This event allowed for a lot of interesting things to do and a lot of fun. Thanks to the team for a job well done, it was funny and... Sad. About the sad part of the event. I think I'll leave this link here.
The list of smugglers you can see in the attached files is incomplete (I missed a couple of people). I am well aware that the trade event is a great, really good opportunity to make money. And I'm well aware that people come here solely to make money. But I want to point out this: of all the people caught, not one of them tried to think of workarounds other than flying directly, meeting up with a member of the Liberty fleet, and... Dying for refusing to drop the hold. People often ignored the requests, kept going and tried to dock anywhere they can (trade lanes for example).
I'd like to make a special mention of the player Spondulica. And that observation is exceptionally-positive. This guy is the only one who showed a really worthwhile RP and tried to “talk” us while he tried jumping on the trade line and running away. I've already contacted him on Discord and thanked him for how awesome he's shown himself to be.
I also had one person DMed me that he heard that I was pushing the smugglers hard. So spending ~4 hours of powertrade to then manage to die in less than 5 minutes (purely due to your own typical mistake) is “pushing”? You should notice I would show up after work, spend some time resting, and then show up to the game, spending about... catching people. Well... An hour or 30 minutes, I don't know. Heck, I'd be as loyal as possible to every trade ship if every other one didn't try to powertrade right in front of me, piously believing they'd get away with it. In front of bomber, while using a train. Yeah, lol, what a load of crap, I believed it.
What are you trading so fanatically for?
If someone ever says something like “trade ships need more power” then direct them to this message. Guys, you have a Barge with a cloak and a jump drive carrying contraband using the Order ID.
The level of ignorance at this event on the part of the smugglers has been elevated to an absolute. I swear to God, I've never seen anything like it.
P.S.: I have nothing personal against anyone. Just take it as a heartfelt cry.
(01-01-2025, 07:22 PM)Perfect Gentleman Wrote: Nice summary of trade events.
I'm glad you've enjoyed the event thus far. I have also had a few nice interactions while logging on a pirate. But we have to face the reality of what type of players play the game. Not everyone is interested in rp, for various reasons, and they will get frustrated when you're preventing them from having fun. I agree with what you're saying, but imo those people will NEVER rp as a reaction to a demand - only if they themselves get interested in that aspect of the game as a whole first.
The idea with most events is that more things are happening in-game within a shorter span of time than usual. This means that you will have a lot more bad encounters with people who dgaf about RP, but you should also get more encounters with people who do (and in a lot of cases those encounters wouldn't have happened without the event). So I'd suggest ignoring people who are merely powertrading on an unlawful id, and follow-up with the people who gave you some nice interactions for potential other rp in the future.
Most of the event had decent peeps logging to intercept. They'd either be like "yeah we're pirates and cool, we'll take some money", the classic "rp or die" demand. The sheer salt the Xenos generated from popping traders was hilarious though, gamers would think they were being oocly targeted because the Xeno ID can basically kill anything not a lib corporate ID on sight. Liberty lawfuls were barely present, and when they were, it was a coin toss between a bribe and "drop all or die", just plain "die" being the sole domain of the Xenos.
I had the opposite experience with other smugglers though. A lot of them had the self-preservation instinct of a lemming. I tell one of them straight-up "There are Xenos on the other side of the JH who will kos literally everyone" and thirty seconds later, he'd have Reeves on his ass with a FWG.
What was strange was the lack of activity next to Alcatraz, there was more Lib lawful and Xeno activity in the area than actual Rogues, with at one point a LSF fighter and LN GB just casually chilling right on top of Alcatraz, giving the impression that Lib lawfuls were camping it (I can't prove they were or weren't because of the other smuggler on scene already being there possibly having led them to Alcatraz, but his testimony below leads me to believe they were already there when he either undocked or arrived out of Texas, I don't know).[1] Scouts were furthermore unbelievably unreliable, at least the ones I had; they'd give me either bad information ("JH is clear" he said, no it wasn't) or would neglect to tell me the blockade had moved back into place ("They're chasing me, your path is clear", yeah sure the Xeno GB is just a figment of my imagination), which was kind of a pain but whatever.
What was funny to me, at least, was the copycat Order ID'd 5kers that popped up after gamers saw me able to use my Kemwer/Volgograd/Hessian Tear smuggler for the event. I've always been a staunch "Order ID is the best unlawful-to-unlawful smuggling ID in the game" enjoyer, but this event ruined my "Order Barge to flex" idea for good, because someone else figured out Order ID having no upper limit to its cargo means they can use a Barge, which could complete a 30k run in ~80 minutes with the help of a Jump Drive, compared to a 5ker moving half the quantity in the same amount of time; no return commodity meant that BMLA were being run back more often than not, and were completely optional, and so a Jump Drive to Leeds would effectively halve travel time. Thoroughbred was able to travel almost as fast as the fleet of Longhorns also partaking in the event thanks to use of a Jump Drive and deliver overall more Slog in the same amount of time. With a Jump Drive, the entire round trip was averaging between 17 and 18 minutes, with RNG at Mull and Beaumont docking and undocking proving the sole determining factor for time consumption for the entire trip (Mull can either spit you out facing the Leeds JG or away from it, and Beaumont is the pita to end all pitas to dock on sometimes).
