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Post by fallen on Aug 9, 2017 12:06:24 GMT -5
It is also illegal, by Shalun Law, to traffic in these artifacts. Why would high Gov or Law Faction worlds want them? In ST2, society has shifted towards being near fanatical adherence to Shalun Law, so why wouldn't the Xeno Artifact trade be very difficult? That is correct. Trade in xeno artifacts is illegal by all readings of Shalun Law. Only planets that have the "wild west" mentality and trade law would allow these into their sanctioned Exchange. Certainly, powerful military folk may want these, but you can't get them through the normal channels, and you'd have to hide your tracks the entire way, else risk your career and whatever sick research project you were trying to start. That's why, the answer is generally Black Market or Indie world. |
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Post by En1gma on Aug 9, 2017 15:36:25 GMT -5
I understand that they should be difficult to trade, and I agree with everything said here...
But from a gameplay perspective, the pure Explorer looks hands down the most difficult to play profitably. Or at least the least appealing due to the difficulty and unpredictability of their card game's resource gains.
Spys can sell Intel gained by their card game rather easily, as can Pirates, MOs, Zealots, and anyone else who has a card game to play.
Does the Black Market need to have access levels? Given the difficulty of accessing it in the first place, maybe the different levels are excessive, given that a few well placed Indy worlds can net hundreds of thousands of credits just in trading level 3+4 legal goods... Finding and cultivating a contact that can get you in is rare enough, I don't feel like making you try for harder and harder access levels is necessary for the black market.
Just my opinions and talking out loud... My vote for all this is to get rid of the different levels of BM and just let getting in be your way to sell your goods...
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Post by fallen on Aug 9, 2017 17:12:11 GMT -5
En1gma - completely removing Access level would give you potentially free access to something that costs Merchants over $70,000 credits. That feels pretty unbalanced in the favor of Smugglers, even considering the potential risk you pay to get to the BM and the need to cultivate contacts. I do think this is a good direction though. The new Black Market ladder has already allowed the Contact to push changes into the game (increasing reward %, reducing reward %) but perhaps the Ladder should directly set the access level. Therefore, a low level Smuggler contact just gives you Access 1 all the time, and as you go up the scale, you can get to Access 2, 3, 4. There are probably 2 balance fixes in play here -- making Xeno Artifacts easier to sell and tweaking the reliability of Black Market access. Simply taking away access levels is too powerful ($76K trade), but I like the idea of seeking other, less random, ways to moderate it. I know one annoying experience I have had is to get into the Black Market with access 2 when I wanted 3 and having to back out and try again.
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Post by MintDragon on Aug 9, 2017 17:50:00 GMT -5
En1gma - completely removing Access level would give you potentially free access to something that costs Merchants over $70,000 credits. That feels pretty unbalanced in the favor of Smugglers, even considering the potential risk you pay to get to the BM and the need to cultivate contacts. I do think this is a good direction though. The new Black Market ladder has already allowed the Contact to push changes into the game (increasing reward %, reducing reward %) but perhaps the Ladder should directly set the access level. Therefore, a low level Smuggler contact just gives you Access 1 all the time, and as you go up the scale, you can get to Access 2, 3, 4. There are probably 2 balance fixes in play here -- making Xeno Artifacts easier to sell and tweaking the reliability of Black Market access. Simply taking away access levels is too powerful ($76K trade), but I like the idea of seeking other, less random, ways to moderate it. I know one annoying experience I have had is to get into the Black Market with access 2 when I wanted 3 and having to back out and try again. I like the ladder idea. A lot. |
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Post by bookworm21 on Aug 10, 2017 14:45:34 GMT -5
The more contact ladders the better
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Post by Alex Fury on Aug 29, 2017 8:48:41 GMT -5
I do agree it is a bit too difficult.
to date, I've never yet succeeded in selling any Artifacts.
Perhaps with an explorer/ex-explorer/Military/etc type contact, you can direct-sell to them (like with intel) with high-enough rep and/or rank in their affiliated faction? Still kind of screws a low-level explorer, but it could be an idea.
