To:Trade & Commodity Dev - Buff Smuggling profits to almost that of Ore.

[Haste]

The price of being caught is drop cargo or die, with traders that are being pirated it is pay 5 million or die.

Unless they're being cargo pirated by a transport, in which case it's also drop cargo or die.

Your point?

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[Vredes]

The price of being caught is drop cargo or die, with traders that are being pirated it is pay 5 million or die.

Unless they're being cargo pirated by a transport, in which case it's also drop cargo or die.

Your point?

Cargo pirates dont demand more than they can carry. And it is much more easier to kill a pirate trans in a Battletransport than you think.

[Haste]

Ah. We're going into details now. Then allow me to note that pirate transports are not the only transports capable of, y'know, pirating. In addition, they can demand as much as they want. Regardless, it's going to hurt to lose even 3,000 units of Cardamine.

Allow me to note that I've laned straight from the Colorado Jumpgate in New York - past Fort Bush and Norfolk Shipyard - to the Texas Jumpgate some six or seven times at what is considered the peak population these days of about 120. I've had no issues doing so whatsoever. And that was in an Outcast Serenity. The sort of IFF that flashes red to anyone and anything that would want to stop a smuggler.

And that's at peak population. Someone taking advantage of the 30-some population we had going an hour or so ago would be taking even less of a risk. That is one of the reasons, I would say, smuggling shouldn't be significantly buffed. The risk people like to pretend is so significant, really just isn't.

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[Rodriguez]

The quicker money can be obtained, the quicker people will stop trading thus decreasing activity in the long run.

This.

The past few days I've been thinking about a new system to keep transports flying around. At the moment, the most active factions and groups are involved in some kind of trading activity just for fun, and that's admirable.
But, for those who do need an incentive to get in a transport, for example those who trade just to get a cap ship, there could be a way to keep them trading afterwards. And what I had in mind was a system (dont know if it's possible) which requires X amount of commodities to repair a capital ship. Let's say your ship is docked at planet Manhattan, a transport dock there with the commodities required to repair the ship and /repair shipname.
There could also be some bases which those commodities are storaged and players can use freely or paying a fee.
And more things can be developed based on it.
however, I'm a snub craft player mostly, maybe my opinion is biased by that, although I don't mind flying transporta just for fun, and I wouldn't mind doing it for that either.
I think this could give pirating a bigger importance, and, hopefully, more escorts/lawfuls/etc.
Just thinking out loud here.

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[Mímir]

Ye, a trip from liberty to alpha and back in a 3K'er will give you enough credits for an au8 sabre - what else would you ever need?

In all seriousness, I think it should be all other prices that should be nerfed - particularly ore. The old of argument of mining promoting a group effort and being more vulnerable to piracy is moot in the day and age of pobs. within the last couple of years I've only hauled different ores and scrap metal on 4-5 different occasions and every time I have felt sort of like cheating... In the Dublin days, at least there'd be a 50 percent chance some pirate would gib you or rob your blind between Bretonia and Liberty.

The economy in the game is over-inflated. There's a super profitable commodity on nearly all lawful bases, and as Snak3, I think, wrote in another thread, it's a shame that the economy/trade isn't used to funnel players into activity hubs but rather scatters traders across many systems. Traders themselves have an easier time maintaining that credits/minute ratio while avoiding all interaction.

Another negative consequence is that the price of codename weaponry is over-inflated and that capships and other ships are so easy to obtain that they became disposable. I.e. people create a weekend scylla squad to lulz around in, and then sell them on the open market when they are tired of that or simply scrap them.

Profits for most/all commodities and ores could easily be cut in half IMO, and economy could be used cleverly to promote desirable player behavior.

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[Pavel]

Smuggling was already buffed with that version, it's over 1.5 times more profitable than normal trading now. Legal commodity run efficiency is 10k credits/second in a 5ker, while for contraband it's 17k credits/second. Add to that what Haste said, that "police obstacle" is just imaginary problem nowadays, and you'll see why it'd be bad to buff smuggling even more.

Noobs will trade cardi or artifacts if they pay much better than normal goods, get totally screwed when caught by party opposed to the contraband commodity (not only lawfuls but also e.g. sairs catching Blood Diamond transport), and ragequit in result.