Funny sidenote: Pretty much all good RP I got from the event was when I was not directly (or at least optimally) able to partake in it, either by talking to old coworkers by Beaumont, or bullying the IMG with the least racist Manhattanite.
- LV-Thoroughbred, the worst 5ker in the entire game, and proud member of the 300k club (in ~8 hours from this post).
[1] I only have his testimony that Lib Lawfuls were "camping" Alcatraz, but as I had been there ~3 minutes ago (with no lawful sightings on my scanners; I do not know if they had someone with a longer-range scanner camping the JH seeing me land on Alcatraz and every other time I dodged the system sweep, I'd been hiding out elsewhere):
[29.12.2024 19:44:41] Spondulica: Cpt: Well, the LSF and Navy appear to have been waiting here.
[29.12.2024 19:44:48] Spondulica: Cpt: Almost as if they can dock here
(01-02-2025, 03:35 AM)A Magpie Wrote: [29.12.2024 19:44:41] Spondulica: Cpt: Well, the LSF and Navy appear to have been waiting here.
[29.12.2024 19:44:48] Spondulica: Cpt: Almost as if they can dock here
Hi, I'm the LN player you saw outside Alcatraz. Yes, we were there, but we weren't purposefully camping. The place where we... Uh... “Camping” was basically the gateway to Magellan. I'll be honest, at first I believed that smuggler players weren't naive enough to so brazenly fly the most direct and most dangerous trade route.
About Alcatraz, I'll attach this part of the logs.
Quote:[29.12.2024 19:51:55] LV-Thoroughbred: spondulica you SDA%$
[29.12.2024 19:51:56] LV-Thoroughbred: why
We ended up there solely because we were holding a return course from the Texas system to the gateway to Magellan. Naturally, this route goes through the Alcatraz base, and suddenly Spondulica appeared on our sensors. Because of that, we spent the time we had on it, which was enough time for you to get caught by us as well. Right at the same location. Consider it a coincidence, nothing more.
For the little time I've taken part in the event as cargo interceptor, I've seen some of the worst expressions of Discovery trader culture. Planetdiving to deny cargo, a great variety of confusingly unrelated IDs (looking at you, Order 5kers), complete neglect of any and all attempts at RP beside the generic low-effort responses. and an absolute absence of lawfuls beside that one bomber that chased my Scarab away.
It would use more lawful presence, and some common sense from traders running the event in the ID they use, but I guess this was too much mental exercise for all the Order and Dragons who happily hopped on the hype train without a care in the world.
The worst part was that I undocked only for OC NPCs to spawn and turn Alcatraz hostile. Spondulica was able to quickdock and leave me high and dry. I may have been a little salty.
(01-02-2025, 07:07 AM)Nika Wrote: For the little time I've taken part in the event as cargo interceptor, I've seen some of the worst expressions of Discovery trader culture. Planetdiving to deny cargo, a great variety of confusingly unrelated IDs (looking at you, Order 5kers), complete neglect of any and all attempts at RP beside the generic low-effort responses. and an absolute absence of lawfuls beside that one bomber that chased my Scarab away.
To justify the lawful side, I will say that we showed up mostly in the evenings in our timezone (that's somewhere around 15-17 UTC and a little later). We fulfill our “mission” of catching the smugglers and disappear. If we suddenly needed help with something more difficult, we, well, just asked for help. Of course, if there were XA guys there or something like that, we also tried to get together.
Also, I had fight with ur Scarab yesterday but internet died so I disappeared. Otherwise, I'd just tear you to pieces. Gf, anyways. XDDDD
Question for lawfuls and Nika (who's sole purpose was/still is to deny smugglers) did you try to haul at least once to see why people act very protective with their cargo? It's because no matter what you fly, be it a 5ker, a 3.6ker, whatever, the money required to purchase a full load of Slog is not negligible. Therefore, having some lawful intercept and take your cargo then destroy what they cannot carry is... annoying to say the least. And you need to make 2 extra runs just to gain what you lost previously to some "low effort" snubs or scarab just harassing transports... But I guess it is inRP so nothing to argue against. But if you're taking the role of annoying people, at least don't complain about it when people do what they can to protect their investment. Especially seeing that the time restriction on the event is in the lawfuls' / pirates' advantage.
As per the event details, both lawfuls and pirates had absolutely nothing to gain from intercepting smugglers. Sure, catching a few for some RP for your characters, a forum post or whatever is all gucci, but since neither of the complaining lawfuls is an avid Navy enjoyer, then why this determination to catch the smugglers, and later the complains on this thread?
(01-02-2025, 10:56 AM)IahimD Wrote: Question for lawfuls and Nika (who's sole purpose was/still is to deny smugglers) did you try to haul at least once to see why people act very protective with their cargo? It's because no matter what you fly, be it a 5ker, a 3.6ker, whatever, the money required to purchase a full load of Slog is not negligible. Therefore, having some lawful intercept and take your cargo then destroy what they cannot carry is... annoying to say the least. And you need to make 2 extra runs just to gain what you lost previously to some "low effort" snubs or scarab just harassing transports... But I guess it is inRP so nothing to argue against. But if you're taking the role of annoying people, at least don't complain about it when people do what they can to protect their investment. Especially seeing that the time restriction on the event is in the lawfuls' / pirates' advantage.
This is never a justification to planetdive and deny roleplay on a roleplay server.
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