Smuggling Ideas

[Cory Trese]

OK my last 3 smuggler games combined total 14,000 turns. Fun stuff, I really enjoyed playing that style.

I found that a lot of the time I was doing just what you said, spike, I was dodging bad guys to hit a shortage or visit a surplus. Unlike the BH or Pirate, I worked to keep "minimal criminal" status with at least 4 of the factions at a time.

I was able to easily overcome the economic penalties from having bad reputation with 30+ Negotiation. The Smuggler's near immunity to Treasure Hunters is very useful as well. In one game I sat on a stash of Metals with 2,000 units for almost 20 years waiting for the right shortage.

[MTKnife]

Mar 18, 2011 5:14:43 GMT -5 spike said:

Mar 17, 2011 19:59:09 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

spike Smugglers now have the ability to sell into Bans and Taxes at a profit by meeting with Smuggler only black market traders. If the traders cannot make a profit for the Smuggler, then the Smuggler receives "Trade Records"

AWESOME!!!!!

Actually even the trade changes you just made, have made the way of the Smuggler much cooler. Like just now I found myself flying past Cadar warships, no Permit, ducking and diving as a wanted Criminal, because they have an Artifact shortage on their world and I just HAVE to land to sell my wares.

I can't figure out how to do this. What menu is it in?

[spike]

The Create Records ability is available to Smugglers and Merchants and triggers automatically (or not) during Buy/Sell operations in Exchange. Exactly how and when it works, or doesn't work, is still a mystery to me. Cory said something about doing 'smart trading' and that the Create Records effect compensates for when you didn't make a cash profit. You see a toast when it works.

[MTKnife]

Yeah, I see Records created all the time. I was referring to selling into trade bans--how is that done?

[MTKnife]

Mar 17, 2011 19:59:09 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

spike Smugglers now have the ability to sell into Bans and Taxes at a profit by meeting with Smuggler only black market traders. If the traders cannot make a profit for the Smuggler, then the Smuggler receives "Trade Records"

Could you please explain how these things work, and how I can take advantage of them?

[Cory Trese]

The trade record ability is increased by 100%, 200% and 250% on those worlds.

Trading into them is a measure of balancing -- can I profit from these records? Does my Negotiate + Tactics create enough records to offset the cost of selling into this tax?

[oldalchemist]

Aha! Does it affect buying as well as selling?

[Cory Trese]

selling only

[spike]

I wanted to bump this suggestion, because it probably got lost in the huge post I wrote, and it could be a simple to implement suggestion that really gives a boost to smuggling:

Mar 13, 2011 14:38:41 GMT -5 spike said:

It might be even simpler to implement this "tax check" just based on whether you Surrender to a government warship or privateer. If you surrender to a warship or Privateer, at (or near?) some planet, you automatically must pay their tax or observe their ban (confiscation). (If you don't have their tax money they confiscate some of your cargo or other penalties until they get paid). This then ties evasion of customs duties to the existing Stealth skills. The idea would be if you bypass the government patrol ships and make it to the Market, you are home free and you can sell whatever you like. Maybe that approach could even extend to contraband?? So you don't need any Permit to sell contraband, provided you can make it to the Exchange without surrendering to a search.

Putting this as concrete game changes:

• A Trade Permit is no longer required to buy and sell Contraband for cash. A Permit is only required to avoid seizure (with Rep loss) if you surrender to a Customs patrol or other authorised patrol. You only get a Rep bonus for selling with a Permit - since without a Permit you are assumed to be selling on the black market, not to the government.
  
• Taxes (Rumour) are no longer applied to Exchange prices. Instead they are levied when you are boarded by a Customs ship, based on your cargo. This means if you sneak in, you avoid taxes and get a better profit margin.
  
• Bans (Rumour) are no longer applied at the Exchange either. Bans are implemented by a Customs ship boarding you and confiscating the cargo (maybe your whole cargo). If you can dodge the Customs ships, you can dodge the Ban. Ban creates an automatic Shortage condition for Buy/Sell pricing on that world.
  
• Buy/Sell spreads on Contraband are adjusted so it's possible to make a (black market) profit instead of a (legal market) Rep gain: If you sell with a Permit, you get the standard price, and a Rep gain. If you sell without a Permit, you are selling into the Black Market, where there is always an effective Shortage condition, but you don't get any Rep gain. (You still get any Rep loss that would apply due to Galactic Conflicts.)
  
• Rank no longer allows you to avoid searches. Otherwise all Smugglers would just be high ranking Military Officers.
  
• The game engine needs to make sure there are always reasonably effective Customs ships present at anywhere that is worth Smuggling stuff into
  
• Probably blowing the Customs ship away or slaughtering its crew does not count as Smuggling . Maybe the Urban Zone is immediately closed to you, if you do that.
  
• Faction Trade Embargoes can't be physically enforced, since the Faction who wants the Embargo is remote rather than local. So these are still enforced only by Rep losses, not by Customs boarding operations. Still Customs Intelligence will usually find out when you have been breaking a Faction Embargo, and you will lose Rep.
  

[oldalchemist]

I'm getting trade records from my smuggler captain both ways.

Being a military officer with as many factions as possible seems like an excellent business plan for a smuggler. I'm hoping to do that with my current Crazy Smuggler Captain so I can get all the fat new ships. If you keep everyone in the positive you only have to worry about aliens and independents. For the factions, you just have to constantly grease palms and sell restricted items.

"Hey, sorry I sold weaponized epaulets to your enemies and sold the records of that transaction to your other enemy so I could rearm with the good torpedoes, but I used the profits to buy those electronic spy hats you guys were short on. Now, what else can I do for you today?"

[Cory Trese]

I really like this last post Spike, but I worry it would make people angry and they would complain a lot about things like "Rank no longer avoids search" even if it does make sense. Thoughts?

[spike]

@cory. Thanks! It's a fair point about changing things making people angry. Maybe you can still use Rank to avoid a Search, but you have to do it actively, and every time you actively "pull rank" to avoid a Search you lose some Rep? If you do it enough times, it might stop working, if Customs Intelligence or Internal Affairs gets wind of what you are up to.

oldalchemist - hilarious!!!!

[Cory Trese]

Perhaps Acknowledge means being a good soldier and paying your taxes. I like the idea of doing some of those economic rumors outside of the exchange.

[oldalchemist]

Spike, epaulets are the key to military humor.

If I've got a rank, I've probably got a trade permit, too. Who doesn't buy those permits immediately?

[MTKnife]

Mar 30, 2011 11:37:08 GMT -5 oldalchemist said:

Spike, epaulets are the key to military humor.

If I've got a rank, I've probably got a trade permit, too. Who doesn't buy those permits immediately?

Yeah, I have to agree: I like the romance of smuggling, but in practice it's usually just easier to keep a positive rep with all or most factions in the long run: I will occasionally violate an Embargo to get a big profit, but usually it's not worth it, because it means more people shooting at you, and ship repairs are enormously expensive.