Smuggler Faction

[Officer Genious]

I play a lot as a smuggler and I was wondering if it may be more beneficial to have the starting Smuggler be of a different faction. Otherwise in the same faction, they're nearly the same as Merchants. However, in an opposing faction you can utilize an enemy's trade routes as well as your home faction (which you're less likely to piss off). Any feedback?

[grävling]

I think that right now they are pretty much the same as merchants, because they just drop you into a market screen with what you could buy if the world didn't have restrictive trade laws, and right now only a few goods are hard to unload because of legality.

But Cory Trese has a list of many, many, many luxury good items -- the things he wanted us to suggest names for -- and I suspect most of them are either going to be illegal under all circumstances, or have such a low legality rating that you really won't be able to move these goods unless you use the black market. Because indie worlds, while not giving two hoots about faction trade permits, apparantly respect agreements about intergalactic trafficking in the future's equivalent of heroin, ivory, exotic pets, slaves, and archeological treasures.

[Cory Trese]

Talked about this a bit in our last stream, but Smugglers and Merchants are very different in ST2.

Their Talents focus on different things. They'll use the Exchange differently, they'll trade different goods and use different Contacts.

Can you ignore that and play them both as Merchants? Sure. But you can also start a new Bounty Hunter character and play her as a Merchant too.

[Officer Genious]

Apr 5, 2017 11:01:43 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Talked about this a bit in our last stream, but Smugglers and Merchants are very different in ST2.

Their Talents focus on different things. They'll use the Exchange differently, they'll trade different goods and use different Contacts.

Can you ignore that and play them both as Merchants? Sure. But you can also start a new Bounty Hunter character and play her as a Merchant too.

I'm not saying they're exactly the same, but if you pick both smuggler and merchant its hard to see why you should go with the smuggler. All I'm saying is that it might be better to have the smuggler contact of a different faction than the one you start with. I think getting around an enemy's laws makes more sense for a smuggler than getting around friendly laws.

And just to be clear I'm talking about the contacts, not the classes.

[fallen]

Officer Genious - thanks for the feedback. It's possible that we might address this with more additions to higher priority contacts.

[Officer Genious]

fallen: Okay, cool. Its just a suggestion for those of us who love money and don't necessarily want to pay to do it with other factions besides Independents. Thanks for thinking it over and I'm sure it'll be awesome, whatever you decide.

[Cory Trese]

Just prioritize contacts and order them however you want.

[Officer Genious]

... Now I'm confused. Say I start a new template. I decide that for my contacts I want a merchant and a smuggler. Chances are, they'll be in the same faction, making them pretty much the same with the smuggler also able to access the black market (which is unnecessary once you get high permits anyway, but I digress). What I'm saying is that it might be interesting so that if you pick a smuggler contact, that contact appears for a different faction (like for Rychart if you start as a Thulun spacer). That way, you have access to a different market.

[Cory Trese]

Same Faction if in the first 3 for sure, then otherwise based on the map.

Thanks for the feedback + alpha UI + we will keep improving

[Officer Genious]

Apr 5, 2017 22:51:36 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Same Faction if in the first 3 for sure, then otherwise based on the map.

Thanks for the feedback + alpha UI + we will keep improving

Oh, so that's how it works! I'll make my smuggler the fourth contact then. Thank you!