG;)we're stubborn SOBs. but yea maybe there isn't a whole lot people can do..
I think.. MORE wild near the sigma 13 jump hole and on the other side in Sigma 13 should do the trick.
Enough that it's a risk for even trains to try and pass through, and near impossible for smaller traders to get past? And supe up some of the other trade routes a bit.
Nah, I am still for removing that route altogether. All the Wild near the New Berlin jump hole aren't helping since all the traders easily avoid them as they jump out of the TL 4k before the jump hole, meanwhile the insane numbers and armour of the Wild keeps pirates away from them. So the NPCs are actually helping the traders funnily enough.
There can be plenty new routes that are just as profitable as the diamond run, but I still opt for that one to be removed. As long as it exists OORP power traders will use it. Make a diamond route to Liberty and Bretonia instead, at least you can make it less OORP that way by the fact that they don't go through Chugoku but the way it should be through Omega's/Hudson.
OPG would have more stuff to do in the Omegas then as well:P
Unless Igiss plans to altogether scrap the single player campaign (which should be done, but that's my opinion), the Sigma 13-New Berlin JH will never be removed. I'm not sure it can be, anyway. Although I think it might be possible to lock it. Uncertain on that as well, someone said it'd require a player wipe.
In any case, all that is really required is to make another 6-7 equivalent power trading routes that go through all the other houses, including Rheinland/Kusari and the edge worlds etc. Once that is done, sure people will still do the diamond/Niobium route, but there will be plenty of other options also that make the same amount of money in the same amount of time.
Diamonds would require a price increase higher than that on Kyushu in order for people to start shipping them from Dresden to NY, but I don't think that would be a good idea anyway, because that'd be yet another route that "ends" in New York and we have too damn many of those already.
What might improve things slightly on the diamond route is by lowering the buying prices of Niobium on Falklands Base in Tau-37 to about 90 credits a unit and increasing the selling prices of Niobium in Bretonia and on Leipzig Station in Dresden. Lower diamond prices on Vogtland and Bautzen in Dresden (lower on Vogtland than on Bautzen) so people go to Dresden more.
Also lower diamonds on Solarius Station in Omega 11 to even lower than Dresden, which could feasibly get people to pass through Omega 11 and Stuttgart, and lengthening the route that way. I think diamonds should be dropped to about 40 credits a unit on Solarius (the diamond planetary fragment field around the red giant in Omega 11 is supposed to be flooded with diamonds). Diamonds should also be made massively easier to mine in the planetary fragment field around the red giant, but it is dangerous to mine because of the radiation.
Diamonds buying prices could be hiked a little on Manhattan and Houston I guess. At present I believe it's about 890 credits on Houston? Could bump it to about 1,200. Instead of diamonds getting a good selling price on planet manhattan, remove them from there and put the good selling price on planet Pittsburgh and make diamonds sell there for about 1,800 credits. Then lower the cost of buying boron on pittsburgh to about 50 credits a unit (can't quite remember exactly how much it is there), and raise the selling price of boron on LD-14 in Leeds by another 200-300 credits. Then you have a route that goes through rheinland, liberty and bretonia.
Lower the cost of buying MOX on LD-14 quite a bit and people can ship it up to the Outcast on Malta and then ship cardamine out back to the other houses (Cardamine and Artifact prices still needs boosting up everywhere, even in Liberty). Add in more selling points to take MOX to for a good profit. A good idea would be to places in Kusari, so you get smugglers carrying it crossing the war zone, but make it profitable enough for people to risk their necks doing it!
Alternatively, raise the selling price of boron on LD-14 by only 100 credits of what it currently is, and raise the selling price of boron on New London to be only 100 credits or so less than LD-14. Then if you take it to New London, you can ship out Luxury Food to liberty or even to OSC liner Hawaii in Sigma 19 (increase the damn selling profit on Hawaii and Denver dramatically, and raise the prices of buying lux food on Stuttgart also, as thanks to liberty's demands and rheinland economic woes, lux food is massively expensive in rheinland, hence the whole point of the LWB/synth paste problem anyway). Increase the buying prices of Optronics, plutonium and H-Fuel all throughout Bretonia, but especially on Cambridge. That'll get more smugglers going between Bretonia and Kusari. Throw in more good routes from Bretonia to Kusari and you'll get somegood trading going on there.
Anyway, I guess i've written plenty and likely enough it won't even get seen by anyone anyway *shrugs*