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Post by Officer Genious on Aug 29, 2017 9:09:32 GMT -5
En1gma - completely removing Access level would give you potentially free access to something that costs Merchants over $70,000 credits. That feels pretty unbalanced in the favor of Smugglers, even considering the potential risk you pay to get to the BM and the need to cultivate contacts. I do think this is a good direction though. The new Black Market ladder has already allowed the Contact to push changes into the game (increasing reward %, reducing reward %) but perhaps the Ladder should directly set the access level. Therefore, a low level Smuggler contact just gives you Access 1 all the time, and as you go up the scale, you can get to Access 2, 3, 4. There are probably 2 balance fixes in play here -- making Xeno Artifacts easier to sell and tweaking the reliability of Black Market access. Simply taking away access levels is too powerful ($76K trade), but I like the idea of seeking other, less random, ways to moderate it. I know one annoying experience I have had is to get into the Black Market with access 2 when I wanted 3 and having to back out and try again. I like the ladder idea. A lot. I really like this idea too. The minigame is too risky for my taste (I just spent thousands getting this stuff and whatever my charisma and stealth I still run a good risk of having it all taken anyway (especially in the early game)). Why bother when I can make safe, profitable money as a merchant and do the same thing fairly quickly (if not quicker since I don't lose my goods outside of pirates)? |
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Post by contributor on Sept 23, 2017 10:39:07 GMT -5
This is a good discussion about Black Markets. I've also been bitten by the access level thing and found them very frustrating/non-rewarding. I get some good juicy illegal goods and I think, if I can just find my smuggler contact and get into the BM I can make a lot of money. I travel the several jumps to get to my one contact, who may not even be on a world that really wants what I'm selling, only to find that I still can't sell because I don't have the rep needed to get into the market at the right level. So I need to get my rep up more, but by the time I do, I can buy a trade permit and sell my same goods on any faction world I want, including those that will actually give me top dollar for them. At the moment, it seems that getting all the conditions just right to make smuggling really better than being a merchant is so rare that the smuggling life is not very compelling.
I get that we're not paying the 76k for trade permits, but BMs also come with huge set backs, mostly being how few and far between they are and then the fact that they're only on one kind of world.
If they're going to rely on access levels I think those need to be much much lower than trade permit rep levels, otherwise getting a permit will always be more advantageous. Another possibility is that BMs should always offer better prices than regular exchanges. Avoiding taxes and customs is one of the reasons that smuggling still happens today. Since your goods aren't getting inspected and taxed you should have a better margin.
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Post by fallen on Sept 23, 2017 10:49:52 GMT -5
Thanks for the feedback!
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Post by grävling on Sept 23, 2017 11:18:20 GMT -5
Well the game has changed since I have been away, nice work! -- but the basic disadvantage of Smuggling seems to have persisted. You have to go to a great deal of effort and take on a great deal of risk in order to be a successful Smuggler. The cost/benefit ratio still seems to greatly favour being a Merchant. It occurred to me that one thing you might be able to do to improve lives for the Smugglers is to not have the Smuggling worlds strictly follow the 'planet type == only interested in these sorts of goods' rules. So the Prince may have set up rules to enforce Colonialism of the Future -- i.e. you are a colony, you can only export raw materials to the industrialised worlds, and no manufacturing for you, as we want you dependent as customers on the industrialised worlds -- but that may precisely be the sort of economic restrictions that are causing the locals to adopt illegal practices. I think that the Black Markets should accept a greater variety of goods than the regular market for this reason, and that many of them should be random, and spectacularly lucrative for the time they last.
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Post by fallen on Sept 23, 2017 11:54:13 GMT -5
grävling - a warm welcome back! Thanks for the feedback on smugglers!
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Post by contributor on Sept 24, 2017 11:59:21 GMT -5
Got bit by another quirk of the Black Market system again. I went to sell a bunch of Cap Ship Weapons through a smuggler contact into a Black Market with a faction I have very high rep with (would have a level 4 permit if I could find a contact who can sell me one). However when I get there, I'm told that because the trade laws of the planet are 3 there is actually no need for a Black Market. The problem is that I don't need a Black Market for legality reasons I need it for Permit reasons. So despite having sky-high rep, a level 3 trade permit, a smuggler contact and level 5 access to a black market I can't sell my goods because the trade law is so lax? It was a very odd situation.
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Post by fallen on Sept 24, 2017 12:05:25 GMT -5
contributor - mentioned it earlier, but smugglers and smuggler princes are no longer created on worlds that don't support black markets. Thanks!
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Post by contributor on Sept 24, 2017 12:16:30 GMT -5
I'm on current version though, so will that be implemented on the next update or does the bug still exist?
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Post by fallen on Sept 24, 2017 12:24:16 GMT -5
I'm on current version though, so will that be implemented on the next update or does the bug still exist? Sorry, wasn't clear. Fixed For Next. |
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